Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/505

 U. ROBINSON: ANTICIPATIONS 491 If we contrast the legislation of the Commonwealth with that of Frederick the Great, or with that of the French Revolutionists, or even with our legislation for India, we are struck by its poverty of principle, by its abundance of anomalies. How shall we account for this? The English had more learning than thought. They were not sufficiently nor critically acquainted either with Roman Law or with Comparative Nomology. They were illuminated, not by Philosophy, but by a misconception of what had been the religion of the Hebrews. They were slightly instructed in Philology (as opposed to Latin Literature), still more slightly in Natural Science, Political Economy, and other sciences and quasi-sciences ancillary to jurisprudence. They had chaos before them, and they had not, except in Ireland, " a clean paper " to work upon. Such a fair field lay in Prussia,^ in France, in India, and lies in Russia now. We in England have the materials which they had, but better digested ; we have those sciences. Philology has redeemed Law from barbarism ^ ; Political Economy and Natural Science have supplied it with principles. No solicitor-gen- eral and chief justice would propose John Coke's theocratic reform of our statutes and leading cases. Not an Hale only, but ordinary students in our universities, read Roman Law by the hght of Roman History and the History of Philos- ophy.3 We look at the systems of the Hebrews, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the Swedes, not with the contracted vision of the Repubhcans, but comprehensively, as critics should. And yet — I mean, and therefore — we cannot sneer with Black- stone at the crude and abortive schemes for amending the laws devised in the times of confusion. "qui praebendam suscipit" [Du Cange] : and see Hamilton, "Discus- sions," (1853), pp. 344, 345: Phillimore. "Roman Law," pt. 1, c. 1: Doellinger, " Universities past and present." ing and learning law" (1667), and "Plan for rearranging the Corpus Juris" (1668); and see the lines beginning, "In Institutis comparo vo$ brutis," quoted by Lord Westbury, 1 Jur. Soc. Pap. 6 ; Phillimore, /. <?., pt. 2, c. 4: Gueterbock, "Bracton," c. 7.
 * See Carlyle, "Frederick," 11, 1; 16, 1, 2, 4, 8.
 * Cp. " praebendarius, qui praebet auxilium episcopo" [E. Coke],
 * Burnet, "Hale," pp. 17, 18: cp. Leibnitz, "New methods of teach-