fall of the Roman empire. In
one respect the analogy is very striking. As there were in Europe then,
so there are in India now, several systems of law widely differing from
each other, but coexisting and coequal. The indigenous population has
its own laws. Each of the successive races of conquerors has brought
with it its own peculiar jurisprudence: the Mussulman his Koran and the
innumerable commentators on the Koran; the Englishman his Statute Book
and his Term Reports. As there were established in Italy, at one and
the same time, the Roman Law, the Lombard law, the Ripuarian law, the
Bavarian law, and the Salic law, so we have now in our Eastern empire
Hindoo law, Mahometan law, Parsee law, English law, perpetually mingling
with each other and disturbing each other, varying with the person,
varying with the place. In one and the same cause the process and
pleadings are in the fashion of one nation, the judgment is according
to the laws of another. An issue is evolved according to the rules
of Westminster, and decided according to those of Benares. The only
Mahometan book in the nature of a code is the Koran; the only Hindoo
book, the Institutes. Everybody who knows those books knows that they
provide for a very small part of the cases which must arise in every
community. All beyond them is comment and tradition. Our regulations in
civil matters do not define rights, but merely establish remedies. If
a point of Hindoo law arises, the Judge calls on the Pundit for an
opinion. If a point of Mahometan law arises, the Judge applies to the
Cauzee. What the integrity of these functionaries is, we may learn from
Sir William Jones. That eminent man declared that he could not answer
it to his conscience to decide any point of law on the faith of a Hindoo
expositor. Sir Thomas Strange confirms this declaration. Even if there
were no suspicion of corruption on the part of the interpreters of the
law, the science which they profess is in such a state of confusion that
no reliance can be placed on their answers. Sir Francis Macnaghten tells
us, that it is a delusion to fancy that there is any known and fixed law
under which the Hindoo people live; that texts may be produced on any
side of any question; that expositors equal in authority perpetually
contradict each other: that the obsolete law is perpetually confounded
with the law actually in force; and that the first lesson to be
impressed on a functionary who has to administer Hi