ELEMENTARY AND HISTORICAL IN THE SCIENCE OF LAW. BY JAMES REDDIE, ESQ., ADVOCATE, LEGAL ASSESSOR TO THE CITY OF GLASGOW. LONDON: LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS. MDCCCXL. PREFACE. SOME apology may, perhaps, seem requisite, for a practical lawyer allotting any portion of his time to studies so much apart from the routine and technicalities of ordinary business, as those, which form the subject of the following inquiries. The author's original design was the composition of practical treatises on the principles of maritime and commercial law, national and international. But from his having devoted himself to the discharge of the duties of a provincial semi-judicial office, and from his consequent want of leisure, he was, in the former of those projects, fortunately for the public, anticipated by his friend, the present learned Professor of the Law of Scotland in the University of Edinburgh, enlarging his excellent treatise on Bankruptcy, into his still more valuable commentaries on the principles of Mercantile Jurisprudence. Although, however, the practical treatise, on the Maritime and Commercial law of this country, which he had contemplated, was, for the reason just alluded to, abandoned, the study of the general doctrines of law was continued by the author, at such intervals of leisure, frequently distant, as the multifarious duties of his official situation permitted; partly that he might keep himself up to the progress of juridical science, partly as a relief and relaxation from the labour, and tedium, of official and professional business. And these notes, as recently revised, are now submitted to that portion of the public, who take an interest in such matters; not, certainly, as containing, in refutation of the sarcastic remark of a French philosopher of the last century, "Une découverte en morale," not as exhibiting any extension of the boundaries of legal science, not as making pretensions to novelty or originality of thought, but simply, as calculated to induce the youth of the nation, destined to the study of the law, to take enlarged, and elevated, views of the important science, and art, to the cultivation, and practice, of which, they have devoted their talents and industry, and to lead and enable them to form for themselves, less vague, and more distinct and precise notions, and more just and correct opinions, than are frequently entertained, on such subjects, even in this comparatively enlightened age. As the following observations were thrown together, at different periods, and frequently at distant intervals, and as, on these separate occasions, one particular object was generally in view, and one train of thought was prevalent, the notes have assumed the shape of detached inquiries; and while the latter circumstance may be convenient, with a view to separate subsequent publication, it certainly has led to frequent repetitions of the same doctrines. But these, it is trusted, will be excused; as, upon revisal, it did not appear, the passages constituting such repetitions, could be struck out, without rendering the meaning, of what remained, obscure. And although they may each form a separate, or detached whole, the inquiries will perhaps be found, upon comparison, to form connected parts of one greater whole. GLASGOW, March, 1840. |