G Mr. Mayxe on the Administration of Native Law 



future welfare of the individual. And as they vary in their 

 objects, so do they differ in their means. The former is de- 

 ficient in sources of knowledge, limited in powers of coercion. 

 The latter is omniscient to detect, omnipotent to punish. 

 Each is able to administer his own law. But as soon as a 

 Divine Code is committed to a human tribunal, the Judge 

 finds that he is launched upon enquiries wholly foreign to 

 the purpose for which he was appointed ; that he is unable 

 to satisfy himself as to the guilt of the offender ; that he can 

 neither enforce the observance of the rule, nor exact the pe- 

 nalty for its breach. Nor does it make the smallest difference 

 whether the Code is a real or a pretended revelation. Laws 

 which purport to be divine will always represent that which, 

 in the opinion of the inventor, would be the mandate of the 

 Deity. The maxims of Manu and Muhammad are quite as 

 incapable of being made the text-books of a Court of Justice, 

 as those of the Pentateuch or the Gospels. 



The first difficulty, then, which encounters an Indian Judge 

 is, that he has to administer two Codes, in each of which 

 crimes and transgressions, duties and virtues, legal obliga- 

 tions and ceremonial observances are inextricably mixed up, 

 and yet are all inculcated by the same authority. Much of 

 the law cannot, and more of it should not be enforced ; but 

 where is the line to be drawn ? More especially, how is it to 

 be drawn by a Judge who is sworn to give the litigants the 

 benefit of their respective religions, and who is precluded from 

 taking into consideration his own disbelief in or contempt 

 for the particular rules to which he is referred ? 



It may be said that many of these maxims are merely 

 directory, and that it is always possible to distinguish be- 

 tween those which are of that nature, and those which are 

 intended to be imperative. But so far as there is any truth 

 in this assertion, it is merely the statement, in another form, 

 of the fact that some branches of the law are incapable of 



