Savigny did not follow Kant on this point. He said that every act
of violence is unlawful, and seemed to consider protection of
possession a branch of protection to the person. /1/ But to this
it was answered that possession was protected against disturbance
by fraud as well as by force, and his view is discredited. Those
who have been contented with humble grounds of expediency seem to
have been few in number, and have recanted or are out of favor.
The majority have followed in the direction pointed out by Kant.
Bruns, an admirable writer, expresses a characteristic yearning
of the German mind, when he demands an internal juristic
necessity drawn from the nature of possession itself, and
therefore rejects empirical reasons. /2/ He finds the necessity
he seeks in the freedom of the human will, which the whole legal
system does but recognize [208] and carry out. Constraint of it
is a wrong, which must be righted without regard to conformity of
the will to law, and so on in a Kantian vein. /1/ So Gans, a
favorite disciple of Hegel, "The will is of itself a substantial
thing to be protected, and this individual will has only to yield
to the higher common will." /2/ So Puchta, a great master, "The
will which wills itself, that is, the recognition of its own
personality, is to be protected.
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