n the sun and the
seasons and the weather and upon means of making fire, and so on.
Accordingly, they entertain similar beliefs, and develop similar
institutions through similar series of changes. Hence, if in one nation
some institution has been altered for reasons that we cannot directly
discover, whereas we know the reasons why a similar change was adopted
elsewhere, we may conjecture with more or less probability, after making
allowance for differences in other circumstances, that the motives or
causes in the former case were similar to those in the latter, or in any
cases that are better known. Or, again, if in one nation we cannot trace
an institution beyond a certain point, but can show that elsewhere a
similar institution has had such or such an antecedent history, we may
venture to reconstruct with more or less probability the earlier history
of that institution in the nation we are studying.

Amongst the English and Saxon tribes that settled in Britain, death was
the penalty for murder, and the criminal was delivered to the
next-of-kin of his victim for execution; he might, however, compound for
his crime by paying a certain compensation. Studying the history of
other tribes in various parts of the world, we are able, with much
probability, to reconstruct the antecedents of this death-penalty in our
own prehistoric ages, and to trace it to the blood-feud; that is, to a
tribal condition in which the next-of-kin of a murdered man was socially
and religiously bound to avenge him by slaying the murderer or one of
his kindred. This duty of revenge is sometimes (and perhaps was at first
everywhere) regarded as necessary to appease the ghost of the victim;
sometimes as necessary to compensate the surviving members of his
family. In the latter case, it is open to them to accept compensation in
money or cattle, etc. Whether the kin will be ready to accept
compensation must depend upon the value they set upon wealth in
comparison with revenge; but for the sake of order and tribal strength,
it is the interest of the tribe, or its elders, or chieftain, to
encourage or even to enforce such acceptance. It is also their interest
to take the questions--whether a crime has been committed, by whom, and
what compensation is due--out of the hands of the injured party, and to
submit them to some sort of court or judicial authority. At first,
following ancient custom as much as possible, the act of requital, or
the choice of accept