LAWS. 519 



directions for daily conduct directions concerning kinds of 

 food and modes of cooking ; directions for proper farming in 

 respect of periodic fallows, not sowing mingled grain, &c. ; 

 directions for the management of those in bondage, male and 

 female, and the payment of hired labourers ; directions about 

 trade-transactions and the sales of lands and houses ; along 

 with sumptuary laws extending to the quality and fringes of 

 garments and the shaping of beards: instances sufficiently 

 showing that the rules of living, down even to small details, 

 had a divine origin equally with the supreme laws of con 

 duct. The like was true of the Ayrans in early stages. 

 The code of Manu was a kindred mixture of sacred and 

 secular regulations of moral dictates and rules for carrying 

 on ordinary affairs. Says Tiele of the Greeks after the Doric 

 migration : &quot; No new political institutions, no fresh culture, 

 no additional games, were established without the sanction of 

 the Pythian oracle.&quot; And again we read 

 &quot; Chez les Grecs et chez les Romains, comme chez les Hindous, la loi fut 

 d abord une partie de la religion. Les anciens codes des cites etaient 

 un ensemble de rites de prescriptions liturgiques de prieres, en meme 

 temps que de dispositions legislatives. Les regies du droit de propriete 

 et du droit de succession y etaient eparses au milieu des regies des 

 sacrifices, de la sepulture et du culte des morts.&quot; 



Originating in this manner, law acquires stability. Possess 

 ing a supposed supernatural sanction, its rules have a rigidity 

 enabling them to restrain men s actions in greater degrees 

 than could any rules having an origin recognized as natural. 

 They tend thus to produce settled social arrangements ; both 

 directly, by their high authority, and indirectly by limiting 

 the actions of the living ruler. As was pointed out in 468, 

 early governing agents, not daring to transgress inherited 

 usages and regulations, are practically limited to interpreting 

 and enforcing them : their legislative power being exercised 

 only in respect of matters not already prescribed for. Thus 

 of the ancient Egyptians we read : &quot; It was not on his 

 [the king s] own will that his occupations depended, but on 

 those rules of duty and propriety which the wisdom of his 



