The Roman Law of To-day
sists in the theory of evidence which it establishes. One might think that theory had been invented only for the purpose of frustrating the law. If all the debtors in the world had conspired together to deprive creditors of their rights, they could have devised no more effectual means to reach that end than has our jurisprudence by means of this theory of evidence. No mathematician can set up a more exact method of proof than the one which our jurisprudence employs. It reaches the acme of irrationality in the actions for damages. The mischief, to employ the language of a Roman jurist,[1] “caused here to the law under the appearance of law,” and the beneficent contrast which the intelligent mode of action of the French tribunals offers, have been described in so many recent works that I need not add anything on it; one thing alone I cannot refrain from saying: Woe to the plaintiff, well for the defendant!
- ↑ Paulus in 1. 91, p. 3, de V. O. (45, 1) “in quo genere plerumque sub autoritate juris scientiæ perniciose erratur.” Only the jurist had here another aberration in view.
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