There is nothing more beneficial to the philosophy of human thought than the scientific study of human institutions. To know how man's thought has grown to what it now is from the rudest atom of intellect must be a contemplation worthy of the greatest consideration, and that by the greatest minds. It is only of late years that it has been at all possible to penetrate into the reality of primordial society, whatever might have been the extent of its mythical existence; and this has been accomplished by the great inductive sciences. Comparative philology has led the van, and shown the track; it only remains for comparative jurisprudence to hesitate no longer on the threshold of its existence, but to follow up these indications, thereby bringing us nearer to our primeval ancestors, in thought as well as history; and, consequently, nearer to ourselves.