in tloe Courts of the Madras Presidency. 5 



termined by, if the suit had been brought and the action 

 commenced in a Native Court : and where one of the parties 

 shall be a Muhammadan or Gentoo, by the laws and usages 

 of the defendants." The Court was also expressly directed 

 in all such suits, to make such rules as should be most con- 

 venient to the religion and manners of the Natives, and 

 to the said laws and usages respectively. Here again 

 nothing is said of land tenures, though in this case the 

 omission is less important, since in the great majority 

 of questions connected with land, the title of the several 

 claimants would be a matter of contract and dealing, either 

 express or implied. Practically, both the Mofussil and 

 Supreme Courts have given the fullest effect to the Native 

 law of contracts, and to all local usages affecting landed 

 rights, so far as they have been able to ascertain them. 



This, then, is the real problem : to ascertain, not what 

 was, but what is the Native law on any given question. 

 Here the Judge is met by a difficulty of a peculiar character. 

 The Hindu and Muhammadan Codes, differing as they do in 

 almost every other feature, agree in this, that each represents 

 itself as the result of a divine revelation. Such a Code 

 from its very nature never can be carried out as a whole. 

 Every lawgiver, whether human or divine, legislates with 

 respect to the objects which he desires to effect, and the 

 means at his disposal for detecting and punishing the in- 

 fringement of his ordinances. But both the objects and the 

 means differ most widely according to the character of the 

 legislator. The human lawgiver aims at the security and 

 prosperity of the community. The divine lawgiver desires 

 the observance and spread of his religion, of which hap- 

 piness is to be at once the result and the reward. The 

 former only interferes with the conduct of men so far as it 

 affects the interests of others. The latter forbids misdeeds 

 as being acts of disobedience to himself, which endanger the 



