Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/626

 612 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the same in the Roman Empire. Indeed the world seldom realizes by how few persons it is governed. There is a sense in which power may be said to rest with the whole commu- nity, and there is also a sense in which it may be said, in some governments, to rest with a single autocrat. But in reality it almost always rests with an extremely small number of persons, whose knowledge and will prevail over or among the titular possessors of authority. Before we attempt to forecast the future of English law in India, let us cast a glance back at the general course of its history as compared with that of the law of Rome in the ancient world. VIII. Comparison of the Roman Law with English Law in India Rome grew till her law became first that of Italy, then that of civihzed mankind. The City became the World, Urbs became Orbis, to adopt the word-play which was once so famihar. Her law was extended over her Empire by three methods : — Citizenship was gradually extended over the provinces tlU at last all subjects had become citizens. Many of the principles and rules of the law of the City were established and diffused in the provinces by the action of Roman Magistrates and Courts, and especially by the Provincial Edict. The ancient law of the City was itself all the while amended, purged of its technicalities, and simplified in form, till it became fit to be the law of the World. Thus, when the law of the City was formally extended to the whole Empire by the grant of citizenship to all subjects, there was not so much an imposition of the conqueror's law upon the conquered as the completion of a process of fusion which had been going on for fully four centuries. The fusion was therefore natural; and because It was natural it was complete and final. The separation of the one great current of Roman law Into various channels, which began In the fifth century a. d. and has continued ever since*