would be safely to guard the hoard which so many hungry eyes surrounded. In this sense it would be of no importance what were the circumstances of the society or the occupations of its members, for the same principles would apply. All employments end in a store for the future, and that little capital would require to be secured against the depredations of others equally anxious to gain an investment, and still more anxious to do so without the trouble of working for it. The same circle of cares would be repeated through all the succeeding stages of advancement, however complicated might become the labours, the desires, and the possessions of individuals. What each would seek above all things would be-not to be interfered with by others to be let alone to pursue his occupations to their logical conclusion-to reap where he had sown-to sleep behind his own ramparts—and to riot in the luxury of possession.

Security is the end and scope of all municipal laws.-What then can be the scope and end of all laws, but simply to further and render more certain and secure whatever occupation each individual has thought fit to adopt? The less others interfere with him, and the less he interferes with others, each has more time of his own-better repose and more strength-he gets in the long run more of what he wants, and loses less than he would lose, if there were perpetual interference, perpetual robberies, and perpetual recaptures stratagems by night and battles by day—each carrying his life in his hand, and seeing an enemy in every bush. Here, then, is the true sphere of the law. The law has and can have no other object than simply to secure to each the utmost possible value-the widest field-the securest enjoyment for his varied employments. It is this security against interference, which makes all grades of civilisation

The Chinese code states that the chief ends proposed by the institution of punishments in the empire have been to guard against violence and injury, to repress inordinate desires, and to secure the peace and tranquillity of an honest and unoffending community.— Staunton's Code of China, lxvii.

Not unlike this was the beginning of the written laws of the Lombards in the edict of King Rotharis (A.D. 644). "The object of the edict was to relieve the poor from oppression, and restrain the insolence of the rich and great, that every one might live in peace and enjoy his property undisturbed.”—Leg. Longob.

akin-which is the universal haven in which nations find rest. There are degrees of intensity, of delicacy, of completeness; but it is one fundamental and indivisible consciousness underlying all the variations of race, and climate, and soil. The rude barbarian can appreciate it as fully as the polished citizen. The untutored Indian, who carries all his goods on his back—who finds a home under every tree-who gives few hostages to fortune-enjoys a sense of security against his equals as sensibly, though not so intensely, as the merchant prince, whose corn, and cattle, and servants are scattered over many provinces, whose ships ride in every sea, and whose note of hand is sold in all the markets of the world.

Object of law is not to enforce virtue.-If therefore law be the restraint enforced in order to secure more effectually to each the benefits of his own occupations, there is avoided much of the vagueness and mystery surrounding those definitions which give no motive at all, or identify that motive with the knowledge or pursuit of what is right. That the law necessarily enforces what is right cannot be contended, and yet that there must be some motive is equally apparent. The supreme power, whether centred in one person or in many, may make mistakes, and must often retrace its steps. There is a conscience attending the exercise of all power which requires to be educated. Not only may the supreme power make mistakes, but it is conscious that its power, though supreme, is limited in all directions. It has not the power nor the capacity to make men religious or moral, though some vague conception of such an attempt may have haunted most of the early legislators, and has led to many mistakes in all ages. What is right and what is wrong is a problem, not more easy, at the same time that it is not more difficult to be solved by the legislature than by the individual. But the legislature has neither the organs to discover, nor the machinery to enforce, nor the time to watch religion or morality among the people. This would be too ambitious and universal an empire; and yet some restraints for order's sake may be classed under the head of assisting and protecting those who do good. In civilised states the promotion of religion and virtue is an occupation of many, and requires the same protection as other occupations.

What the law orders or requires is however not necessarily identified with what is right, and it is frequently made the instrument of what is wrong. A man may do all that the law requires, may avoid all that the law forbids, may be blameless in its eyes; he may pass his life without even once directly invoking its aid, or provoking its punishment, and yet he may be of no esteem, but rather a scorn and derision among his fellows. Just he may be, for the law to some extent makes this compulsory; but beyond this he may be the negation of all that is worthy and of good report. The law deals only with the outward acts of man; but beyond the range of the visible there is a vast and widening empire, into which no legal proceses can runthe seat of feelings and contemplations and the stable joys of life. Voluminous as the law is, it would require to be a thousand times more voluminous if it were to incorporate all the precepts of moralists and the delicate distinctions of casuists and divines. It is impossible for the law to rule where nothing can be seen, or heard, or felt, and where all the movements are silent, and the result incomprehensible and incommunicable.1

1 GUIZOT observes: "When societies have attained a great development morality is no longer written in their codes. The legislature leaves it to manners, to the influence of opinion, to the free wisdom of men's wills: it expresses only civil obligations and the punishments instituted against crimes. But between these two terms of civilisation, between the infancy of societies and their greatest development, there is an epoch when the legislature takes possession of morality, digests, publishes it, commands it-when the declaration of duties is considered as the mission, and one of the most powerful mediums of the law."-3 Guiz. Civ. Fr. Lect. 9.

ARISTOTLE seemed to think that civil society is founded, "not merely that its members might live, but that they might live well, for the first care of the legislator must be that its citizens should be virtuous;" "otherwise," he said, "civil society would be merely an alliance for self-defence." "A state," he said, "is a society of people joining together, with their families and their children, to live well for the sake of a perfect and independent life.”—Arist. Pol. b. 3, c. 11.

Modern nations, however, have arrived at a conclusion the converse of Aristotle's, for they seem all agreed that his secondary object is their main object, namely, that society is an alliance for self-defence, and his primary object is their secondary object, that of making citizens virtuous. This latter object is beyond the scope, and baffles the ambition of all governments. It may be assisted indirectly, but cannot and ought not to be attempted directly. The empire of virtue

Law does not dictate occupations.-Another thing to be noticed, is that the law can only give security to the occupations of individuals after each individual has discovered and entered on them. It does not pretend to teach individuals how to live-how to work, what to do, or what they can do best. It is true that in Mexico and Peru the lower classes could follow no craft, no amusement or labour, nor even marry, without leave of the government.1 But this close paternal care has been rarely attempted even by the ancients. Each may be trusted to find faculties and impulses wherewith to employ himself, and which the law can neither give nor take away. The vast variety of human occupations are not the creatures of the law, though the law can do much to make these occupations fruitful. The seed is already sown in the ground; the law only keeps the birds of the air from devouring it.2

is not of this world, and is maintained and extended by arts and methods nearly altogether irrespective of human laws.

ROBERT HALL, a great writer, traced similar ideas with admirable felicity and power in his Apology for the Freedom of the Press.

ASHURST, J., said: "It is beyond the power of the law to rectify men's minds, and to infuse into them that noble fire which burns in the breasts of good men, and prompts them to doing of praiseworthy actions, and promoting the happiness of their country and the good of their fellow-creatures; but it is in the power of the law to take from evil-minded men the ability of doing mischief, and to restrain them of that liberty which they so grossly abuse."-22 St. Tr. 234.

C. J. Fox said that the state had no right to inquire into the opinions of people, either political or religious; it had a right to take cognisance only of their actions.-28 Parl. Hist. 1267.

1 Wikoff's Civilis. 10.

2 PYM-"The law is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evil, betwixt just and unjust. If you take away the law, all things will fall into a confusion. Every man will become a law to himself; lust will become a law, and envy will become a law covetousness and ambition will become laws. The law is the boundary, the measure betwixt the king's prerogative and the people's liberty. Whilst these move in their own orbs they are a support and a security to one another. The prerogative alone is a defence to the liberty of the people, and the people, by their liberty, enabled to be a foundation to the prerogative; but if these bounds be so removed that they enter into contestation and conflict, one of these mischiefs must ensue if the prerogative of the king overwhelm the liberty of the people, it will be turned into tyranny; if liberty undermine the prerogative, it will grow into anarchy. . . . The law is the safeguard, the custody of all private interests. Your honours, your lives,

The current divisions of municipal law. When the definition of law is ascertained, the next task is to divide the law into its leading departments. Here also considerable diversity of treatment has prevailed. It is at this point that the philosophers and moralists part company with the jurists and practical lawyers. All may with equal justice claim some qualification to define law and its province, for to do so requires no special familiarity with the details of the science. But in order to distribute the materials under distinct heads-to assign the place of each leading doctrine, and proceed from generals to particulars, much special knowledge is all but essential. Accordingly, in this part of the subject there are fewer authorities, and those which exist are more strictly technical and practical than in the other. It is here also that the peculiar tendency of the legal temperament begins to manifest itself-the tendency to follow with more fidelity than reflection whatever some great master has laid down on some previous occasion more or less akin to the present.

One division into judicature, legislature, and government.— At the outset one large division of the law suggests itself -that which distinguishes the judicature, the legislature, and the government. Aristotle remarked that in all states there must be, first a legislative power, secondly, a power of government, and thirdly, a judicial power.1 And Montesquieu and later writers make or repeat the same distinction. But these divisions do not touch the substantive law they are rather the means of giving effect to that law.3

your liberties and estates are all in the keeping of the law. Without this every man hath a like right to any thing."--Forster's Pym, 169.

FILANGIERI said his conclusion was, that a government should interfere as little as possible, and let everything take its own course.Filang. Sci. della Legisl. ch. 11. Human laws are made, not to punish sin, but to prevent crime and mischief.-Pollock, C.-B. Att.-Ĝen v. Sillem, 2 H. & C. 526.

1 Arist. Pol. b. 4, ch. xvi.

2 L'Esprit, b. ii. ch. 6.

3 MONTESQUIEU, Esprit des Lois, b. 1, ch. 3. "Law in general is human reason, and is either political law or civil law. The former is the law relative to the governors and the governed, the latter is the law relative to the mutual relations of citizens. The largest degree of liberty which the constitution and circumstances of the country will permit is the object in view. Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit."-B. 11, ch. iii.