The classification and arrangement of the law is a subject as to which the lack of sys tematic discussion is in 'striking contrast to the measureless volume of treatises upon particular legal topics. The extent to which the latter overlap each other, and thus add to the labor of the patient investigator of any given title, has been frequently suggest ed, but there is to be found in legal litera ture little more than the merest recognition of the • necessity of a remedy.
The familiar analysis based on the ar rangement of Blackstone's Commentaries re mains after the lapse of more than a cen tury without the recognition of a substitute which warrants the omission of its substance from the place heretofore assigned to it in this title, inadequate as it is.
Like the classification of Blackstone, of much suggestive interest, but inadequate for modern purposes, is Sir Matthew Hale's An alysis of the Law, a posthumous tract fre quently bound with the History of the Com mon Law.
The subject of classification forms a large part of the able work on jurisprudence by Professor Holland, but it is there dealt with in sections, and without any attempt to pre sent as a whole a comprehensive analysis or classification. The work does furnish most valuable material to be used in making one. Of value for similar use will be found Digby's Introduction to the History of the Law of Real Property, appendix to Part I. with tables; papers by 0. W. Holmes, Jr., 5 Am. L. Rev. 1; 7 id. 46; Hammond's Black stone, notes on Book I. Ch. I., and Introduc tion to Sandars' Justinian. See also an arti cle by Sir Frederick Pollock, "Divisions of Law," 8 Harv. L. Rev. 188, in which he con tends that "it is not possible to make any clear-cut division of the subject-matter of legal rules." He discusses some of the more obvious general divisions of the law, but his view as to a complete clasSification is thus expressed: "Ambitious writers have some times gone to work as if it were possible to reduce the whole contents of a legal system to a sort of classified catalogue where there would be no repetition or cross references, and the classification would explain itself. Ambition on that scale is destined to disap pointment by the nature of things." The subject was brought to the attention of the American Bar Association in 1888 by a letter of Professor Henry T. Terry, which is print ed in.the annual report of 1889, p. 327. A
committee was appointed, and made a report in 1891, which discussed with much ability the importance of the subject and the diffi culty of its practical accomplishment. The conclusion reached was that a classification could only be successfully attempted with respect to one legal system, and that it must be made in harmony with the spirit of the law as it grows and in the light of legal history. The objects are, first, arrangement to enable the mind to comprehend the law as a whole; second, the cataloguing of topics, to the end that authorities May be collected under a well recognized title of each princi pal topic of the law. The two methods are not consistent, one being required for the jurist and the scholar and the other for the judge and the lawyer. Both, therefore, are needed, but the last is of more general im portance. The committee reported a tents tive classification under the first head only, leaving the other for a further report, which has not yet been made. Rept. Am. Bar Ass'n (1891) g79-402. In 1896, the subject was revived, and a brief report expressed the be lief that it was possible "to determine more definitely the sphere of each of the ordinary topics of the law and determine where each subject may be looked for." Rept. Am. Bar Ass'n (1896) 405.
Arbitrary law. A law or provision of law so far removed from consideration of ab stract justice that it is necessarily founded on the mere will of the law-making power, so that it is rather a rule established than a principle declared. The principle that an infant shall not be bound by his contract is not arbitrary ; but the rule that the limit of infancy shall be twenty-one years, not twen ty nor twenty-two, is arbitrary.
The term is also sometimes used to sig nify an unreasonable law,—one that is in violation of justice.
Irrevocable laws. All laws which have not in their nature or in their language some limit or termination provided are, in theory, perpetual : but the perpetuity is liable to be defeated by subsequent abrogation. It has sometimes been attempted to secure an abso lute perpetuity by an express provision for bidding any abrogation. But it may well be questioned whether one generation has pow er to bind their posterity by an irrevocable law. See this subject discussed by Bentham, Works, vol. 2, 402-407; and see Dwarris, Stat. 479.