The Roman Law of To-day
simple idea already brought out, that there is question in an infringement of one’s legal rights, not merely of a pecuniary value, but of the satisfaction of the wounded feeling of legal right. Its measure is the basest and emptiest materialism—money and nothing else. I recollect having heard of a judge who, when the amount of the object in litigation was small, in order to be relieved of the burthen of the trial, offered to pay the plaintiff out of his own pocket, and who was greatly offended because the offer was refused. That the plaintiff was concerned about the vindication of his legal rights and not about the money, this learned judge could not get through his head; and we cannot blame him for it. He might very easily shift the blame on the science of the law. The money condemnation which, in the hands of the Roman magistrate, was one of the most powerful means of doing justice to the ideal feeling of legal right which had been wounded, has become, under the influence of our theory of evidence, one of the sorriest expedients which
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