The rudiments of the social state, so far as they are knownto us at all, are known through testimony of three sorts accountsby contemporary observers of civilisations less advanced thantheir own, the records which particular races have preservedconceding their primitive history, and ancient law. The firstkind of evidence is the best we could have expected. As societiesdo not advance concurrently, but at different rates of progress,there have been epochs at which men trained to habits ofmethodical observation have really been in a position to watchand describe the infancy of mankind. Tacitus made the most ofsuch an opportunity; but the Germany, unlike most celebratedclassical books, has not induced others to follow the excellentexample set by its author, and the amount of this sort oftestimony which we possess is exceedingly small. The loftycontempt which a civilised people entertains for barbarousneighbours has caused a remarkable negligence in observingtherein, and this carelessness has been aggravated at times byfear, by religious prejudice, and even by the use of these veryterms -- civilisation and barbarism -- which convey to mostpersons the impression of a difference not merely in degree butin kind. Even the Germany has been suspected by some critics ofsacrificing fidelity to poignancy of contrast and picturesquenessof narrative. Other histories too, which have been handed down tous among the archives of the people to whose infancy they relate,have been thought distorted by the pride of race or by thereligious sentiment of a newer age. It is important then toobserve that these suspicions, whether groundless or rational, donot attach to a great deal of archaic law. Much of the old lawwhich has descended to us was preserved merely because it wasold. Those who practised and obeyed it did not pretend tounderstand it; and in some cases they even ridiculed and despisedit. They offered no account of it except that it had come down tothem from their ancestors. If we confine our attention, then, tothose fragments of ancient institutions which cannot reasonablybe supposed to have been tampered with, we are able to gain aclear conception of certain great characteristic of the societyto which they originally belonged. Advancing a step further, wecan apply our knowledge to systems of law which, like the Code ofMenu, are as a whole of suspicious authenticity; and, using thekey we have obtained, we are in a position to discriminate thoseportions of them which are truly archaic from those which havebeen affected by the prejudices, interests, or ignorance of thecompiler. It will at least be acknowledged that, if the materialsfor this process are sufficient, and if the comparisons beaccurately executed, the methods followed are as littleobjectionable as those which have led to such surprising resultsin comparative philology.
The effect of the evidence derived from comparativejurisprudence is to establish that view of the primeval conditionof the human race which is known as the Patriarchal Theory. Thereis no doubt, of course, that this theory was originally based onthe Scriptural history of the Hebrew patriarchs in Lower Asia;but, as has been explained already, its connexion with Scripturerather militated than otherwise against its reception as acomplete theory, since the majority of the inquirers who tillrecently addressed themselves with most earnestness to thecolligation of social phenomena, were either influenced by thestrongest prejudice against Hebrew antiquities or by thestrongest desire to construct their system without the assistanceof religious records. Even now there is perhaps a disposition toundervalue these accounts, or rather to decline generalising fromthem, as forming part of the traditions of a Semitic people. Itis to be noted, however, that the legal testimony comes nearlyexclusively from the institutions of societies belonging to theIndo-European stock, the Romans, Hindoos, and Sclavonianssupplying the greater part of it; and indeed the difficulty atthe present stage of the inquiry, is to know where to stop, tosay of what races of men it is not allowable to lay down that thesociety in which they are united was originally organised on thepatriarchal. model. The chief lineaments of such a society, ascollected from the early chapters in Genesis, I need not attemptto depict with any minuteness, both because they are familiar tomost of us from our earliest childhood, and because, from theinterest once attaching to the controversy which takes its namefrom the debate between Locke and Filmer, they fill a wholechapter, though not a very profitable one, in English literature.
The points which lie on the surface of the history are these: --The eldest male parent the eldest ascendant -- is absolutelysupreme in his household. His dominion extends to life and death,and is as unqualified over his children and their houses as overhis slaves; indeed the relations of sonship and serfdom appear todiffer in little beyond the higher capacity which the child inblood possesses of becoming one day the head of a family himself.
