not a negative, but a positive exemplification of our proposition. For in that wider sense, there is a science of which Rome was the mother, as Greece was of geometry and mathematics. The term Science may be extended so widely, as to allow us to speak of the Science of Law -meaning the doctrine of Rights and Obligations, in its most definite and yet most comprehensive form ;—in short, the Science of Jurisprudence. In this science, the Romans were really great discoverers; or rather, it was they who made the subject a science,-who gave it the precision of a science, the generality of a science, the method of a science. And how effectually they did this we may judge, from the fact that the jurisprudence of Rome is still the basis, the model, the guide, the core of the jurisprudence of every civilized country; of our own less than most, but still, in no small degree, of our The imitators and pupils of the Greeks in every other department of human speculation, in jurisprudence the Romans felt themselves their masters. Cicero says, proudly, but not too proudly, that a single page of a Roman jurist contained more solid and exact matter than a whole library of Greek philosophers. The labours of jurists deserving this character, which thus began before Cicero, continued through the empire, to its fall; -continued even beyond its fall. As Horace tells us that captive Greece captived the conqueror and taught him arts; so Rome subdued, subdued the victor hordes, and taught them law. The laws of Rome gave method to the codes of the northern nations, and are the origin. of much that is most scientific in the more recent systems of legislation. That general law is a science, we owe to the Romans; and we in England may be reminded of this, by our inability to translate the Roman

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word by which this science is described: for though the term, Fus, is the root of jurist, and jurisprudence, and the like, it is, as yet, hardly naturalized in its technical sense, as designating the general Doctrine of Rights and Obligations; nor have we any word which has that meaning, as Droit has in French, and Recht in German.

Here is a great science, then, of which the discoverers were the Romans: can we trace, as according to our view we ought to be able to trace, any corresponding great step in intellectual discipline? Was jus a prominent part of Roman education? Is Roman jurisprudence a prominent part in the liberal education in modern times? To both these questions we must answer most emphatically, Yes. The law of Rome was the main part of the education of the Roman youth. Cicero reminds his brother Quintius, that they had learnt the old laws, and the formulæ of legal proceedings, by heart, as a sort of domestic catechism or nursery rhyme. Every Roman of eminence spent the early part of his morning in giving legal opinions to his clients :-not like our Justice of the Peace, when appealed to as a magistrate, but as an adviser and protector; and every young member of the aristocracy had to fit himself for this office. Every young Roman of condition was a Roman jurist. And the study of the law, thus made a leading ɔranch of a liberal education, continued so through the middle ages—continues so still. It occupied the great Italian universities-Bologna, Pisa, Padua, and the like -in the darkest part of the dark ages. It occupies most of the universities of Europe to this day. The Roman law is still the main element of the liberal education of Italy, of Germany, of Greece, and, in some degree, even of France and Spain. In Germany its

prevalence has been such, that in recent times all the great moral controversies have been debated in the most strenuous and searching manner in terms of the Civil Law, as the Roman law is still called all over Europe. And we shall hardly doubt, if we look into the matter, that these legal studies have given to the welleducated men of those countries a precision of thought, and an exactness of logic on moral subjects, which, without such a study, would not have been likely to prevail. To define a Right or Obligation, to use proper terms in framing a law, in delivering a judicial sentence, in giving a legal opinion, is precisely the merit of an accomplished jurist; as is emphatically asserted by Cicero. And even our own law, fragmentary and unscientific as it is, is not without a value of the same kind, as an instrument of a liberal education. It may be a means of giving exactness to the thoughts, method and clearness to the reasoning, precision to the expressions of men, on the general interests of man and of society; and is so recommended, and often so employed, by those who are preparing for active life. Of the moral sciences, without some study of which no education can be complete, the science of jurisprudence is most truly a science, and most effectually a means of intellectual discipline. And, as you see, the use of such discipline in education dates from the period of that great advance in speculation on moral subjects and social relations, by which jurisprudence became a science.

And thus two of the great elements of a thorough intellectual culture, Mathematics and Jurisprudence, are an inheritance which we derive from ages long gone by from two great nations—from the two great nations of antiquity. They are the results of ancient triumphs of

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man's spirit over the confusion and obscurity of the aspects of the external world; and even over the waywardness and unregulated impulses of his own nature, and the entanglements and conflicts of human society. And being true sciences, they were well fitted to become, as they became, and were fitted to continue, as they have hitherto continued, to be main elements in that discipline by which man is to raise himself above himself; is to raise since that is especially what we have now to consider-his intellect into an habitual condition, superior to the rudeness, dimness, confusion, laxity, insecurity, to which the undisciplined impulses of human thought in all ages and nations commonly lead.

And before we proceed any further, let us consider, for an instant, that such an education, consisting of the elements which I have mentioned, might be, and would be, in well conducted cases, an education of no common excellence, even according to our present standard of a good intellectual education. A mind well disciplined in elementary geometry and in general jurisprudence, would be as well prepared as mere discipline can make a mind, for most trains of human speculation and reasoning. The mathematical portion of such an education would give clear habits of logical deduction, and a perception of the delight of demonstration; while the moral portion of the education, as we may call jurisprudence, would guard the mind from the defect, sometimes ascribed to mere mathematicians, of seeing none but mathematical proofs, and applying to all cases mathematical processes. A young man well imbued with these, the leading elements of Athenian and Roman culture, would, we need not fear to say, be superior in intellectual discipline to three-fourths of the young men

of our own day, on whom all the ordinary appliances of what is called a good education have been bestowed. Geometer and jurist, the pupil formed by this culture of the old world might make no bad figure among the men of letters or of science, the lawyers and the politicians, of our own times.

But there is another remark which, I must make, tending to show the defect of this education of antiquity, as compared with the intellectual education of our own times; or rather, as compared with what the education of our own times ought to be. The subjects which I have mentioned, geometry and jurisprudence, are both deductive sciences ;-sciences in which, from certain first principles, by chains of proof, conclusions are deduced which constitute the doctrines of the science. In the one case, geometry, these first principles are given by intuition; in the other, jurisprudence, they are either rules instituted by authority and consent, or general principles of human nature and human society, obtained from experience interpreted by our own human consciousness. We deduce properties of diagrams from geometrical axioms; we deduce decisions of cases from legal maxims. Jurisprudence, no less than geometry, is a deductive science; and has been compared with geometry, by its admirers, for the exactness of its deductive processes. They have said (Leibnitz and others) that jural demonstrations are as fine examples of logic as mathematical; and that pure reason alone determines every expression of a good jurist, no less than of a good mathematician; so that there is no room for that play of individual character, which shows itself in the difference of style of different authors. But however perfectly the habits of deduction may be taught