JURISPRUDENCE

I have endeavoured to make this book useful to more thanone class of readers. It is written primarily for the use ofthose students of the law who are desirous of laying a scientificfoundation for their legal education; yet I hope that it willnot be found destitute of interest by those lawyers whoseacademic studies lie behind them, but who have not whollyceased to concern themselves with the theoretical and scientificaspects of the law. Further, a great part of what I havewritten is sufficiently free from the technicalities and detailsof the concrete legal system to serve the purposes of thoselaymen who, with no desire to adventure themselves amongthe repellent mysteries of the law, are yet interested in thosemore general portions of legal theory which touch the problemsof ethical and political science.

It will be noticed that occasional passages of the text areprinted in smaller type. These are of lesser importance, ofgreater difficulty, or of a controversial or historical character,and are not essential to the continuity of the exposition.

Certain parts of this book have already been published inthe Law Quarterly Review, and I have also incorporated in itthe substance of a much smaller work published by me someviyears ago under the title of “The First Principles of Jurisprudence.”I have not thought it necessary to allude in thetext to certain discrepancies in matters of detail between myearlier and later views, and it will be understood that thepresent work wholly supersedes the earlier, as containing are-statement of the substance of it in a more comprehensiveform.