The older school looked askance at the young professor, who attempted to build up a system of jurisprudence based on natural justice.

This is the keynote of his famous work, Geist des römischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwicklung (The spirit of Roman law at the various stages of its development, 1852–1865).

Jhering's conception of jurisprudence was as a science to be utilized for the further advancement of the moral and social interests of mankind.

In 1868, Jhering accepted the chair of Roman Law at Vienna, where his lecture-room was not only crowded with regular students but also men of all professions and even high-ranking officials.

The social functions of the Austrian metropolis became wearisome, and Jhering gladly exchanged it for the repose of Göttingen, where he became professor in 1872.

That year, he had read a lecture in Vienna before an admiring audience, published under the title of Der Kampf um's Recht (1872; Eng.

The Kampf ums Recht shows the firmness of his character, the strength of his sense of justice, and his juristic method and logic: every responsible person owes a duty to himself to assert his rights.

A great feature of his lectures was his so-called Praktika, problems in Roman law, and a collection of these with hints for solution was published as early as 1847 under the title Civilrechtsfalle ohne Entscheidungen.

[5] His other works include the following: Beiträge zur Lehre vom Besitz, first published in the Jahrbücher für die Dogmatik des heutigen römischen und deutschen Privatrechts, and then separately; Der Besitzwille, and an article entitled Besitz in the Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften (1891), which aroused much controversy at the time, particularly on account of the opposition manifested to Savigny's conception of the subject.