that labor bestowed on a full and complete examination of the familiar truths of the subject matter, would not be thrown away, even in so far as the professional audience might be concerned. For, it is deemed that the reiteration of fundamental truths, half forgotten because assumed without clear statement and demarcation, and the contemplation of concrete instances and examples of the working out of the contradictory principles involved, will refresh the recollection of the professional reader, and aid to a clearer conception by him of the generalizations involved in the further arguments herein contained. To what extent success has been attained in making this essay intelligible, instructive, and convincing to the two classes of readers for whom it has been written, only the future can determine. This much, however, may be said. The attempt has been, First: To write an introduction to law which shall enlighten the intelligent lay reader as to the beauty and interest of its problems; Second: To remove the discussion of the Code Question from the generalities in which it has always been obscured to the contemplation of the practical working of the two systems in concrete instances (see Chapters V and VI); Third: To elaborate the idea of the fundamental and intrinsic difference between the two forms of writings, statute and case law (see Chapters X and XI); and Fourth: To draw the proper conclusions and apply these principles to actual legislation, judicial or legislative, and to determine by a practical test the provinces of each and the best way to conserve them (see Chapter In this age when the common people, populists or otherwise, look up to the legislature as the deus ex machina, capable by its action of ameliorating their social, political and financial condition; and when men of mark and influence are urging the adoption of favorite schemes for social or individual advancement; and when the keen few, realizing the practical supremacy of legislation, no longer seek rights or redress in the courts, but create them by gaining in their behalf the fiat of the legislature it is fitting that an attempt should be made to delimit the proper provinces of legislative and judicial action. If the writer has succeeded in this, he has added his mite to the true solution of the complex problems ever presenting themselves for solution. R. FLOYD CLARKE. NEW YORK, August 20, 1897. |