the 'Spirit of the People.' Montesquieu nuiintained that the laws of a people were so particular to it that it was the merest chance of the laws ofOne people could fit another.'' Lord C'ooper of CAilross e\en maintained that the law was the spirit of a people and that Scotland would cease to he a people if it lost its national law.'^ And \ irgile Rossel who prepared the h'rench translation of the Swiss ci\ il code could claim "we intended to work according to the sense of the national spirit, raising the moral le\el of our law so far as possible, and we would he happy if it was said one day of the Swiss civil code that it is, to some e.xtent, the written internal moral sentiment. .And remember, this is the ci\ il code that was taken o\ er almost in its entirety b\ furkev in 1926. Are we to believe that the written internal moral sentiment of the Swiss was that of the d'urks some decades later.^ U 1 > More urgently, a re\olutionar\' gov ernment may insist that its law is not just the law of a gov ernment, but corresponds to some higher, if secular, authority or ideal. I could giv e main' e.xamples, for instance of the former Sov iet Union,"' but here I will restrict mvself to Nazi law. In producing a synopsis of the theoretical ideals 1 have relied mainlv^ on the writings of the two most prominent Nazi legal 13 De I'Esprit des Lois (first published in 1748), book 1, chapter 1. 14 'The Scottish Legal Tradition,' in Lord Cooper, SelectedPapers, 1922-54 (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. i72ff., at p. 199. 15 Amtliches Stenographisches Bulletin der Schweizerischen Bundesversammiung, Nationirat (1905), p. 438. 16 But for Soviet law see, e.g., the opening paragraph of article 1 of the civil code of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic: "The Civil Code of the Russian Soviet Federated Republic regulates property and related personal non-property relationships, in order to create the material - technological foundation of communismand to satisfy ever more fully the material and spiritual needs of citizens. In those cases specified by law, this Code also regulates other personal non-property relationships." (translation by Whitmore Gray). Also see the opening article of the 1977 Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of the whole people, expressingthe will and interest of the workers, peasants, and intelligensia, the working people of all the nations and nationalities of the country." And article 2 opens: "All power in the USSR belongs to the people." 171
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