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Hindoo, Patlmn, Moghul, Mahratta, Sikh, English, 

 are all masters in turn } but the village community 

 remains the same -" and though there are many 

 Provinces of India, in which individual property in 

 the soil is held under the Crown, the increase of 

 families always tends to maintain the ancient and 

 normal state of societies, constituting communities 

 within communities, as contemplated in their ancient 

 Laws. 



It will be objected, I fear, that I lay much too 

 great stress on ancient laws, many of which are 

 contradictory, and most of which under British rule 

 are held to be obsolete. But, if many are contra- 

 dictory, it is because they were framed for societies 

 in different stages of progress, for which we have 

 not the key. At the same time, a careful study of 

 the customs and habits of the people of those parts 

 of India in which I have lived, has satisfied me that 

 viewed by the light of more modern native writers, 

 these ancient laws afford still a more accurate pic- 

 ture of the existing state of native society in the 

 interior, than any yet sketched by European pen or 

 pencil. And, if this be true, and I do not think it 

 will be disputed by those who are competent to form 

 any sound opinion on the subject, we could not have 

 a stronger proof of the very slow degrees by which 

 the progressive development of societies, when left 

 to themselves, is worked out. Even in Calcutta, the 

 metropolis of British India, where Newton and 

 Bacon, Shakespeare and Milton, have been as fa- 



