The Evolution of Laic. 118 



at last, by the slow process of distinguishing, old law 

 is reversed. 



I find no better illustration of the growth of law by 

 variation dependent on changing conditions, than the words 

 of Coleridge, C. J., in his charge to the jury in a case of 

 blasphen^ : " Gentlemen, you have heard with truth that 

 these things are, according to the old law, if the dicta 

 of old judges, dicta often not necessary for the decisions, 

 are to be t^ken as of absolute and unqualified authority, 

 that these things, I say, are undoubtedly blasphemous 

 libels, simply because they question tlie truth of Christi- 

 anity. But these dicta cannot be taken to be the true state- 

 ment of the law, as the law is now. It is no longer true, 

 in the sense in which it was when these dicta were uttered, 

 that Christianity is the law of the land. Therefore to base 

 the prosecution of a bare denial of the truth of Christi- 

 anity simpliciter et per se on the ground that Christianity is 

 a part of the law of the land in the sense in which it was 

 said to be so by Lord Hale and Lord Raymond and Lord 

 Tenterden, is in my judgment a mistake. It is to forget 

 that law grows ; and that, though the principles of law re- 

 main unchanged, yet (and it is one of the advantages of 

 the common law ), their application is to be changed with 

 the changing circumstances of the times. Some persons 

 may call this retrogression, I call it progression, of human 

 opinion." 



Law begins when a dispute between two, about right or 

 duty, is settled by a third person, instead of being deter- 

 mined by the superior strength or skill of one of the dis- 

 jmtants, the third party having authority to enforce the 

 decision. In primitive times this authority rested some- 

 times in the tribe, sometimes, as in the Homeric era, in the 

 assembly of warriors ; in early English history, in the 

 hundred ; in a higher phase of civilization, in the State. 

 Probably no check is at first put upon the liberty of the 

 individual to make reprisals or take vengeance ; robbery 

 for robbery, theft for theft, killing for killing, is as natural 

 as with animals : but when at last it works in upon the 

 slow perception of the members of a tribe, that indi- 

 vidual security depends upon tribal integrity, some re- 

 straint is put on the liberty of individuals to settle their 

 quarrels ad libituvi, and the parties are compelled to submit 

 to some kind of arbitration. It is likely that, at first, ref- 



