The leading principle or idea embodied in the feudal system was that of a head, or chief, with dependence by the vassals and retainers. The same principle pervades our laws and institutions, and is in a great measure the fruit or effect of the feudal polity. Among other instances of its operation we may mention the law of primogeniture, the object being to create a family chief. The property qualifications necessary for parliamentary rights and representation, for the magistracy, and other stations of power and dignity, are illustrations of the same effect. The Peers sit and vote in the Upper House of Parliament as Barons of the Realm; while the Members for counties in the other House are returned as Knights of the Shire; and the Judges of the land are designated Barons of the Exchequer, or Knights’ Justices; and the parliamentary Members for boroughs are styled Burgesses,—thus still retaining their feudal distinctions. The preponderance everywhere given to property in land, over wealth in money, trade, or other moveable goods, is a result of the same policy. Indeed it may be said, that the leading principles which govern property in this Kingdom, have their main origin and foundation in the feudal system; although the legislation of the last half century has done much to abolish the enormities with which it was theretofore disfigured. But it may be asked, what were the effects of the system which we have briefly sketched? Were they good or evil? Did they advance or retard human society and civilization? These are difficult and important questions, in the solution of which probably few will entirely agree. That the feudal state was rendered necessary by the circumstances of the period, we have, we think, sufficiently shown. That its influence has been in some respects beneficial is also incontestible. The predominant feature of the feudal dominion was force—physical force; and this was the only one suited and practicable for the barbarian population of Europe in the middle centuries. Reason and right were terms unknown and foreign to the masses then emerging from uncivilized life. Force was their own law, and by this must they themselves have been ruled. The Baron or Lord, in enforcing the severities of the feudal code, therefore instructed his vassals in a vocabulary which they understood; he governed them by the only suitable rod. To have addressed them as citizens, and moral and accountable beings, and to have explained to them their duties and rights from a description of the nature, condition, and destinies of man, would have been to have spoken to them in an unknown tongue—in a language they could not have understood.