nt and
immutable in a social order as in a solar system.

"The very law that moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course."

Most of the time, and especially just now, our world is very full of
tears, almost as much so as space is full of spheres, but there would
not be half so many tears at any time, if the laws of states were so
many correct interpretations of the laws of nature.

In every age, nearly all the hot tears which deluge the world flow, like
streams of springs, from their deep sources as the result of unnecessary
suffering by grinding poverty, by hopeless slavery, by avoidable
diseases and by premature deaths; and by far the most of these and of
all sufferings may be traced to man-made laws which not only have no
correspondence with those of nature but are contrary to them--laws of
which both the civil codes and religious bibles are too full.

You will agree with me that society should punish none of its members by
the slightest fine or shortest imprisonment, not to speak of death,
except on the basis of justice. So far, and it is a long way, we
certainly walk together. We part company, if at all, on the question as
to the basis of justice, but come together again in the conclusion that
it is right, not might.

What, then, is this right? If you answer: the law of the state as it is
interpreted by a competent court, I reply: no legal enactment, and so,
of course, no interpretation of one, can really constitute a right,
unless it is an embodiment of a truth containing an indispensable stone
in the foundation which is necessary to the superstructure of the ideal
civilization, under the roof of which every man, woman and child shall
possess the greatest of possible opportunities to make life for self as
long and happy as it can be, and to help others in an ever widening
circle to do this for themselves.

Laws are not made. All social laws (domestic, civil, commercial, yes,
even the moral and religious ones) are matter-force realities, as much
so as is any other among all the physical or psychical realities
entering into the constitution of the universe; which realities are but
the expressions of the processes necessarily resulting from the
necessary co-existence and co-operation of this matter and force;
therefore, laws are so many eternal necessities and, this being the
case, it is not possible that men in stat