Eduard Gans (March 22 1797 – May 5, 1839) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
jurist.
He was born in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
of prosperous
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish parents. He studied law first at the Friedrich Wilhelm University,
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
, then at Göttingen, and finally at Heidelberg, where he attended
G. W. F. HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism, and along with Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment....
's lectures, and became thoroughly imbued with the principles of Hegel's
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
. In 1820, after taking his doctor's degree, he returned to Berlin as a lecturer.
Eduard Gans (March 22 1797 – May 5, 1839) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
jurist.
He was born in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
of prosperous
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish parents. He studied law first at the Friedrich Wilhelm University,
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
, then at Göttingen, and finally at Heidelberg, where he attended
G. W. F. HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism, and along with Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment....
's lectures, and became thoroughly imbued with the principles of Hegel's
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
. In 1820, after taking his doctor's degree, he returned to Berlin as a lecturer. In 1825 he was converted to
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
, and the following year was appointed extraordinary, and in 1828 ordinary, professor in the Berlin faculty of
lawLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
.
At this period the historical school of
jurisprudenceJurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal philosophers, hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the first...
was coming to the front, and Gans, his Hegelian tendencies predisposing him to treat law historically, applied the method to one special branch -- the right of succession. His great work,
Erbrecht in weltgeschichtlicher Entwicklung (1824, 1825, 1829 and 1835), is of permanent value, not only for its extensive survey of facts, but for the admirable manner in which the general theory of the slow evolution of legal principles is presented.
In 1830, and again in 1835, Gans visited Paris, and formed an intimate acquaintance with the leaders of literary culture and criticism there. The liberality of his views, especially on political matters, drew upon Gans the displeasure of the
PrussiaPrussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history...
n government, and his course of lectures on the history of the last fifty years (published as
Vorlesungen über d. Geschichte d. letzten fünfzig Jahre, Leipzig, 1833-1834) was prohibited. He died at Berlin.
Other works are a treatise on the fundamental laws of property (
Über die Grundlage des Besitzes, Berlin, 1829), a portion of a systematic work on the Roman civil law (
System des römischen Zivilrechts, 1827), and a collection of his miscellaneous writings (
Vermischte Schriften. 1832). Gans edited the
Philosophie der Geschichte in Hegel's Werke, and contributed a preface.