s. They were, moreover,
the object of repeated attack. In 1536, in the University of Paris,
which had so long maintained their study, Pierre Ramus successfully
defended the startling thesis, "Everything that Aristotle taught is
false." This was only one sign of their loss of prestige. New and
improved text-books in Logic absorbed the useful portions of the
Organon; the authority of the Natural Philosophy waned with the rise of
experimental science; that of the Metaphysics yielded to the new
philosophy of Descartes. By the end of the seventeenth century they
ceased to be a potent factor in university studies.

(b) _The Roman Law_

The great compilation of the Roman Law known as the _Corpus Juris
Civilis_ (Body of Civil Law) constitutes a second important addition of
the twelfth century to the field of university studies. It was probably
more important as an influence upon the growth of universities than the
works of Aristotle.

The greater part of the Corpus Juris was compiled at Constantinople,
529-533 A.D., by certain eminent jurists under the Roman Emperor,
Justinian. The purpose of the work was to reduce to order and harmony
the mass of confused and contradictory statutes and legal opinions, and
to furnish a standard body of laws of manageable size in place of the
unwieldly mass of incorrect texts commonly in use, so that "the entire
ancient law, in a state of confusion for some fourteen hundred years and
now by us made clear, may be, so to speak, enclosed within a wall and
have nothing left outside it." The jurists entrusted with this work were
also required to prepare an introductory book for students, as described
below. After the completion of the whole work Justinian issued (533-565)
many new statutes (Novellae) which were never officially collected, but
which came to be considered a part of the Corpus Juris. The main
divisions of the Body of Civil Law are--

(1) The Code, in twelve books, which contains statutes of the Emperors
from the third century A.D.

Since [says Justinian] we find the whole course of our statutes
... to be in a state of such confusion that they reach to an
infinite length and surpass the bounds of all human capacity, it
was therefore our first desire to make a beginning with the most
sacred Emperors of old times, to amend their statutes, and to put
them in a clear order, so that they might be collected together
in one book, and, being divested of