The nature of a legal right is such that it is always a
definite interest, actually entertained by a person or a
community. For the protection and guaranty of these
interests, legal order expresses its commands and prohi-
bitions, and through this guaranty interests become
legal interests (legal rights). 1

Interests, considered as facts, arise directly from
egoism, and are nothing other than subjectively perceived
relations' (derived from necessity), between the person
feeling the necessity, and an object; that is, the object
for which the necessity exists and is felt, and through
which, by use or consumption, the necessity, actually or

1 The expression "legal relation" (RechtsvtrhOltnis) means such a relation
as is governed by legal order. According to Windscheid, there are not only
such legal relations as are governed by legal order, but also such as are
created by it. See Windscheid, Pand., sec. 37. It would appear, however,
that there can be no legal relation which is not at the same time based on a
condition or relation of fact, inasmuch as there are no interests which are
first created by legal order and which did not already exist in fact. There
are no legal relations without interests. The expression "case" (inlaw) (Rechts-
faU) means a concrete legal relation between a definite subject and object.
"Legal institution" (Rechtsinstitut) means the totality of rules which elevate
a condition of fact to a legal relation, as a theoretically derived abstraction.
Thus one speaks of the legal institution of marriage, by which is meant
the totality of rules through which the actual conditions of interest which
lie at the basis of wedlock attain legal protection — that is to say, become
legal relations. Compare Windscheid, Pand., sec. 37.
