Rudolf von Ihering 
Law as a Means to an End 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The need of the series now proposed is so obvious as hardly to need advocacy. We are on the threshold of a long period of construe tive readjustment and restatement of our law in almost every depart ment. We come to the task, as a profession, almost wholly untrained in the technic of legal analysis and legal science in general. Neither we. Nor any community, could expect anything but crude results without thorough preparation. Many teachers, and scores of students and practitioners, must first have become thoroughly familiar with the world’s methods of juristic thought. As a first preparation for the coming years of that kind of activity, it is the part of wisdom first to familiarize ourselves with what has been done by the great modern thinkers abroad to catch up with the general state of learning on the subject. After a season of this, we shall breed a family of well-equipped and original thinkers of our own. Our own law must, of course, be worked out ultimately by our own thinkers; but they must first be equipped with the state of learning in the world to date.