Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/586

 572 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY not to be found anywhere; that, in short, It has no exist- ence ; it is a mere fiction ; and that to speak of it as having any existence is what no man can do, without giving cur- rency to an imposture." Employing the same reasoning, he would have concluded that justice, not being made by King, Lords, or Commons, nor by anybody else, had no existence; that truth, since the words of it are not to be found any- where, is a mere fiction. But these defects are too often found in reformers. The humanitarian age brought enor- mous benefits to the world, but its ideas were often ignorant, crude, and impracticable, and needed to be modified by the better instructed minds of the present constructive age. While Bentham was at the height of his power, the His- torical School of Jurists in Germany was beginning its great work. Savigny was already preaching the necessity of understanding the history of 1j,vv before it was reformed. Mittermaier and Brunner were to follow and carry on the work of the master. The unity of the past and present, and the need of conforming the law of a people to its needs were among their fundamental principles. Bentham had said, " if a foreigner can make a better code than an Eng- lishman we should adopt it." Savigny said, with greater truth and knowledge of human nature, that no system of law, however theoretically good, could be successfully im- posed upon a people which had not by its past experience become prepared for it. The impulse given to legal study by the work of Savigny and his school has in the last generation spread over the civilized world and profoundly influenced its legal thought. The Italians, the natural lawyers of the world, have increased their power by adopting his principles. In England a small but important school of legal thinkers have followed the his- torical method, and in the United States it has obtained a powerful hold. The spirit of the age, here too, has sup- ported it. We are living in an age of scientific scholarship. We have abandoned the subjective and deductive philosophy of the middle ages, and we learn from scientific observation and from historical discovery. The newly accepted prin- ciples of observation and induction, apphed to the law, have