Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/623

Rh question is presented whether the courts of justice of a country shall recognize rights acquired either by their own citizens or by foreigners in other countries; or, in other words, whether the laws of other countries giving validity to those rights shall or shall not be held to be effectual in the courts of justice which are invited to interfere. The cases are generally further complicated by the nature of the processes and transactions out of which the asserted rights spring. Part of the transactions may have taken place in one country, and part in another, and the remedy may be sought for in a third. Or the person seeking the remedy, or against whom the remedy is sought, may be the citizen of one country, have his permanent residence or domicile in another country, and be temporarily sojourning in the country in which the remedy is sought.

It is obvious, from a mere enumeration and description of the cases which give rise to rules, that the purpose of the existence of these rules is always the facilitation of intercourse between the citizens of different states, and the prevention of practical injustice. These objects must be served in the highest degree, if the greatest possible uniformity of principle obtain in the courts of all nations in creating and applying the rules. In this way reasonable expectations are likely to be best satisfied, and fraudulent evasions of the law of any particular country are likely most effectually to be prevented. It happens, however, that, owing to the political jealousies that have have hitherto kept apart the most considerable nations of Europe, and to the foolish prejudice with which individual nations have fostered principles of law familiar in their own courts, however alien to the practice of all other countries, there have hitherto been made only very imperfect attempts at uniformity either of principle or practice in this respect.

It is probable that an increasingly clear apprehension of the logical relations of the different branches of law, whether as touching upon ownership, contract, family life, or crime, will produce the effect of assimilating the substance as well as the form of the rules of law forming the so-called Private International Law of different countries. This end is perhaps one of the most practical and desirable that the Science of Law could set before itself, though it will need at every point the aid of the Science of Legislation. This subject will be recurred to again in the chapter on Laws of Procedure.

It appears, then, from the above investigation, that there is a true Science of Law based upon the irrefragable, permanent, and invariable facts of the constitution of human society, as exhibited in the state of the physical, logical, and ethical constitution of man. The objects of the cultivation of this science are, first, the ready understanding of every system of national law, through a firm hold being obtained upon its technical structure, its topics, its logical subdivisions, and the methods of its application; secondly, an orderly view of the whole system of law of any one country in order to its comprehensive