The character of the list of cases Fuchs criticizes adversely might create the impression that he is inspired with a hostile animus, and as a matter of fact that charge has been made against him. I believe that there is no ground for this. Fuchs gives high praise to the German judiciary in general104; and where he finds sociologically correct judgments he calls special attention to them with evident pleasure. All correct decisions were found without idolatry of the letter, "contrary to mechanical pandectology, which means in harmony with a feeling for justice unhampered by traditional routine, and with an understanding of the subject-matter."

As illustrations of this proposition I may myself call attention to the feeling of relief created by such decisions as that in which the court held the restrictions on their liability which the management of the Kiel Canal had, in the interest of the Treasury, imposed on ships passing through the canal to be illegal exploitation of a monopoly.105 Similarly, I call attention to a number of decisions in which various commercial abuses were held improper, such as the commingling of goods with others of inferior or worthless quality. In the matter of practice and procedure also, the Imperial Court has reaped its brightest laurels in those decisions which make for a thorough investigation of the facts, such as where it insists on the exercise of the duty of the judge to interrogate witnesses (section 139, Code of Civil Procedure)106; or when it carries on a persistent warfare against recurrent attempts of the lower courts to restrict the right of submitting evidence.107 Thereby the Court supported a truly sociological idea, to wit: the primary need of thoroughly mastering all the facts, against the resistance of legal formalism.

104 "G" p. 28, 8.

105 RGZ 62, 266; 68, 358.