of Society and its Relation to Modern Ideas, 1861; Short Essays and Reviews on the Educational Policy of the Government of India, 1866; Village Communities in the East and West (Lectures), 1871; The Early History of the Property of Married Women as collected from Roman and Hindoo Law (Lecture), 1873; The Effects of Observation of India on Modern European Thought (Lecture), 1875; Lectures on the Early History of Institutions, 1875; Village Communities, etc.; third ed. with other Lectures and Addresses, 1876; Dissertations on Early Law and Custom (selected from Lectures), 1883; Popular Government (four Essays), 1885; India [1837-1887] (in "The Reign of Queen Victoria," ed. by Thos. Humphry Ward, vol. i.), 1887; The Whewell Lectures: International Law, 1887, 1888; Ancient Law (ed. with introduction and notes by Sir Frederick Pollock), 1906; Ancient Law (Allahabad ed., with introduction by K.C. Banerji), 1912.

Contributions to: "Morning Chronicle," 1851; "Cornhill Magazine," 1871; "Quarterly Review," 1886; "Saturday Review," and "St. James's Gazette."

A brief memoir of the life of Sir Henry Maine, by Sir M.E. Grant Duff; with some of his Indian speeches and minutes, selected by Whitley Stokes, 1892.

PREFACE

The chief object of the following pages is to indicate some of the earliest ideas of mankind, as they are reflected in Ancient Law, and to point out the relation of those ideas to modern thought. Much of the inquiry attempted could not have been prosecuted with the slightest hope of a useful result if there had not existed a body of law, like that of the Romans, bearing in its earliest portions the traces of the most remote antiquity and supplying from its later rules the staple of the civil institutions by which modern society is even now controlled. The necessity of taking the Roman law as a typical system has compelled the author to draw from it what may appear a disproportionate number of his illustrations; but it has not been his intention to write a treatise on Roman jurisprudence, and he has as much as possible avoided all discussions which might give that appearance to his work. The space allotted in the third and fourth chapters to certain philosophical theories of the Roman Jurisconsults has been appropriated to them for two reasons. In the first place, those theories appear to the author to have had a wider and more permanent influence on the thought and action of the world than is usually supposed. Secondly, they are believed to be the ultimate source of most of the views which have been prevalent, till quite recently, on the subjects treated of in this volume. It was impossible for the author to proceed far with his undertaking without stating his opinion on the origin, meaning, and value of those speculations.

H. S. M.

    London, January 1861.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

ancient codes

The most celebrated system of jurisprudence known to the world begins, as it ends, with a Code. From the commencement to the close of its history, the expositors of Roman Law consistently employed language which implied that the body of their system rested on the Twelve Decemviral Tables, and therefore on a basis of written law. Except in