Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/347

 10. BRYCE: ROME AND ENGLAND 333 France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, the traces of Roman dominion were never obliterated, and Roman law too, both through its traditions and through the writings which embody it, has always been a more potent factor than it ever was here. These countries have, moreover, borrowed more from each other than we have done from any one of them, except, per- haps, in the days when Normandy gave a Continental tinge to the immature feudality of England. And, secondly, both j Rome and England have extended their institutions over vast ! territories lying beyond their own limits. Each has been a conquering and ruling power, and the process by which each grew into a World State from being, the one a City and the other a group of small but widely scattered rural tribes, offers striking points of resemblance as well as of contrast. I might add that there are similarities in the character of the two nations, similarities to which their success in conquering and ruling is due. But, for the moment, it is rather to law and institutions than to character that I seek to direct the reader's attention. ^ Since the law of every country is the outcome and result of the economic and social conditions of that country as well as the expression of its intellectual capacity for dealing with these conditions, the causes which modify the law are usually to be sought in changes which have passed upon economic and social phenomena. When new relations between men arise, or when the old relations begin to pass into new forms, law is called in to adjust them. The part played by speculative theorists or scientific reformers who wish to see the law made more clear and rational is a relatively small factor in legal change, and one which operates only at rare moments. The process of development, if not wholly unconscious, is yet spontaneous and irregular. Alterations are made, not upon any general plan or scheme, but as and when the need for them becomes plain, or when it has at least become the inter- est of some ruling person or class to make them. ^ The relation of the general history, political, economic, and social, to changes in laws and institutions is best seen at certain definite epochs. It is indeed true that in nations which "^ have reached a certain stage of civilization the conditions of