BOOK II. When this arrangement takes place, we have arrived at a new stage in the progress of civil society. The condition of mankind, when divided into tribes, exhibits considerable variety, from that patriarchal association which is exemplified in the history of Abraham, to such combinations as are found among the Tartars, or that distribution into clans, which, at no distant period, distinguished the people of Europe. The rapidity with which nations advance through these several states of society chiefly depends on the circumstances which promote population. Where a small number of people range over extensive districts, a very numerous association is neither natural nor convenient. Some visible boundary, as a mountain or a river, marks out the limits of a common interest; and jealousy or enmity is the sentiment with which every tribe is regarded by every other. When any people has multiplied so far as to compose a body, too large and unwieldy to be managed by the simple expedients which connected the tribe, the first rude form of a monarchy or political system is devised. Though we have no materials from the Hindus, which yield us the smallest assistance in discovering the time which elapsed in their progress to this point of maturity, we may so far accede to their claims of antiquity, as to allow that they passed through this first stage in the way to civilization very quickly; and perhaps they acquired the first rude form of a national polity at fully as early a period as any portion of the race' It was probably The cautious inquirer will not probably be inclined to carry this era very far back. "The newness of the world," says the judicious Goguet, CHAP. 2. at no great distance from the time of this important BOOK II. change that those institutions were devised, which have been distinguished by a durability so extraordinary; and which present a spectacle so instructive to those who would understand the human mind, and the laws which, amid all the different forms of civil society, invariably preside over its progress. CHAPTER II. Classification and Distribution of the People. THE transition from the state of tribes to the more regulated and artificial system of a monarchy and laws is not sudden; it is the result of a gradual preparation and improvement. That loose inde pendence, which suits a small number of men, bound together by an obvious utility, scattered over an extensive district, and subject to few interferences of inclination or interest, is found productive of many inconveniences, as they advance in numbers, as their intercourse becomes more close and compli (vol. iii. dissert. 3.) "is proved by the imperfection of many of the arts in the ancient world, and of all the sciences which depend upon length of time and experience." By the newness of the world, he means the newness of human society. In examining the remains of organized bodies which have been extricated from the bowels of the earth, vegetables are found at the greatest depth; immediately above them small shell-fish, and some of the most imperfect specimens of the animal creation; nearer the surface quadrupeds, and the more perfectly organized animals: lastly man, of whom no remains have ever been found at any considerable depth. The inference is, that compared with the other organized beings on this globe, man is a recent ereation. See Parkinson's Organic Remains. СНАР. 2. BOOK II. cated, and as their interests and passions more frequently clash. When quarrels arise, no authority exists to which the parties are under the necessity of referring their disputes. The punishment of delinquents is provided for by no preconcerted regulation. When subsistence, by the multiplication of consumers, can no longer be obtained without considerable labour, the desire to encroach upon one another adds extremely to the occasions of discord: and the evils and miseries which prevail, excite at last a desire for a better regulation of their common affairs. But slow is the progress made by the human understanding, in its rude and ignorant state. No little time is spent; first, in maturing the conviction that a great reformation is necessary; and next, in conceiving the plan which the exigency requires. Many partial remedies are thought of and applied; many failures experienced; evils meanwhile increase, and press more severely; at last men become weary and disgusted with the condition of things, and prepared for any plausible change which may be suggested to them. In every society there are superior spirits, capable of seizing the best ideas of their times, and, if they are not opposed by circumstances, of accelerating the progress of the community to which they belong. The records of ancient nations give us reason to believe that some individual of this description, exalted to authority by his wisdom and virtue, has generally accomplished the important task of first establishing among a rude people a system of government and laws. It may be regarded as a characteristic of this CHAP. 2. primary institution of government, that it is founded BOOK II. upon divine authority. The superstition of a rude people is peculiarly suited to such a pretension. While ignorant and solitary, men are perpetually haunted with the apprehension of invisible powers; and, as in this state only they can be imposed upon by the assumption of a divine character and commission, so it is evidently the most effectual means which a great man, full of the spirit of improvement, can employ, to induce a people, jealous and impatient of all restraint, to forego their boundless liberty, and submit to the curb of authority.' No where among mankind have the laws and ordinances been more exclusively referred to the Divinity, than by those who instituted the theocracy of Hindustan. The plan of society and government, the rights of persons and things, even the customs, arrangements, and manners, of private and domestic life; every thing, in short, is established by divine prescription. The first legislator of the Hindus, whose name it is impossible to trace, appears to There is scarcely an exception to this rule. Minos often retired into a cave, where he boasted of having familiar conversations with Jupiter: Mneues, the great legislator of Egypt, proclaimed Hermes as the author of his laws it was by the direction of Apollo that Lycurgus undertook the reformation of Sparta; Zaleucus, the legislator of the Locrians, gave out that he was inspired by Minerva: Zathruspes, among the Arimaspians, pretended that his laws were revealed to him by one of their divinities: Zamolxis boasted to the Getes of his intimate communications with the goddess Vesta: the pretensions of Numa among the Romans are well known. (See Goguet, Origin of Laws, part II. book I. ch. i. art. 9.) The Druids, among the ancient Britons and Gauls, were at once the legislators, and the confidants of the Divinity. Odin, who was himself a Divinity, and his descendants, who partook of his nature, were the legislators of the Scandinavians. "The legislators of the Scythians," says Mallet, (Introd. to Hist. of Denmark, ii. 43,) "represented God himself as the author of the laws which they gave to their fellow-citizens." CHAP. 2. BOOK II. have represented himself as the republisher of the will of God. He informed his countrymen that, at the beginning of the world, the Creator revealed his duties to man, in four sacred books, entitled Vedas; that during the first age, of immense duration, mankind obeyed them, and were happy; that during the second and third they only partially obeyed, and their happiness was proportionally diminished; that since the commencement of the fourth age disobedience and misery had totally prevailed, till the Vedas were forgotten and lost;1 that now, however, he was commissioned to reveal them anew to his countrymen, and to claim their obedience.? The leading institutions of the Hindus bear evidence that they were devised at a very remote period, when society yet retained its rudest and simplest form. So long as men roam in the pastoral state, no division of classes or of labour is known. Every individual is a shepherd, and every family provides for itself the commodities with which it is supplied. As soon as the cultivation of land, which yields a more secure and plentiful subsistence, occupies a great share of the common attention, the inconvenience of this universal mixture of employments is The whole of this is imaginary; there is no such legislation, there are no such assertions in Hindu tradition.-W. 2 As we see them in Manu comprehending an artificial system of monarchy and law, they must have been, according to Mr. Mill's own showing (p. 177.), the result of a gradual preparation and improvement: he is at variance with himself in the attempt here commenced, and pertinaciously pursued, to prove that the institutions of the Hindus belong to the rudest and simplest form of society.-W. 3 This is a necessary supposition, as the generation to whom the Vedas were first presented must have known that they had no previous acquaintance with them, and could not believe that they had remained familiar to mortals from the period of their first revelation. |