in the legislative career of nations, their first effort towards the perfecting of civil life consists in raising barriers against, in proclaiming beforehand, punishments for, excesses of individual liberty." Thus Guizot, in speaking of the celebrated Salic law. No one will be prepared to doubt the accuracy of his statement. Compare the early codes of different nations in the same and in different stages of advancement, and it will invariably be found that the penal law forms by far the largest portion of the code in the early history of a nation, but decreases in importance as that nation progresses in civilisation. We need but refer to the laws of the Ripuarian Franks, the Burgundians and the Visigoths, in illustration of the primitive estimation of the penal law, and its gradual declination before the advance of civilisation.

When, therefore, we glance at the criminal law of the Hindús as given in the Institutes, we see the same general features. The Hindú criminal law is most rude in its nature, and forms altogether the most unfavourable part of Menu's Code.

The punishments are not exactly sanguinary, but are yet characterized by many of the peculiarities which invariable disfigure the criminal code of an uncivilised nation. We are especially struck by the great inequality in the penalties awarded. One offence is expiated by a small fine, while another equally venial in our eyes, causes the offender to be burnt alive or horribly mutilated. Torture, however, does not exist as part of the law, but trial by ordeal, that great blot in most Gothic lands, is admitted, as might have been expected in so superstitious a race.

The able French historian and statesman we have previously quoted says of the civil law: "The civil law exists in like manner (as the political) as a fact; the 1 Guizot, Hist. Civilisation in France, Lec. ix.

2 Ibid.

mutual relations between men, their covenants and agreements, are left to the rules of mutual equity, are conducted according to certain fixed principles, certain generally admitted forms. The legal settlement of this portion of law does not take place until after a much fuller development of the social state." It is true that the penal law does not hold so large a place in Menu's code as to practically exclude civil and political law: far from it. To this extent then, the resemblance fails us, but in all else save relative bulk, it strongly reminds us of the rude attempts at producing a systematic code of laws made by the various tribes of barbarian Franks about the time of the conquest of Gaul.

When we turn, however, to the laws for civil judicature we find them "very superior to the Penal Code, and indeed much more rational and matured than could well be expected of so early an age1." Witnesses are to be examined on oath, to be warned in the strongest terms of the guilt of perjury, and the inevitable punishment awaiting the committer of it in a future state; and although to save a man's life a witness may testify falsely, and meet with no punishment hereafter on performing expiatory sacrifices, and in certain affairs not judicial it is allowed to break one's promises and swear a light oath, yet wilful perjury, or the putting forward of a false plea is punished severely.

The prevailing impression, however, left on the mind of the reader as he rises from the perusal of these laws, is that the Hindús must have been in a far more advanced condition as regards social life than any contemporary nation.

Their habits of business appear completely formed, and the transactions upon which they entered such as are to be met with in the present day amongst mercantile people. They had their laws of contract and partnership; they 1 Elphinstone, Hist. Ind. Book 1. Chap. iii.

regulated the rate of interest upon loans, and determined. by the circumstances of the case how that rate should vary; moreover, as befitted a trading people, their laws against debtors were, to some extent severe, an appeal to force being admitted within certain limits. The transfer of property personal and real; actual and fictitious sales, formed the subject of the legislator's care; and all disputes between neighbours, master and servant, or parties to a contract were to be settled by the evidence of competent witnesses, or in default of these, by a general inquiry instituted by the king himself.

Almost all the religious doctrine of the Védas may be summed up in the words Unity of the Deity. "There is but one Deity," we find in many passages, "Supreme Lord, the Lord of the Universe, whose work is the universe." The multitudinous gods of the Hindú mythology are most of them mentioned, as well as the three chief manifestations of the divinity (Brahmá, Vishnu, and Siva); but the incarnations of the last named deities, which forms so marked a feature in the present Hindú theology, are never alluded to. Besides these, there are beings superior to men who take rank as gods of the elements, the heavenly bodies, or of abstract ideas. Menu while preserving the grand idea of the Unity of God, has mixed up to a considerable extent the popular and philosophical systems; for while in the Védas the drift of the whole argument goes to show that the substance and form of all created beings is derived from the will of the self-existent cause; in the Institutes we discover a somewhat vague but generally prevailing idea of the eternity of matter. The Védas, it is true, contain passages which seem to consider God as at once the maker and the material, "the potter and the clay," yet the best authorities decline to take these in their literal sense, but only as poetical modes of expressing the origin of

everything from a great first cause. In the Institutes we find that "The self-existing power, himself undiscerned, but making the world discernible, with five elements and other principles, appeared with undiminished glory dispelling the gloom." It is scarcely necessary to enter into a lengthy description of the Hindú system of theology as detailed in Menu; suffice it to say, that although substantially the religion of the Védas, it bears within it such traces of declension as led in future ages to the establishment of the debased and superstitious worship existing in the present day. We must not, however, omit to mention. that the difference between right and wrong is considered essential, and as strongly marked by God Himself; who gave to man "consciousness as an internal monitor, and made a total difference between right and wrong, pleasure and pain, &c."

We may divide the practical part of the Hindú religion into ritual and moral. The ritual occupies far too large a portion, but the moral is by no means excluded.

Many religious ceremonies must be performed from the earliest period of a child's life, but the most important of all is the investiture with the sacred thread, when those who are invested receive the name of twice-born men, and through life must perform daily sacrifices attended with offerings and oblations, besides becoming constantly liable to suffer impurity from different causes; all of which together with the means of purification are detailed at considerable length in the code.

As a whole, the religion inculcated by the Institutes is good. The ritualistic observances take, it is true, too prominent a place, but the moral duties of man are declared to be superior to the ceremonial; the distinction between right and wrong is said to be drawn by the hand of the Deity himself, who has implanted in the bosom of every

man a silent indicator; justice, truth, and virtue are generally enjoined: wicked conduct is reproved, and its punishment in a future state plainly declared. Occasional instances of laxity and of departure from moral rectitude are to be discovered, but the tendency of the code is to hold up the good to approval, the bad to execration. As however, is the case with the morality of almost all Eastern nations, passive rather than active virtue is praised, negative goodness commended, and the wise man's life is to be so spent that at the last he may attain the summit of all happiness, perfect tranquillity, and "rest and be thankful'."

Of the manners and customs of the Hindús in the time of Menu it would be departing from the purpose of this essay were we to say much. One point, however, is specially worthy of note because from it alone we may form a very fair judgment as to the remainder.

This point is the condition of the women. It is an invariable rule that the higher the state of a nation's civilisation the better will be the condition and treatment of the weaker sex, and the converse. Now the condition of the women is mainly perceived in the code under consideration, by the laws relating to marriage, but incidental circumstances also form no small source of our information on this head. We find there to our surprise, since we are discussing the laws of an oriental people, and nowhere are women so little respected as in the East, that the laws of marriage are by no means unfavourable to the weaker party. A wife is commanded to be obedient and devoted to her husband; while he on his part, although he should keep her under certain legal restrictions, must leave her at her

1 Speech of Earl Russell at Blairgowrie.

2 De Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America, attributes a great deal of the rapid progress made by the Americans in the sciences and arts of life to the superiority of their women.