§ 40. The Conception of a Juristic Act and the Kinds thereof § 41. Requisites of a Juristic Act § 42. Motive, as affecting Juristic Acts . § 108. Hereditary Succession; its Foundation and Conception § 109. Delatio and Acquisitio of the Hereditas INTRODUCTION In view of the enactment of the German Civil Code, which came into force on January 1, 1900, Professor Sohm has found it necessary to make extensive alterations in his Institutes of Roman Law, and to add a considerable amount of new matter. In order that English readers may properly understand the nature and purpose of the principal alterations and additions, it will be desirable to give a short account of the past and present systems of legal education in Germany. There is a considerable difference between the English and the German systems of academic legal instruction. The practice of the English Universities has been to confine the teaching of law to a comparatively limited number of selected subjects. The German system of academic instruction, on the other hand, has always embraced the whole range of law: Private Law, the various departments of Public Law, viz. Civil Procedure and Bankruptcy, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Constitutional (and Administrative) Law, as well as International Law and Ecclesiastical Law. The student is thus furnished with all the legal knowledge he requires in the exercise of his profession. But whereas each of the several departments of Public Law was comprehensively dealt with in a special course of lectures of its own, Private Law (i. e. the Law of Property and the Law of Family Relations) was not uniformly dealt with in a single course of lectures, but formed the subject-matter of two distinct courses, both covering the same ground, viz. the lectures on 'the Pandects' and the lectures on 'German Private Law' ('Deutsches Privatrecht'). This twofold division was connected with the twofold origin of the |