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— In this lecture a few points of difference between the Japanese and French Codes that have a general bearing and which can better separately be treated here than under particular divisions, will be noticed.

The French Code contains redundant definitions and illustrations for which the school rooms and lecture halls are fit places, not the Civil Code. In the French Code rules springing from the same general principles are distributed in different places. This increases the volume of the laws without any corresponding advantages.

When a rule of law can be stated in general terms legislators ought no doubt to so formulate it. But the French Code, not satisfied with general propositions, frequently descends to particulars. This is avoided in the Japanese Code. Every changing and progressing society produces different phases of development. If particulars are stated in a code, the code will not be responsive to new conditions, whereas a general statement of law will enable the judiciary to apply the code to new cases by resorting to analogy.

The absurd theory of natural law, or the law of nature, which had its vogue in Europe in the 17th, 18th, and the first half of the 19th centuries, is reflected in the French Code, e.g. by the recognition of natural obligations. No such misconception influenced the minds of the framers of the Japanese Code. They were fully convinced that laws are made by human legislative agency; that all rights and duties are the creatures of law and that there are no rights not recognized by law. Hence, a so-called right which can not be legally enforced is not considered as a right in the Japanese Code.

The authors of the French Code started from the standpoint of duties, while the framers of the Japanese Code made rights the point of departure. Naturally a correlation exists between rights and duties. A legal relation may be stated from the conception of a right or the corresponding duty. It comes to the same thing. I do not mean to say that in the Japanese Code this idea is invariably adhered to, but, generally speaking, rights are made the object of legislation. The point is immaterial, but it seems to me that, broadly speaking, laws should start from the standpoint of right, while principles of morality may better be considered from the conception of duties.