Excerpt from The Relations Between the Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples We live in an age of devotion to comparative methods, when it is an article of faith to hold that the most fruitful means to attain a clear understanding of the exact nature of anything is to compare it with its like. This comparative method forms a large part of modern scientific research and, with proper safeguards and reserves, has become a favourite weapon of literary research into the history of human institutions. Long ago, as it seems to us, sir. Henry maine used it 2 when he wrote his History of Early Law. As a consequence of his investigations and those of many who have followed in his footsteps, the Science of Comparative Law has grown up. All the great law systems of the world have been classified and compared, and comparative lawyers felt qualified to assign to any new-found fragment of ancient law its true position in their schemes. The results had rather confirmed than traversed ancient claims for the supremacy of Mosaic Laws. Men had settled down to the belief that we might compare, and that to its great advantage, the Legislation of Moses with the Roman Laws of the XII Tables, with the Indian Laws of Manu or the Greek Code of Gortyna. We had recognized the broad outlines of a process of evolution and begun to understand the way in which, as a people advanced along the path of progress in the elements of civilization, similar human needs called forth similar solutions of the questions of right and wrong. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.