MATERIALS OF THE SCIENCE OF LAW. 605 



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 coun- 

 tries 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 differ- 

 ent states, and the prevention of practical injustice. These objects 

 must be served in the highest degree, if the greatest possible uniform- 

 ity of principle obtain in the courts of all nations in creating and ap- 

 plying 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, how- 

 ever, that, owing to the political jealousies that have have hitherto kept 

 apart the most considerable nations of Europe, and to the foolish pre- 

 judice 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 as- 

 similating the substance as well as the form of the rules of law form- 

 ing 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 apjjears, then, from the above investigation, that there is a true 

 Science of Law based upon the irrefragable, permanent, and invaria- 

 ble 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 sys- 

 tem of law of any one country in order to its comprehensive amend- 



