HENRY JAMES SUMNER MAINE. 861 



cover any regular order in the development of ideas. We must not 

 forget, however, that among the external conditions and circumstances 

 according to which our ideas are formed are to be enumerated all the 

 traditions, practices, and works of our forefathers, which in one way or 

 another express their ideas. So it happens that the thoughts of one 

 generation of men are very largely determined by those of preceding 

 generations ; and we discover in the study of historical records that 

 there has been in every branch of the human race a very regular order 

 in the development and diversification of ideas, corresponding remark- 

 ably well with the development and diversification of physical charac- 

 teristics among plants and animals. When, therefore, we know from 

 similarity of physical characteristics that two races were once associated 

 in a common origin, we infer by a very sure hypothesis that they started 

 in their independent existence with certain common ideas and common 

 practices, and the question arises, What were these ideas and practices ? 

 The comparative method is the method which we employ in trying to 

 answer the question. We must, however, in order to reach any certain 

 results by means of the comparative method, have clear, unquestionable 

 early records, on the one hand, and well understood ideas and practices 

 on the other, and an unmistakable coincidence between them. Early 

 records are apt to be few and doubtful in character, and it is very diffi- 

 cult, often impossible, for a civilized man to understand the ideas and 

 practices of savages and barbarians ; so it is very improbable that we 

 shall reach any trustworthy conclusions in regard to the beginnings of 

 intellectual life and the origin of human society. This was clearly 

 Maine's idea. He says : " It was no part of my object to determine 

 the absolute origin of human society. I have written few pages 

 which have any bearing on the subject, and I must confess a certain 

 distaste for inquiries which, when I attempt to push them far, have 

 always landed me in mud-banks and fog." We may not be able, per- 

 haps, to solve the problems of primitive life by the comparative method, 

 but there are innumerable very interesting developments of the human 

 intelligence which we can make out clearly. Maine has described some 

 of these developments in a most striking and interesting way, in his 

 Ancient Law, and in the books which were published during the period 

 of his Oxford Professorship, — Village Communities, The Early His- 

 tory of Institutions, and Early Law and Custom. 



Some of Maine's theories have met with adverse criticism. His 

 theory that the patriarchal idea is a primitive idea has been opposed by 

 a number of well known and able writers, who maintain that the primi- 

 tive social unit was not the family under the headship of the father, but 



