DEVELOPMENT DURING PAST CENTURY 475 



eration, even after 1781. All of this has been accomplished in fifty 

 years, and the prospect of peace and prosperity for the whole world 

 as a result of its further development is most promising. 



V. Codification 



The progress that has been described is well indicated by the 

 course of the movement for codification. 



Just a hundred years ago the first of the French codes was adopted. 

 These codes had two purposes, first to unify the law, which, before the 

 adoption of the codes, had differed in every province and every com- 

 mune of France; second, to simplify it so that every one might know 

 the law. The first purpose appealed most strongly to lawyers and 

 to statesmen. The second appealed to the people generally. What- 

 ever reason weighed most with Napoleon, there is no doubt which 

 made the codes permanent. The people of France, and of the other 

 countries where they were introduced, hailed them as creating a law 

 for the common people. They persisted in most countries where 

 they had been introduced by Napoleon's arms in spite of the later 

 change of government ; whether the country on which they had been 

 imposed was Flemish, German, Swiss, or Italian, it retained the codes 

 after the defeat of Napoleon, and they have remained almost the sole 

 relic of his rule, the only governmental affairs which retain his name, 

 and, except Pan-Germanism, the only lasting monument of his labor. 

 They persisted because they were in consonance with the individ- 

 ualistic feelings of the times. 



Bentham urged codification on England for the same reason. 



" That which we have need of (need we say it?) is a body of law, 

 from the respective parts of which we may each of us, by reading 

 them or hearing them read, learn, and on each occasion know, what 

 are his rights and what his duties." 



The code, in his plan, was to make every man his own lawyer; and 

 the spirit of individualism could go no farther than that. Conserva- 

 tive England would not take the step which Bentham urged; but 

 a code prepared by one of his disciples upon his principles was finally 

 adopted (by belated action) in Dakota and California, and w r as 

 acclaimed as doing away with the science of law and the need of 

 lawyers. 



The result of the adoption of the French codes and the Benthamite 

 codes has been far from what was hoped and expected. They were 

 to make the law certain and thus diminish litigation and avoid judge- 

 made law. That litigation has not been diminished by codification 

 can easily be shown by comparing the number of reported cases in 

 the states which have adopted the codes and in states which have 

 not adopted the codes. As a result of this comparison, we find that 



