expression for an organized whole is, as is correctly observed by Dr. Franck, found in Universitas,-a term almost exclusively applied to the leading seats of learning, on account of its exquisite adaptation to express the due organization of a school of mental and moral discipline. Dr. Franck's view of law having proceeded upon an erroneous, or rather peculiar basis, we cannot be surprised that a technical reference to his first conception affects, and somewhat distorts, his subsequent reasoning. Thus he describes action to be a change of relation. But this is merely the effect, and not the type, of active power. He expresses himself with a keener appreciation of the philosophic, as well as of the popular, notion of law, when he states subsequently that a change of certain relations is made according to invariable laws. Law is, in short, a phase of active power, common to certain phenomena. A law of relations, as existing in place, is but an expression for order, for the sublime or the beautiful, and is widely different from the essential signification of the term law itself.

Having stated law to consist in a change of relations, the author proceeds to apply his theory to social intercourse. Each man is the subject of an infinite variety of relations both towards the Deity and towards other men. These relations, moreover, are themselves perpetually undergoing change. One class of these changes, barter, is selected by Dr. Franck as the medium of applying his views. Cases of barter, permutatio præstationum, are continually occurring. Here we find Dr. Franck again expressing himself according to his peculiar notion of law as denoting a case, rather than a law, of state, when he says Justitia in rebus semper fit, in hominibus injustitia cogitari potest. The totality of being may, indeed, be ultimately expressed as a system of laws; but all such extremely transcendental logic is somewhat out of place in a juristical treatise having any pretensions to be considered practical. The author is too prone, perhaps, to travel out of the ordinary arena of a text-writer. Thus he defines Prestatio respondens, or obligation, to be, "ea quâ supplementum entis

mutue perficitur secundum Dei voluntatem." This exposition is obviously a mere petitio principii awkwardly expressed, if it be anything more than the truism that a natural is a religious obligation. Our author considers Jus per se to be perfect; but municipal or civil law-Jus derivatum-to be imperfect. This is true only so far as Jus is concerned objectively. In its subjective aspect, in its relation to the mind either of the legislator or the jurist, positive law is far more easily comprehended than the natural law; for positive precepts are nothing more than statements of facts, embodying the idea of a human or at least a derived authority prescribing their occurrence. The author, at the close of his exposition of Jus, arrives at a conclusion which is perfectly absurd-Sane id quod fit, quoniam semper cum voluntate Dei fit, semper Jus est si spectamus Deum, sed si spectamus homines singulos summa injuria esse potest. Here, certainly, is a compendious, but we think an infelicitous, explanation of the origin of Evil. How much better does Butler describe the will of the Deity when he states it to be conditional and not absolute. It is thus incapable of being contradicted, and yet justly annexes rewards and punishments to certain actions. The freedom of the will is another question which has its own proof, viz., experience.

Dr. Franck does not highly approve of the definition of Jus in the Institutes as "ars aqui et boni." This is, however, we think, a good definition of Jus considered as equivalent to Jurisprudentia. It was not, indeed, so meant by Tribonian, who subsequently gives a definition of Jurisprudentia itself. Jus, however, is most usually, if not always, used to denote the science of morality, or the ethics of law, rather than the application of either natural or positive precepts. Grotius' notion of Jus as a dictate of right reason, &c., is as good a point of view as any other whence to contemplate the possible analysis of a single idea, which cannot be resolved into any more ultimate elements. Kant's definition of Jus as circumscriptio libertatis singulorum ut omnes coexistere possint, exemplifies

an error of a different kind, and in the fundamental conception which it embodies coincides somewhat closely with Dr. Franck's view of law as a state of relations. Prior to the time of Hartley the true theory of moral sentiments was completely obscured by their inapt exposition as forms of the understanding. He and his successors of the same school have conclusively shown that right and duty apply to phases of human conduct that are taken cognizance of by a faculty distinct from reason, though of course inseparably connected with it.

It is not strange that the relations of bottomry to the first principles of jurisprudence, or Jus per se, should have attracted the attention of our author. The legitimation of bottomry being an exception to the anti-usury code of the mediæval age, difficult cases of bottomry could not well be determined without a reference to the more recondite principles of law. Indeed, the whole maritime code is mainly based upon the Jus gentium, considered according to its definition in the Institutes as consisting of those elements of prescribed duty common to the civil codes of all nations-quod naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit. It is in this sense that we are to understand the saying of the Emperor Antoninus: Ego quidem sum dominus terræ ; lex autem maris. The laws of the Hanse Towns have been cited as authorities of more or less weight in our Admiralty Courts; and there can be no doubt that if a point in bottomry new to English law was to be discussed in our Admiralty Courts to-morrow, the Institutes, or even any continental code, provided that it was not professedly based upon local customs, could be referred to for information of value. There is, in short, a common law of the sea, but, unlike the common law of the land, it is to be found in general customs, almost all of which may be readily deduced from the first principles of justice. A statement of the relation of bottomry to Jus per se, was, therefore, a very appropriate introduction to a treatise aiming at a philosophic review of the various maritime codes on this subject.

The author when treating of bottomry secundum Jus per se,

describes it as comprising, first, contracts of bottomry properly so called; secondly, as including contracts of respondentia; and thirdly, as another name for any wager on the issue of the adventure. The curious reader will find three forms of bonds of this third sort in the appendix to the treatise of the Dominion of the Sea and Body of Sea Law.* Dr. Franck notices a fourth class of quasi bottomry contracts, such, for instance, as a loan for agricultural purposes dependent for its repayment solely upon the proceeds of the crop. This sort of loan was probably not so rare during the period when the laws against usury were in operation as they are at the present day. He also distinguishes between an ordinary loan (bodmeria voluntaria) and general and particular average costs (bodmeria rei pigneratæ causâ necessaria). There is no essential distinction, however, between these descriptions of loan, all of them being, ex vi terminorum, dependent for repayment upon the issue of the adventure. A general average expenditure, as distinguished from a general average sacrifice, is no doubt very different from a bottomry loan. But a reference to such a description of expenditure being completely outside the scope of a treatise on bottomry, the author could not have meant to allude to such.

The author discusses the politico-economic relations of bottomry both in point of justice and utility. He refutes the current opinion that the interest on a bottomry loan can be greater than if the repayment of the principal were insured by a separate contract. We are disposed to think that where the lender is his own insurer, the maritime interest ought to be even less than if a third party intervened. For, although the rate of profit is cæteris paribus the same in all branches of commerce, yet, as the lender in bottomry has to exercise a certain scrutiny before granting the loan, this trouble suffices also to let him know for every other purpose the degree and nature of the risk. He can, therefore, insure against the hazard at less cost than a third party not already possessed of the necessary information. The difference, however, as to the * P. 659, &c.

rate of interest in both cases cannot be considerable. It was owing, perhaps, to a mistaken view of the nature of this difference in the rate of interest as much as to a concern for the interest of the owner that the legal doctrine was estalished, that the master is not to borrow on bottomry if he can raise the necessary funds by any other means.

Dr. Franck is of opinion that, according to first principles, or, as he prefers to express it, secundum Jus per se, the master ought not, before contracting a loan on bottomry, either to consult the crew or any consular or judicial authority. Such a circuitous proceeding appears to our author to be unnecessary, and calculated to weaken the master's authority. We do not by any means coincide with Dr. Franck in this opinion. It appears, indeed, to be supported by the inutility of such a proceeding in the case of a general average sacrifice. When a sudden and unusual peril threatens to destroy both ship and cargo, it is no time, we admit, for the master to hold a general consultation with his crew. But a bottomry loan raised in port is a very different matter, and the opinions of the most experienced of the crew ought, we think, to be taken before it is contracted. Such a course of proceeding could not weaken the authority of the master, for he is not virtute officii competent to contract a bottomry loan unless it is indispensable. The consent of the crew would, therefore, be a security both to the master and lender. Under the heading de debitore bodmeria, the author discusses the question whether the master can, virtute officii, contract a loan on bottomry. The owners are, as a general rule, bound by all contracts of the master for which his office affords the presumptive authority, even though, in point of fact, it do not extend to such. Molloy, book ii., chap. 2, sec. 14; Boucher v. Lawson, Rep. Temp. Hardwicke, p. 85; Story on Agency, chap. 6, sec. 116. The leading Continental States have adopted the same rule, qualified only by a few limitations. Roccu's Not., 11 to 18 inclusively; Not. 26, 27, 28; Not. 49, 65; Guidon, chap. 18, art. 4, and Cleirac's Com. thereon; French Ordinance, liv. 2, tit. 8; Des Proprietaires de