Compared with commercial law, civil law is in the subsidiary position. To understand this relationship between the two laws, it is necessary to go back to their correlation in the realm of private law. Before the early modern period, commercial law had gone through three stages of development:systematical in absentia, the formation of law merchant and state law, while civil law had been steadily consisted of customary law, Roman law and canon law. The legal conditions of Roman law laid the foundation of the dichotomy between civil and commercial laws in later times. Since the Middle Ages, the law of merchants has been beyond the realm of state law and consequently isolated from civil law. However, since the early modern times, civil law has not been able to keep up with commercial law, leading to the further solidification of the dichotomy between the two laws. The modern dichotomy of private law, or the dichotomy between civil law and commercial law, began in the 19th century. Since modern times, the progress of civil law has weakened the external independence of commercial law, leading to the prosperity of "relative theory" and significantly influencing the codifications of commercial law in the late 19th century. However, the validity of the "relative theory" presupposes temporal and institutional restrictions. If the independence of commercial legal norms disappears, the internal independence of commercial law will also lose its relevance. As to the commercial law in narrow sense, as a special law, it is built upon specified subjects. Enterprises, which are defined as the most important subject element, lay the foundation of legal institutions of commercial law. The regulating purpose of commercial law and the principles of commercial law, which are based on business reality, make the existence of the normative external independence of commercial law necessary. From the point of view of teleological legal system, civil and commercial laws are constructed in different ways, which vindicates today's dichotomy of private law. Such a dichotomy is both systematically and practically meaningful. |