Trust Co. of America v. Conklin.. 818 Welch v. Owenby Weld v. Postal Telegraph Cable 649 Trust Co. of America v. Hamilton Bank 857 Co. .326, 328 173 480 Wood v. Boynton Wasco County v. New England Watson v. King Waugh v. Carver Weare v. Gove Wilson Bros, v. Nelson .1265 293 575 Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon. 125 ..1232 Wright v. Frank A. Andrews Co...1119 616 Wright Bros. V. Merchants' & Weare Commission Co. v. Druley 406 Planters' Packet Co. Weatherford, M. W. & N. W. R. Co. v. Granger Weber v. Hirsch .1399 Young v. Grote .1405 ... 810 Wegman Piano Co., In re 937 Ziemer v. C. G. Bretting Mfg. Co..1473 Weeks v. Crie SECTION 1.-NATURE OF LAW Law exists only in the state. Law assumes the existence of a government, and of agents thereof, through whose actions law manifests itself. When a governor of a state calls an extra session of the legislature, pardons a prisoner, or appoints some individual to office; when a legislative body in some proper form registers its will that certain things shall or shall not be done; when a court, as a result of a proceeding before it, formally declares that A. owes B. a specified sum of money; when a sheriff seizes A.'s property and delivers it to C. in exchange for money which is in turn given to B. in payment of the debt; when a policeman halts the stream of traffic on a busy thoroughfare-these physical acts are the manifestations of state life; they are manifestations of law. It is only in a figurative sense that we speak of certain words as constituting a legal principle, or that law is to be found in certain kinds of books. Law is a science. Like all sciences, its study involves the examination of data and the acquisition of all possible knowledge concerning it, with the view of determining the sequence of events which are certain or likely to follow a given set of conditions. When a ball is thrown into the air, one may determine the equation of the curve thus described, and that the ball will strike the earth in a certain number of seconds. In so doing one is studying the sciences of physics and of mathematics. When an electric current is passed through water under certain conditions, the liquid separates into its constituent gases. In such a case the investigator is studying the sciences of physics and of chemistry. When one has ascertained the relation between exports and imports between. two countries, the quantity of gold in each, the amount of debts owed by persons in each country to persons in the other, and many other analogous facts, and his problem is to determine what the ex B.& B.BUS.LAW-1 change rates will be, the inquirer is studying the science of economics. And so in the study of law the task is to accumulate the necessary data, to learn all that may be learned about it for the purpose of being able to prophesy with a fair degree of accuracy what the agents of the state will or will not do under any particular group of circumstances out of the multitudinous facts of human life. Under what circumstances will the governor pardon a prisoner; when will the court direct the sheriff to seize a person's property and deliver it to some other person; when will the sheriff confine persons in the jail or prison; when will a person be permitted to exercise dominion over property which theretofore had been within the control of another person? When one accumulates data for the purpose of answering these questions, he is studying law. Most persons know a great deal about law, although they may never have studied law books. It is impossible for one to observe the everyday facts of life without being able to prophesy with considerable accuracy what the agents of government will do under various circumstances. But knowledge derived exclusively in this way, however extensive, is likely to be disorganized, and the data wholly insufficient as a basis for safe prophecy in all cases. The average case of theft is readily recognizable by all persons as a criminal act, but there would be a difference of opinion as to whether one is guilty of an attempt to steal by thrusting his hand into an empty cash drawer with intent to steal its contents. Knowledge, until it passes beyond the stage of accumulated details. into the field of generalization, is not scientific, although the acquisition of such information involves the study of science. One does not become an astronomer by observing the movement of the heavenly bodies, nor a philosopher by conjuring with the concepts of time and space. Nor will one be able to comprehend the criminal law by witnessing, however frequently, the incarceration of offenders in the state prison and the county jail. Law, while a science, in and of itself, is related to and dependent upon all other sciences and upon philosophy. Like other sciences, law must take account of and utilize knowledge, from whatever source derived. The determination of the question of liability to respond in damages for negligent acts may involve the truths of mathematics, of chemistry, of geology, or of botany. The question as to the existence, performance, or discharge of contractual relations, under a given state of facts, may be largely a question of geography, of biology, or of the rules of English grammar. In prosecutions for crime, guilt or innocence may depend upon knowledge acquired from medical science, or from investigations into the pyschology of the human mind. A particular science is not developed, nor does it exist as a field of knowledge, independent of other fields of knowledge. Each makes contributions to the other. Each in turn is sustained and vitalized by truth discovered in allied fields. The study of law, therefore, is not a study of materials unrelated to the materials of other fields of study. All branches of learning possess some object in common. Whether in scientific or philosophical study, man, in some sense, is the central figure. The study of Mendel's law of heredity, of the Malthusian theory of population, of the federal law for the taxation of incomes, though pursued in volumes widely separated from each other on the shelves of the library, leads the inquiring mind into channels of investigation which converge upon a common point. * But, more particularly, law is one of the social sciences. The facts which make it what it is are in great measure the same facts which engage the attention of the economist, the sociologist, the political scientist, and the historian. The desirability of obtaining a perspective of the law in its relations to other branches of knowledge leads us in this connection to call to mind the larger objects of its companion sciences. "Economics is the social science which treats of that portion of human activity which is concerned with earning a living. It analyzes wants, classifies goods with reference to them, and considers all of the circumstances which affect the production and distribution, or sharing, of goods among the individuals who compose society."1 "Political science begins and ends with the state. Its fundamental problems include an investigation of the nature of the state as the highest political agency for the realization of the common ends of society and the formulation of fundamental principles of state life; an inquiry into the nature, history, and forms of political institutions; a deduction therefrom, so far as possible, of the laws of political growth and development." "Sociology, is ethical, regarding the weal and woe of all men as facts to be accounted for. It views the facts of human experience as caused, and belonging to the orderly course of nature. Sociology sets itself to the task of synthesis, and searches out those principles which operate throughout the realm of social realities. In the study of these facts, it aims to dissolve all bonds of party, sect, and prejudices. * Sociol * "4 ogy aims at nothing less than the transfer of ethics from the domain of speculative philosophy to the domain of objective science." "History, in the broadest sense of the word, is all that we know about everything that man has ever done, or thought, or hoped, or felt. It is the limitless science of past human affairs, a subject immeasurably vast and important, but exceedingly vague. With these notions in the background, the declaration that "law is the body of principles recognized and applied by the state in the administration of justice"5 takes on a fairly definite meaning. At least, law cannot be conceived of as a system created for the mere preservation of the peace, or as the establishment of the 1 Seager, Principles of Economics, p. 1. 2 Garner, Introduction to Political Science, p. 15. Hayes, Introduction to the Study of Sociology, pp. 4 and 8. 4 Robinson, History of Western Europe, p. 1. 5 Salmond, Jurisprudence, § 5. |