THE PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 353 



courts. Thus in the law of marriage, wills, chancery in general, 

 admiralty in general, and elsewhere, portions of the substantive law 

 and most of the procedural rules are owed to the canon law; and 

 modern statutes have even imitated a good deal of this in the ordinary 

 law. Most of the facts of their history are already known in detail, 

 under the different bodies of law. What remains now for the his- 

 torian is a comprehensive collation of these varied effects. This will 

 require the broadest survey of both systems, and he who will under- 

 take it has not yet disclosed himself. 



To the foregoing influence of the Roman and canon law must be 

 added the casual insertion of a theory or a phrase, here and there, in 

 the common law courts, by a few of the well-read judges of earlier 

 times, like Lord Holt, Lord Mansfield, and in modern times, Lord 

 Bo wen, Sir George Jessel, Chief Justice Kent, Mr. Justice Story, 

 and Mr. Justice Holmes, who have occasionally invoked some analogy 

 learned by them from the other systems. In this way the law of 

 bailments, of fictitious assumpsit (or quasi-contract), of conflict 

 of laws, of partnership, and perhaps other subjects, has received a 

 few important marks. The systematic collation of these, also, has 

 still to be accomplished by the historian. 



(4) The Continental mercantile and maritime law contributed a 

 great deal. That of the admiralty is fairly separable, and it may be 

 said that with the Selden Society's publication of Mr. Marsden's edi- 

 tion of Select Pleas of the Admiralty and the special modern treatises,, 

 little remains unknown of the history of the law as a body. Its 

 principal doctrines have still to be fully traced in detail. But the 

 general mercantile law, omitting sales, land-carriers, and agency 

 (which are almost purely indigenous topics), and including com- 

 mercial paper, partnership, insurance, corporations, and general 

 maritime law (with bills of lading and factors), is inextricably bound 

 up with the history across the channel, and its detailed story remains 

 one of the greatest and most interesting tasks of the future, (a) Of 

 these topics, the history of corporation law is perhaps the most 

 complicated, because, besides its economic aspects, it involves three 

 distinct elements, the ecclesiastical corporation (more or less de- 

 pendent on imported conceptions), the land-owning, franchise-own- 

 ing, and quasi-political boroughs and other communities, and the 

 commercial and industrial guilds and later joint-stock companies; the 

 last two groups have a long indigenous history, but the analogies on 

 the Continent are so important that their comparison is an inevitable 

 duty. Availing himself of Pollock and Maitland's survey of the 

 beginnings of this history, and of Professor Williston's and others' 

 essays in the later period, the legal historian has still to trace the 

 connected story of development in all aspects. (6) For commercial 

 paper, insurance, and maritime commercial law. almost everything 



