similar provision in the old Dutch civil code so hotly opposed in the preparation of the recent new code when the article had never been applied? Why is there, especially in civil law countries, such a sharp division between public and private law? Why is religion, so fiercely partisan in early Byzantium, so scarce in the Byzantine Justinian’s Digest and Institutes? It goes without saying that authority is necessary to law and is, in general, a good thing. In this talk I want to call attention to aspects of this need for authority that are usually overlooked but cause law to have an unexpected, perhaps unwanted, configuration. Authority is the core of law, but the search for it often leads to an imbalance between law and the society within which it operates. In the past I have stressed the extreme extent of legal borrowing, and the significance of this for legal development and of the relationship between law and society. I stick to this opinion. Without an understanding of legal transplants there can be no understanding of law in society. But this borrowing illuminates the ultimate fundamental importance of the search for authority. When a rule, institution, concept or construct is borrowed it frequently undergoes change. This is particularly so when there are intermediaries between the original and the recipient. Often, indeed, the original may be transformed. Yet even then the original may, because of its authority, have an impact on the shape of the recipient which is otherwise unnecessary, and which serves to confuse and complicate the law. The need for authority needs to be emphasized. In this talk I will deal with one striking example of the need for authority, for transplanting, and for transformation: the treatment of ius naturale, ‘natural law’, ius gentium(a term with more than one meaning) and ius civile, ‘the particular law of a state’ at the very beginning of Justinian’s Institutes and in th century Scotland as exemplified by Lord Stair and Sir George Mackenzie. But I must insist that
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