Page:Hohfeld System of Fundamental Legal Concepts.djvu/7

 desirable to retain it, its partial inconsistency should be adjusted upon a logical foundation. Other objections to the terms ‘privilege’ and ‘immunity,’ as applied by Professor Hohfeld, are reserved.

2. A number of other suggestions may be grouped.

Professor Hohfeld avoids definition as “always unsatisfactory, if not altogether useless.” His repugnance to definition was the lawyer’s instinct long ago expressed by Iavolenus: “Omnis definitio in iure civili periculosa est; parum est enim, ut non subverti posset.”

He did not have in mind, it is fair to assume, the objections to formal definition raised by non-Euclidian geometry and by non-Aristotelian logic. It is pretty certain that spherical triangles, parallel lines which meet, and four-dimensional space were not the restraining ideas of his refusal to provide a system of definitions; but it may be noted that the philosophers and logicians who argue for pluralistic definitions and relativity agree on the acceptance of provisional definitions as data without which the processes of judgment and inference cannot proceed. But if Professor Hohfeld has declined to define his terms, assuredly he has made it necessary for others to attempt it, if they would have any hope of understanding his proposal.

When we come to the table of ‘correlatives,’ we are as unenlightened as to what is meant as when the table of ‘opposites’ was encountered. Here we believe half of his table will be found logically consistent. The exceptions are ‘privilege’—‘no right’ and ‘immunity’—‘disability.’

The concept ‘correlative,’ as used by Professor Hohfeld, is clearly intended as that derived in formal logic from ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ terms. Correlatives are those objects or ideas of objects which are necessarily connected with other objects or ideas of objects; thus, ‘father’ is a relative term and ‘son’ is the correlative. As to this distinction, Mr. Schiller has remarked that it is “wise of formal logic not to enter into such questions as why the ‘correlative’ of ‘son’ should not be ‘mother.’” In the light of this objection, ‘wrong’ would be as much a correlative of ‘right’ as is ‘duty.’ But it is allowable for each science to construct its own definitions, and a slight amendment of the definition of formal logic will avoid objections which have been raised in the newer functional logic to this category of terms. We may say, for the purpose