Excerpt from Justinian's Digest, Vol. 20: With an English Translation and an Essay on the Law of Mortgage in the Roman LawIn regard to any translation of the Digest, there is room for reasonable doubt whether students derive any benefit at all from such. A translation encourages the student to neglect the original, and thus he acquires a curious kind of artificial knowledge which cannot be called Roman law, and is merely of conventional value. It may be said, however, that something is gained and something lost by the use of a translation. The gain is the saving of time and trouble for those whose know ledge Oi the original language is imperfect; the loss is that of the tone and spirit of the original.Moreover in translating any portion of the Digest, the special difficulty of translating technical expressions arises. There are at least three modes of encountering such a difficulty: Firstly, the expression may be left untranslated and simply given in the original. Mr.

C. H. Monro, in his admirable translation of the Digest, Books 1 - 6, considers that, if one universal method is to be followed throughout, this is the best.Secondly, the Latin expression may be translated by means of the nearest corresponding institution in English law. This plan, on the same supposition, Mr. Monro considers the worst; and thinks that the translation of the term Heres by Heir is a fertile source Of error. Dr. H.

J. Roby admits that sometimes the nature of the argument makes it necessary to retain the original expression, and that for some expressions it is not easy to find a tolerably correct English equivalent. But, except in these two cases, Dr. Roby takes an opposite view to Mr. Monro, and sees no ground for pedantic retentions which make the subject difficult for a student to comprehend and are repulsive in point of style.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.

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