The 17th century was the age of the Law of Nature, but this is still a living influence in jurisprudence and as such will be treated in a suitable context.
The 19th century is memorable not so much for its direct contributions to jurisprudence, considerable though these were, as for the complete revolution effected in the method of the moral sciences. The leading idea, the explanatory theory was now to come after, not before the evidence; and every phase of human life came to be studied in the same realistic fashion as the natural sciences and in accordance with similar, impersonal standards. With this change of outlook the bounds of knowledge began to extend beyond all expectation. History, which began the century as a complete record of the race, ended it as a mere episode in the light of the antiquity of man as revealed by archaeology and palaeontology. It is not what the Renaissance handed on from the ancients that has made us what we are, but the cave-designers of Altamira or conceivably the tool-workers of Foxhall. But be yond thus carrying our knowledge back into the remote past and filling us with a sense of foreboding as to what may still lurk within our minds, fresh fields were rapidly disclosed on all sides, for instance, the lives of the simpler peoples, ancient myths and dreams. The Golden Bough was an event of the century. Then came psychology, experimental, social and analytical. Thus it comes about that the student to-day is faced in the social sciences with a body of ordered knowledge in relation to which any theory of his must needs be formulated. And the jurist, mindful of Maitland's scorn for those "who elegantly stroll along the high priori road," would be the last to wish it otherwise.
Yet another movement has affected the jurist. This has made him more of a scientist by removing the one time temptation of jurisprudence as an "art." In the 17th century Coke was a leader of the parliamentary party, and provided his followers with their political ideals and their party slogans. In a subsequent age, such was the excellence of the Commentaries that Blackstone moulded the social thought of his countrymen for the better part of a century (and not always to their good). In Continental Europe apparently the jurist has always been prompter or critic at the political premiere. In the 19th century all this was altered. The flame of continental nationalism, the spirit of economic discon tent could never have emerged from the Opoprcurnpta ("chop shops") frequented by Austin, and though Bentham must be credited with many a useful social change, he belonged to an age that was past. The new democratic world found its own ideals ;
cheaper books and newspapers, intensified electioneering, the growth of clubs and societies, all helped to elbow out the down at-heels jurist. At the close of the century the school that stood closest to the Benthamite tradition found nothing so alien as the spirit of English law. All this was pure gain to the jurist. To-day he has no political affinities and few social responsibilities. He has the freedom of all the sciences and can pursue truth whither soever it may lead.
The best historical introduction is to be found in Roscoe Pound's Jurisprudence, in H. E. Barnes' History and Prospects of the Social Sciences (1925), and Interpretations of Legal History (1923).
The political sciences put two major prob lems to the jurist. The one is special and in the main presented by the work of the field anthropologist. "Have the simpler peo ples a rule of law?" In the past society has been conceived much on Aristotelian lines. First we find members of a clan taking to a settled mode of life, then for mutual protection neighbour ing clans draw together into villages and finally out of a closer union of villages there arises the true political unit, the "city" aiming at the well-being of each and all. (See further 34 Monist [1924] , p. 15-62.) In these post-war days clans have been rushed into statehood if not into actual membership of the League of Nations regardless of the Aristotelian logic. The policy of this is neither here nor there, but the jurist can hardly look upon such peoples as without the law. If this position be accepted, how should we differentiate between these peoples and those others no less backward who continue to live as before? The customs of such a folk may not exhibit any regularity intelligible to us, yet taboos are observed and their behaviour implies order of a kind. They are far removed from the incessant turbulence which Hobbes imagined of people living before the reign of law. The problem here presented is a real one. The relation of taboo to law is an inviting subject of research, but here it must suffice to emphasize the special difficulty of the jurist.