EQUITY. With the establishment of judicial and legislative authorities, the factors that pro duce law in modern times are already operative. There is. however. an intermediate stage of de velopment, noticeable both in Roman and in Eng lish legal history, which is known as equity. Neither the Roman pnetors nor the English chancellors in developing new law laid down hard and fast rules, like legislators; they found law in the decision of single cases, like judges; but they did not regard themselves as bound by the precedents by which the of justice had previously been controlled. The new rules that were applied were not at first regarded as law, but rather as arbitrary assert hms of govern mental power. When. however. as happened both at P,oine and in England, equity, following its own precedents, developed a new body of judicial custom, it was recognized that this custom was law. In England and in the United States equity is recognized as judge-made law, and it is often included in the term 'common law.'
MonEaN LEGISLATION. In an advanced stage of social progress, legislation tends to become an increasingly important agency of legal develop ment. A large part of the Roman Imperial law, however. even in its latest development, was stilt judge-made law or case-law; and in modern Eng lish-speaking countries not only does much of the still rest upon judicial precedent (com mon law). but its development is still in the hands of the judiciary. The attempt in modern European States to put all the law into legisla tive or statutory form seems to he due in excep tional circumstances (see CIVIL LAW and CODE) and even in modern European :11I1101101 it is commonly denied that decisions make law, the persistent judicial praetiee (jurisprudence, (;e richtsgebonteh)by which open places in the writ ten law are tilled and new rules found to govern eases which the legislator could net, or at least did not foresee, is praetivally treated as law.