ABSTRACT
A more specific statement is that made by Mason concerning the Karens, among whom “the elders are the depositaries of the laws, both moral and political, both civil and criminal, and they give them as they receive them, and as they have been brought down from past generations” orally. Evidence that among the Romans there had occurred a kindred process, is supplied by the story that the ancient laws were received by Numa from the goddess Egeria; and that Numa appointed augurs by whose interpretation of signs the will of the gods was to be ascertained. Both the divine laws and the human laws which originate from personal authority, have inequality as their common essential principle; while the laws which originate impersonally, in the consensus of individual interests, have equality as their essential principle. With decline of the regime of status and growth of the regime of contract, personally derived law more and more gives place to impersonally derived law.
