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Book Review: Emerson: The Mind on Fire

pus iuris canonici: the two together (with appropriate commentaries) represented the legal learning and wisdom of the age. The former took care of the secular society, the latter of the community of the faithful, but they had to operate in harmony because the subjects of the two laws were the same human persons. The two systems also recognized a correct hierarchical order in the world of law; every human ordinance had to be ultimately subject to the divine law, which was (mostly) mediated by canon law. B. mentions the British Isles only cursorily, declaring that during the 16th century they "went their own way (as they have been doing for centuries)" (223). This is true in substance of England but not of Scotland: the roots of the Scottish law remain to this day in European common law. England, however, from the twelfth century, through the unifying efforts of her Norman rulers, developed its own common law, the King's law. It was a rigid system that often gave more importance to the observance of formalities than to the administration of substantive justice. The rescue, or the balancing factor, came from the office of the Chancellor who in the name of the King's conscience began to dispense justice according to the rules of equity that he himself formulated. He had help, though, for he was inspired not only by the norms of Christian morality but also by the ancient Roman tradition of turning to natural justice when the severity of the law was working injustice: when summum ius amounted to summa iniuria. Thus equity that once brought fairness and humanity into the civil law of the Roman Republic did the same for the law of the English Kings. Ever since, to this day, all who get equitable relief in an English court, or for that matter in a U.S. court, should remember gratefully the merits of the continental common law. Cochrane's English translation is "elegant and lucid," as the Introduction claims, except for the bland rendition of the title that rather obscures than reveals the content. This book has already seen success in Italy, going through five printings since 1988. The success is deserved, for B.'s content is well structured, his thesis properly documented, and his argument persuasive. Also, B. has a gift for letting history become the magistra vitae: he is able to narrate past events in such a way that they become an inspiration for the future, in this case the future of Europe.