Note (LXVII.)—Page [151], line 1.
THE LAWS OF ENGLAND PROVE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR INSTITUTIONS TO BE FULL OF DEFECTS AND YET NOT PREVENT THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL END AND AIM FOR WHICH THEY WERE ESTABLISHED.
The power, which nations possess, of prospering in spite of the imperfections to be met with in secondary portions of their institutions, as long as the general principles and the actual spirit which animate those institutions are full of life and vigour, is a phenomenon which manifests itself with peculiar distinctness when the judicial constitution of England in the last century, as described by Blackstone, is looked into.
The attention is immediately arrested by two great diversities, that are very striking:—
First. The diversity of the laws.
Secondly. The diversity of the Courts that administer them.
I.—Diversity of the Laws.—(1.) The laws are different for England (properly so called), for Scotland, for Ireland, for the different European dependencies of Great Britain, such as the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, &c., and, finally, for the British Colonies.
(2.) In England itself may be found four kinds of laws—the common law, statute laws, canon law, and equity. The common law is itself divided into general customs adopted throughout the whole kingdom, and customs specially belonging to certain manors or certain towns, or sometimes only to certain classes, such as the trades. These customs sometimes differ greatly from each other; as those, for instance, which, in opposition to the general tendency of the English laws require an equal distribution of property among all the children (gavelkind), and, what is still more singular, give a right of primogeniture to the youngest child (borough-English).
II.—Diversity of the Courts.—Blackstone informs us that the law has instituted a prodigious variety of different courts. Some idea of this may be obtained from the following extremely summary analysis:—