k.

Professional Sciences
Jurisprudence

In the professional sciences there was but little activity.
Well as the Romans understood how to farm and how to calculate,
physical and mathematical research gained no hold among them.
The consequences of neglecting theory appeared practically in
the low state of medical knowledge and of a portion of the military
sciences. Of all the professional sciences jurisprudence alone was
flourishing. We cannot trace its internal development with
chronological accuracy. On the whole ritual law fell more and
more into the shade, and at the end of this period stood nearly
in the same position as the canon law at the present day. The finer
and more profound conception of law, on the other hand, which
substitutes for outward criteria the motive springs of action
within--such as the development of the ideas of offences arising
from intention and from carelessness respectively, and of
possession entitled to temporary protection--was not yet in
existence at the time of the Twelve Tables, but was so in the age
of Cicero, and probably owed its elaboration substantially to the
present epoch. The reaction of political relations on the development
of law has been already indicated on several occasions; it was
not always advantageous. By the institution of the tribunal of the
-Centumviri- to deal with inheritance,(38) for instance, there was
introduced in the law of property a college of jurymen, which, like
the criminal authorities, instead of simply applying the law placed
itself above it and with its so-called equity undermined the legal
institutions; one consequence of which among others was the
irrational principle, that any one, whom a relative had passed over
in his testament, was at liberty to propose that the testament
should be annulled by the court, and the court decided according
to its discretion.

The development of juristic literature admits of being more
distinctly recognized. It had hitherto been restricted to
collections of formularies and explanations of terms in the laws;
at this period there was first formed a literature of opinions
(-responsa-), which answers nearly to our modern collections of
precedents. These opinions--which were delivered no longer merely
by members of the pontifical college, but by every one who found
persons to consult him, at home or in the open market-place,
and with which were already associated rational and polemical
illustrations and the