The

behind a long series of intervening occur- | distinctness in the two cases. Our men. rences, and not seen as simultaneous or tal development is not only a process of closely connected in the order of succes- retention of the old, it is a process of dission with other events known to be at a placement of the old by the new. particular distance. A curious instance more interesting or the more exciting the of this illusory effect was supplied not new, the more rapidly does the old tend long since, by the case of the ex-detec- to disappear. Hence the apparent extives, the expiration of whose term of trusion of a recollection by supervening punishment (three years) served as an oc- experiences of unusual impressiveness. casion for the newspapers to recall the Even dream-consciousness seems capable event of their trial and conviction. The of effecting this result, for the incidents news that three years had elapsed since of the preceding evening often appear to this well-remembered occurrence, proved be dimmed and thrust further away after very startling to ourselves, and to a num- a night of exciting dreams. To young ber of our friends, all of us agreeing that children events a year old look much the event did not seem to be at more than further off than to adults, just because a third of its real distance. The news- the interval, full of novel impressions papers themselves commented on the from its young world, appears to swell apparent rapidity of the time, and this out, and because the very impressiveness shows pretty plainly that there was some and fascination of these experiences tend cause at work producing a common illu- to obscure the earlier ones and to banish them further from the present.

sion.

our

It is to be added that even when past Enough has perhaps been said to show events are properly attached to those that how much of uncertainty and of selfprecede and succeed them, fluctuations deception enters into the processes of may arise in the estimation of their dis- memory. This much-esteemed faculty, tance in consequence of variations in the valuable and indispensable though it cercharacter of the intervening spaces. In tainly is, can lay no claim to that absoother words, our sense of distance in time lute infallibility which is sometimes said is influenced by our sense of duration. to belong to it. Our individual recollecAccording to Mr. G. J. Romanes, who tion left to itself is liable to a number of has written a very interesting essay on illusions even with regard to fairly recent "Consciousness of Time" (Mind, events, and in the case of remote ones it July 1878), the sense of duration depends may be said to err habitually and union two conditions. Time seems long, formly in a greater or less degree. To either when it is crowded with new and speak plainly, we can never be certain on exciting impressions, as on a summer the ground of our personal recollection tour, or when we are dwelling on the fact alone that a distant event happened of its passing, and so are particularly exactly in the way and at the time that conscious of it, as in waiting for a train. we suppose. Nor does there seem to be It seems short when it is comparatively any simple way by mere reflection on empty of exciting experiences, provided the contents of our memory of distinthat the mind does not dwell on its pas-guishing what kinds of recollection are sage. Thus it appears comparatively likely to be illusory. short when we are, busily employed about our ordinary avocations. Hence it happens that events just preceding a time of unusual excitement and novel experience look further off than events separated by the same interval of comparatively quiet impressions. Last Sunday's sermon seems much further away after a week in Switzerland than after a week of customary experience at home. Not only does an event appear to take up different distances because separated from the present by seemingly unequal intervals; the very fact that the one interval has been filled with exciting impressions, the other with comparatively quiet ones, serves to give the mental image of the event a different degree of vividness and

How, then, it may be asked, can we ever be certain that we are faithfully recalling the actual events of the past? Given a fairly good, that is, a cultivated memory, it may be said that in the case of very recent events we may feel pretty certain that, when the conditions of careful attention at the time were present, a distinct recollection is substantially correct. Also it is obvious that with respect to all repeated experiences our memories afford practically safe guides. When memory becomes the basis of general knowledge, as of the truth that the pain of indigestion has followed a too copious indulgence in rich food, there is little room for an error of memory properly so called. On the other hand, when an

ries of ordinances in the Talmud: the one having reference to the sale and exchange of personal belongings, in which are included cattle and produce, the other dealing with the acquisition of land and houses. We shall first explain the former, for the laws therein comprised seem the more peculiar and interesting.

event is not repeated in our experience, | immovable possessions differed in but forms a unique link in our personal every respect from those applicable to history, the chances of error increase ordinary transactions in portable commodwith the distance of the event, and here ities. Hence there are two distinct sethe best of us will do well to have resort to a process of verification and, if necessary, of correction. That is to say, we must look beyond our own internal mental states to some external facts. Thus the recollections of our early life may often be tested by letters written by ourselves or our friends at the time, by diaries and so on. When there is no unerring objective record to be found, we may have recourse to the less satisfactory method of comparing our recollections with those of others. By so doing we may reach a rough average recollection which shall at least be free from any personal error. But even thus we cannot be sure of eliminating all error, since there may be a cause of illusion acting on all our minds alike, as, for example, the extraordinary nature of the occurrence, which would pretty certainly lead to a common exaggeration of its magnitude, etc., and since, moreover, this process of comparing recollections affords a fine opportunity for that reading back a present preconception into the past to which reference has already been made.

The result of our inquiry is less alarming than it looks at first sight. Knowledge is valuable for action, and error is chiefly hurtful in so far as it misdirects conduct. Now, in a general way, we do not need to act upon a recollection of remote single events; our conduct is sufficiently shaped by an accurate recollection of recent single events, together with those bundles of recollections of recurring events and sequences of events which constitute our knowledge of our selves and our common knowledge of the world about us. Nature has done commendably well in endowing us with the means of cultivating our memories up to this point, and we ought not to blame her for not giving us powers which would only very rarely prove of any appreciable practical service to us. J. S.

From The Pall Mall Gazette. THE CIVIL CODE OF THE JEWS. THE sale and purchase of every description of property, movable and immovable, was regulated by some very curious enactments. In the first place the laws affecting the transfer of real estate—¿.e.

To

In a simple transaction between buyer and seller payment did not complete a legal bargain, binding and irrevocable. The receipt of the purchase-money by the vendor was not, according to Jewish law, an essential part of the contract. render a transaction complete and irrevocable, one of three customary legal formalities was indispensable: the act known as meschichah, which consisted in the purchaser taking into his own domain or possession the thing he bought, if only for a moment; that termed messirah, or causing the object or animal to move away from the seller; and the hagbahah, the lifting up of the property acquired by the buyer. The performance of any one of these three acts was necessary to render the transaction valid; and by any one of them, and without any payment or even agreement to pay, the purchaser bound himself to complete the bargain.

The act was always performed at the request of the vendor, who thus renounced his rights of ownership and possession. The meschichah could not be performed in a public street: for in a place common to all the buyer was not considered able to convey to himself and into his own domain the thing sold. The messirah, on the other hand, could only take place in a public street or in a locality which belonged to neither the buyer nor the seller. The hagbahah rendered the transaction valid and irrevocable at all times and in all places. One of these three acts was, of course, practicable in every case. If, for example, a movable article was bought, it was merely necessary for the purchaser to perform the hagbahah by raising the object, if not too heavy for this purpose. Wherever this was done it clenched the bargain. If the commodity in question was too heavy to lift, and was situated in the vendor's warehouse, it was only necessary to push it outside for a moment. If the thing sold was taken to the buyer's premises, it had of course only to be left there in order to satisfy formalities. If, again, the transaction was in live stock

I disposed of in the public market, the purchase of the animal was completed if the buyer, at the request of the owner, performed the messirah, simply touching the beast in a manner to be seen by any spectators who happened to be present. In the case of a sheep or like small animal a blow with a staff forcible enough to cause it to move a pace or two constituted the messirah.

quently. According to law, then, it was ordained that where the thing sold was at a distance, so that the meschichah or other formality could not be observed, a simple exchange was effected. The money was paid as agreed upon, and the buyer gave to the vendor some token of his having acquired an irrevocable right to the property sold.

Noteworthy, too, are the circumstances If the vendor received the money value under which a sale, notwithstanding that of the commodities which he offered for all legal formalities had been properly sale, and one of the three legally indispen- complied with, could be annulled. To sable acts meschichah or messirah or make these understood, it must be hagbahah- was not performed, the agree-pointed out that in Palestine the price of ment was revocable. The intending all ordinary commodities was fixed by buyer could demand the return of his officers appointed for the purpose in money, or the vendor could decline to every town and district. The cost of all deliver the goods to the purchaser and prime necessaries and of most articles in force the latter to receive again the general use was readily ascertained. If a amount paid for them. But not without sale had been effected, and an error was penalty. A statement of the circum-subsequently found to have been made in stances could be made by the aggrieved the amount charged for the goods delivparty in the local court of justice. The ered, the law enacted as follows: If the presiding judge then addressed the per- mistake affected a sum equivalent to less son who had withdrawn from his engage- than one-sixth of the entire purchasement, saying: "He who punished those money, the transaction held good: whethwho lived when the flood was sent to del-er the buyer or the seller was the loser uge the earth, and chastised the genera- there was no remedy. If, however, the tion who were in existence when the vendor had charged one-sixth more than languages were confused at Babel, will the commodity was actually worth, or the also punish him who fails to keep his purchaser had paid one-sixth less than word." This admonition was known as the current rate, the law considered that a the mi schepara, from the two Hebrew species of fraud. ondah-had been words with which it commenced. It practised; and the party prejudiced could branded as dishonorable whomsoever in- claim the one-sixth difference. But the curred the censure; and, as in the case transaction could not be declared invalid. of those who acted inequitably and were If, however, the error amounted to more declared "acquitted by the judgment of than one-sixth of the price charged and man but guilty before Heaven," the stig paid, there was what the Hebrew legists ma was calculated to prove salutary and term bitul mekah: the privilege of annuldeterrent. ling the sale was accorded to both parties. The party who incurred a loss by the bargain could annul it: the other could not invalidate the sale if the injured person preferred it to hold good, and was willing to forego payment of the sixth of what he had paid. This course a purchaser would of course prefer where a considerable rise had taken place in the market price of the commodity he had bought. Where, however, the sixth in dispute was claimed, the demand could be resisted; and the whole transaction was rendered void. All sales wherein the goods were found deficient in weight or quantity or measure, or not as specified by the dealer in description and quality, were voidable ab initio. The principle caveat emptor was unknown to Hebrew jurists. In every case where a buyer sought to annul a bargain, it had to be done on the same

Of course, in a number of transactions of buying and selling, the regulations of the civil code as to the meschichah or messirah or hagbahah would have proved extremely inconvenient. Take, for instance, the case of a farmer who wished to sell an ox that was grazing some miles off. In all such cases an expedient in accordance with a very ancient custom was adopted. It was an old practice among the Jews-a relic, probably, of the days of simple barter that a vendor received from an intending purchaser a shoe as earnest of the bargain. This rendered the transfer legal and valid. Boaz gave a shoe to Ruth's nearest of kin when he acquired the rights and privileges of the kinsman. In later times, for fconvenience' sake, other things were used for the purpose a mantle very fre

day that it was entered on. The vendor, the money was paid, sufficed to establish however, could claim compensation when the soundness of the title, if, at any subhe had incurred a loss within any reason- sequent date, its validity was disputed. able time afterwards. The reason for Of course the record of the sale itself allowing the dealer an advantage in this would have been equally conclusive. It respect was simple. The buyer could de- was not customary among the Jews to tect his error immediately on arriving at hand down title-deeds from father to son. his home; the merchant, his goods being In fact, such documents as we at present sold, might not discover his mistake and understand them seem to have been unconsequent loss for some days, or until known among the Hebrews. Hence, in making up his accounts. It is curious to many cases where no purchase-money notice that the Talmud forbids persons was paid there would practically be no going about among merchants and dealers proof of title. This would happen whenand inquiring prices, as though they in- ever an estate was acquired by inherittended to become buyers, when in reality ance or by gift or whenever properties they have no such intention. were exchanged. In all such cases, however, definite and inalienable title was acquired by the hazakah or taking of possession. In the presence of witnesses the new owner commenced some useful work on the estate he inherited or received; he dug a trench or a tank, raised a fence or a boundary wall. In the case of a house he made a new lintel or a new door. Any work of a similar kind undertaken in the presence of neighbors who could subsequently testify to the fact would suffice. This constituted the hazakah of acquisition; and was equivalent to a public notification that the property had finally passed into the possession of the new proprietor.

The foregoing laws have no reference to transactions in immovable property, land and houses, or slaves or legal documents. The sale of land and houses was valid and irrevocable (1) upon payment of the whole or, under specified conditions, of part of the purchase-money; (2) upon acquiring the deed of transfer or titledeeds of the property; (3) by hazakah taking possession of the land: i.c. performing some useful work upon it.

The laws of hazakah prescriptive right by virtue of possession, or, as it might nowadays be termed, de facto ownership had reference among the Jews to the holding of real estate only, land and tenements and slaves. They were of considerable importance in the Hebrew code. Just as the laws of nezakim, or damage, determined the conditions under which injury and loss were held to have been incurred, so the laws of hazakah regulated the prescriptive rights possessed by private persons under specified circumstances. The Mischna takes cognizance of three distinct and different forms of hazakah-hazakah as evidence of acquisition, hazakah as proof of ownership, and hazakah as evidence of custom

or user.

The transfer and sale of land and immovable property were not, for obvious reasons, subject to the curious enactments regulating ordinary transactions in portable commodities or personal chattels. Payment to the vendor of the purchase money agreed upon, or the delivery of the kinyan-deed of transfer to the buyer completed a transaction in real estate. Whatever the terms agreed to by the respective parties, whatever the conditions upon which the business was arranged, the bargain was valid in law. The production of the written form of receipt, or the evidence of two competent witnesses who had been present when

Undisputed possession of any immovable property for a continuous period of three years constituted the hazakah that conferred an inalienable right upon the owner de facto. After that no claimant, however just his original pretensions, could oust him from the tenement. But to prevent abuse the validity of the hazakah was made dependent upon a number of well-considered provisions. For the purposes of this ordinance Palestine was considered as being divided into three districts - Judea, Perea, and Galilee. Now, if any person took possession of a field or house in one of these territories while the rightful owner was absent in either of the other two, the hazakah was invalid: the prescriptive right could not at any time or after any interval be urged against the equitable claim of the rightful proprietor. Possession also must have been continuous throughout the whole term. For fields, houses, and granaries, for wine or oil presses, for baths and tanks, for slaves, and for fields artificially irrigated or watered by springs, the period of possession was three years complete. In the case of an ordinary field or meadow nourished by rain only, the last quarter of the first year, the whole of the

in a perfectly legal manner. His title was invariably good. The burden of proof to the contrary was thrown upon the new-comer, who, not being in a different district, had permitted another person to enjoy his property for three years without protest. To prevent fraudulent attempts to take advantage of the law of hazakah a few additional precautions were adopted. A husband was not allowed to plead the hazakah of three years as evidence of his having acquired by purchase or otherwise a title to any property belonging to his wife; nor a wife in respect of her husband's possessions. A father could not urge this prescriptive right when the property belonged originally to his son; nor could the son urge it when an estate of his father was in question. In like manner, workmen employed upon a field, partners in an undertaking, farmers, who of course frequently rented land, and guardians, were, in their respective capacities for the time being not permitted to rely upon the hazakah. Where a field had been let for a period of more than three years, or where (as was customary in certain districts) a field had been mortgaged for a certain number of years, the mortgagee received instead of repayment the right to work land and harvest the produce during that term, the rightful owner made a declaration during the third year in the presence of two witnesses that the field was only let or mortgaged as the case might be.

second, and the first quarter of the third | his claim against the owner de facto. In year sufficed to constitute the requisite point of fact the hazakah alone was rehazakah. The cause of the distinction garded as in itself proving that the person here made was that in the former there in possession had come by the property were generally different species of produce growing, maturing at intervals during the year. In the latter there could be one kind of crop only. Now the possession required by law had to be complete; that is to say, the produce had to be gathered, not to be cropped but actually stored - an unmistakable act and indication of proprietorship on the part of the holder. In the case of an irrigated field, this process, to be complete, would necessarily take place at different times, and would thus extend throughout the entire year. The hazakah was therefore fixed at three full years in this instance. But in the case of a rain-watered field a crop could be gathered during the first three months of the year and during the last Ethree. The first year's occupation was therefore to all intents and purposes legally complete when the produce of the last quarter was gathered; and the third year was likewise practically over when the fruits of the first quarter were cropped. A three years' period was chosen because one year was necessary in order that every one in the neighborhood might become cognizant of the transfer or sale which had been effected; one year to enable information to reach any person having a claim to the property in question which another had taken possession thereof; and a third year to permit of a person having a claim to the estate to go to the place wherein it was situated and there take proceedings to recover his rights. In connection with this it may be here noted that the purchaser of real property generally insisted upon a deed of sale, with what is known among Hebrew jurists as an acharayoth. This was a clause by which the vendor bound himself to indemnify the buyer if within the prescribed three years any person came forward with a good title to the property in question.

The mere act of holding a property for the period of three years was not sufficient to render the hazakah valid. The holder was bound to state how he acquired the right to enter on the property. He could not, however, be compelled to produce evidence in proof of his assertions as to the origin of such title. He might, it is true, be forced to take the oath derabbanan in testimony of the truth of his statements; but only in the very unlikely event of a claimant having bond fide pretensions to the property urging

The third form of hazakah was that urged in support of prescriptive rights by virtue of use and custom. Practice based upon tradition was extremely congenial to the rabbinical mind: hence even the maxim laid down in the matter of ceremonial and religious ordinances that a minhag (custom) overrules a din (or positive law). All rights and privileges enjoyed by individuals without opposition on the part of their neighbors for a period of three years were deemed inviolable. Rights of way, rights of egress, a window opened or the light of a neighbor interfered with for the legal period without any protest, gave the former an hazakah in either of these respects. The privilege could not, however, be claimed in the following instances: where a person had been accustomed to keep his cattle in the courtyard of his neighbor or had kept fowls there; or placed his furnace there