come inevitable; the later attempt of Germany in 1911 to contend for a position of special privilege in Morocco, while claiming that she was "fighting the battle of the world"; and the bitterness of the German press against England after the signing of the Franco-German treaty of November, 1911, by which Germany changed front on the Morocco question.

In connection with the narrative of the circumstances by which England was led to intervene in Egypt in 1882 and to undertake the reorganization of the Egyptian Government after 1883, Professor Harris asserts that the British scheme of European extra-legal advisers acting with a government of native Egyptian officials has worked admirably, securing a slow but steady progress of reform and affording the people every chance to learn the elements of self-government. He says that in Egypt Great Britain has most happily demonstrated how an enlightened European state can free an oppressed and impoverished people from the rule of a corrupt and selfish oligarchy, furnish them with an efficient administration and equal justice and protection for all without taking possession of the land or submitting them to an "irritating tutelage." In spite of the beneficial work of England in Egypt, however, he states that there has remained a spirit of unrest and suspicion which has manifested itself at the call of the Caliph who sits at Constantinople. The real hope of Egypt, he thinks, lies in the improvement of the condition of the people, and the increase of native leaders who will reform Moslem institutions and secure political regeneration with the coöperation of Europeans.

In considering the perplexing problem of the Sudan which confronted the Egyptian Government, he asserts that England by assumption of control in Egypt was responsible for the conduct of Egyptian foreign affairs, and criticises the Gladstone government for failing properly to support Gen. Gordon with force sufficient to conduct an orderly and successful retreat in 1884, and for "inability to evolve a broad foreign policy and to enforce it with promptitude and decision." He places upon the Gladstone ministry the blame for the "tragedy " of 1884, which temporarily shattered the confidence of the Egyptians in the integrity and ability of the British Government, created a grave menace to the future of the Egyptian state, and multiplied the dangers and difficulties of the later reoccupation of the Sudan-an event which was inevitable, and which was finally accomplished by Kitchener in 1898.

The large number of treaties or agreements or international confer

ences for the adjustment of international problems relating to Africa, or having a bearing upon such adjustments, will impress the average thoughtful reader.

Considering the prospective economic benefits of European colonies in Africa, Mr. Harris states that the possessions controlled by France and England are the most fertile and promising; that those of Spain and Italy are of questionable value; and, while some parts of those controlled by Germany and Belgium and Portugal are promising, the colonial activities of the Powers will probably never pay except in a commercial way. Although as a financial proposition Algeria does not pay, he says that its future possibilities are excellent and that its position is assured since the definite and final settlement of the frontier question in 1911 by the acquisition of Morocco, to which France is now applying the general principles of her Tunisian system of administration. Although Italy, adopting French methods in the preservation of local customs, has made a good beginning in orderly government in Turkish ridden Tripoli, he predicts that she will find a long and painful process necessary to secure a self-supporting and prosperous colony. He thinks British East Africa ought soon to become self-sustaining. He doubts whether the three German protectorates will ever pay, although the almost constant irritation which previously existed between settlers and natives was much improved in 1907 under the leadership of Dernberg, who inaugurated more scientific methods of government. In the German East African protectorate, on which the German government has spent large sums, he says no remarkable progress has been achieved either in colonization or in development of the region. He asserts that no part of the Dark Continent except South Africa can be regarded as a national asset, as a field for European colonization, although the larger portion of it will continue to furnish an expanding market for European and American products and promising openings for capital. Because of the conditions of climate, soil and large native population. he states that only a small part of the continent is suitable for the home of the white man-especially emphasizing the impossibility of reconciling the two racial elements or of welding into one harmonious nation a country populated by both blacks and whites.

Mr. Harris has contributed a wealth of fact and a breadth of view of the various types of European civilization in Africa, and of useful achievements in which the people of every important civilized country have a growing interest, and the reader will be pleased to note that he

"hopes to complete his study in a second volume treating European intervention and competition in Asia."

J. M. CALLAHAN.

The Divine Right of Kings. By John Neville Figgis, Litt. D. Second Edition, with three additional essays. Cambridge: University Press. 1914. pp. xii, 406.

In this edition the original essay of 1896 is reprinted with the omission of the last two pages, and there are added "Aaron's Rod Blossoming, or Jus Divinum in 1646," "Erastus and Erastianism," and "Bartlous and the Development of European Political Ideas." This interesting announcement is made in the preface:

On the theory of sovereignty and the relation of small groups to the state, and the notion of a higher law, the opinions of the author have undergone much change; nor has he all in vain heard the wisdom of masters like Acton and Maitland or read the great works of Gierke.

In "Jus Divinum in 1646" (pp. 291, 292), he thus explains his present view:

Is not all larger society composed of a myriad number of groups; and has not each of these groups, in so far as it be permanent, some real inherent power, which is something more than a mere delegation, which is recognized by the superior power, but not created by it?

Is the civil society a single power from which all rights proceed by delegation? In this case there is no real check upon tyranny, however democratic the form of government. Or is the state merely the final bond of a multitude of bodies, churches, trade unions, families, all possessing inherent life, a real thing, recognized and regulated by the government, but no more the creation of its fiat, than are individual persons?

Such questions are vital not only for states, but for the international community. These "inherent" rights of societies, in which Dr. Figgis now expresses his belief, are not exactly the eighteenth century "natural" rights of individuals. They are rather, it would seem, an extension and application of the "fundamental" rights secured to Englishmen by Magna Charta and the other charters of liberties, and the same as the "unalienable" rights of our Declaration of Independence. If the lesser communities have inherent rights which the greater must recognize and respect, all political power is legally limited and all enlargement of such power is essentially the adding of federations to federations. Dr. Figgis notes a tendency among publicists to return to the old

idea of "natural" rights, so long kept in the background by overinsistence or the utilitarian and historical-development theories of law and politics. In the Jus Divinum essay (p. 284), speaking of the "divine right of majority rule" he says:

It is obvious that, when we have got so far as this, divine right will soon become the name for natural right, and the transition to modern politics begins, unless, indeed, that be held to lie in the change from natural right to pure utilitarianism. For the notion at bottom of the divine right or the natural rights theory is the same. It asserts either for the king or for the state or for the individual or for the general will or for the right to work, to a living wage, or equality of opportunity, or what not, some supreme overriding principle which is superior to all institutional rights, and ought to be their criterion, not their creation. On reflection all who try to see in politics some grounds other than those of mere historical development or immediate expediency, will be found in some degree to share in the notion of natural rights.

It would rather seem that the tendency at present is not toward the old "natural right" theory, but, as above suggested, to the old English and American idea that there are certain rights of men and of societies which are fundamental to the existence of the individual and of society, which are therefore inherent and unalienable, and which are recognized and not created by the state. Substituting the word "fundamental" for "natural," the above quoted statement of Dr. Figgis may be commended to the consideration of all who are interested in the development of law, whether national or international.

A. H. SNOW.

Grundlegung der Soziologie des Rechts. By Eugen Ehrlich. Munich and Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot. 1913. pp. 409.

This book is an exposition of the postulate that the truest insight into the evolution of law is to be obtained through the study, not of statutes, commentaries, or court decisions, but of society itself. Professor Ehrlich is one of the apostles of a new school of jurists, hardly a generation old, who, while not decrying the historical school founded by Savigny and Puchta, approach the study of the law rather from the sociological standpoint. In Germany, the study of the philosophy of law, the search for the origin and nature of law and its fundamental relation to the state and to society, has received a great impetus through the work of von Ihering, Gareis, Stammler (of the Neo-Kantian school), Kohler (of the Neo-Hegelian school), and their followers. The German universities, the nurseries of this study, with their system of Lehr

freiheit, have developed various theories of law divergent both in content and method. In his "Seminar of Living Law" at Gernowitz, Professor Ehrlich has originated a method of research which is a distinct contribution to sociological jurisprudence. It is the dominating idea of the book under review.

Legal history, comparative law, and ethnology, the favorite working tools of the student of sociological jurisprudence, Professor Ehrlich subordinates to the study of existing social and economic customs and practices. "We learn the Past from the Present, not vice versa. We need only open our eyes and ears to learn everything pertaining to the law of our time that is of any consequence. * If the Arabs in the oasis of the Sahara claim ownership only in trees and not in the sandy surface of the desert, the explanation of this fact is not to be sought in ethnology or legal history, but in the actual economic conditions that exist in a desert." There is a system of justice, of "living law" (lebendes Recht), which is not contained in the rules that bind courts and public officials, but which actually governs society and men as social units. It is to be ascertained inductively after the manner of naturalists by the examination of concrete cases showing how the individuals composing the society in question actually and usually conduct themselves in particular situations-how they devise their property, conclude contracts, regulate their marital and family affairs and so on. Where no written instruments show this, it is necessary for the investigator to apply his powers of observation and to question the people and record their testimony. It is only by this inductive method that we can know how much of the customary law of the past is still living law, and if new customs, of which the books contain no mention, have not crystallized.

Municipal law (staatliches Recht) exhausts itself in prescribing the rules by which judges are to decide controversies that get into court. But these represent the smallest fraction of human transactions. Moreover, says Professor Ehrlich, "it is not essential to the conception of law that it should emanate from the state, nor that it should constitute the rule of decision for courts or other authorities, nor that it should be enforced by a sanction." There is a great body of customs having the regulative character of law (ausserstaatliches Recht), the importance of which has so generally escaped the "dogmatic jurists" that no systematic investigation of its origin and extent has been made. International law is an exception, the author thinks, because it has