“Philosophy is a battle … to show the fly the way out of the fly bottle.” Wittgenstein

Introduction to Jurisprudence, by the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of London, is an important work by a widely read author which should leave its mark, for better or worse, on all subsequent textbooks of Jurisprudence published in this country. In the breadth of the literature drawn on; in the attempt to evolve a textbook for students from a combination of readings and commentary; in its limitation of topics, it explores new ground. Its incursions into contemporary philosophy make it improbable that a textbook on Jurisprudence will ever again be attempted in this country by a lawyer who does not also claim to be a philosopher.

Professor Jerome Hall, in his Readings in Jurisprudence (1938), omitted the traditional analyses of such particular subjects as property, ownership, tort and crime, as better left to the specialists in those subjects. Professor Edwin Patterson, in his Jurisprudence—Men and Ideas of the Law (1953), went one further and cut out the analysis of rights. This example is followed by Professor Lloyd, who is thus left only with sections on “Nature of Jurisprudence” and “Meaning of Law,” eight sections on the various theories of law and schools of writers, and a section on “Judicial Process.” Sore as is the need for the pruning of Jurisprudence as an examination subject it is suggested that this carries the process a little too far. It is based on no intelligible principle.

The Charter Rolls of the thirteenth century are not solely concerned with Royal grants. They contain a large number of conveyances made by the King's subjects. These conveyances, or charters, owe their preservation here, as a rule, to the fact that they were submitted to the King for his inspection and confirmation. Many of them are quite complicated examples of conveyancing, replete with descriptions of the land concerned, of the estate granted, and of the services or consideration reserved by the grantor. But perhaps their most striking feature is the list of witnesses with which each charter concludes.

The Constitution of the Republic of India came into operation on January 26, 1950. The doctrine of equality before the law is contained in Article 14 of the Constitution which declares:

“The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.”

1. The concept of an agent's “usual” authority is important in ascertaining the extent of the agent's actual and apparent authority.

2. The contention that in English law a principal can be liable in contract for the acts of an agent exceeding the latter's actual and apparent authority as agent depends on a statement of principle by Wills J. in Watteau v. Fenwick. This statement is supported neither by the previous cases nor by Wills J.'s reasoning.

3. Edmunds v. Bushell & Jones, Watteau v. Fenwick and Kinahan & Co. Ltd. v. Parry are all cases in which the agent was held out by the principal as having the authority of a principal and owner of a business; as these cases rest on apparent ownership the principal should be merely precluded from denying that the agent is owner of the assets of the business, and these cases cannot be justified in so far as they impose a more extensive personal liability on the true principal and owner.

4. Although a particular managing director of a company may have a “usual” authority, he does not have a “usual” authority which is common to all other managing directors of all other companies.