General Preface

It's well known in the academic community that the Commercial Press has a long tradition of publishing books on Legal science. During the period of Republic of China （1912—1949）, most of the works and text books on legal science were published by the Commercial Press, only a few of them were published by Shanghai Edition and Translation Agency of Legal Science or Shanghai Dadong Publishing House. Especially the publishing of some classical works, such as on Evolution of Laws, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, Public Laws and Private Laws,the History of Laws, Theory of Constitution, History of the Laws in European Continents, Civil Law and Socialism were all undertaken by the Commercial Press.

Now, the executors of Commercial Press, with great foresight, are seeking to strengthen the publishing of the works on the study of laws, and trying to devote more to the prosperity of legal science and the progress of the career of ruling of law by more and better acade-mic works. One of their measures is to publish a set of books named “Jurisprudential Library”.

Actually, several sets of “library” on legal science have been published in our country, what should be unique to this set of “Jurisprudential Library”? It reminded me of Gu Yanwu's（1613—1682） famous saying which has been quoted by Cheng Shude（1876—1944） in Jiu Chao Lv Cao （Collection and Complication of the Laws in the Nine Dynasties）. Gu Yanwu was the great scholar of Confucianism in late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. He defined the value of a book like this: “the subject covered by the book has not been studied by our predecessors, and it is necessary to our descendents”. According to this principal, he created the famous work Ri Zhi Lu （Notes on Knowledge Accumulated Day by Day）.

Mr.Gu's words includes the following two points: the fruit of study must have the value of fulfilling the academic blanks; the object of research must be the significant question that our descendants cannot detour or omit, that means even if we didn't touch them, the descendants have to face them sooner or later. The two levels of the meaning expressed the fundamental pursuit of academy: originality, and this is the conception and purpose of our compiling this set of “Jurisprudential Library”.

As for the requirement of choosing subjects, my opinion can be articulated like this: Ⅰ.All the subjects in this library have not been touched in our country, so they have the value of fulfilling the academic blanks; Ⅱ.The scholars, no matter at home and or abroad are interested in these subjects, but they have not published systematic and concentrated results; Ⅲ.All the sub-subjects included in the subjects chosen or the initial results have been published in the publication which is of high quality at home or abroad; Ⅳ.The subjects chosen should have comparatively high value of historical data, they can provide basic materials for the further research.

The law is the perspective of human hearts, reflection of their will, crystallization of their wisdom and the norms of their action. In western countries, because of the long tradition of ruling of law, law, the primary standard regulating people's conducts, is in a high position, and the study of law is also prosperous. But,in China, the rampancy of legal nihilism had been lasting for 2000 years, consequently, law is in a low position, and the study of law is also weak. Until now, the spring of legal science has just arrived. However, spring is a sowing season, and a season full of hopes and wishes.

The fresh bud in spring will surely be thickly hung with fruits; the little creeks will coverage into endless sea. I hope “Jurisprudential Library” can make great contribution to the academic accumulation of the area of Chinese legal science by it's originality; I also heartily hope the colleagues in the area of legal study can award their participation and love to the complication and publication of “Jurisprudential Library” and make it a wonderful window showing the theoretical frontier results in the area of legal research.

We are not mature enough

We are keeping on exploring and seeking

He Qinhua

In the Research Center of Legal History
East China University of Politics and Law，Shanghai，P.R.C.
May 1st,2004