r A Study in Ancient Law. The institutions of modern societies have preserved many of their ancient characteris tics. As the wants of man increased or changed, the laws of the community were enlarged or modified to meet the require ments of a novel status. And from age to age, from the birth of society to its maturity, its laws have been evolved through many stages of evolution, from the fundamental rules of conduct to their present complexity, retaining in their structure the debris of ancient institutions. Historical Jurisprudence studies the his tory of laws in a certain community. Ethno logicalJurisprudence studies the development of institutions throughout the entire evolu tion of civilization. While Historical Juris prudence contemplates the sequence of laws, and but incidentally considers the social re quirements to which they owe their exist ence, Ethnological Jurisprudence collects the institutions of all races of men, investi gates their history, takes account of the physical, intellectual, and moral condition of the race or nation, and its existence in space and time, and finally arranges the history of the laws so studied, not only in the order of time, but also according to the modes of thought which gave birth to them. The English law is remarkable for its originality of development, the comparative freedom from foreign influences. The mass of custom crystallized into what is generally called the Common Law is mainly Teutonic, derived from the Anglo-Saxon customary laws, with, perhaps, a survival of archaic Celtic institutions; and only in its later stages of growth does the Common Law show the influence of the Roman Law. To what extent, in quantity and in quality, the Common Law is indebted to purely Teu tonic institutions on the one hand, and the Roman Law on the other, is a question still awaiting an answer. The history of the Common Law has yet to be written, and the words of Sir Henry Spelman are as true to day as they were in his time : —
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"I wish some worthy lawyer would read the law diligently, and show the several heads from which these laws of ours are taken. They beyond the seas are not only diligent, but very curious in this kind; but we are all for profit and Lucrando pane, taking what we find at market without enquiring whence it comes." The Common Law is said to be founded on " legal principles, illustrated by decided cases." These cases refer us to earlier authorities, the Year Books and the early treatises; and when we have reached this stage, we look upon a chaos of authoritative statement, the reason for which has to be searched for among primitive customs, the influence of State and Church, the adoption of legal rules from foreign sources, and, in general, the intellectual, social, and moral condition of the age. On reaching what may be termed the authoritative period in the history of the Law of England, as marked by the treatises of Granvil and Bracton, the works known as Fleta and Britton, and the Year Books, our researches into the history of the Com mon Law branch out in two directions. In the one we have to follow out the influence of the Roman Law, its history and its sources; in the other the customary laws of the Teutonic races, the early English institu tions, and their development or survival in our present laws. At this stage the comparative study of the Common Law becomes the subject of researches in the field of Ethnological Jurisprudence. To illustrate the method pursued in the study of Ethnological Jurisprudence, the following portions of an examination of a celebrated German collection of customary laws are given : — THE SACHSENSPIEGEL. In the collection of " Essays in AngloSaxon Law," Adams says: — "Among all the German races none have clung with sturdier independence or more tenacious con
