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and give him full directions for living first as student of holy books, next as a householder (or, as we should say, a citizen), and finally-for that is assumed to be the proper lot of every man in old ageas a religious ascetic or a hermit."

This remarkable distribution of life runs through the whole series of sacred legal writings, and only disappears when they become mere law-books. The Brahman alone teaches, but the entire youth of the three higher castes, Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, come and sit at his feet to be instructed in sacred learning; it is rot even certain from some passages whether the lowest and most despised of castes, the Sudras, are always excluded. This is the period of Studentship. When it comes to an end, the instructed Hindu returns to his family and to civil affairs. He is then the Householder. But, when old age is beginning, it is assumed in these books (whatever may have been the actual practice) that he withdraws from active life and closes his days as a Hermit or Ascetic, following a code of self-denial which is prescribed for him in full detail. It is of course to the second of these periods, that of life as a Householder, that we must look for whatever light the sacred laws of the Hindus may throw upon the ancient

7 The Student, who had completed his novitiate, might at any time become an Ascetic, but the regular course of life is that indicated in the text.

history of law. The first of them, Studentship, is remarkable, as disclosing the true secret of the hold of the sacred literature on large portions of the Hindu race, and of the respect paid by it to the teachers of the race, the Brahmans. For the education of the young Hindu is not merely an education in the holy texts and doctrines; it is a training in reverence, almost amounting to abject servility, bestowed on the literature and its professors in about equal proportions and inculcated by a system of rules adapted with extreme skill to immature minds. The third period, however, that of Asceticism, is the one which on the whole seems most unintelligible to the modern reader of these books, and it merits some special attention before this chapter is closed. The duty of adopting the ascetic life, and the rules for following it, referred to in all the law tracts, are discussed at much length by Manu in the sixth chapter. Having thus remained,' it is written, in the order of Householders, let the twice-born man ("twice-born," that is, through the study of the Vedas), who has before completed his studentship, dwell in a forest, his faith being firm and his organs wholly subdued. When the father of a family perceives his muscles become flaccid and his hair grey, and sees the child of his child, let him then take refuge in a forest. Abandoning all food eaten in towns, and all his household utensils, let him repair to the lonely wood, committing the care of his wife

..

to his sons, or accompanied by her, if she choose to attend him . . . Let him be constantly engaged in reading the Vedas, patient of all extremities Let him bear a reproachful speech with patience; let him not, on account of this frail and feverish body, engage in hostility with any one living. With an angry man let him not in his turn be angry; abused, let him speak mildly; nor let him utter a word referring to vain illusory things Delighted with meditating on the Supreme Spirit, sitting fixed in such meditation, without needing anything earthly, without any companion but his own soul, let him live in this world, seeking the bliss of the next . . . A gourd, a wooden bowl, an earthen dish, or a basket made of reeds, has Manu, son of the Self-existent, declared fit vessels to receive the food of men devoted to God.'

It is still a comparatively common practice in India for the aged Hindu to retire into 'religion,' and the law, as administered by the British tribunals, makes provision in many places for the case of a Hindu who has embraced a religious life, and ceased to participate in any kind of secular business. There is nothing by itself surprising in the custom, considering the tremendous series of experiences which the devout believer in Hinduism is led to expect as awaiting him at the moment of his death. Nevertheless, there is reason for thinking that the withdrawal of the

aged from activity is more ancient than the Hindu theological system, and has existed independently of it, as a secular practice, in many early societies. The Patria Potestas, which is witnessed to by the ancient law or custom of so many communities, was founded on power quite as much as on parentage; and when the power fails, there are many signs that the patriarchal authority departs. In the Hindu law of Succession, death is not by any means necessarily the occasion of inheritance; the contingency quite as commonly contemplated is withdrawal from secular life; the householder quitting his family and dividing his substance among his children-nay, being even liable (though this is a violently disputed point) to be forced into retirement by his sons. There is some evidence, moreover, that, when the larger associations of Hindu kindred, the Joint Families, were in a more ancient state than that in which we see them, they recognised three classes of persons as entirely helpless and therefore dependent on the group at large; the children, the unmarried daughters and widows, and the old men. The seniors' not infrequently mentioned in the Irish Brehon law, and stated to be persons for whom the sept must make provision, are no doubt aged men.

There is reason, in fact, to believe that at some period of human history a revolution took place in the status of aged men, not perhaps unlike that which is

still proceeding in the case of women. There is abundant testimony that tribes, long pressed hard by enemies or generally in straits for subsistence, systematically put their members to death when too old for labour or arms. The place from which a wild Slavonic race compelled their old men to leap into the sea is still shown. And the fiercer savage has often in many parts of the world made food of them. Nevertheless, the ancient records of many communities, especially those of Aryan speech, show us old age invested with the highest authority and dignity. Mr. Freeman (in his Comparative Politics,' rp. 72, 73) has given a long list of honorific names belonging to classes or institutions, which indicate the value once set by advancing societies on the judgment of the old. Among them are, Senate, yepovoía (the Spartan Senate), δημογέροντες (its Homeric equivalent), πρέσ Beis (Ambassadors), Ealdorman, Elder, Presbyter, Monseigneur, Seigneur, Sire, Sir, and Sheikh; and Mr. Freeman closes with the Old Man of the Mountain. So great a number of titles, civil and ecclesiastical, are evidence of a very strong sentiment, and suggest that this exaltation of old age was a definite stage in the ascent to civilisation.

There is a story of a New Zealand chief who, questioned as to the fortunes of a fellow-tribesman long ago well known to the enquirer, answered, 'He gave us so much good advice that we put him