Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/178

 164 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S differs substantially both from religious and philosophical teaching, and from the injunctions of the most minute arbi- trary directions. But it is not true, as has been superficially argued, that a system of Law which, like the English, is based on custom, is merely licensed anarchy. On the con- trary, it acts somewhat severely on all abnormal persons, whether they be, like thieves and murderers, mere laggards in the, march of civilisation, or, on the other hand, men with / advanced ideas, who make their fellow-men uncomfortable by too rapid progress. To use a very simple simile, drawn from the practice of the examiner, Law, on this principle, aims at reproducing the best works of the second class, leav- / ing out of account the geniuses in the first rank, and the dullards in the third. I This conception of Law, it must be admitted, offers to I the ruler of a country which adopts it a somewhat humble j position. He cannot pose as the Heaven-sent deviser of an ideal system, which he imposes at the sword's point upon a stupid and ignorant people. But his task is, for all that, an important one, none the less important that it makes no superhuman demands upon the intellect. To put it briefly, he has to collect, to harmonise, and to formulate. It is only in quite recent years that we have known how these humble processes went on in England during the Mfetime of Edward. For the first two he can hardly claim the credit; the last has won him the title of the English Justinian. I One of the essential conditions of Law is uniformity. But I this condition did not exist in the England of the early / twelfth century, when the royal justices first began those circuits of the shires which have been one of the most im- portant features in the domestic history of the country for the last seven hundred years. These justices found that each county, almost each district, had its own local customs, differing, ever so slightly perhaps, but still differing, from the customs of its neighbours. As more and more cases came before the royal courts, as more and more juries delivered their verdicts in answer to royal enquiries, more and more I and more did the royal officials come to know of the customs
 * clear did this truth become. But, on the other hand, more