Ancient Law
Prefaces
Section summary
Maine’s four prefaces, printed newest first. The first edition’s preface (1861) states the aim: to trace the earliest ideas of mankind as reflected in ancient law, using Roman law as the typical system, and to examine the Roman jurists’ theories of natural law. The third (Calcutta, 1865) notes that Russian emancipation and American abolition have dated his remarks on serfdom and slavery. The fifth (1873) corrects his account of customary law by pointing to Village Communities (1871). The tenth (1884) concedes that research into “savage” societies has revealed forms older than the patriarchal state.
Preface to the Tenth Edition
The theory of legal development propounded in this volume has been generally accepted; but it has been thought that, in his Fifth Chapter on “Primitive Society and Ancient Law,” the Author has not done sufficient justice to investigations which appear to show the existence of states of society still more rudimentary than that vividly described in the Homeric lines quoted at page 124, and ordinarily known as the Patriarchal State. The Author at page 120 has mentioned “accounts by contemporary observers of civilisations less advanced than their own,” as capable of affording peculiarly good evidence concerning the rudiments of society; and, in fact, since his work was first published, in 1861, the observation of savage or extremely barbarous races has brought to light forms of social organisation extremely unlike that to which he has referred the beginnings of law, and possibly in some cases of greater antiquity. The subject is, properly speaking, beyond the scope of the present work, but he has given his opinion upon the results of these more recent inquiries in a paper on “Theories of Primitive Society,” published in a volume on “Early Law and Custom” (Murray, 1883).
Preface to the Fifth Edition
While further reflection and research have not led the Author of this work to alter his views on most of the matters of which it treats, he has convinced himself that the opinions expressed in the First Chapter on the difficult and still obscure subject of the origin of Customary Law require correction and modification. He has attempted to supply a part of the necessary corrections and modifications in a volume called “Village Communities in the East and West” (London: Murray, 1871).
Preface to the Third Edition
The Second and Third Editions of this work have been substantially reprints of the First. Some few errors have, however, been corrected.
It is necessary to remind the reader that the First Edition was published in 1861. The course of events since that period in Russia and in Northern America has taken away much of its application to existing facts from the language employed by the writer on the subject of serfage in Russia, of the Russian village-communities, and of negro-slavery in the United States. It may perhaps be interesting to the reader to observe the bearing of the changes which have taken place on the argument of that part of the work.
Preface to the First Edition
The chief object of the following pages is to indicate some of the earliest ideas of mankind, as they are reflected in Ancient Law, and to point out the relation of those ideas to modern thought. Much of the inquiry attempted could not have been prosecuted with the slightest hope of a useful result if there had not existed a body of law, like that of the Romans, bearing in its earlier portions the traces of the most remote antiquity and supplying from its later rules the staple of the civil institutions by which modern society is even now controlled. The necessity of taking the Roman law as a typical system, has compelled the Author to draw from it what may appear a disproportionate number of his illustrations; but it has not been his intention to write a treatise on Roman jurisprudence, and he has as much as possible avoided all discussions which might give that appearance to his work. The space allotted in the Third and Fourth Chapters to certain philosophical theories of the Roman Jurisconsults, has been appropriated to them for two reasons. In the first place, those theories appear to the Author to have had a much wider and more permanent influence on the thought and action of the world than is usually supposed. Secondly, they are believed to be the ultimate source of most of the views which have been prevalent, till quite recently, on the subjects treated of in this volume. It was impossible for the Author to proceed far with his undertaking, without stating his opinion on the origin, meaning, and value of those speculations.