TH K W li A l.TII O F N A 'X'IONS.

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not necessary, in order to be permitted to practise any par-ticular trade or profession. If the opinion of their own utilitycould not draw scholars to them, the law neither forced anybody to go to them, nor rewarded any body for having.goneto them. The teachers had no jurisdiction over theirpupils,nor any other authority besides that natural authority whichsuperior virtue and abilities never fail to procure from youngpeople towards those who are entrusted with any part oftheir education.

At Rome , the study of the civil law made a part of theeducation, not of the greater part of the citizens, but of someparticular families. The young people, however, who wishedto acquire knowledge in the law, had no public school to goto, and had no other method of studying it, than by frequent-ing the company of such of their relations and friends aswere supposed to understand it. It is perhaps worth whileto remark, that though the laws of the twelve tables were,many of them, copied from those of some ancient Greek re-publics, yet law never seems to have grown up to be a sci-ence in any republic of ancient Greece. In Rome it becamea science very early, and gave a considerable degree of illus-tration to those citizens who had the reputation of under-standing it. In the republics of ancient Greece , particularlyin Athens , the ordinary courts of justice consisted of nume-rous, and therefore disorderly, bodies of people, who fre-quently decided almost at random, or as clamour, faction,and party spirit happened to determine. The ignominy ofan unjust decision, when it was to be divided among fivehundred, a thousand, or fifteen hundred people (for some oftheir courts were so very numerous), could not fall very heavyupon any individual. At Rome , on the contrary, the prin-cipal courts of justice consisted either of a single judge, orof a small number of judges, whose characters, especially asthey deliberated always in public, could not fail to be verymuch affected by any rash or unjust decision. In doubtfulcases, such courts, from their anxiety to avoid blame, wouldnaturally endeavour to shelter themselves under the exam-ple, or precedent, of the judges who had sat before them,either in the same or in some other court. This attention toPractice and precedent necessarily formed the Roman lawmto that regular and orderly system in which it has been de-livered down to us ; and the like attention has had the likeeffects upon the laws of every other country where such at-

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