CH. XX.] CONDITIONS OF FBOGBESS. 281 



regulating international concerns, and for supplying every- 

 where the shortcomings of civil legislation, its degenerate 

 offspring, whose worth must be rated according to the degree 

 in which it approaches the perfection of its parent. The 

 influence of this conception may be best appreciated by 

 reflecting on the extent to which contemporary legal literature, 

 whether embodied in expository treatises or in judicial deci- 

 sions, is impregnated by it. The appeals to " right reason " 

 and " natural reason " which since Blackstone's time have 

 filled a considerable place in juristic dissertation, bear un- 

 equivocal marks of their origin. Nowhere better than here 

 can we see exemplified the mighty influence of the ideas of 

 Koman jurisprudence upon modern thought. Sir Henry 

 Maine has well delineated the process by which, from the 

 constantly felt want of a system of principles fit for settling 

 disputes between Roman citizens and aliens or foreigners, 

 tiiere gradually arose in the Praetorian courts an equitable 

 body of law founded upon customs common (or assumed as 

 common) to all peoples alike. But far from comprehending 

 the really progressive character of the noble juristic system 

 steadily growing up under their own supervision — daily 

 attaining grander proportions as the grotesque and barbarous 

 elements hallowed by local usage were one by one eliminated 

 from the body of equitable ideas which formed their common 

 substratum — the Praetors of the Eepublic and the great 

 Antonine jurisconsults, under the immediate influence of 

 Stoic conceptions, supposed themselves to be merely restoring 

 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 Eoman environment, and in 

 particular to the continual interaction between Greek and 



