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to political administration and government. In these points, especially the latter, minute details are entered into, and this with a particularity which is striking when compared with the poverty of the code in respect to those matters which seem to us most important in a system of law. A third point of similarity between this and the other ancient codes is, the provision it makes for the exercise of private vengeance, of personal satisfaction for injuries done. As the power of government is comparatively weak, the individual does not, (as he does in more advanced societies) give up his right to take satisfaction in his own hands. Thus we find in this code that he whose father or lord has suffered from violence may revenge himself in a prescribed period, on giving suitable notice. We have a parallel to this in the elaborate provisions of the Mosaic code with respect to the avenging of blood. Another point of similarity is the stress this code lays on class distinctions. Society in early stages is unequal, and early codes by reducing these distinctions to writing render them more sharp and distinct. Such expressions as “A girded sword is the living soul of a samurai”—“The samurai are the masters of the four classes” must have increased the self-importance of those who read them, and added much to the already overweening pride of the military class in Japan. But there is one great difference between this and all other early codes, viz, its secrecy. It was in express terms forbidden to be promulgated; the perusal of it was only allowed to the “Gorejiu” or chief concillors of state. This is so unlike all our ideas of Law that it is difficult for us even to imagine a state of things in which people are judged by laws of which they are not only ignorant, but purposely kept in ignorance. The question at once arises how can people obey laws if they do not know their nature? But we have a parallel in the history of the Aryan race previous to the foundation of the codes so often mentioned. We find in Greece and Rome at the beginning of their history that the knowledge of the laws and their administration was confined to the
