Each month Fastcase hosts a book (as a PDF document) that has fallen out of copyright for your legal reading delight. This month we bring you Henry Sumner Maine‘s Ancient Law. Below are some quotes taken from the text:

“Law is stable; the societies we are speaking of are progressive. The greater or less happiness of a people depends on the degree of promptitude with which the gulf is narrowed. ”

“It is true that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge; and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of those popular movements which began to be universal in the western world. ”

“The ancient codes were doubtless originally suggested by the discovery and diffusion of the art of writing. ”

Read the entire publication below:

Ancient Law (PDF)