The Hindoo communities gathered together by instinct, and new comers were introduced by fiction. The feudal obligation was created by contract. The feudal communities were, for this reason, more durable and varied in character than the ancient societies. Some would hold that the variety of Modern Civilizaiion is due to the exuberant and erratic genius of Germanic races. In opposition to this error, it may be asserted that the Roman Empire bequeathed to society the legal conception to which all this variety is attributable. The one striking and

6 I. Stubbs, 252.

« Co. Litt., chap. II. sect. 91.

1 Hist, of Institutions, 155

HISTOKY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

characteristic fact in the customs and institutions of barbaric races is their extreme uniformity." '

The effect of feudalism on the society ot the era in Mhich it existed, was two fold. It repressed and harshly kept down the personal rights and freedom of what in our day we now term "the masses," but it also gave rise to, maintained, and estabii-shed in those who then ruled the masses of that day, those feelings, rules of conduct, and principles of action, to which are really due the vastly higher general civilization of both classes of people at this era. If we investigate feudalism in its social aspects, in the words of the late chief justice of Ceylon, " we shall find ample cause for the inextinguishable hatred with which, as Guizot truly states iu History of Civilization in Europe, it lias ever been regarded by the common people. But this ought not to make us blind to its brighter features. There was much in feudalism, especially as developed in the institutions of chivalry, that was pure and graceful and generous. It ever acknowledged the high social position of woman, it zealously protected her honour.