Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/781

745 BOOK REVIEWS 745 one another. They were not sharply separated from each other by any clear- cut formulas. They were adapted to express the needs of the varied social life of the German Middle Ages, and they were susceptible of further de- velopment and scientific treatment, had not the alien Roman law broken in to arrest their development. (2) The Roman law corporation theory, with its contrasted " universitas " and "societas" is then traced from its classical form into its modification by later writers. (3) Then follows in the period of the Reception the conflict between the native Germanic and the ahen Ro- manistic association theories. The German " Genossenschaft " was violently twisted and forced into the mold of the "universitas" and the "community of the collective hand" into that of the "societas." The result of this legal violence was that the Roman principles were themselves modified, and yet the resulting legal rules did not accurately reflect existing native customs. (4) To what extent this legal muddle was embodied or clarified in the terri- torial laws and codes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is next examined. (5) Finally the present Civil Code is shown to mark a triumphant renascence of parts of the Germanic law; for the Civil Code knows nothing of the "persona ficta" of the later Roman "universitas"; and the principle of "the collective hand" has been made by the Civil Code the basis not only of the marital community of goods, but, what is more important, of the ordinary partnership of private law. Huebner also frequently adds to the interest and breadth of his discussion by indicating those cases in which Germanic law is embodied in Napoleon's Code and in the Swiss Civil Code of 1907. The translation, while it lacks the genius with which Maitland rendered part of Gierke, is on the whole excellent. Dr. Philbrick is sometimes incon- sistent in using different English expressions for one and the same German word and idea. But he has wisely avoided the pitfall of trying always to find Anglo-Saxon 'phrases which might mislead the reader into assuming a greater similarity between the English and Germanic legal systems than really Sidney B. Fay. Executory Interests in Illinois. By Thomas W. Hoopes, of the Spring- field Bar. Chicago: Burdette J. Smith and Company. 1918. pp. vi, 339. The title of this book carries with it a fairly adequate description. It belongs to that class of local treatises which are of considerable value to the local practi- tioner, but of less interest to the profession outside the state, except in the case of an attorney who chances to have business in that particular state. Within these limits, however, local treatises are very convenient, and are always wel- come. Many law teachers in fact are believers in the value of teaching local law primarily. The author in his preface states that the book is a text based upon a com- pilation which he had made of the Illinois cases on future interests. To this extent it seems to be very well done. The cases are systematically gathered, the topics logically arranged, and the discussion dovetailed, so far as possible, with the general law. The obvious disadvantage of a strictly local book dealing with such a funda- mental topic as future interests is that many branches of the law equally im- portant with those discussed are necessarily ignored because the points have not come up in the particular jurisdiction. In this respect such a book differs from a discussion of such topics as probate law, or conveyancing, or similar matters, which are largely statutory. The book foUows the lines previously covered by Professor Kales' treatise on "Conditional and Future Interests in Illinois," published thirteen years ago, having the advantage over the latter of being up to date. It does not go quite