The movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract.

It is true that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of those popular movements which began to be universal in the western world.

Law is stable the societies we are speaking of are progressive. The greater or less happiness of a people depends on the degree of promptitude with which the gulf is narrowed.

The ancient codes were doubtless originally suggested by the discovery and diffusion of the art of writing.

The epoch of Customary Law, and of its custody by a privileged order, is a very remarkable one.

When primitive law has once been embodied in a Code, there is an end to what may be called its spontaneous development.

The Roman jurisprudence has the longest known history of any set of human institutions.