ose at a given moment. As for every rule of law, it may
either be remembered or conjectured that it went into effect under such
or such circumstances. As for many customs, it may be remembered that
they were introduced at a given moment; and the simplest comparisons of
the facts in different times or different places would show how society,
as a whole, and in its character of being an aggregation of different
classes, had taken and took continuously various forms.

The reciprocal action of the different factors, without which not even
the simplest narration would be possible, like the more or less exact
information upon the origins and the variations of the factors
themselves, called for research and thought more than did the
constructive narration of those great historians who are real artists.
And, in effect, the problems which arise spontaneously from the data of
history, combined with other theoretical elements, gave birth to the
different so-called practical disciplines, which in a more or less rapid
fashion and with varying success, have developed from the ancients up to
our days, from ethics to the philosophy of law, from politics to
sociology, from law to economics.

Now with the rise and formation of so many disciplines, through the
inevitable division of labor, _points of view_ have been multiplied out
of all proportion. It is certain that for the first and immediate
analysis of the multiple aspects of the social _complexus_, a long labor
of partial abstraction was necessary: which has always inevitably
resulted in one-sided views. This can be shown, in a clearer and more
evident manner than for any other domain, in that of law and its
various generalizations, including the philosophy of law. By reason of
these abstractions, which are inevitable in particular and empirical
analysis, and by the effect of the division of labor, the different
sides and different manifestations of the social _complexus_ were, from
time to time, fixed and stratified in general conceptions and
categories. The works, the effects, the emanations, the effusions of
human activity,--law, economic forms, principles of conduct,
etc.,--were, so to speak, translated and transformed into laws, into
imperatives and into principles which remained placed above man himself.
And from time to time it has been necessary to discover anew this simple
truth: that the only permanent and sure fact, that is to say, the only
datum from which departs and t