to deprecate punishment for involuntary or
neglectful disrespect. Everybody acquainted with ordinary classical
literature will remember the _sacra gentilicia_, which exercised so
important an influence on the early Roman law of adoption and of
wills. And to this hour the Hindoo Customary Law, in which some of the
most curious features of primitive society are stereotyped, makes
almost all the rights of persons and all the rules of succession hinge
on the due solemnisation of fixed ceremonies at the dead man's
funeral, that is, at every point where a breach occurs in the
continuity of the family.

Before we quit this stage of jurisprudence, a caution may be usefully
given to the English student. Bentham, in his _Fragment on
Government_, and Austin, in his _Province of Jurisprudence
Determined_, resolve every law into a _command_ of the lawgiver, _an
obligation_ imposed thereby on the citizen, and a _sanction_
threatened in the event of disobedience; and it is further predicated
of the _command_, which is the first element in a law, that it must
prescribe, not a single act, but a series or number of acts of the
same class or kind. The results of this separation of ingredients
tally exactly with the facts of mature jurisprudence; and, by a little
straining of language, they may be made to correspond in form with all
law, of all kinds, at all epochs. It is not, however, asserted that
the notion of law entertained by the generality is even now quite in
conformity with this dissection; and it is curious that, the farther
we penetrate into the primitive history of thought, the farther we
find ourselves from a conception of law which at all resembles a
compound of the elements which Bentham determined. It is certain
that, in the infancy of mankind, no sort of legislature, not even a
distinct author of law, is contemplated or conceived of. Law has
scarcely reached the footing of custom; it is rather a habit. It is,
to use a French phrase, "in the air." The only authoritative statement
of right and wrong is a judicial sentence after the facts, not one
presupposing a law which has been violated, but one which is breathed
for the first time by a higher power into the judge's mind at the
moment of adjudication. It is of course extremely difficult for us to
realise a view so far removed from us in point both of time and of
association, but it will become more credible when we dwell more at
length on the constitution of ancient soci