612 



Law. 



Lawgivers 

 of Home, 

 and pro- 

 gress oflaw 



thought undeserving of the protection of the laws. It 

 ' was the great purpose of Solon to protect the poorer 

 citizens against the power and influence of the rich ; 

 and by dividing the whole body of the Athenians into 

 separate classes, the last of which, consisting of the or- 

 dinary citizens, being permitted to speak and vote in 

 the assemblies, though not to participate in the offices 

 and honours of their superiors, he conferred upon them 

 a privilege which, considerable even from the first, 

 came at last (what he probably did not intend) to con- 

 troul all the affairs of government, and rendered the 

 people masters of the republic. He reformed also the 

 Areopagus, increased the authority of the members, 

 enjoined them in particular to inquire yearly how 

 every citizen maintained himself, and to punish such 

 as, living in idleness, were not serviceable to the state 

 by the exercise of. some honourable or lucrative em- 

 ployment. These celebrated laws were engraved on 

 public tablets, and that the Athenians might the better 

 retain them on their memory, they were written in 

 verse. 



17. Romulus and Numa Pompilius appear to have 

 been the first legislators among the Romans who de- 

 serve any notice. And yet so rude and uninstructed 



^ M that pe ple for a lon ? P eriod after their authentic 

 h' stor y commences, that it was not till about the year 

 300 of the city, that they appear to have had any writ- 

 ten laws. About that time the discontents of the ple- 

 beians having risen to a great height on account of the 

 arbitrary proceedings of their superiors, they justly 

 conceived that a written body of law, duly promulgated, 

 would be the surest means of controlling their oppres- 

 sors, and securing their own protection. Accordingly 

 after long and violent struggles they succeeded : depu- 

 ties were sent to Athens and other Grecian states to 

 collect the laws of Solon and of other renowned legis- 

 lators, upon whose return ten persons, called Decem- 

 viri, were chosen from the senate to select and arrange 

 the most appropriate of the institutions thus collected. 

 The celebrated law of the Twelve Tables was the re- 

 sult, of which Cicero, De Oral. i. 44. observes, omnibus 

 omnium philosophorum bibliolhecis anteponendam. No- 

 thing now remains of this collection of laws but frag- 

 ments scattered in different ancient authors, and chiefly 

 in the writings of Cicero, but there is little doubt that 

 it served, if not as the root, at least as the stem from 

 which that immense variety of Roman laws afterwards 

 sprung, which was destined to become the rule of civil 

 conduct to so many subject nations, and ultimately to 

 mingle itself, more or less, with the municipal code of 

 every nation of modern Europe. 



It were idle to select here any part of so great a body 

 of institutions as more curious and important than ano- 

 ther, of which the whole has been properly denomi- 

 nated, a written collection of human reason applicable 

 to almost all the relations of civil life. We shall only 

 observe, that under several successive emperors abridg- 

 ed digests were made of it, and particularly under Jus- 

 timan, whose collection, known by the title of the Cor. 

 CorpusJuris P u \ Juris Civilis, (See art. CIVIL LAW,) is the latest 

 of Just!- and by far the fullest and most valuable that has come 



down to modern times. 



Modern na- 18. The northern nations who over-ran the Roman 

 tionsof Eu- territories, naturally introduced their own rude institu- 

 Feudal tlons >nto their new conquests, and particularly thefeudal 

 institutions, regulations, so well adapted to the views of a warlike peo- 

 ple anxious to retain permanent possession of their set- 

 tlements. It is probable that the Roman jurisprudence, 



L A W-. 



La 



Twelve 

 Tables. 



which had so long flourished in Italy and some other 



countries, and had begun to take root in almost all the > -y^ 



other districts of Europe, wa never entirely supplanted 



by the customs and laws of the barbarians /.-and when 



the revival of letters brought to light the high decree 



of refinement to which the Roman people had attained, 



their civil institutions naturally claimed a pre-eminent 



attention. The discovery of the Pandects at Amalphi 



(it indeed that or any part of Justinian's Collection had 



ever entirely disappeared;) the importance of the 



science of which it treated ; the beauty and excellence 



of its dictates, being the result of the reason acting llp on 



the experience of the most civilized nation which the 



world had hitherto produced; the easy .adaptation of 



the greater part of it to modern circumstances ; all con- incoroorat 



tnbuted to recommend it to the attention of princes and cd with law" 



legislators. It came therefore to be adopted in some of Home. 



countries as the great body of their common law ; in 



others, it was only partially received, according as its in- 



stitutions corresponded with the native customs of the 



people ; whilst in all, its maxims were more or less ex- 



tensively incorporated with their own proper institutions. 



19- The various systems of jurisprudence which thus Variety and 

 grew up in modern Europe, compounded partly of the diversit y r 

 original laws and customs of the respective nations who " lodetD6 y s - 

 supplanted the Roman greatness, .and partly of the 

 more refined institutions of that people, form a suffi. 

 ciently extensive branch of study. Fortunately it is to 

 the general student more curious than useful. A know- 

 ledge of the laws of our own country, aided by some 

 acquaintance with such foreign institutions only as are 

 of acknowledged excellence, or of the nearest affinity to 

 our own, constitutes an object of paramount impor- 

 tance. Without, therefore, attempting any detail of General ob ' 

 that nature, we shall here content ourselves with bring- applicable 

 ing together a few observations applicable to all systems to ail sys- 

 of law collectively. terns. 



20. (1.) We have said, that the obligation of law is 1. Subordi- 

 ultimately grounded in its reference to the good of those nateinstitu- 

 whom it is intended to control. In like manner, the tion< mu * tb e 

 obligatory force of any inferior law may. be considered co . n f stent 

 as more immediately derived from that which is supe- de'rive'their 

 nor to it. Thus, with regard to families, corporations, authority 

 and other subordinate societies, we can prescribe no- ^om, others 

 thing which is contrary to the law of the state of which that are 

 they make a part ; the municipal law of each particu- m '\ gc ' 

 lar state must prescribe nothing contrary to the law of " C 

 nations ; and this law must, in its turn, be consistent 

 with those essential principles of morality and religion 

 which the Deity evidently intended to be obligatory on 

 every individual of mankind. And thus good civil 

 laws are nothing else than natural law itself detailed, 

 modified, and applied by the sovereign power in a state. 

 If the inferior law contain any contradiction to the su- 

 perior, it must, by the established nature of things it- 

 self, be ultimately and substantially inconsistent with 

 the good of those who are required to obey it ; and 

 therefore wants, by that contradiction, the proper obli- 

 gation of law. Such laws, when their deviation from 

 the principles of morals and religion is direct and im- 

 mediate, excite detestation, and, in aggravated cases, 

 horror. In the edict of proscription against the Prince 

 of Orange, Philip II. promises to him who shall kill 

 the prince, and to his heirs, 20,000 ecus, with the rank 

 of nobility, and that on the word of a king and as the 

 servant of God. Nobility for murder ! and its perpe- 

 tration enjoined by a servant of God ! Here insult 

 and outrage is offered to every sentiment of honour, of 

 4 



