In the following pages I have attempted to expose the radical errors of the theory referred to, and also to expound the. True theory of the law, which, though generally recognized by the jurists of other countries and former ages, seems, since the time of Austin, to have been lost to the profession in this country and England, and, indeed, to the English-speaking race generally. How far I have succeeded, it is not for me to say. But I may, at lea-st, claim for the work — whatever its merits or demerits in other respects — that it is a pioneer on the road that must be traveled before any improvement in the existing degenerate state of the law, and of its literature, can be looked for.