478

CONCLUSION.

danger of being buried alive, not in the catacombs, but in thelabyrinths of the law. Thus, too, it was in ancient times. Whenthe Emperor Justinian directed his chancellor, Tribonian, early inthe sixth century, to associate with him a number of skilful civil-ians, and to assume the great task of collecting the entire body ofthe Roman law, which had been accumulating for fourteen centu-ries, into one systematic code, he and his associates found thislaw dispersed in two thousand volumes, and in upwards of threemillions of small tracts or fragments, detached from the writingsof the sages, which it was necessary to read and understand, inorder to make the selections. The size of these volumes, andthe quantity of matter in these tracts and fragments, we cannotwell ascertain ; but it is by no means probable, that they exceededthe quantity of our law, embracing, as it does, the great body ofthe English law. *

To this state of things there seems to be but one adequateremedy, and that is, a digest, under legislative authority, of thoseparts of our jurisprudence, which have become well settled, andhave otherwise acquired scientific accuracy. We may thus havea general code, which will present, in its positive and authorita-tive text, the most material rules to guide the lawyer, the states-man, and the private citizen. It is obvious, however, that sucha digest can apply only to the law, as it has been applied to hu-man concerns in past times. But by revisions, at periods moreor less distant, it may be made to reflect all the light, which inter-mediate accessions may have thrown upon our jurisprudence.To attempt more than this, would be a vain labor. To believe,that all human concerns for the future can be provided for in acode, speaking a definite language, is to indulge in the theoreti-cal extravagances of some philosophical jurists, whose best apol-ogy is, their good intentions.

It will be an achievement worthy of the best endeavours of ourlegislators, statesmen, and lawyers, to reduce the past to orderand certainty. And we have examples in which this has beenso triumphantly accomplished, as to put the enterprise beyondthe reach of cavil. The Pandects of Justinian, to which I have

Prcsf. ad Dig. § 1.—Kent’s Commentaries on American Law, Vol. I. p. 499.