\\ hate\ er the distinction was-it there realK' was one at Ronie-it was not based on a line drawn between intentional and negligent conduct.' But consequenth’ we ha\e a still further grotesquerie in the au/c' civil. I'he code denotes two articles, and ^8;^, to injuries caused by one's own person. One article would ha\e been enough, and easily drafted. But the point of article n8; seems to be to make clear that liabilit\’ was also for negligence, a fact that alread\’ appears from article 1^82. The si.xth conclusion is implicit in these first fne: the \erv great strength of the need for authoritt’. It is this need that causes history to be so important. Naturally, all social and e\en scientific conceptions draw on their past, but this is markedlv so with law. lnno\ations have to be justified. .\nd for justification in law authority is paramount. SimilarK', this is an important factor in the eas\ transplantation of rules, ^ou ha\e no si^lution in \’our legal system. No problem, but \'ou must find authority; and you find it in another SN Stem, and you borrow. Likewise for m\’ third conclusion, ^ou need autliorit}' for innovation. So you borrow. But if yt)u can find a highly developed source in writing, sa\’ Roman law, then you borrow from it more than once. And the more often you borrow from it, the more that is precisely the right thing to do. Also with the fourth conclusion, the more one system borrows from another, the greater the latter's prestige, and the more acceptable it will be to other svsterns in need. It becomes a mark of a civilized systemto borrow from the system that other civ ilized systems borrow from. Bur there is much more to the need for authority. Legislators may claimthat a deity gave them the law for their people or that a deity assisted them in making the law. Scholars may claim that the law is 12 On the Roman classification of quasi ex delicto see most recently Olivia F. Robinson, 'Gaius and the class of quasi-delicts,' Status Familiae (Munich, 2001), pp. 389ff. 170
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