486 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 17 



instructive, to say. He gathers up the gist 

 of contemporary thought, and presents it in 

 a simple, lucid wa\', and always contributes 

 something new from his own mind. The spe- 

 cialist finds, sometimes, a lack of definition, of 

 exhaustive analysis, and here and there more or 

 less serious errors. In spite of this, however, 

 he must admit that we have no more interest- 

 ing, no more instructive writings than these ; 

 that the reasoning is generally clear and sound ; 

 that the errors are, as a rule, incidental. 



The present volume is divided into eleven 

 chapters, to one or two of which notes of some 

 length are appended. The first four chapters 

 are devoted to early law in its relations with 

 religion. Ancestor worship is discussed at 

 length. We are told how the worship of 

 father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and 

 other ancestors, remembered or capable of be- 

 ing remembered, has among the Hindus a most 

 elaborate liturgj' and ritual. Our author thinks 

 that wherever ancestor worship arose pater- 

 nitj' must have been recognized. The father's 

 power must, he tells us, have been antecedent 

 to the practice of worshipping him. This 

 seems a sound conclusion. When, however, 

 we are told that ancestor worship preceded the 

 existence of laws of inheritance, we demur. 

 It is quite possible that ancestor worship origi- 

 nated as an expedient for preserving the 

 knowledge of genealogical relationships, inher- 

 itances being determined according to these 

 relationships. It has been very well said by- 

 Mr. Skene, that the genealogical table was to 

 early society what the title-deed has been to 

 society of medieval and modern times. 



In chapters v. and vi. our author takes up 

 the subject of royal succession and kingship in 

 its connection with early civil justice. These 

 chapters are very instructive. But on p. 131 

 we find the following statement : ' The past of 

 the west lives in the present of the east.' This 

 seems to us open to some criticism. Does our 

 author mean to say that the gaps in the earlj' 

 history of the west ma}' be filled up by importa- 

 tions of eastern custom? If so, we must make 

 a protest. This is a ver}' dangerous method, 

 and not a scientific one. Without doubt, 

 existing institutions in the east suggest to the 

 student of institutions in the west hj'potheses 

 which he may profitably' use as hypotheses; 

 but they must not be used in any other waj'. 

 The late Mr. Morgan was led into many errors 

 by filling gaps in the history of one nation by 

 extracts from the history of others. We re- 

 member our astonishment when we read his 

 account of the Roman gens, in which he fills 

 up the blank spaces of Gaius with importations 



from America. We are not a little pleased to 

 see that Sir Henry Maine does not follow him 

 in this. He saj-s (p. 283), " The Agnati were ■ 

 a group of actual or adoptive descendants, 

 through males, from a known and remembered 

 ancestor : the Gentiles were a similar group of 

 descendants from an ancestor long since forgot- 

 ten." His note upon the gens is extremely 

 interesting and valuable. 



Chapter vii., upon the theories of primitive 

 societj', will, perhaps, be read with more inter- 

 est than an}' other in the book. It is an argu- 

 ment to support the theory of patriarchal fami- 

 lies against the theory of promiscuous hordes, 

 against the theor}' of McLellan and Morgan. 

 Have we anj' right to assume that the inter- 

 course of men and women was in early times 

 promiscuous? Sir Henry Maine thinks not. 

 The first fact in sociological development is, 

 according to his view, the family. Promis- 

 cuous intercourse, in so far as it has existed, 

 he regards as due to the cultivation of unnat- 

 ural, abnormal instincts, or else to a deficiency 

 of women at certain times and in certain 

 places. The origin of the family he traces to 

 sexual jealous}', which he describes, rightly 

 enough, as one of the strongest of animal in- 

 stincts. In short, he takes very much the posi- 

 tion which Mr. Darwin takes in his account of 

 the descent of man. Sir Henry Maine de- 

 fines the patriarchal family as the result of 

 sexual jealousy indulged through power. This 

 is a very good phrase. The whole argument, 

 indeed, is vigorous and strong. 



The house community (chapter viii.) is the 

 next stage in sociological development. Then 

 comes the village community, and lastly the 

 manor. " Nor is it possible for me to doubt 

 that the typical manor arose out of the village 

 community." Our author makes this state- 

 ment on p. 331. The inquiry suggests itself: 

 Why should not the patriarchal family take- 

 the form of the manor, and why should not the 

 village community grow up within the manor? 

 Had we space, we should like to discuss this 

 matter at length. Sir Henry Maine does not 

 sufficiently consider the fact that the patri- 

 archal family includes, usually, an assemblage 

 of dependents and slaves. Why not derive 

 the manor, with its tenures and its customs, 

 out of this group, and the village community out 

 of the manor? 



The last three chapters of the book (ix., x., 

 xi.) are devoted to the decay of feudal property 

 in France and England, to classifications of 

 property, and to classifications of legal rules. 

 We regret that we have not space to speak 

 more particularly of their contents. On the 



