This book, translated and adapted here for English-speaking readers, was orginally published in French in 1966. For more than thirty years, I have taught almost exclusively French law at the Law Faculty of the University of Tokyo. From 1961 to 1963 I was in Paris to extend my knowledge of French law, and during my stay there I had the opportunity to give a course in the Faculty of Law and Economics of the University of Paris aimed at initiating postgraduate students in the elements of Japanese law
