Three theories of application of law obtain in the legal science of today. The theory which has the largest following among practitioners and in dogmatic exposition of the law is analytical. It assumes a complete body of law with no gaps and no antinomies, given authority by the state at one stroke and so to be treated as if every item was of the same date as every other. If the law is in the form of a code, its adherents apply the canons of genuine interpretation and ask what the several code provisions mean as they stand, looked at logically rather than historically. They endeavor to find the pre-appointed code pigeonhole for each concrete case, to put the case in hand into it by a purely logical process and to formulate the result in a judgment. If the law is in the form of a body of reported decisions, they assume that those decisions may be treated as if all rendered at the same time and as containing implicitly whatever is necessary to the decision of future causes which they do not express. They may define conceptions or they may declare principles. The logically predetermined decision is contained in the conception to which the facts are referred or involved in the principle within whose scope the facts fall. A purely logical process, exactly analogous to genuine interpretation of a legislative rule, will yield the appropriate conception from given premises or discover the appropriate principle from among those which superficially appear to apply. Application is merely formulation in a judgment of the result obtained by analysis of the case and logical development of the premises contained in the reported decisions.