292 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



to permit the alien to marry into a local clan was to ad- 

 mit the wife to the worship of strange gods, and was ulti- 

 mately to intrust to strangers the solemn sacrifices to the 

 protecting ancestral spirits. This innovation was of such 

 a serious nature, to the mind of primitive man, that it 

 was deferred until the pressure forced general recogni- 

 tion of the heterogeneous population. New relations, 

 however, were in course of time expressly authorized and 

 sanctioned ; thus the customary usages of the people were 

 converted into positive law."'' 



''Each nation in its infancy has regarded itself as a 

 peculiar people. It has cherished its law as a body of 

 unique and unequaled wisdom. When, therefore, after 

 it has subjugated alien peoples and has annexed their 

 lands, and has discovered that their systems of law differ 

 only in form and detail from its own, its conception of the 

 nature of law necessarily undergoes a profound change. 

 It finds itself obliged to think of law as made up more of 

 general than of peculiar principles. It begins to think 

 of certain principles as universally true, and to identify 

 them with the nature of society. It observes, moreover, 

 that the universal rules of customary law are independ- 

 ent of the forms of government, and it begins to regard 

 them, therefore, as of superior authority, and to believe 

 that governments should themselves be governed by the 

 universally accepted rules of right." ^^ 



Back of these changes in the structure of society, and 

 at the basis of most innovations in custom and usage-- 

 were certain wider economic conditions. One of the chief 

 of these was the existence of natural resources in soil 

 and surroundings which would permit of a somewhat easy 



^^lUd.; and Tarde, op. ciL., pp. 310-322. 

 31 Giddings, op. ciL, p. 329. 



