Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/212

 of "natural law," expounded, for instance, by Pufendorff, and accepted by Gross, one of the first members of the Academy. After the foundation of the University in Moscow, Dilthey began to deliver lectures there on natural law, and Zolotnitsky published a short survey of its principles; much later Kunitsyn examined them in an elaborate treatise, written under the influence of Kant. Meanwhile there arose a new tendency, due to a more conscious appreciation of Russian positive law. Dilthey tried to apply the system of Roman law to Russian statutes; but Polyenov, who had studied at Strassburg and Goettingen, and Desnitsky, a pupil of Adam Smith, had a much more historical conception of jurisprudence; Desnitsky wrote able essays on civil law and a project for a Russian constitution. Thereupon Speransky, author of a little treatise "on the study of law," elaborated his plan of 1802 also under English influences, though later he turned to French models; he also superintended the publication of the great collection of laws which have proved to be one of the principal sources of historical information for subsequent investigators; and he encouraged some young students of law: Nevolin, Ryedkin, Krylov, Meier, etc. Further steps were made by Russian scholars in the general knowledge of law, particularly in the second half of the 19th century: some of them, for instance the Hegelians Nevolin, Ryedkin and Chicherin, the positivists Korkunov and Muromtsev, the psychologist Petrazhitsky, acquired renown by their works on the general theory of law. Others cultivated special branches: Krylov, trained by Savigny, delivered brilliant lectures on Roman law