nothing need be said here. Those subjects will be found fully discussed in the llot-es. The moral aspect of the invasion has already been considered. It remains only to add that, many as are the memorable conquests on record, conquests whose results have had an abiding influence upon after ages, this one is the most memorable of all. The occupation of this small strip of territory scarcely larger than Wales, though it led to no further results in the way of conquest, has nevertheless to a great extent moulded the moral and religious history of the world. Clu:istianity and Moham- medanism have alike sprung from it; and though at first the latter seemed to have surpassed the form.er in political and warlike activity, supremacy has at length fallen unchallenged into Christian hands. Thus. the Israelite conquest of Canaan was in fact an event of primary importance to man- kind. It was one which might well have been ushered in with portent and prodigy, and certainly it was one which will always occupy a foremost place in men's minds. No amount of destructive criticism can dispose of the fact that the subjugation of Palestine was achieved by a people without a ri,al in the influence it has exerted on the destinies of the human race.
§ IV. THE SETTLEMENT OF PALESTINE, A few remarks on the landed and governmental system of Palestine may not be out of place. The institutions of the people a;s a whole may of course best be studied in the Mosaic law, but it is not unimportant to endeavour to gain from the condition of Palestine after the conquest some idea of the way in which it was originally designed that this law should be administered. This question divides itself into two heads, the system of government and the tenure of land. • I. What the system of government was in Joshua's time ill clear enough. It was virtually what we now call a constitutional monarchy, though rather of the type which such a monarchy took at the time of William Ill than that which exists among us at the present day. Joshua was supreme, yet simply by force of character, not from any supposed inherent right he possessed to such supremacy, still less, like many successful soldiers, by a military despotism. For great as his authority unquestionably was, he never acted alone. Whenever we see him discharging the functions of chief magistrate, he reminds us of an early Anglo-Saxon sovereign. His Witenagemot, his council, the representatives of the tribes, the high officers of Church and State, were always around him (eh. viii. 83; xviii. 1; xxii. 11-14; xxiii. 2; xxiv. 1). But after his death the tribes assumed a form more like the United States in Holland and America. Each one Lad its own defined portion of territory, apportioned to it by lot, and was i;overeign within its own borders, but common dangers and common interests \Yere discussed at a general assembly. There appears, however, to haYe TO THE tlUOK OF JOSHUA. :nit
been no organized system of united action, no fixed time for the general assembly to meet, but such assemblies were only held under the pressure of extraordinary need (Judg. xx. 1). Therefore, when the personal influence of the "elders that over-lived Joshua" was removed, the acknowledgment of the theocracy, the provision for united worship, was not found sufficient to band the tribes together, and the once formidable confederacy soon fell to pieces. Its integrity was seriously threatened as early as the events recorded in Judges xx. It had already ceased to exist in the time of Deborah and Barak. The internal unity of each tribe or clan was much better preserved. Its organization was extremely complete. The tribe was divided into its mn~~r., or septa, its 111::111,(y-n•;;i or families, and its c•·:i:;i~ or heads of households. The Cl'ill?~ or thousands, which have been held to correspond to the 111M~tft,', were probably a military division parallel to, but independent of, the genealogical one, and bore some •analogy to the hundred or wapentake of our own island. The question which has been learnedly argued concerning Anglo-Saxon institutions, whether the national system was one of aggregation or subdivision, does not arise here. For Israel was, as the name implies, a family, the family of Jacob. From hence the minor divisions arose by subdivision, the tribe into the sept, the sept into the family, the family into the household. Thus the political unit, which in early English society was the mark or village, in Palestine was the tribe. The government thence arising was partly aristocratic, partly representative. The heads of the tribes had no doubt to summon l.o the council all the heads of the households,'' but they themselves, as the lineal descendants of the eldest son, had the greatest weight in the decision (see Josh. xxii. 14). The powers of the head of a household were great, though by no means so absolute as in many of the primitive Aryan com- munities, t where the house-father had an absolute power of life and death. The Mosaic law knew nothing of the fierce rigours of this patriarcha.l tyranny. It did not subsist in the households of Abraham, Israel, and Jacob. If it had had a tendency to grow up in Egypt, the Mosaic law would have checked it. It is clear from Exod. xxi. 15-17, from Levit. :s.x. 9, from Deut. xxvii. 16, and above all from Dent. xxi. 18--21, that the Jewish head of a household had not, like the Aryan house-father, the power of life and death over his children. Though the members of his family had no representative at the general council of the tribe, he was responsible for his treatment of them to the laws of the land. By whom those laws were administered we know not. The judges were originally (Exod. xviii. 25) • Sometimes, e.e in eh. xxi. 1, only the beads of the families were present. Compo.re the gree.ter e.nd leseer Skuptschine. in Servia. t As in India (see Me.ine, 'Village Communities,' Leet. iv.). And in Greece and Rome (see Hearn,• AryBJl Household,' oh. iv.). ttx INTRODUCTION