The Roman Law of To-day
the case of less valuable objects, for instance, a gold watch or a purse with a few guldens, or even with a hundred guldens, he must not, for the life of him, do any harm to his aggressor. For what is a watch in comparison with life and limb? The loss of the former can be repaired; the loss of the latter is irreparable. This is an indisputable truth, but that the watch belongs to the person attacked and the limbs to the robber, is forgotten. Doubtless they have for him an incalculable value, for the person attacked they have none at all; and then remains the question: Who repairs the loss of the watch?
But enough of this learned folly and perversity. How deeply humbled we should feel at seeing that the thought, so simple, just, and so much in harmony with the true feeling of legal right, that, in every legal right, be its object only a watch, one’s person and all his rights are attacked, had vanished from the law to such an extent that the sacrifice of one’s rights and the cowardly flight from injustice could be raised to the dignity of a
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