spiration for each sentence. The connection of ideas which
caused the judgments of the patriarchal chieftain to be attributed to
superhuman dictation still shows itself here and there in the claim of
a divine origin for the entire body of rules, or for certain parts of
it, but the progress of thought no longer permits the solution of
particular disputes to be explained by supposing an extra-human
interposition. What the juristical oligarchy now claims is to
monopolise the _knowledge_ of the laws, to have the exclusive
possession of the principles by which quarrels are decided. We have in
fact arrived at the epoch of Customary Law. Customs or Observances now
exist as a substantive aggregate, and are assumed to be precisely
known to the aristocratic order or caste. Our authorities leave us no
doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused,
but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or
engine of tyranny. Before the invention of writing, and during the
infancy of the art, an aristocracy invested with judicial privileges
formed the only expedient by which accurate preservation of the
customs of the race or tribe could be at all approximated to. Their
genuineness was, so far as possible, insured by confiding them to the
recollection of a limited portion of the community.

The epoch of Customary Law, and of its custody by a privileged order,
is a very remarkable one. The condition of the jurisprudence which it
implies has left traces which may still be detected in legal and
popular phraseology. The law, thus known exclusively to a privileged
minority, whether a caste, an aristocracy, a priestly tribe, or a
sacerdotal college is true unwritten law. Except this, there is no
such thing as unwritten law in the world. English case-law is
sometimes spoken of as unwritten, and there are some English theorists
who assure us that if a code of English jurisprudence were prepared we
should be turning unwritten law into written--a conversion, as they
insist, if not of doubtful policy, at all events of the greatest
seriousness. Now, it is quite true that there was once a period at
which the English common law might reasonably have been termed
unwritten. The elder English judges did really pretend to knowledge of
rules, principles, and distinctions which were not entirely revealed
to the bar and to the lay-public. Whether all the law which they
claimed to monopolise was really unwritten, is exceeding