OF Roman Private Law WITH CATENA OF TEXTS. BY DR. CARL SALKOWSKI, ORDINARY PROFESSOR OF LAWS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF KÖNIGSBERG. TRANSLATED IN FULL AND EDITED BY E. E. WHITFIELD, M.A. OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD; MEMBER OF THE INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY. 224395 Incipientibus nobis exponere iura populi Romani ita maxime videntur posse tradi commodissime, si primo levi ac simplici, post deinde diligentissima atque exactissima interpretatione singula tradantur. Alioquin si statim ab initio rudem adhuc et infirmum animum studiosi multitudine ac varietate rerum oneraverimus, duorum alterum aut desertorem studiorum efficiemus, aut cum magno labore eius, saepe etiam cum diffidentia, quae plerumque iuvenes avertit, serius ad id perducemus, ad quod leniore via ductus sine magno labore et sine ulla diffidentia maturius perduci potuisset. § 2, I. de J. et J. 1, 1. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. WITHIN the present century an attempt has been made to impart to English Law a scientific character. The first great worker in this field, by his contributions to an accurate English legal terminology, has vindicated the permanent value of ROMAN Law in legal education. Towards the end of John Austin's life was published Mr. (now Lord Justice) Lindley's translation of the General Part of Thibaut's 'System'; which was soon followed by a volume of Cambridge Essays containing that by Sir Henry Maine on Roman Law and Legal Education' (reprinted in his 'Village Communities'). To be told in 1856, not only that texts of Roman Law have been worked into the foundations of our jurisprudence,' but also that it is not because our jurisprudence and that of Roman Law were once alike that they ought to be studied together, it is because they will be alike,' was for our lawyers to learn, though slowly, the need of radical reform in elementary professional study. In the year 1872 we find a master of English Case Law speaking of the Roman Law as a system that more than any other exhibits the principles which ought to, and to some extent do, underlie the jurisprudence of all nations': so thought the late Lord Justice Mellish. And it seems to be admitted on all sides that an exact knowledge of legal |