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Introduction

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carry his reader by storm. Savigny sheltered himself in a mantle of reserve and directed his forces of ideas from a sequestered distance, while Jhering waged his battles on the firing line and determined the issues of war by the commanding aid of his conquering presence.

Of Windscheid, who was the great figure at Vienna when Jhering was the chief attraction at Göttingen, we may speak again in connection with a fundamental legal theory which has turned out to be of the greatest practical moment, and which has been a point of great controversy in German legal science for several decades.^[1] Windscheid defined rights from the standpoint of protection of the will,^[2] while Jhering made interests the essence of rights. The logical consequences of Windscheid’s view is a formal, individualistic, and unhistorical conception of law; while Jhering’s definition, on the

1. Gareis, “Introduction to the Science of Law” (“Modern Legal Philosophy Series,” i), p. 33.
2. “Recht ist eine von der Rechtsordnung verliehene Willensmacht oder Willensherrschaft,”—Windscheid, “Lehrbuch des Pandektenrechts,” 9th ed. (Kipp), 1906, erster Band, p. 156 (and note 3).

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