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 and of positive law may be traced back to legislation. True it is, that the influence of a change made by the legislative power in the existing law may possibly be limited entirely to the sphere of the abstract, without extending its effects down into the region of the concrete relations which have been formed on the basis of the law hitherto—to a new change in the machinery of law, a replacing of a worn out screw or roller by a more perfect one. But it very frequently happens that things are in such a condition that the change can be effected only at the expense of an exceedingly severe encroachment on existing rights and private interests. In the course of time, the interests of thousands of individuals, and of whole classes, have become bound up with the existing principles of law in such a manner that these cannot be done away with, without doing the greatest injury to the former. To question the principle of law or the institution, means a declaration of war against all these interests, the tearing away of a polyp which resists the effort