The Roman Law of To-day
fectly, and exposed, from the first, to the different and changing influence of two entirely opposite interests, frequently in conflict with each other; the influence, I mean, of science, purely and simply historical, and that of the practical application and development of the law. The practice, on the other hand, has not strength sufficient to dominate completely over the spirit of the matter of the law. It is, therefore, condemned to permanent dependence on, to a permanent wardship of, the theory; and hence it is that particularism prevails in legislation and in the administration of justice over the weak and limited efforts made to reach centralization. Can it be a matter of surprise that a gaping abyss stood between such law and the national feeling of legal right, that the people did not understand their law, nor the law the people? Institutions and principles which in Rome were, considering the circumstances and customs of the time there, intelligible, became here, on account of the complete disappearance of their conditions pre-
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