81 



COMMITTEE OF A LUNATIC. 



COMMON MEASURE. 





report anything more than the evidence taken by it, and as the nume- 

 rical superiority of the members of the lower House gave them an 

 advantage distasteful to the Lords, the custom has sunk into desuetude, 

 and there has been no joint committee during the last century and a 

 half. In cases in which a joint committee would formerly have been 

 appointed, the method that has been taken is for separate committees 

 to be appointed by the two Houses, with power to communicate with 

 each other. (Hatsell's ' Precedents,' and J. E. May's ' Law, Privileges, 

 Proceedings, and Usage of Parliament.') 

 COMMITTEE OF A LUNATIC. [LUNACY.] 

 COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY,.Comite' de Salut Publique, 

 the name given to a committee of members of the National Conven- 

 tion, who exercised a dictatorial power in France for about fifteen 

 months, which is known by the name of the Reign of Terror. After 

 the successful insurrection of the 31st of May, 1793, when the Moun- 

 tain or terrorist party in the Convention gained the victory, by means 

 of the armed multitudes of Paris, over their fellow-deputies of the 

 Gironde party, Robespierre and his friends monopolised all the power 

 of the Committee of Public Safety. " The committee concentrated 

 itself at last in three of its members : Robespierre, who was the real 

 chief, though half-concealed from view ; and Couthon and St. Just. 

 There was perfect unanimity among these three down to the moment 

 of then- fall ; and there is reason to believe that they had resolved to 

 perpetuate their power by establishing a supreme council of three 

 consuls, in which Robespierre would have had the perpetual pre- 

 sidency, with the departments of justice, exterior, and finance ; 

 Couthon, that of the interior ; and St. Just, the war department." 

 (' Histoire pittoresque de la Convention Nationale,' par un Ex-Conven- 

 tional, 4 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1833.) After a career in which every step 

 was marked with blood, the national feeling revolted against such a 

 tyranny, gome of Robespierre's old associates, whom it is said he was 

 about to sacrifice, impeached him before the Convention, and he and 

 his few friends found themselves alone, without any military man to 

 support them. Even in the Committee of Public Safety, Collot 

 d'Herbois and Billaud Varennes turned against Robespierre. On the 

 9th Thermidor, July 28, 1794, Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just 

 were executed. 



A reaction had now taken place in the popular opinion, which pur- 

 sued the agents of the proscriptions at the bar of the Convention, when 

 their former accomplices, being obliged to give them up, endeavoured 

 to throw the whole blame upon them. Many of them were guillotined, 

 and several of them, among whom were Barriere, Collot d'Herbois, and 

 Billaud Varennes, were transported to Cayenne. 



COMMODORE (commeiidador), in the royal navy, is the officer 

 commanding a small number of ships of war, when detached for any 

 particular service from the fleet. In the British navy, commodores 

 are of two classes : Those of the first are distinguished by a red, broad, 

 swallow-tailed pendant at the mast-head ; those of the second class, by 

 a blue one. The former are considered flag-officers, and rank and com- 

 mand next to a rear-admiral, and ore allowed to change their broad 

 pendant from one ship to another as occasion may require. The 

 service rank of a commodore is equal to that of a brigadier-general in 

 the army. The title is sometimes given to the senior captain in a 

 fleet of merchant ships. 



In the French service, the commander of a detachment of ships is 

 called Chef d'Eacadre ; and in the time of Louis XIII. the commander- 

 general of the fleet was so called when he had not the rank of 

 admiral. 



COMMON LAW. In its most general signification the expression 

 common law denotes the ordinary law of any country ; when used in 

 this sense it is called common, as prevailing generally over a whole 

 country, in contradistinction to jiartici/lur laws, the operation of which 

 is confined to a limited district. In this sense the phrase is used in 

 many countries which have adopted the civil law. But in England 

 the definition is scarcely applicable, the common law with us com- 

 prising many particular laws, confined to districts, such as the law of 

 gavelkiud, the laws of stannaries, and the laws of every manor in the 

 country. For in English jurisprudence by the common law is under- 

 stood that body of customs, rules, and maxims which have acquired 

 their binding power and the force of laws in consequence of long 

 usage, recognised by judicial decision, in contradistinction to the law 

 contained in statutes now extant. The common law is therefore called, 

 in early periods of our legal history, the " lex ct consuetudo Anglia:," 

 and at the present day the appellation is always used to denote the 

 " lex non scripta," in opposition to the " leges scriptse," or statutes. In 

 addition to customs and usages, whose particular origin is unknown, 

 many portions of the common law undoubtedly consist of statutes 

 passed before the time of legal memory, namely, the beginning of the 

 reign of Richard I., and which, though known historically to have 

 been acts of parliament, have no authority as laws in that character, 

 but derive their obligation from immemorial usage, recognised by 

 judicial decision. The provisions of the common law are, however, 

 quite aa binding upon the subjects of England as acts of the legislature, 

 being, as already said, impressed with the character of law by force of 

 M decisions. In very early times the system of rules which com- 

 peeed \he common law was probably wholly traditional. .As civilisa- 

 tion advanced, the decisions of the superior courts of justice were 

 recorded, and that became the authoritative evidence of such customs 



ARTS ASD SCI. WV. VOL. IIL 



and maxims as formed part of the common law, in precise analogy to 

 the rule of the civil law, that what the emperor had once judicially 

 determined was to serve as a guide in all like cases for the future. 

 In addition to these recorded judgments of the courts, technically 

 called precedents, the treatises of learned men, called by Blaekstone 

 " the sages of the law," such as Bracton, Fleta, Britton, Staundforde's 

 ' Pleas of the Crown,' and Coke's ' Commentary upon Littleton,' have 

 long been acknowledged as depositories of the common law. Of the 

 whole system the judges of the superior courts are the expositors ; 

 they declare the law by applying its rules and principles to cases which 

 come before them for judgment; but they have no power to add to or 

 vary the law itself. 



Learned writers have indulged in much speculation respecting the 

 origin of the common law of England, though Sir Matthew Hale says 

 it is " as undiscoverable as the head of the Nile." It seems, however, 

 to be well ascertained that the customs which in ancient times were 

 incorporated with it, were of compound origin, and introduced at 

 various times in conformity with the political vicissitudes of the 

 country ; some being Saxon, others Danish, and others Norman. It is 

 also quite evident, from the adoption at the Roman terms of art and 

 several Roman provisions, that many of the rules and maxims which 

 the common law has adopted were derived from the civil law. The 

 greater part of our modern mercantile law is unquestionably derived 

 from that source. Again, many parts of the common law have 

 gradually arisen from the necessary modification of its ancient doc- 

 trines and principles, in order to render them applicable to new states 

 of society produced by enlarged commerce and advancing civilisation. 

 From this cause some branches of our system of jurisprudence, and 

 notably our law merchant, have wholly sprung into existence in 

 modern times. The whole of the law of evidence for instance, now 

 perhaps the most important part of our practical jurisprudence, has 

 appeared as port of the common law so lately as the time of the Com- 

 monwealth. But perhaps the most remarkable instance of the flexibi- 

 lity of the common law, and its capacity of adapting itself to circum- 

 stances, is presented by the history of our trial by jury, which may be 

 traced through all its gradations, from a rude kind of trial, in which 

 the jury were merely witnesses called from the neighbourhood in order 

 that they might declare the truth to the judge, to the present artificial 

 system, where the jury themselves decide upon the truth of facts by 

 the testimony of witnesses examined before them. On the other hand, 

 many rules and provisions of the common Law have wholly disappeared, 

 having either become obsolete from disuse, or been gradually abrogated 

 by decisions of the judges as they became inapplicable to the altered 

 state of society. So great has been the alteration of the common law 

 which these accessions and abstractions have occasioned, that it can 

 scarcely be termed with propriety the same body of laws that it was 

 600 years ago, unless it be upon the principle upon which Sir M. Hale 

 maintains its identity, namely, that the changes have been only partial 

 and successive, whilst the general system has been always the same, 

 " as the Argonauts' ship was the same when it returned home as it 

 was when it went out, though in that long voyage it had successive 

 amendments, and scarce came back with any of its former materials." 

 (Hole's ' History of the Common Law ; ' Blackstone's ' Commentaries,' 

 vol. i. ; Reeve's ' History of the Law of England,' vol. i. ; Hallam's 

 ' Middle Ages,' vol. ii., on the origin of the Common Law.) 



COMMON MEASURE, any magnitude which is contained an exact 

 number of times in two other magnitudes. Thus in the case of num- 

 bers, 7 is a common measure of 56 and 700. The method of finding 

 the greatest common measure is precisely the same both in the science 

 of arithmetic and in that of concrete magnitudes. The proof may be 

 briefly stated as follows : let A and B be two magnitudes, of which B 

 is the less. Let A contain B in times, with a remainder R, or A = m 

 B + R. Then it is easy to show that every magnitude which measures 

 (or is contained exactly a number of times in) A and B both, measures 

 m B and A m B or R ; and also that every magnitude which mea- 

 sures B and R measures m B and m B + R or A. That is, all measures 

 common to dividend and divisor are common to divisor and remainder, 

 and all measures common to divisor and remainder are common to 

 dividend and divisor. Therefore, the greatest of the common measures 

 of either pair is that of the other. Now, cany on the division as 

 follows until there is no remainder, which suppose to happen at the 

 fourth step : 



Let A = m B + R Ris less than B 



B = nil + R' R' R 



R = 2>K+ R" R" R' 



R'= qR" 



Then R" measuring itself, and also R' or q It", must be the greatest 

 measure common to both, for nothing greater than itself can measure 

 it". But the greatest common measure of R" and R' has been shown 

 ,o be that of IV and R, which has been shown to be that of R and B, 

 which has been shown to be that of B and A. 



In the case of two numbers or fractions, a common measure must be 

 found ; for two whole numbers it must be a whole number, 1 at least, 

 if not higher ; for two fractions it must be a fraction. But in con- 

 crete magnitudes the process may continue without end, which indi- 

 cates that the magnitudes are INCOMSIEXSURABLES, (which see for 

 proof.) Hence the necessity, in, all correct reasoning, of treating 



a 



