Principles of western civilisation
352 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.
contributing to the freedom and intensity of conditions that prevail amongst the English-speaking peoples. So naturally has it sprung from the principles underlying the development of those peoples, that it has nearly always proved impossible in practical life to keep its influence out of the affairs of the smallest township or precinct. So entirely foreign has its meaning proved to the peoples amongst whom the development described in the last chapter has not run its full course, that as a successful working system of government it is at the present day almost unrepresented outside the limits of the English-speaking world.’
If we follow, from the first outward contact with it under this form, the influence on the general life of the advanced peoples, of this conception of responsibility to principles projected beyond the claims of all systems of authority bounded by the limits of political consciousness, the reach of its action in other spheres of activity continues to be apparent. There is no single cause which has operated more profoundly in bringing about the existing conditions of the exploitation of the world by the advanced
1 Compare in this connection the stand-point in the legal systems of the peoples amongst whom the development described in the last chapter ran its course, for the most part free from the influence of the spirit of Roman law. A recent writer dealing with jurisprudence in the United States, summarises characteristic differences between the stand-point in the systems of the Latin nations of Europe and those of the English-speaking peoples in general. The former peoples, he points out, are governed by their executives ; the latter by by their judges. With the latter the judiciary is independent; with the former it is more or less the servant of the executive. Latin law is always codified ; the common law of the English-speaking peoples cannot be so treated. The conspicuous figure in a court of the former peoples is the judge dispensing justice ; in a court of the latter peoples the lawyer fighting for it. ‘© The basic difference between the two systems of jurisprudence is that the one accords privileges, while the other protects rights » (W. S. Logan, Forum, XXVi-
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