The Struggle for Law
life of the individual and for that of the nation. What would the law of this period be, if it had had to create it by its own efforts? But, just as many heirs, unable to procure for themselves the necessaries of life, live on the wealth accumulated by the testator, an exhausted and degenerated people subsist, for a long time, on the intellectual capital of a previous vigorous age. I do not mean simply that it enjoys the labor of others without any trouble to itself. I would, above all, call attention to the fact that it is in the nature of the works, creations and institutions of the past to preserve, for a certain length of time, and to revivify, the spirit which gave them birth. They hold in themselves a store of latent force which is changed into active force by personal contact with them. In this sense the private law of the republic in which was reflected the energetic and vigorous feeling which the old Roman people had for legal right, served the empire for a time as a living source. In the great desert of the later world, it was the
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