LEGISLATIONS OF ISRAEL AND EAEYLOXIA. 



161 



here indicated is further emphasised by other provisions which 

 secure the slave from mal-treatment hy his master. Here it 

 cannot be said that economic development necessitates or 

 justifies the Babvlonian code. In a word, where Hammurabi 

 safeguards the rights of proijerty, Moses for the first time in 

 liistory protects the rights of humanity. 



The same holds good of the laws relating to loans, pledges 

 and poor relief. The legislator s object is always the same — 

 to give practical effect to that doctrine of holiness which 

 conceives the love of God's creatures as part of the Israelite's 

 duty towards his God. 



AVe now come to two points that are best treated together, 

 the strength of the family and tribal sentiment, and the 

 weakness of the central administration. These appear to Ije 

 due mainly to historical causes. In lieu of a people subjected 

 to a strong centralised royal power with class distinctions, as 

 were the Babylonians, history had made of the Hebrews a loose 

 aggi-egation of undisciplined tribes unaccustomed to community 

 of government, community of interest or community of action, 

 kno\ving little of class distinctions, but profoundly imbued with 

 family sentiment. The enormous strength of this feeling is to 

 be seen in the influence it exercised on the law of succession to 

 laud. Here the possible effect of the Mosaic pro\'isions led to 

 a deputation of remonstrance, which pointed out that the 

 possessions of heii'esses might by their marriage become 

 permanently vested in membei-s of another tribe. It was 

 accordingly enacted that in such cases they must espouse men 

 of their own tribes, but the incident and the resulting law 

 testify very vividly to the nature of the feeling. It is probably 

 to tliis feeKng of tribal separateness that we should attribute, 

 in part at any rate, the great defect of the system — the failure 

 to create a centi^al government, which in those days could only 

 have been effected by giving hereditary authority to one family. 

 Probably no tril>e would have submitted to a king who was 

 chosen from some other tribe. Xeither Moses nor Joshua 

 appears to have had a son who was capable of ruling, and for 

 the purposes of conquest a general was the only possible head 

 of the people. Hence the defect was probably inevitable, but 

 the weakness of the Hebrew system at this point is the measure 

 of the strength of the Babylonian. The strong security for 

 life and property, the compensation for robbery that Ham- 

 mui'abi could afford were out of the Cjuestion for tribes with the 

 historical antecedents of the Israelites. It should further be 

 pointed out that the geographical character of the country, with 



