Lectures on the Growth of Criminal Law in Ancient Communities

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. It appears to have been from the Criminal Law that the Analytical School of Jurisprudence derived its very notion of Law. To show, therefore, that the origin of Criminal, as well as of other branches of Law, was in primeval custom, is extremely important. My object, in these lectures, has been to do so, and at-the same time to point out the traces of primitive ideas which remain in later developments of Criminal Law. I am aware that I have only carried out this object in a very imperfect and sketchy manner, but I could do no more than this in the limited number of lectures which a Professor of Law may legitimately devote to such an abstract subject.