COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



common substratum — the Praetors of the Re- 

 pubhc and the great Antonine jurisconsults, 

 under the immediate influence of Stoic concep- 

 tions, supposed themselves to be merely restor- 

 ing to their original integrity the disfigured and 

 partially obliterated ordinances of a primeval 

 state of nature. The state of faultless morality 

 and unimpeachable equity which constituted the 

 ideal goal of their labours, they mistook for the 

 shadow of a real though unseen past. 



But this form of the unconscious artifice — 

 due in general to the great heterogeneity of the 

 Roman environment, and in particular to the 

 continual interaction between Greek and Roman 

 ideas — was very different from the form of it 

 exemplified by the Hindu who refers his modern 

 edicts about water supply to some remote era 

 of primitive legislation. Between the two there 

 is a world-wide difference, — all the difference 

 between stagnation and progress. For the ab- 

 stract and impersonal form in which the Roman 

 conceived his jus nature made it possible for 

 him to appeal to it, not simply in justification 

 of particular departures from ancient custom, 

 but in justification of the general principle of 

 departure from ancient custom. It constituted, 

 as it were, a court of appeal before which time- 

 honoured customs must be called upon to es- 

 tabUsh their validity. It opened men's minds' 

 to the distinction between mala prohibita and 

 42 



