Illés József: Bevezetés a magyar jog történetébe. A források története (Budapest, 1910)

IV sadalmi és történelmi tényezők alakító hatását fej­tegette.1 A kit pedig ez a jelenség talán, mint a véletlen játéka meg nem lep, vájjon nem győzheti-e meg a jogtörténeti tanulmányoknak az a válogatott sorozata, a mely ugyanez évben jelent meg,2 hogy az amerikai jogtörténeti munkálkodásról fényes tanúságot tegyen.3 1 Ideiktatjuk az értékes és szellemes tanulmánynak ezt az általános érdekű szép részét: .One may perhaps say that the mind and character of a nation are more exactly and more adequately expressed in and through its law and its institutions than they are even through its literature and its art. Books and paintings are the work of individual men, many of whom have been greatly influenced by foreign ideas or foreign models, and some of these may have been powerful enough to influence their successors, but may not have been typical representatives of the national genius. But laws and customs are the work of a nation as a whole. They are indeed held binding and put in force by the ruling class, and they are shaped in their details by the professional class, but they are created by other classes also, because the rules which govern the ordinary citizens must be such as are fit to express the wishes of the ordinary citizen, being in harmony with his feelings, and adapted tho the needs of his daily life. They are the offspring of Custom, and Custom is the child of the. people. Thus it is not only the constructive intellect of the educated and professional class, but also the half-conscious thought of the average man which go to te making and moulding of the law. We must however, remember that law is not the product of one or two generations only, but of many generations. National character is always insensibly changing and it changes the more rapidly the more advanced in civilization the nation becomes, the greater its vicissitudes, and the more constant its' intercourse with other nations. Hence, institutions become the expression not solely of those original gifts and tendencies of a race of people which we observe when it emerges from prehistoric darkness. Time and circumstance co-operate in the work. Law is the result of the events which mould a nation as well as of the mental and moral qualities with which the nation started on its career. These two qualities are so blent and mixed in their working that it is hard to describe them separately.“ 2 Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History. By various authors. Compiled and edited by a Commitee of the Association of American Law Schools. In three Volumes. Vol. I. p. 847 Boston, 1907. Little, Brown and Co. 3 Idézzük a munka egyik ismertetőjének idevágó szavait: „ Etwas zu jener Zeit, als Savigny die historische Rechtsschule in Deutschland begründete, schrieb Goethe sein unmutiges Epigramm: „Amerika, du hast es besser, — Als unser Kontinent, der alte —; Hast keine verfallenen Schlösser — Und keine Basalte —; Dich stört nicht im Innern — Zu

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