SOCIETY LAW.  The law and the social system were inseparable parts of a complicated whole, mutually cause and consequence of each other. Tuath, clann, cinel, cine, and fine (pronounced thooah, clong, kinnel, kineh, and fin-yeh) were terms used to denote a tribe or set of relatives, in reality or by adoption, claiming descent from a common ancestor, forming a community occupying and owning a given territory. Tuath in course of time came to be applied indifferently to the people and to their territory. Fine, sometimes designating a whole tribe, more frequently meant a part of it, occupying a distinct portion of the territory, a potential microcosm or nucleus of a clan, having limited autonomy in the conduct of its own immediate affairs.  The constitution of this organism, whether as contemplated by the law or in the less perfect actual practice, is alike elusive, and underwent changes.  For the purpose of illustration, the fine may be said to consist, theoretically, of the “seventeen men” frequently mentioned throughout the laws, namely, the flaithfine = chief of the fine; the geilfine = his four fullgrown sons or other nearest male relatives; the deirbhfine, tarfine, and innfine, each consisting of four heads of families in wider concentric circles of kinship, say first, second, and third cousins of the flaithfine.  The fine was liable, in measure determined by those circles, for contracts, fines, and damages incurred by any of its members so far as his own property was insufficient, and was in the same degree entitled to share advantages of a like kind accruing.  Intermarriage within this fine was prohibited.  The modern term “sept” is applied sometimes to this group and sometimes to a wider group united under a flaith (flah) = “chief”, elected by the flaithfines and provided, for his public services, with free land proportionate to the area of the district and the number of clansmen in it. Clann might mean the whole Irish nation, or an intermediate homogeneous group of fines having for wider purposes a flaith or ri-tuatha = king of one tuath, elected by the flaiths and flaithfines, subject to elaborate qualifications as to person, character, and training, which limited their choice, and provided with a larger portion of free land.  This was the lowest chief to whom the title ri, righ (both pr. ree) = rex, or “king”, was applied.  A group of these kinglets connected by blood or territory or policy, and their flaiths, elected, from a still narrower circle of specially trained men within their own rank, the ri-mor-tuatha—­king of the territory so composed, to whose office a still larger area of free land was attached.  In turn, kings of this class, with their respective sub-kings and flaiths, elected from among the riogh-dhamhna (ree-uch-dhowna) = materia principum or “king-timber”,