ability to adopt and adhere to some sound rule of conduct. A definite channel must be found through which can be drained the mighty waters of unrest and uncertainty now covering our spiritual land, if the hills of hope are to appear and the way to happiness made clear and passable. This course, when selected, will be guarded and protected by our law, whose form will conform to the new conditions. The road we must travel is, to me, nebulous and indistinct in its details and contours, yet definite in direction. I believe it to be a way of safety, and in support of my faith have prepared this paper, which I have ventured to call "The Coming Expansion of Our Law."

So broad a subject cannot be treated exhaustively on this occasion; no more can be attempted than to recall the origin of law, touch upon the direction of its development, with the causes and reasons thereof, and suggest the course of its future expansion, if our free institutions are to be preserved.

THE BIRTH OF THE LAW

The wants and fears of men caused them to combine when it required hunting by the pack to secure safety and food, before the skill of the "tool-making animal" had been developed. This primitive state recognized little personal right; its organization rested upon the individual's duty to the tribe or family, and no doubt law was born when its head ceased to direct his mate to cook for him, and ordered the women to prepare food for the tribe.

And the early records of the race show that it was not a lawless one; its members lived together in obedience to certain recognized customs and traditions, each willing to sac

rifice his own peace for the public good. They divided themselves into companies of ten men, each of whom pledged himself to obtain redress from him who violated the common peace; ten tithings formed a hundred and several hundreds formed a shire, every one being bound by this organization for the mutual protection of all. It was necessary then; life could not have been supported, except by mutual aid and assistance, in that rude and stormy time.

This duty or obligation of each individual to the chief, of each part to the whole, was the dominant feature, in fact, the foundation, of our early society, and its practical demonstration is found in the fighting men of the tribe, who were pledged to stand by the chief under all circumstances; to fight with him shoulder to shoulder in combat; to avenge his death, and on no account to survive his fall in the fray. Another idea, though given less consideration, was the right of the individual to certain freedom of action and the possession of property.

The law enforcing this duty and right was evidenced by custom alone, for no one could write, and was sternly enforced by allowing wrongs to be revenged, or by denying the wrongdoer the protection of the family or tribe "putting him beyond the law." However rude it may have been, it was then, as it is now, the sense of justice of the people of its age, which is the reason that our law, though assuming many forms as its conceptions widened with intellectual development, has always been one law, the people's sense of right.

And they were satisfied with their law, for it answered all the needs of their mode of living; providing food and enabling them to effectively defend themselves against marauding bands, and repel the attacks of adventitious tribes. In their conception of justice, duty was supreme,

for the day of the right of the individual had not dawned, though many signs gave promise of its coming.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN--THE CHRISTIAN ERA

It was not until Christ voiced the hopes of the individual that the idea of man's absolute obligation to society began to wane, and a positive direction and real force were given to the movement for the rights of man. Wherever the Word was received, life at once assumed a different aspect and the harshness and cruelty of the age were softened by a consideration of the rights of others. And this moral uplift was reflected in the law, as "the spirit of the time molds and shapes its law, as it molds and shapes its manner of thought and the whole current of its life. For law is the effort of a people to express its idea of right; and while right itself cannot change, man's conception of right changes from age to age, as his knowledge grows. The spirit of the age, therefore, affecting as it must man's conception of right, affects the growth of the common and of the statute law." (Harvard Law Review, Vol. 18, p. 273.)

The enlargement of the individual's rights followed the Cross of Christ; it made most progress in the Roman Empire, where the spiritual and temporal power were one, causing Justinian to sum up all law in the mandate to "Live honorably, hurt nobody, and render to everyone his due" (honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere), quite a change from the early law, which allowed the head of the family to kill or sell any of its members. In England the same influence led Alfred and Cnut to place His Commandments at the head of their dooms, and caused our law's development to take a definite direction, and, though its progress was slow, yet it was continuous, there

being a greater expansion during certain ages than at others. One of the most marked eras of advancement was during the Crusades, which covered a period of nearly two centuries.

THE CRUSADES

It was a high moral idea which led the people of England to desert their homes, and, in the effort to recover the tomb of our Savior, undertake a journey more difficult than the recent pilgrimage of our men across the sea, and it gave new impulse to the growing idea of personal liberty. A changed people, intellectually, returned to England, for they had come in contact with the learnings of Rome and the East, and a new power sprang up in the place of brute strength, the might of knowledge, causing the "barefoot" friar and "poor scholar" to be welcomed everywhere. The Conquest had been forgotten, Norman and Saxon were fused by marriage and a common love of the land into one people, who loved the people which then existed and took advantage of the opportunities it offered for material advancement. They were satisfied and contented, for "with peace came a stern but equitable rule, judicial and administrative reforms that carried order and justice to every corner of the land, a wealth that grew steadily in spite of heavy taxation, an immense outburst of material and intellectual activity." History of the English People, Vol. I., p. 206.

It was against such a people that King John attempted to assert powers, which, though claimed by his predecessors, had never been enforced. Baron and serf alike felt his injustice, the property and daughters of one, and the life of the other, being seized and destroyed at will by him. Men whose forefathers had braved the dangers of the East

would not submit to such an invasion of their personal rights, and arose in their might. The profligate King struggled, but finally submitted, and signed the charter of their liberties, and thus was born our written law, for, although certain records had been kept since the time of Richard I, this was its real beginning.

There was little new in the charter, it simply put in writing the fundamental law, and as some one has quaintly said, "It was born with a gray beard." Such provisions as "To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay, right or justice; no freeman shall be seized or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed or in any way brought to ruin; we will not go against any man, nor send against him, save by legal judgments of his peers or by the law of the land," and is the basis of our present judicial system.

But there was one new idea in it, the enforcement and preservation of the rights it evidenced. The English people did not intend to lose the fruits of their rebellion, they were determined to insure for all time the organic principles of their liberties, recognition of which had been obtained at much personal risk. And so, the treaty as settled at Runnymeade provide for a council of twenty-four Barons to force on John its observance, with the right to declare war upon him if its provisions were infringed. He strenuously protested against the clause, crying "They have given me four and twenty (over) Kings," flinging himself on the floor and gnawing sticks and straws in his impotent rage, but he signed it. History of the English People, Vol. 1, p. 255.

And is it not gratifying to see how the English-speaking race runs true to form in vital matters, for the idea of insuring the fruits of victory, which then took form in the provision for four and twenty barons, is again at the fore,