HISTORY OF LAW 267 



found in countries where that system prevails. There has been no 

 effort to ignore the civil law or to shut out any possible use which 

 can be made of it in the exposition or development of the English 

 system, but common law lawyers have reached the practical con- 

 clusion that they cannot secure favorable consideration by common 

 law or equity courts of arguments based on the rules of the civil 

 law, and the judges have found that they can reach a more satis- 

 factory solution of disputed questions of law by considering the 

 analogies found in the decisions of courts applying the principles of 

 the common law system than by resorting to civil law authorities. 



The indebtedness, then, of the common law to the civil law is not 

 for scientific form nor substantial content, but for words and phrases 

 which have afforded a convenient channel through which indebted- 

 juristic ideas might be expressed, and for some partic- ness of 

 ular rules applicable in the solution of legal difficulties to Civil 

 which, having arisen among Romanized peoples on ac- Law. 

 count of their more advanced civilization, gave occasion for the 

 announcement of principles which were helpful to the common law 

 jurist in similar cases. 



A comparison between the English system of law and the civil 

 law system of the Northern European states suggests not a greater 

 indebtedness to the civil law on the part of the common Indebted- 

 law, but a smaller indebtedness of the Northern European j^ ^ a w 

 systems. Glanville expresses the essential distinction toSys- 

 between the laws of England and those of European ijorthern 

 countries when he says that the English laws, although Europe, 

 not written, may be termed laws, for the mere want of writing does 

 not deprive them of that character. And indeed, the resemblance 

 of the codes of France, Germany, Austria, and Belgium to the Jus- 

 tinian Code in matters of form is a strong argument against the 

 assumption that the systems of jurisprudence of these countries are 

 directly derived from the Roman system as a fountain-head. For the 

 science of law is a social science and the result of evolution. As con- 

 ditions change, so the law must change, and conceptions familiar 

 to the people of one century become unintelligible to their successors 

 of the next. Those who expound the common law take great pride 

 in the continuity of the institutions and principles which they find 

 recognized therein traceable to Anglo-Saxon or Norman sources; but 

 for practical purposes the decisions of the judges represented in the 

 Year-Books and collected in Fitzherbert's Abridgment are no more 

 intelligible to the judge or lawyer of to-day who is properly concerned 

 primarily with the decision of cases now arising than the opinions 

 of Paul, Ulpian, or Papinian in the second or third century of the 

 Christian era. Indeed, the decisions found in the Year-Books are less 

 intelligible to the modern lawyer, for they deal with crude facts 



