Rudolf von Jhering's scientific OEuvre broke boundaries in two respects: national borders in the sense of a legal transfer, which extended far beyond the borders of Europe and has to date only been explored to a limited extent, and disciplinary boundaries between law, sociology and cultural anthropology. Jhering's thorough examination of the interrelations between law and real life, especially in his late work "Law as a Means to an End", and its influence on the pioneers of legal sociology, has been scarcely explored so far. The same applies to the fact that, he himself was in fact influenced by various natural sciences, especially chemistry, which had been revolutionised around 1850.
