"Acts now called torts have been committed from the very beginning of society, but a development of anything like a clearly formulated conception of a tort is comparatively recent. While from the earliest times certain invasions of personal or property rights, now comprehended under the head of torts, were recognized as wrongful and as constituting a basis for civil liability, in some sort, both in the English law, and in other legal systems still more ancient of the concepts of tort and crime were at first confusedly intermingled, and no clear distinction was made between private and public law. IN the next stage of development of the common law the notion of tort, in a distinct and integral sense, still remained unformulated and the history of tort is to be sought in the history of the various delictual actions which, in conjuction, made up the whole sum of then recognized civil liability for wrongs."

English text.