The moral ideas of a people are less extensively represented in its laws than in its customs. This is a corollary of the fact that there are always a great number of customs which never become laws. Moreover, whilst law, like custom, directly expresses only what is obligatory, it hardly ever deals with merit, even indirectly. The Chinese have a method of rewarding and commemorating meritorious and virtuous subjects by erecting gates in their honour, and conferring upon them marks of public distinction;[35] {167} and the Japanese and Coreans award prizes in the form of money or silver cups or monumental columns to signal exemplars of filial piety, arguing that, if the law punishes crime, it ought also to reward virtue.[36] In Europe we have titles and honours, pensions for distinguished service, and the like; but the distribution of them is not regulated by law, and has often little to do with morality. [Footnote 35: de Groot, _Religious System of China_ (vol. ii. book) i. 769, 789 _sq._] [Footnote 36: Griffis, _Corea_, p. 236.] Law, like custom, only deals with overt acts, or omissions, and cares nothing for the mental side of conduct, unless the law be transgressed. Yet, as will be seen subsequently, though this constitutes an essential difference between law and the enlightened moral consciousness, it throws considerable light on the moral judgments of the unreflecting mind. Being a general, and at the same time a strictly defined, rule of conduct, a law can even less than a custom make special provision for every case so as to satisfy the demand of justice. This disadvantage, however, was hardly felt in early periods of legislation, when little account was taken of what was behind the overt act; and at later stages of development, the difficulty was overcome by leaving greater discretion to the judge. The history of legal punishments in England, for instance, shows a change from a system which, except in cases of misdemeanour, left no discretion at all to judges, to a system under which unlimited discretion is left to them in all cases except those which are still liable to capital punishment--practically, high treason and murder.[37] The study of law, then, must for our purpose be supplemented by the study of judicial practice. [Footnote 37: Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_, ii. 87.]