THE DEVELOPEMENT OF THE IDEA OF LAW. 
567 
AHEENS ON THE HISTOEY OF THE DEVELOPE- 
MENT OF THE IDEA OF LAW. 
ABSTRACT OF MB. W. ADAMs's PAPEB. 
(Read December 16th, 1875.) 
Heinbicr Aheens was born in 1808, near Salzgitter, in Hanover, 
and educated at the gymnasium of Wolfenbiittel and university of 
Gottingen. He occupied the chair of philosophy at the university 
of Brussels from 1834 to 1848, when he was sent as a deputy to 
the constituent parliament at Frankfort. After the defeat of the 
movement for union, he became professor at Gratz, whence in 
1859 he was called to Leipzig. He died in August, 1874. 
His principal work, entitled Naturrecht oder Philosophie des 
Rechts und des Staates, was first published in French. There had 
been six German and six French editions, and translations into 
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian, and Polish, but none into 
English, which was the reason of the delivery of the lecture 
intended to convey an outline of Ahrens' history of the develope- 
ment of the idea of law. 
Law and the State as actually established, as well as the ideas 
of law and of the State in philosophical knowledge, had been 
developed under the influences of the general progress of civiliza- 
tion. Four views of law have been displayed by the principal 
civilized nations : as a bond in the East ; as a harmonizing principle 
of order with the Greeks ; as a principle of power and rule with 
the Romans ; and lastly, with the German races, as a rule for the 
protection of all circles of life. In all four conceptions, to which 
could be added a Slavonic one, with a certain predominance of the 
principle of community over that of the individual and of person- 
ality, an essential side of the principle of law had been brought 
into operation, and they must also in a higher stage of civilized 
life be united. 
The history of the developement of the idea of law since the 
recommencement of free philosophical enquiry after the close of 
