sifications implying
superiority and inferiority; while the distinction between moveables
and immoveables, so long at least as it was confined to Roman
jurisprudence, carried with it no suggestion whatever of a difference
in dignity. The Res Mancipi, however, did certainly at first enjoy a
precedence over the Res Nec Mancipi, as did heritable property in
Scotland and realty in England, over the personalty to which they were
opposed. The lawyers of all systems have spared no pains in striving
to refer these classifications to some intelligible principle; but the
reasons of the severance must ever be vainly sought for in the
philosophy of law: they belong not to its philosophy, but to its
history. The explanation which appears to cover the greatest number of
instances is, that the objects of enjoyment honoured above the rest
were the forms of property known first and earliest to each particular
community, and dignified therefore emphatically with the designation
of _Property_. On the other hand, the articles not enumerated among
the favoured objects seem to have been placed on a lower standing,
because the knowledge of their value was posterior to the epoch at
which the catalogue of superior property was settled. They were at
first unknown, rare, limited in their uses, or else regarded as mere
appendages to the privileged objects. Thus, though the Roman Res
Mancipi included a number of moveable articles of great value, still
the most costly jewels were never allowed to take rank as Res Mancipi,
because they were unknown to the early Romans. In the same way
chattels real in England are said to have been degraded to the footing
of personalty, from the infrequency and valuelessness of such estates
under the feudal land-law. But the grand point of interest is, the
continued degradation of these commodities when their importance had
increased and their number had multiplied. Why were they not
successively included among the favoured objects of enjoyment? One
reason is found in the stubbornness with which Ancient Law adheres to
its classifications. It is a characteristic both of uneducated minds
and of early societies, that they are little able to conceive a
general rule apart from the particular applications of it with which
they are practically familiar. They cannot dissociate a general term
or maxim from the special examples which meet them in daily
experience; and in this way the designation covering the best-known
forms of