私法教学改革与未来的民法典编纂

Methods for Scientific Codification

现行私法教学有三大疏漏,即想当然、零散、不完备。理应把法律视为社会事实的结果,运用观察法学习法律史、实定法以及比较民事立法这三门基础课程。未来的法典编纂应该根据某些根本原则形成一套编纂机制,既允许私法为适应(而不是反抗或屏蔽)社会变迁而作出调整,同时又为法律制度赋予《拿破仑法典》时代的那种稳固性。我们所倡导的根本原则和指导理念,不是源自或多或少有着形而上学性质的理论和思辨,而是来自我们对当今社会的政治经济状况及其所施加的现代立法趋势的观察。法典化宜根据制度而非根据主题展开。法国肩负着完成《德国民法典》未竟事业的使命。

The present system of teaching private law has three defects of being empirical,disjointed,and incomplete.We ought to regard the laws as the results of social facts,and use the method of observation to study the fundamental courses such as 'Legal History','Positive Law' and 'Comparative Civil Legislation'.It is preferable to work out a system of codification upon underlying principles,permitting of the adjustment of private law to social change,without opposing it or concealing it,and yet conferring upon legal institutions the same security as under the Napoleonic Code.The underlying principles and governing ideas which we have advocated are not derived from theories and speculations which are more or less metaphysical,but from an observation of the political and economic conditions of present society and of the trend imparted by them to modern legislation.The codification needs to be enforced according to institution rather than subject.To France it falls to complete a work which the German Civil Code but partly realized.