E-text prepared by deaurider, Les Galloway, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/superstitionfor00leah Transcriber’s note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A caret character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the caret is superscripted (example: 317^a). Multiple superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: 1^{ier}). The footnotes have been placed at the end of the document. SUPERSTITION AND FORCE. Essays on The Wager of Law—The Wager of Battle—The Ordeal—Torture. by HENRY CHARLES LEA, LL.D. Plurima est et in omni jure civili, et in pontificum libris, et in XII. tabulis, antiquitatis effigies.—CICERO, _de Oratore I._ 43. Fourth Edition, Revised. Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co. 1892. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1892, by Henry C. Lea, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress. All rights reserved. Collins Printing House. PREFACE. The history of jurisprudence is the history of civilization. The labors of the lawgiver embody not only the manners and customs of his time, but also its innermost thoughts and beliefs, laid bare for our examination with a frankness that admits of no concealment. These afford the surest outlines for a trustworthy picture of the past, of which the details are supplied by the records of the chronicler. It is from these sources that I have attempted, in the present work, a brief investigation into the group of laws and customs through which our forefathers sought to discover hidden truth when disputed between man and man. Not only do these throw light upon the progress of human development from primitive savagism to civilized enlightenment, but they bring into view some of the strangest mysteries of the human mind. In this edition I have endeavored to indicate, more clearly than before, the source, in prehistoric antiquity, of some of the superstitions which are only even now slowly dying out among us, and which ever and anon reassert themselves under the thin varnish of our modern rationalism. In a greatly condensed form the first three essays originally appeared in the North American Review. June, 1878. * * * * *