Page:Ireland and England in the past and at present.djvu/30

 and hardships to the natives who scarce understood what took place.

The old Irish system is known very largely from the ancient Law of the Brehons, or professional lawyers. Very influential, as time went on they tended to form an hereditary legal class, giving judgment in accordance with the custom of the land.

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They had collections of laws by which they regulated their decisions and taught their scholars. Many of these collections have been preserved; their content is known now as the Brehon Law.

Wherever the tribal system flourishes the idea of the state is little developed. Constant warfare and tribal dispute make it difficult to establish the idea of a central authority. Accordingly there are in early times no offences against the state, or crimes, as they would now be called, but only against individuals or groups. Therefore wrongs were not punished or avenged by the state: the injured person or his kinsmen sought redress. In Erin, as elsewhere at first, the law of retaliation prevailed, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But in all primitive societies and among all early "Aryan" peoples, as ideas of peace slowly develop, retaliation gradually gives way to compensation. The injured party might take 6 Here and in several other places I quote Sir Samuel Ferguson's The Welshmen of Tirawley.