Masoretic system of the Jews, a most curious production of the human mind. (6) Finally, we come to the period of the rise of great Reformers, or Founders of Personal Religions. This epoch marks the growth of Morality in spite of textual and priestly influence, and the reforming religion is almost invariably marked by a higher moral tone than its parent, the older religion. This is a period of very great interest in the history of Religion, for we have, in the original teaching of each great Reformer, religion in its nearest approach to a code of pure ethics, and therefore in its period of greatest purity and least fettered by literary authority. It is very remarkable that, with the exception of Mahomet, the Founders of all the great Personal or Reforming religions have themselves left little or nothing in writing. They resemble such great teachers as Socrates and Epictetus, both in this respect and in another, namely, that in almost every case we derive our knowledge of their teaching from biographies and collections of sayings; written, collected, and preserved by faithful disciples. For instance, the chief record we have of the Buddha's early life is the celebrated Lalita Vistara, or gospel of the Northern Buddhists, and much of the teaching of Confucius is contained in the Lun-Yu, or Confucian Analects, a collection of his sayings. Gradually a second sacred literature, that of the reforming religion, grows up, the older commentaries and controversial works on the primitive documents of the new faith being considered as of almost equal authority with those documents, and councils are held, as in Christianity and Buddhism, to settle the literary form of the creed and the limits of the sacred canon. For instance, the Tripitaka, the sacred canon of the Southern Buddhists, was settled at the Council of Patna, held 250 B.O., in the reign of the King Asoka, the Constan tine of India, after which missionaries were sent to preach the faith in various countries. The subsequent history of the reforming or missionary religions is that of their success in foreign lands, and the gradual formation of national churches. This necessitates the rise of a great literature of translations from the ancient texts, first into the learned or literary language of the period, and afterwards (in spite of priestly opposition) into the vernacular. These translations grow in the course of time to be regarded with almost equal veneration, and certainly more real affection, than the original ancient texts, and new translations, though perhaps more accurate, are looked upon with natural disfavour. THE LITERARY HISTORY OF LAW. The history of the growth of the great legal systems of the world is marked by very similar features to those of the great religions. The first literary step is taken when a nation obtains its primitive code; such as the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables (450 B.C.), and the Hindu Laws of Manu (5th century B.C.) Each primitive code is, as we have seen, very generally believed to have been of divine origin, and it always continues to exercise a powerful influence upon the legal system of which it forms the fountain head. Not to weary you with details, it must suffice to say that the subsequent history of Jurisprudence is a history of the three principal instrumentalities whereby, among the progressive races of mankind, the primitive code is brought as nearly as possible into harmony with the advancing needs and morality of society. These instrumentalities are, first, commentaries on the ancient text, and collected opinions of learned lawyers, which gradually become regarded as of equal authority with the ancient text; secondly, the introduction of Equity or natural justice, founded upon a supposed Law of Nature, or law common to all nations; and, thirdly, the last and latest instrumentality, that of direct legislation.* The second, Equity, or natural justice, is by far the most interesting of the three. First, because its introduction into legal systems exactly corresponds with the introduction of a higher morality into ancient religious systems by the great Founders of Personal Religions. Secondly, because it is to a scientific study of Equity, or natural justice, that we look for the great future work of Law, namely, the founding of an international code which shall prevent wars between civilised nations. For war is a very primitive and uncivilised way of settling their difficulties and disputes. It shows us that though each member of the European family has attained individually, through the growth of Law, to a state of national civilisation, we are still (excepting a few treaties, too often disregarded) in a state of collective or international savagery and barbarism. This primitive barbarism, therefore, will end, and international civilisation begin, when the new Comparative Science of Law has given us an international code worthy of being adopted and recognised by all nations. FORM IN ART-HISTORY AND IN LIFE-HISTORY. It is, perhaps, not foreign to, but illustrative of our subject to remark that the growth of Literature itself as a Fine Art shows the same progress from prominence of Form to prominence of substance. In every national literature there comes a time when a climax of beauty of form is reached, usually termed the Golden Age of the literature, from which time Form gradually declines, and we reach the epoch of works in which the matter is considered as far more important than the manner, the spirit than the letter. So in History, the most important branch of prose literature, we have first the artistic type, commencing with Herodotus, and reaching its climax of beauty in such authors as Thucydides Maine, Ancient Law, ch. ii. * and Tacitus, and it is not till very recent times, in fact, till the present century, that we get the true decline of History as a fine art, and the rise of the new laborious and scientifically accurate style. So in Man, and probably in every other individual living creature, there is a period of the perfection of ideal bodily form; but, as Mr. Ruskin has well pointed out, in Man this is succeeded by an ideal beauty-conferred by soulculture-of perhaps a purer and higher range than that of the more perfect material form; wherefore we think more nobly of the reverend presence of the old man than of the fair countenance of the youth.* Is not the life-history of each national literature in some sense analogous to this? A transition from Formalism to freedom is seen in the growth of every Fine Art. If European Architecture had not passed from the rigid formalism of the so-called "Classic" style to the lovely medieval Gothic freedom of fancy and line, it could never have received its beautiful name of 'frozen music.'+ The annals of Painting show a similar transition from the formalism or conventionalism of Early Christian Art to the modern freedom both of subject and treatment. And the history of Music,-more nearly related to Literature than any other fine art, both being Time and not Space Arts, is but the history of Form; first the emancipation from the ancient diatonic severity of ecclesiastical modes and counterpoint, and the transition to the modern beautiful free or chromatic style; then the perfection of musical forms in the days of Mozart and Beethoven,-the Golden Age of Music and lastly, the decline of the influence of Form since that time, while the so-called 'music of the future' is specially characterised by a greater or less degree of formlessness. * Modern Painters, vol. ii., sect. i., ch. 14. CONCLUSION. In conclusion, three main results may be stated at which we arrive from the study of the literary history of Religion and Law. Literary Form has ever been a principal supporter and agent of ancient Authority and Dogma in matters of faith, belief, and opinion, and has thus exercised a powerful retarding influence on intellectual and moral progress.* It is but two or three centuries since even Science herself emerged from her literary or authoritative stage. Indeed, to write the history of Authority would be to write the history of Thought. The opposite influences, those of the growth of Ethics and of a spirit of intellectual freedom, have periodically produced mighty reforms in the rigid formalism of religious and legal systems, but these reforms have themselves in the course of time crystallised into formalism, and rendered fresh changes necessary. Secondly, the accurate study of both Religion and Law has been sadly impeded by the notion that pure Ethics or Morality has a necessary connection with each of them. That this is not the fact is a conception which is only just beginning to dawn upon men. Lastly, as the history of Ancient Law shows us a transition of the unit of society from the Family to the Individual, or, in other words, the gradual rise to importance of the Individual and individual rights,† and as the history of Property exhibits a corresponding progress from joint to individual ownership, so in the intellectual ascent of Man we pass from thinking and believing in crowds to individual freedom of thought and belief, and from a bondage to the letter that killeth to the free service of the Spirit which giveth life. * This influence must be carefully distinguished from the apparently opposite influence which the spread of literature in general, as distinguished from particular works and from literary form, has had (especially since the invention of printing) in promoting education and knowledge of all kinds. † Maine, Ancient Law, p. 168. Ib., pp. 259, 268, 270. |