ntific solecism should be more defensible in
jurisprudence than in any other region of thought. It would seem
antecedently that we ought to commence with the simplest social forms
in a state as near as possible to their rudimentary condition. In
other words, if we followed the course usual in such inquiries, we
should penetrate as far up as we could in the history of primitive
societies. The phenomena which early societies present us with are not
easy at first to understand, but the difficulty of grappling with them
bears no proportion to the perplexities which beset us in considering
the baffling entanglement of modern social organisation. It is a
difficulty arising from their strangeness and uncouthness, not from
their number and complexity. One does not readily get over the
surprise which they occasion when looked at from a modern point of
view; but when that is surmounted they are few enough and simple
enough. But even if they gave more trouble than they do, no pains
would be wasted in ascertaining the germs out of which has assuredly
been unfolded every form of moral restraint which controls our actions
and shapes our conduct at the present moment.

The rudiments of the social state, so far as they are known to us at
all, are known through testimony of three sorts--accounts by
contemporary observers of civilisations less advanced than their own,
the records which particular races have preserved concerning their
primitive history, and ancient law. The first kind of evidence is the
best we could have expected. As societies do not advance concurrently,
but at different rates of progress, there have been epochs at which
men trained to habits of methodical observation have really been in a
position to watch and describe the infancy of mankind. Tacitus made
the most of such an opportunity; but the _Germany_, unlike most
celebrated classical books, has not induced others to follow the
excellent example set by its author, and the amount of this sort of
testimony which we possess is exceedingly small. The lofty contempt
which a civilised people entertains for barbarous neighbours has
caused a remarkable negligence in observing them, and this
carelessness has been aggravated at times by fear, by religious
prejudice, and even by the use of these very terms--civilisation and
barbarism--which convey to most persons the impression of a difference
not merely in degree but in kind. Even the _Germany_ has been
suspected by some cr