Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/21

 IN ANGLO-AMERICAN LEGAL HISTORY ————— 1. A PROLOGUE TO A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW

SUCH is the unity of all history that any one who endeavours to tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless web. The oldest utterance of English law that has come down to us has Greek words in it: words such as bishop, priest, and deacon. If we would search out the origins of Roman law, we must study Babylon: this at least was the opinion of the great Romanist of our own day. A statute of limitations must be set; but it must be arbitrary. The web must be rent; but, as we rend it, we may watch