MATERIALS OF THE SCIENCE OF LAW. 597 



early manhood of its life, after all the early struggles for its self-con- 

 scious existence, or for its independence, are over ; and yet, before it 

 has developed within itself all the complicated machinery of a highly- 

 organized commercial and social life. In such a state there must, by 

 the very hypothesis, be a more or less steadily fixed government, 

 whether that government approach more to a monarchical, or an aris- 

 tocratical, or a democratical type. The stability of the state, and its 

 self-dependence, imply agriculture, and agriculture implies property or 

 ownership. The division of labor, again, which this economical con- 

 dition presupposes, involves the habit of making contracts, even 

 though they be of the most elementary form. The social condition 

 cannot but rest upon a previously-developed, though now strongly- 

 fortified, domestic condition, and this implies the fact of marriage, and 

 the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, brother, sister, 

 uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, and the like. The still remaining anarchi- 

 cal tendencies of certain individual members of the state, lagging be- 

 hind the rest, will generate occasional acts of violence, threatening, 

 directly or indirectly, the very life and existence of the state. These 

 acts will excite the horror of all the more orderly members of the com- 

 munity, and will be denominated by some such term as crimes. 



It is obvious that the characteristic classes of facts, which have 

 just been alluded to, are so general and simple, that their necessary 

 occurrence at a certain epoch, in the progress of every state, may be 

 predicted as a certainty. These facts, however, in themselves, are of 

 the utmost possible moment, and involve, by their permanence and 

 universality, the elementary ingredients of a science of law. 



It will be seen that these facts, looked upon as a whole, imply, first, 

 a certain number of definite relations of persons to one another, 

 whether as governors or governed, husbands or wives, parents or chil- 

 dren, or as otherwise allied by blood or marriage. Secondly, these 

 facts involve certain determinate relations between the persons in the 

 community, in respect of the things (or physical substances) appertain- 

 ing to the community as a whole. These things, severally, are owned 

 by one or another, and not by the rest. The ownership of these things 

 is the subject-matter of private arrangements and contracts between 

 different members of the community. The violent or fraudulent ab- 

 straction of a thing owned from the owner may be one of the acts on 

 the general prevention of which the very life of the community is held 

 to depend, and as such is denominated a crime. 



Again, the classes of facts already enumerated have two distinct 

 sides to them, one touching the outward lives of members of the com- 

 munity, that is, their acts ; the other touching their inward lives, that 

 is, their thoughts and feelings. Over the former of these sides the 

 whole of the community can, by its aggregate pressure, exert a con- 

 siderable amount of force, of a specifically ascertained quantity and 

 quality. Over the latter side, that touching the thoughts and feelings 



