Ideas and Influence
Savigny belongs to the so-called historical school of jurists, though he cannot claim to be regarded as its founder, an honour which belongs to Gustav Hugo. In the history of jurisprudence Savigny's great works are the Recht des Besitzes and the Beruf unserer Zeit für Gesetzgebung above referred to. The former marks an epoch in jurisprudence. Professor Jhering said: "With the Recht des Besitzes the juridical method of the Romans was regained, and modern jurisprudence born." It marked a great advance both in results and method, and rendered obsolete a large body of literature. Savigny sought to prove that in Roman law possession had always reference to "usucapion" or to "interdicts"; that there is not a right to continuance in possession but only to immunity from interference; possession being based on the consciousness of unlimited power.
These and other propositions were maintained with great acuteness and unequalled ingenuity in interpreting and harmonizing the Roman jurists. The controversy which was carried on in Germany by Jhering, Baron, Gans and Bruns shows that many of Savigny's conclusions were not accepted. The Beruf unserer Zeit, in addition to the more specific object the treatise had in view, which has been already treated, expresses the idea, unfamiliar in 1814, that law is part and parcel of national life, and combats the notion, too much assumed by French jurists, especially in the 18th century, and countenanced in practice by Bentham, that law might be arbitrarily imposed on a country irrespective of its state of civilization and history . Of even greater value than his services in consolidating "the historical school of jurisprudence" is the emphatic recognition in his works of the fact that the practice and theory of jurisprudence cannot be divorced without injury to both.
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