Tradition : Principally with Reference to Mythology and the

THE LA W OF NA TIONS. 341
"
I. Accepting Sir H. Maine's dictum that " the family
and not the individual was the unit of ancient society;"
and, in a certain sense, the further position, that it is difficult
" to know where to stop, to say of what races of men
it is not allowable to lay down that the society in which
they are united was originally organised on the patriarchal
model,"2 I venture to maintain against Sir H. Maine the
continuance of family life in a quasi state of nature, before
either the development or creation of the State.
II. But in maintaining that there was a period in
human history anterior to the formation of governments,
I am far from asserting-on the contrary, I distinctly
repudiate the notion-that there was ever an ante-social
state. Society is complete within the family circle;3
and society in any wider organisation is only the requirement
and consequence of imperfection and corruption
within the family, or of collision between families.
Undoubtedly, there were instances in which the State
grew up imperceptibly out of the extension of the family
into the patriarchal system;4 but these instances will
probably have occurred among the families who remained
2 "Ancient Law," p. 123.
It by no means follows that God does not will, and did not foreordain
society in its wider organisation, according to the conditions and circumstances
out of which it arose.
4 Sir H. Maine says (p. 124):-" The points which lie on the surface of
history are these: the eldest male parent-the eldest ascendant-is absolutely
supreme in his household. His dominion extends to life and death,
and is as unqualified over their children and their houses as over his slaves.
The flocks and herds of the children are the flocks and herds of the father/*
[This is not borne out by what we read of Abraham and Lot, Esau and
Jacob-e.g., "But Lot also, who was with Abraham, had flocks of sheep, and
herds and tents. Neither was the land able to bear them, that they might
dwell together" (Gen. xiii.) " And the possessions of the parent, which
he holds in a representative rather than a proprietary character, are equally
divided at his death among his descendants in the first degree, the eldest
son sometimes receiving a double share, under the name of birthright,