Introduction
greatest effort.[1] When it began to be published, Rudorff, a civilian of the Historical School, referred to it in terms of reproach in his “History of Roman Law” (1857-59); but this reflection was one of the last feeble groans of an expiring and superseded theory of law. How frequently a fond parent is unable to judge impartially and justly of his own children is shown in the history of literature. Jhering rated his “Zweck” far above his “Geist,” and could he have realized that the judgment of posterity would be otherwise, it would no doubt have been for him a matter of keen disappointment even though his preface to the “Zweck” foreshadows the result.
Jhering’s creative period may be divided conveniently into two parts, taking his fiftieth year as the point of separation. The works of the earlier period are distinctly to be preferred against the labors of his later years. Although there seems to have been no abatement of his dynamic force in the growth of
- ↑ But cf. Berolzheimer, “The World’s Legal Philosophies” (Mrs. Jastrow’s tr.) (“Mod. Leg. Phil. Ser.,” ii), p. 337 seq.
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