ributed to him supernatural
origin and powers. That history should have accepted from tradition
such an important section of its material is worth consideration by
itself, apart from its bearing on the present study, and I shall
proceed, therefore, to set out some of the chief facts in this
connection.

There can be no doubt that in the tribal society of Indo-European
peoples the laws and rules which governed the various members of the
tribe were deemed to be sacred and were preserved by tradition. The
opening clauses of the celebrated Laws of Manu illustrate this position.
"The great sages approached Manu, who was seated with a collected mind,
and having worshipped him spoke as follows: Deign, divine one, to
declare to us precisely and in due order the sacred laws of each of the
four chief castes and of the intermediate ones. For thou, O Lord, alone
knowest the purport, the rites, and the knowledge of the soul taught in
this whole ordinance of the self-existent which is unknowable and
unfathomable."[111] They were not only sacred in origin but they dealt
with sacred things, and Sir Henry Maine has drawn the broad conclusion
that "there is no system of recorded law, literally from China to Peru,
which, when it first emerges into notice, is not seen to be entangled
with religious ritual and observance."[112] In Greece the lawgivers were
supposed to be divinely inspired, Minos from Jupiter, Lykurgos from the
Delphic god, Zaleukos from Pallas.[113] The earliest notions of law are
connected with Themis the Goddess of Justice.[114] In Rome it is to
Romulus himself that is attributed the first positive law, and it is by
a college of priests that the laws were preserved.[115] In Scandinavia
the laws were in the custody and charge of the temple priests, and the
accumulated evidence for the sacred origin and connection of the laws is
to be found in the sagas.[116] Among the Celtic peoples it is well known
that the laws were preserved and administered by the Brehons, who are
compared with the Hindu Brahmins by Sir Henry Maine, "with many of their
characteristics altered, and indeed, their whole sacerdotal authority
abstracted by the influence of Christianity."[117] In the Isle of Man
the laws were deemed sacred and known only to the Deemsters.[118]

In all cases laws were preserved by tradition and not by writing and
evidence, and the superior value attached to the traditional record
appears everywhere. The oldest record of Hind