Even in the most highly formalized systems of jurisprudence the rules and practices of the law cannot be entirely separated from the fundamental conceptions of law underlying them. The legal systems of France, The Netherlands and Germany have not been formalized to so great an extent that there is neither occasion nor opportunity for the application of the law to be conditioned by concepts derived from juridical theory. Duguit and Geny, Krabbe, and Kohler and Stammler, in their various works, have made this quite clear. In Anglo-American law the fictions so abundantly found are often no more than concrete formulations of abstract fundamental concepts which judges have thought to be valid and consistent with policy and which they could not conveniently introduce into the law in any other way. That fundamental conceptions of the law may affect its development more than their logical consistency warrants has been amply illustrated in the common law, equity, and American constitutional law. What is true of well-developed systems of jurisprudence is no less true of international law. Fundamental conceptions have probably had a greater influence here, since theologic and scholastic philosophies explain many of the rules of modern practice, and the rules of current practice owe their very existence, in large measure, to the reconciliaation of the philosophical concepts of the State, sovereignty and independence with the conception of a community of nations and a rule of law.
Objective Imputation and Legal Causation in Anglo-American Law