Introduction
first, that he treated by preference what Austin has called pervasive legal ideas — ideas of universal significance, ideas unlimited by the accidents of history, or the particularities of legal systems; and, second, that he had the faculty of powerful literary presentation. Jhering was a philosopher in the law, if not of the law, and had he been less, it is not unlikely that he would have remained a national factor of limited importance, instead of becoming an international figure.
Comparative biography was a completely realized art before comparative law was even thought of; and writers who have dealt with the lives of jurists have commonly resorted to the comparative method. In the case of Jhering the counter balance naturally has been either Windscheid (who died in the same year and within a few weeks of Jhering, and whose span of life was almost identical with his), or Savigny, the most conspicuous representative of the Historical School. The dissimilarities are striking in either case
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