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exist in the United States of America in accordance with some logical prin
ciple which shall govern the compiler and guide the searcher as well. It is a mass of laws, rules, that must be arranged, and we are interested in
theories of classification only for this practical purpose and in so far only as classification enables a clearer organiza
tion, comprehension and expression of the rules.
appears in later classical writings under the heading “Public and Private Law," and of which much use has been made in treatises on general jurisprudence,
but to which no place in classification has ever been given in an English treatise devoted to the orderly expo
sition of the rules of law. If Bacon intended to use it, as logically he might, he carefully concealed the fact. Black stone says that Bacon in his legal dis quisitions purposely avoided order.
DIVERGENT PRIMARY CLASSI FICATIONS Gaius, who wrote in the second cen tury, introduced the following formula: The whole body of law which we use relates either to Persons, or to Things or to
Actions.” Another translation is :— The whole law by which we are governed relates either to Persons, or to Things or to Pr0cedu1e."- '1
The principle upon which this divi sion, made by Gaius, relies is obviously the principle of genera and species, and the touchstone of its application is: that to which the law relates or the
Whether the ideas symbolized by these leading terms, Persons, Things and Actions, are worthy of recognition at the present time depends upon whether the words, and the ideas they stand for, have been incorporated into the body of our English and American law, or may be usefully adopted. If
they have been associated with the arrangement and expression of our law they should not be discarded except
for some other division possessing prac tical advantages. Innovation should be indulged only when forced by con ditions or induced by logic. An arrange ment based upon principles or con
principal subject or direct object of the law. It will be observed that there
can not be made to take the place of
is here no mention of a division which
one associated with its development.
‘5 Abdy & Walker's Translation, Cambridge, 1870. 20 Poste's Gaius. 39. T’ Though a digression. it may be helpful to state here what will be shown to be the meaning attached to these words in the classification worked out by Hale, Wood and Blackstone. Blackstone trans lates jura personarum and jam rnmn as "rights of persons," "rights of things." He uses the word "of" relatively. not possessively. and his meaning is law concerning rights incident to personal relations. If the law of persons had by his time lost much of its aspect of status it had gained more by bringing political relations within its pale. By “rights of things" he means rights in and to things external to the person. that is ownership of things, in one word, property. No change is made in the meaning of "actions." A great change in the conception of the word “possession" together with a much narrower scope of the word “things" indicates the changes made. The Norman French ideas ex pressed by the words bicns and chose con stitute important reasons. or causes, for in this respect the English law is not Roman but modern.
ditions essentially alien to our law
In commenting upon this primary
classification of Gaius, Poste says :— What are the leading divisions of law what are the main masses into which legisla tion naturally breaks itself—what are the joints and articulations which separate the whole code into various subordinate codes, like the difierent limbs and members of an organic wholehwhat is the import of the Gaian division into in: personarum, jus rerum, jus actionmn, or rather, to adhere to the classical phrases, jus ad persona: pminens, in: ad res pertinens, jus ad actiones pertinensf By jus ad actiones pertinens, to begin with the easier part of the problem, there is no doubt that the inventor of the division in tended to designate the law of Procedure as opposed to the law of rights; the adjective
