The  most  remarkable   instance   is  that   stated  by  Professor
Lee  in  his  account   of  the  Babylonian  Law.     That  account   is


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startling.     It   shows  us  a  law  in  a  very  advanced  stage  and
approaching  a  level  with  our  own.     How  accurately  the
tablets  found  have  been  diciphered  must  be  elsewhere  deter-
mined, but   it  would  not  be   surprising  if  the   investigators
were  found  to  have   sometimes  carried  back  into  those  dis-
taxit  ages  a  trace  of  our  modern  thought.     We  do  not  assume
to  criticize:  we  merely  venture  to  doubt.     But    one  fact
seems  to  be  made   quite   certain.      No  sale  was  absolute:
always  the  thing  sold  could  be  redeemed:  by  the  vendor  him-
self, by  his  family  after  him:  and  at  any  succeeding  period
without  limit  or  restriction.      Of  course   such  a  rule  could
not  be  endured  in  an  age  grown  to  be  commercial,  at  least
in  its  application  to  movables.     We  may  doubt   if  it  applied
to  them,  though  there   is  the  case   of  the  reclamation  of  a
slave.     But  the  family  land  was  likely  to  include  the   slaves,
and  since  that  land  was  often  alienable  only  with  the  con-
sent of  the  family  we   are  not   surprised  to  be  told  that  the
Babylonian  vendee,  required  a  covenant   not  to  reclaim  signed
by  the  f ajnily  as  well  as  the  vendor .        We   shall  find  similair
conditions  attached  to  a  sale   in  the  Hindu  law  and  again  in
the  law  of  Moses:  and  atrace   of  the   sajiie  habit  shows  itself
in  Wales  where  the  Cambrian  who  had  gone  beyond  seas  and
whose  family  land  had  been  sold  under   judicial  authority
could  redeem  it  on  his  return  by  paying  the     "counter  price."
But  the  exchemge  of  property  for  money,  the  sale  for


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a  price,   quite  early  took  on  ainother  modification  which
ended  in  a  debt.     The  vendor  delivered  the  property  to  the
vendee   for  a  price  to  be  paid  in  the  future,   and  the   latter
became  debtor  for  the  amount.     Here  again  the   transaction
witness  was  essential  to  what  he   saw  and  heard,  but  there
remained  only  one   side   of  the  visible  fact  where  formerly
there  were  two.     He  sa  saw  the  delivery  of  the  property
by  the  vendor.     That  was  the   one  tangible  fact,  which  must
occur  to  enable  him  to  know  that   there  was  a  sale  at  all.
