PA6389 1925 Oxford University Press London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen ..unrphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY PREFACE THE death of the author of this Commentary and Translation has taken from us one who in the intervals allowed him by his official duties gave himself with single-minded devotion to the acquisition and furtherance of knowledge. 'Omnium, quos cognovi, doctissimus' were the words in which Mr. Poste's great erudition was commemorated by the Vice-Chancellor of the University, the distinguished head of the distinguished College of which Mr. Poste was almost the senior Fellow; and certainly no one can read this Commentary without being impressed by the writer's philosophic spirit and extensive learning. It is especially remarkable that a scholar, who was never engaged in the teaching or practice of law, should have produced a legal textbook, which perhaps more than any other makes intelligible to English students the teaching of the great German masters of Roman jurisprudence and at the same time never fails to be interesting by reason of its own force and individuality. In re-editing this well-known work, at the request of Mr. Poste's executors and of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, my endeavour has been to preserve as far as possible the character which Mr. Poste himself gave it, while making such alterations as seemed to be required at the present time. As Mr. Poste never revised his Translation and Commentary with any completeness since they were first published, their revision for this edition has been a more considerable undertaking than would otherwise have been the case. It should be noticed that the part of the Commentary relating to analytic jurisprudence has been much curtailed in the present edition. This has been done by the advice of persons engaged in the teaching of Roman law at Oxford, who are of opinion that the insertion of so much matter bearing on the general theory of law has rendered the Commentary unnecessarily difficult to students and that the subject is one better left to independent treatises. The omission of the Preliminary Definitions on this account has made it possible to introduce into the book an Historical Introduction. to Gaius, which has been written by Dr. Greenidge, who is well |