PREFACE.

To those who are acquainted with the state of Scientific Jurisprudence in this country a new book on that subject from the metaphysical point of view needs no apology; but it is desirable to explain the aim and scope of the following attempt to deal with the subject.

This volume is practically an expansion of an essay on "Evolution in Law," which I read to the Glasgow Legal and Speculative Society about seven years ago; and it forms the course of lectures on Jurisprudence, which, with some alterations, I have delivered during the last six sessions as introductory to the course of Public Law in this University.

By the ordinance of the University Commissioners this course extends to forty lectures, and it might have been consistent with the letter of the ordinance to deliver lectures only on the doctrines of Public, and perhaps also of Private International Law. But it would have been a bold innovation, of which I did not feel inclined to accept the responsibility, in the university of Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith, to separate the Jus Naturæ from the Jus Gentium. And not only so, but

such a course would have been quite inconsistent with the traditions of Scottish legal learning, which from the time of Lord Stair-himself a Glasgow professor-and certainly from the time of Lord Kames, has always associated Law with History and Metaphysic. Besides, at the time I commenced to lecture, it seemed to be a tenet of the orthodox English school of Jurisprudence that International Law was not law, and the most satisfactory mode of answering such a contention was to examine the nature of law in general. Although, therefore, the subject of Jurisprudence was dealt with by the professor of Ethics in the Faculty of Arts, I felt it to be my duty, on receiving my appointment as lecturer on Public Law, to deliver such a short course of lectures on Jurisprudence as would at once supplement and illustrate the lectures given in the Ethic class, and serve as an introduction to the study of International Law on a scientific basis. This explains the necessary shortness of the course, and why many important topics are either passed over in silence, or only alluded to casually.

By publishing this volume I expect to be able to overtake some of those subjects in future sessions; and, if I have leisure, to expand into greater detail than I have been able hitherto to do, the lectures on the History of International Law, sketched in appendix D.

Among the friends who have kindly assisted me in preparing my lectures for the press, I must name particularly Mr. W. R. Herkless, M.A., who has read the

last two. His friendly criticism of the twelfth lecture has enabled me, I trust, to make my argument more complete and somewhat clearer to the general reader.

Students who may not have a previous acquaintance with philosophy may postpone the reading of Lecture I. till they have read Lecture XI.

GLASGOW, February, 1884.

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.

Page 5, line 2 of note,' for "Ferguson" read "Hutcheson."

39,

16, insert semicolon after "spectator."

54, 18, after "Session" add "at the present moment."

56,

66,

135,

157,

168,

181,

197,

17, after "courts" insert a comma.

9 from bottom, after "powers" insert "of the Court of Session," and delete these words in lines 7 and 8. 15 from top, read "There is a modification of the nature of the servient. For example, as a general rule," &c.

2, read "except within certain limits, arrangements" &c. 3, after "abolished" add "under certain limitations." 10 from bottom, for "preventative" read "preventive." 7 from top, for "idea" read "ideas."

210, 5, insert "who " before " is."

3 from bottom, after "restitution" insert comma.

,, 224, bottom line, dele "for example."