1901-2 TRANSACI IONS. 73 



guidance. In Sophocks we find Antigone appealing trom 

 the edict of King Kreon to the 



— agrapta k^ asphale Theoii 

 No mini a 



(" the unwritten and stable laws of the gods") ; and Horace 

 emphasizes the distinction in this wise : 



Vir bonus est qiiis ? 

 Qui co7isulta patriini^ qui leges jiiraqtie 

 Servat 



— " Who is a good man ? He who observes the decrees of the 

 fathers, and human laws as well as the laws of nature." 



Before leaving the question of the relations of Positive 

 Law to Morality and Natural Justice, I desire to pay a tribute 

 to the great service done by modern English philosophical 

 jurists in differentiating legal and ethical science. In no 

 other school has this been done so thoroughly and so well. 

 Referring more particularly to the Germans, and remember- 

 ing the great precision of thought which general ly charact- 

 erizes them, one marvels at the failure of their philosophers 

 who touch upon the subject to distinguish the provinces of 

 Law and Kthic (i). In commenting on this fact Professor 

 Sheldon Amos says (2) : 



The result of this philosophic tendency in Germany has been to merge the scicntflc 

 treatment of law in the larger region of general ethical inquiry; and consequently, 

 instead of the science of law making an even and independent progress of its ovn, it 

 has undulated with every wave of ethical speculation, and has consequently suffered 

 the retardation incident to the growth of the most involved, because the most com- 

 posite, branch of intellectual research. 



Indeed it would seem to be as hard for a speculative 

 jurist to avoid divagation in German as Heine found it hard 

 to be witty in that tongue. Leroy-Beaulieu's felicitous phrase 

 (3) ' cloudy jurisconsults' is the best characterization of these 

 writers. 



(1) With the possible exception of Kant. Cf. his Tugendlehre, Werke, vii, p. 177; 

 Rechtslehre, Ibid. p. 27. 



(2) Sc. of Law, p. 2. . 



(3) The Modern State, ch. II. p. 25. 



