ty against criminals, and in general to
institute ideas and laws with a view to regulate the mutual interests
of men, in such a way as to result in natural conditions of existence
as advantageous as possible, both for the individual and for society:

(2). To study the causes of crimes, social conflicts, imperfections
and inequalities, so as to obtain, by contending against these causes,
an improvement in men and their social condition. It is true that what
we demand here means a complete transformation of the notions of
conventional right, not only in our old penal law, but also to a great
extent in civil law; but this transformation is inevitable and has
even already commenced. Its object is to liberate right from the grasp
of an old metaphysico-religious dogmatism, and from crystalized
doctrines derived from superannuated custom and abuse, and to found
itself on the applied and social natural history of man, who then only
will merit the name of _homo sapiens_ which was given to him by
Linnaeus, the great nomenclator of living beings.

Jurists have already too long based metaphysics on old barbarous
customs and superstitious mysticism, transformed into dogmas. It is
time that Themis removed her bandage, studied psychology,
psychopathology and science, and submitted the impartial handling of
her scales to the influence of truer and juster human factors, even if
her work thereby becomes more difficult and more complicated.

=Sexual Rights.=--While sexual sentiments form part of the most sacred
and intimate conditions of individual happiness, they are also closely
and indissolubly connected with the social welfare of humanity. In no
domain is it more difficult to combine harmoniously the welfare of the
community with that of the individual, and this is why questions of
right in sexual matters are among the most difficult to solve.

The satisfaction of the sexual appetite in man is part of his natural
rights. Natural science compels us to formulate this principle; yet it
is a dogma the consequences of which may become very grave and even
fatal; for the satisfaction of a man's sexual appetite implies, not
only the direct participation of one or more human beings in a common
act, but also that of a much greater number in its indirect effects;
and it may occasion, according to circumstances, more harm than good.

If the question of reproduction did not exist, it would be more easy
to put individualism in more or less harm