50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Hence originates that early conception of law which long con- 

 tinues with slowly increasing modification, and which, in our 

 day, still survives in those who hold that Right means " that 

 which is ordered " firstly, hy a revelation from God, and second- 

 ly by god-appointed or god-approved kings. For the theological 

 view implies that governments in general exist by divine permis- 

 sion, and that their dictates have consequently a divine sanction. 

 In the absence of a utilitarian justification which only gradually 

 emerges in the minds of thinking men, there of course exists for 

 law no other justification than that of being supernaturally de- 

 rived first of all directly and afterward indirectly. 



It follows, therefore, that primitive law, formed out of trans- 

 mitted injunctions, partly of ancestry at large and partly of the 

 distinguished ancestor or deceased ruler, comes usually to be 

 enunciated by those who were in contact with the ruler those 

 who, first of all as attendants communicated his commands to his 

 subjects, and who afterward, ministering to his apotheosized 

 ghost, became (some of them) his priests. Naturally these last, 

 carrying on the worship of him in successive generations, grow 

 into exponents of his will ; both as depositories of his original 

 commands and as mouth-pieces through whom the commands of 

 his spirit are communicated. By necessity, then, the primitive 

 priests are distinguished as those who above all others know 

 what the law is, and as those to whom, therefore, all questions 

 about transgressions are referred the judges. 



In small rude societies judicial systems have not arisen, and 

 hence there is little evidence. Still we read that among the Gui- 

 ana Indians the Pe-i-men are at once priests, sorcerers, doctors, 

 and judges. Concerning the Kalmucks, who are more advanced, 

 Pallas tells us that the highest judicial council consisted partly 

 of priests, and also that one of the high-priests of the community 

 was head-judge. 



Though among the semi-civilized Negro races of Africa, theo- 

 logical development has usually not gone far enough to establish 

 the cult of a great god or gods, yet among them may be traced the 

 belief that conduct is to be regulated by the wills of supernatural 

 beings, who are originally the ghosts of the distinguished dead ; 

 and in pursuance of this belief the ministrants of such ghosts 

 come to be the oracles. Thus Lander tells us that " in Badagry 

 the fetich-priests are the sole judges of the people." Cameron 

 describes a sitting of Mganga, chief medicine man at Kowt^di. 

 After the chief's wife had made presents and received replies to 

 her inquiries others inquired. 



Questions were " put by the public, some of which were quickly disposed 

 of, while others evidently raised knotty points, resulting in much gesticula- 



