Page:Decline of the West (Volume 2).djvu/99

Rh The future will be called upon to transpose our entire legal thought into alignment with our higher physics and mathematics. Our whole social, economic, and technical life is waiting to be understood, at long last, in this wise. We shall need a century and more of keenest and deepest thought to arrive at the goal. And the prerequisite is a wholly new kind of preparatory training in the jurist. It demands:

1. An immediate, extended, and practical experience in the economic life of the present.

2. An exact knowledge of the legal history of the West, with constant comparison of German, English, and "Roman" development.

3. Knowledge of Classical jurisprudence, not as a model for principles of present-day validity, but as a brilliant example of how a law can develop strong and pure out of the practical life of its time.

Roman law has ceased to be our source for principles of eternal validity. But the relation between Roman existence and Roman law-ideas gives it a renewed value for us. We can learn from it how we have to build up our law out of our experiences.