pted for brevity or secrecy.

In jurisprudence the question of the reduction of laws to written codes,
representing a complete and readily accessible system, is a matter of
great historical and practical interest. Many collections of laws,
however, which are commonly known as codes,[1] would not correspond to
the definition given above. The Code of Justinian (see JUSTINIAN I.;
ROMAN LAW), the most celebrated of all, is not in itself a complete and
exclusive system of law. It is a collection of imperial constitutions,
just as the Pandects are a collection of the opinions of jurisconsults.
The Code and the Pandects together being, as Austin says, "digests of
Roman law in force at the time of their conception," would, if properly
arranged, constitute a code. Codification in this sense is merely a
question of the _form_ of the laws, and has nothing to do with their
goodness or badness from an ethical or political point of view.
Sometimes codification only means the changing of unwritten into written
law; in the stricter sense it means the changing of unwritten or
badly-written law into law well written.

The same causes which made collections of laws necessary in the time of
Justinian have led to similar undertakings among modern peoples. The
actual condition of laws until the period when they are consciously
remodelled is one of confusion, contradiction, repetition and disorder;
and to these evils the progress of society adds the burden of
perpetually increasing legislation. Some attempt must be made to
simplify the task of learning the laws by improving their expression and
arrangement. This is by no means an easy task in any country, but in
England it is surrounded with peculiar difficulties. The independent
character of English law has prevented an attempt to do what has already
been done for other systems which have the basis of the Roman law to
fall back upon.

The most celebrated modern code is the French. The necessity of a code
in France was mainly caused by the immense number of separate systems of
jurisprudence existing in that country before 1789, justifying
Voltaire's sarcasm that a traveller in France had to change laws about
as often as he changed horses. At first published under the title of
_Code Civil des Francais_, it was afterwards entitled the _Code
Napoleon_ (q.v.)--the emperor Napoleon wishing to attach his name to a
work which he regarded as the greatest glory of his reign. The code, it
has been s