by superior habitation or revenue. On the
other hand, the duties awarded to him were marvellously light and easy,
requiring no preponderant degree of energy or intelligence. There being
no apprehensions of war, there were no armies to maintain; there being
no government of force, there was no police to appoint and direct. What
we call crime was utterly unknown to the Vril-ya; and there were no
courts of criminal justice. The rare instances of civil disputes were
referred for arbitration to friends chosen by either party, or decided
by the Council of Sages, which will be described later. There were
no professional lawyers; and indeed their laws were but amicable
conventions, for there was no power to enforce laws against an offender
who carried in his staff the power to destroy his judges. There were
customs and regulations to compliance with which, for several ages,
the people had tacitly habituated themselves; or if in any instance an
individual felt such compliance hard, he quitted the community and went
elsewhere. There was, in fact, quietly established amid this state,
much the same compact that is found in our private families, in which we
virtually say to any independent grown-up member of the family whom
we receive to entertain, "Stay or go, according as our habits and
regulations suit or displease you." But though there were no laws such
as we call laws, no race above ground is so law-observing. Obedience to
the rule adopted by the community has become as much an instinct as
if it were implanted by nature. Even in every household the head of it
makes a regulation for its guidance, which is never resisted nor even
cavilled at by those who belong to the family. They have a proverb,
the pithiness of which is much lost in this paraphrase, "No happiness
without order, no order without authority, no authority without unity."
The mildness of all government among them, civil or domestic, may be
signalised by their idiomatic expressions for such terms as illegal or
forbidden--viz., "It is requested not to do so and so." Poverty among
the Ana is as unknown as crime; not that property is held in common, or
that all are equals in the extent of their possessions or the size and
luxury of their habitations: but there being no difference of rank or
position between the grades of wealth or the choice of occupations, each
pursues his own inclinations without creating envy or vying; some like
a modest, some a more splendid kind of