LAWS. 



535 



Setting out with the truth, illustrated even in the very 

 rudest tribes, that the ideas conveyed, sentiments inculcated, 

 and usages taught, to children by parents who themselves 

 were similarly taught, eventuate in a rigid set of customs ; we 

 recognize the fact that at first, as to the last, law is mainly 

 an embodiment of ancestral injunctions. 



To the injunctions of the undistinguished dead, which, 

 qualified by the public opinion of the living in cases not 

 prescribed for, constitute the code of conduct before any 

 political organization has arisen, there come to be added the 

 injunctions of the distinguished dead, when there have arisen 

 chiefs who, in some measure feared and obeyed during life, 

 after death give origin to ghosts still more feared and obeyed. 

 And when, during that compounding of societies effected 

 by war, such chiefs develop into kings, their remembered 

 commands and the commands supposed to be given by their 

 ghosts, become a sacred code of conduct, partly embodying 

 and partly adding to the code pre-established by custom. 

 The living ruler, able to legislate only in respect of matters 

 unprovided for, is bound by these transmitted commands of 

 the unknown and the known who have passed away ; save 

 only in cases where the living ruler is himself regarded as 

 divine, in which cases his injunctions become laws having 

 a like sacredness. Hence the trait common to societies in 

 early stages, that the prescribed rules of conduct of whatever 

 kind have a religious sanction. Sacrificial observances, 

 public duties, moral injunctions, social ceremonies, habits 

 of life, industrial regulations, and even modes of dressing, 

 stand on the same footing. 



Maintenance of the unchangeable rules of conduct thus 

 originating, which is requisite for social stability during those 

 stages in which the type of nature is yet but little fitted for 

 harmonious social cooperation, pre-supposes implicit obedience; 

 and hence disobedience becomes the blackest crime. Treason 

 and rebellion, whether against the divine or the human ruler 

 bring penalties exceeding all others in severity. The breaking 



