The Law of Usages and Customs

1875. The author examines the customs out of which the law has developed. He explains in the introduction that all laws float in men's minds long before they send down a precipitate of imperative words. For example, it must have been understood by men that theft-the act of taking the property of another without his consent-was wrong before they made a law to punish the thief, with the view of preventing similar depredations. But long before men made a law they had bolts to their doors, and if they caught the robber they exercised their right by taking his booty from him and possibly even by inflicting upon him a vengeful punishment. This was not done by one man but by many, and we see in it the embryonic custom out of which the law has developed.