Abstract

Two developments have been of crucial significance to create the today's relation of theoretical (scientific) jurisprudence and the practical pursuit of law:1. The process of forming a jurisprudence basing on scientific methods around 1800. This process is particularly based on the following epistemological changes:(a) The late 18th century gave birth to the idea of a system of science as an unchangeable context of science in abstracto. Therefore the practical application of parts of this system appeared no longer as an independent science. (b) Besides the late 18th century gave birth to the distinction between scientific ability (reason/“Verstand”) and practical ability (judgement/“Urteilskraft”). (c) Finally the late 18th century established criteria of a scientific method — necessity, reasoning, systematics —, which the practical application could not satisfy. Jurisprudence (now: legal science/“Rechtswissenschaft”) absorbed these epistemological changes in the late 18th century and regarded itself as a science. Therefore the legal science dismissed the “applied jurisprudence” that is to say the practical pursuit of law (that had been recognized as a part of legal scholarship in former times). 2. The change in the relation of academic and practical education of lawyers around and after 1800: The practical education was dislodged from the universities and found its place in the practical judicial training after the first state examination (“Referendarzeit”). This “two‐step‐education” was established first in Prussia and since 1879 everywhere in Germany.