No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
There is nothing more beneficial to the philosophy of human thought than the scientific study of human institutions. To know how man's thought has grown to what it now is from the rudest atom of intellect must be a contemplation worthy of the greatest consideration, and that by the greatest minds. It is only of late years that it has been at all possible to penetrate into the reality of primordial society, whatever might have been the extent of its mythical existence; and this has been accomplished by the great inductive sciences. Comparative philology has led the van, and shown the track; it only remains for comparative jurisprudence to hesitate no longer on the threshold of its existence, but to follow up these indications, thereby bringing us nearer to our primeval ancestors, in thought as well as history; and, consequently, nearer to ourselves.
page 1 note * “I hesitate to call it comparative jurisprudence,” says Sir H. Maine in his Rede Lecture at Cambridge, 22nd May, 1875, “because if it ever exists its area will be so much wider than the field of law.” Bolingbroke has predicted the position law would hold among the “sciences” when men find leisure and encouragement to climb up the vantage of science instead of grovelling all their lives to the little acts of chicane.—Vide “Bolingbroke's Letters,” No. 5.
page 2 note * Vico points out the personifying instinct as the spontaneous philosophy of man to make himself the rule of the universe, and to suppose every-where a quasi-human agency.—Vide a long and learned note in Mr. Grote's “Greece,” vol. i., page 473, note I.
page 2 note † This is from the Greek colonists of Italy, who adopted the latter interpretation, and clothed it with the Italian garb “gubernan,” used by the Romans, whence it was adopted by ourselves in “governor.”
page 3 note * The memorable dictum in the “Iliad ” is a heritage of early times. “The rule of many is not a good thing: let us have one ruler only, one king—him to whom Zeus has given the sceptre and the tutelary sanctions.” Democracy was a later Grecian thought. Histiæus, in his speech at the Council of the Ionians who guarded the bridge over the Ister for Darius, says, “There is not one of them (Grecian cities) which will not prefer democracy to kingly rule.”— “ Herodotus,” iv., cap. 137. This change of opinion is some proof of the statement in the text. Plato almost suggests my quotation from Carlyle in the question by the Athenian to Cleinias (“Laws,” book i.), “Would you not acknowledge that in all gatherings of mankind, of whatever sort, there ought to be a leader? Certainly I would.”
page 3 note † Letter to Lord Bathurst on “Retirement and Study.”
page 4 note * Vide Maine's “Ancient Law,” pp. 376, 377, and “Early Institutions,” P. 253
page 4 note † Lubbock's “Primitive Man,” p. 269. “At Jenna,” he continues, “whenever a town is deprived of its chief the inhabitants acknowledge no law, and until a successor is appointed all labour is at an end.”
page 4 note ‡ Obedience is described in the Behistun inscription in these forcible terms,—“That which has been said to them by me, both by day and by night, it has been done by them.” Compare speech of Megabazus to Darius, “Herodotus,” book v., cap. 22, where the same expression, “by day and by night,” is used.
page 6 note * “Ancient History,” vol. i., p. 290. Sir G. Wilkinson also remarks of Egypt, that at the most remote period into which we have been able to penétrate civilized communities already existed, and society possessed all the features of later ages.
page 7 note * “People ask what is gained by comparison. Why, all higher knowledged is gained by comparison and rests on comparison. If it is said that the character of scientific research in our age is pre-eminently comparative, this really means that our researches are now based on the widest evidence that can be obtained, on the broadest inductions that can be grasped by the human mind.”—(Max Muller's “Science of Religion.”) But Niebuhr also says truly that instances are not arguments, though in history of scarcely less force; above all, where the parallel they exhibit is in the progressive development of institutions.—“Rome,” i., p. 345.
page 8 note * “In historical inquiries,” says Niebuhr, “we generally conceive things as in a progressive development, and do not take into consideration that the course of events often resembles a cycloid. When we see a state in the condition of progress we imagine that during the preceding period also it was always in a similar state of advancement, and we over-look the fact that a country often makes a great movement in advance then goes backward, then rises again, and again becomes retrogade.”—(“Ancient History,” vol. ii., p. 97.) May we not apply this to tribes as well as to nations?
page 9 note * Vide Bunsen's “Philosophy of Universal History,” vol. i., p. 64, Ist sect.
page 9 note † Max Muller's “Essay on Comparative Mythology,” “Oxford Essays,” 1856.
page 9 note ‡ Max Muller's “Turanian Letter.”
page 10 note * “I conceived that by ascertaining the original meaning of the designation of an office, we should be better enabled to form a judgment of its original duties.”—Hampson's Preface to “Origines Patricia.”
page 11 note * SirMaine's, H. “Ancient Law,”—“According to the laws of all nations, and of all times, the father must be recognised as the head of the family.”—Savigny, “Priv. Int. Law” xxxvi., p. 379Google Scholar.
page 11 note † Rawlinson, alleges that it originated from Greek thought. Amidst the toils and dangers shared alike by all in the troublous times of Greece the idea of political equality took its rise.—“Man. of Anc. Hist,”p. 124Google Scholar.
page 12 note * Vide R'ev. J. Long's “Village Communities in India and Russia,” Appendix B. “Relics of the Patriarchal System in Russia.”
page 12 note † Artaxerxes, for instance, put all his children to death for conspiring against him (Justin); and the well-known exercise of parental power by Brutus in executing his sons does not indicate much natural affection. We know it also to be a question of history that some people sell their children for slaves—the Moschi of Herodotus, for instance.
page 12 note * Proofs from all ancient society are not wanting. Niebuhr says of Egypt that they had only a very small number of names, and in order that in legal documents there might be no doubt as to the identity of persons, they always mentioned the name of the father. A person is described as the son of So-and-so, &c., &c.—(“Anc. Hist.,” vol. i., p. 46.) “To the present day,” says Wilkinson (“Egypt,” i., p. 73), “a son is not expected to sit in the presence of his father without express permission.” St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, alludes to the peculiarity of their law: “The heir as long as he is a child differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all” (iv. 1); and vide chap. xx. of Grote's “Greece.”
page 15 note * Of course there are exceptions to be met with even to this almost universal rule. Herodotus mentions that the Lycians had one singular custom, in which they differed from every other nation in the world. They take the mother's and not the father's name.—(Cap. 173, book i.) Among the Nairs of Malabar the institutions all incline to a gynocracy, each woman having several husbands, and property passing through the female line in preference to the male.—(Ibid., Rawlinson's Notes to book iv.) But a remark of Wilkinson on the Egyptians (vol. ii, p. 66) alludes no doubt to a type of the general custom which the text mentions. The same customs prevailed among the Egyptians regarding children as with Moslems and other Eastern people, no distinction being made between their offspring by a wife or any other woman, and all equally enjoying the right of inheritance, for they considered a child indebted to the father for its existence, and the mother to be little more than a nurse.”
page 17 note * So in Niebuhr's, “ Rome,” i., p. 172Google Scholar, we are told that the obligation is: an essential characteristic of the gens (house); the reciprocal exercise of this noble relation could not but excite in the first instance a feeling that led them to regard each other like kindred, and by degrees a belief that they were so. These feelings of mutual devotion between kinsmen constitute the bright spots in a dark age, remarks MrGrote, (“Greece,” iii., p. 116)Google Scholar.
page 17 note † We have an instance of this elasticity in Egypt. Perhaps, in its later growth, no more exclusive nation ever existed, owing to the stringency of its castes, which would admit no one among them. Yet if we go back to their infancy we find that the Libyans, adopting the Egyptian religion, had become so much like them by this communion that they were allowed to enter their administrations, and soon grew to be indistinguishable.
page 18 note * Maine's, “Village Communities,” p. 156Google Scholar.
page 18 note † Difference of race does not necessarily imply difference of language. “What we are accustomed to call race,” says Max Muller (“Turanian Letter”), “may date from a period in the history of the world anterior to any division of language.”
page 19 note * The father of the house might hold the position of hereditary priest of this often already numerous community; and how long this relation lasted, especially among the old shepherd peoples, is sufficiently shown by the remembrance of the patriarchs of Israel. The sometimes very arduous duties of the sacrifices were in the same way the lot, since the oldest periods, of the eldest sons, as those most nearly bound and ordained (justified in taking the office): this is a primevally old custom of which many traces remained down to the time of Moses and even later.—Ewald, , “ Lehre der Bibel von Gott,” i., 190Google Scholar.
page 19 note † “Many new sects or voluntary religious fraternities acquired permanent establishment as well as considerable influence. They were generally under the superintendence of hereditary families of priests.”—(Grote's, “Greece,” i., p. 36Google Scholar.) Priesthoods were hereditary among the Jamids and Telliads of Elis (“Herodotus” ix. 33, 34), the Talthybiads of Lacedæmon (viii 134) and the Telinids of Gela in Sicily (vii. 153). Other writers, says Rawlinson (“Notes to Herodotus,” vol. iii., bk. vi., cap. 60, note 7), furnish a very much larger catalogue of priestly families (consult “Hist, de l'Acad. des Inscrip.,” tome xxiii., p. 51 et seq.).
page 20 note * Niebuhr's, “Anc. Hist.,” vol. ii., p. 98Google Scholar.
page 21 note * Consult Max Muller's Turanian Letter in Bunsen's “Philosophy of Universal History.”
page 21 note † Vide Grote's, “Greece,” vol. i., p. 110Google Scholar.—“In early times princes and afterwards the great aristocratic families traced their pedigrees to heroes and through them to the gods, just as the northern kings trace theirs to Odin.”—Niebuhr, “Anc. Hist.” ii., p. 169.
page 22 note * Vide also “Herodotus,” Rawlinson's Notes, vol. ii., cap. 3.
page 22 note † “In Western Asia, the cradle of the human race,” says Rawlinson (“Herodotus,” App. Bk. i., Essay xi.), Semitic, Indo-European, and Tâtar or Turanian races, not only divided among themselves this portion of the earth's surface, but lay confused and interspersed upon it in a most remarkable entanglement.”
“Some combined association of individuals, some clannism seems requisite to the preservation of a language in the midst of a foreign nation. Thus it may be inferred that the Hebrews retained their language during their sojourn in Egypt.”—(Pickering's, “Races of Man,” p. 287.)Google Scholar The system of castes is an evidence of the distinction of nationality on the same territory. “The Egyptian division of castes is very ancient, and certainly shows that the country was conquered by foreigners. The example of India also shows that the castes are the result of conquest, and that they represent different nationalities,”—(Niebuhr's, “ Anc. Hist.,” ii., p. 65.)Google Scholar I may also mention, that the detached territories under a Persian satrapy are described by Heeren to be ethnic divisions rather than geographical.—Vide also Rawlinson's, “Herodotus,” vol. ii., app. iii., p. 562Google Scholar.
page 23 note * Consult Niebuhr's “Hist, of Rome,” vol. i. It would be useless to quote passages, there are so many applicable to the question of the genealogical phenomena of primitive history. But note 'particularly the chapter on (Enotrians and Pelasgians.
page 23 note † “Village Communities,” p. 145.
page 24 note * Schoolcraft, , “Indian Tribes” ii., p. 49Google Scholar. “The totem of the redskins is a symbol of the name of the progenitor. Its significant importance is derived from the fact that individuals unhesitatingly trace their lineage from it, and families are thus traced were expanded into bands or tribes.” Lubbock's “Primitive Man” p. 173.
page 24 note † By territorial appropriation I do not mean to imply that it became a territorial sovereignty. This was distinctly an offshoot of modern feudalism. Consult SirMaine's, H. “Anc. Law,” pp. 103–107Google Scholar.
page 24 note ‡ Before dismissing the subject of patriarchal society I would refer to cap. v. of Maine's “Anc. Law.” It gives some varied and important information on patriarchal power, and though relating more particularly to Roman law, helps to obtain an enlarged view of this state of primitive man. See “Village Communities,” pp. III, 156.
page 25 note * Professor Jowett, in his Introduction to Plato's Laws, p. lxiii., remarks “that the chief object of Plato in tracing the origin of society is to show the point at which regular government superseded the patriarchal authority, and laws common to many families took the place of the old customs. The laws were systematized by legislators, and new forms of government began to spring up.” The ideality of Plato's mind would suggest much that his restriction to Grecian history might otherwise prevent, but it would not suggest enough. “The history of the world,” says Max Müller, in his essay on Comparative Mythology, “has laid open new avenues of thought, and it has enriched our language with a word which never passed the lips of Socrates, or Plato, or Aristotle—mankind.”
page 25 note † Vide Grote's, “Greece,” vol. i., p. 264Google Scholar.
page 25 note ‡ “Village Communities,” p. III.
page 26 note * That is to say as a general rule, and among the more powerful empires. The tale commonly believed by the Greeks as to the formation of the confederacy of twelve cities into the Ionia of historic times is based upon the asserted rights and co-existent sovereignty of the twelve sons of Codrus,—(Vide Rawlinson's, “Herodotus,” iii.Google Scholar, App. bk. v., Essay 2.) The Suliots, again, mentioned by Niebuhr, (“Rome,” i., p. 265)Google Scholar, were actual families descended from a common stock, each under its captain, who was its judge and leader; the captains collectively made up a senate.
page 26 note † Vico dwells upon the religious and poetical susceptibilities as the first to develop themselves in the human mind.