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and arbitrary power, into knowledge which is purely the result of observation. Thus our intelligence is successfully befogged, and always to maintain our respect for law. The same work is done by newspapers. They have not an article which does not preach respect for law, even where the third page proves every day to demonstrate the imbecility of that law, and shows how it is dragged through every variety of mud and filth by those charged with its administration. Servility before the law has become a virtue, and I doubt if there was ever even a revolutionist who did not begin in his youth as the defender of law against what are generally called “abuses,” although these last are inevitable consequences of the law itself.
Art pipes in unison with would-be science. The hero of the sculptor, the painter, the musician shields Law beneath his buckler, and, with flashing eyes and distended nostrils stands ever ready to strike down the man who would lay hands upon her. Temples are raised to her; revolutionists themselves hesitate to touch the high priests consecrated to her service, and, when revolution is about to sweep away some ancient institution, it is still by law that it endeavours to sanctify the deed.
The confused mass of rules of conduct called Law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters before whom human victims used to be immolated, and whom slavish savages dared not even touch lest they should be slain by the thunder-bolts of heaven.
This new worship has been established with especial success since the rise to supreme power of the middle class—since the great French Revolution. Under the ancient regime, men spoke little of laws; unless, indeed, it were, with Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire, to oppose them to royal caprice; obedience to the good pleasure of the king and his lackeys was compulsory on pain of hanging or imprisonment. But during and after the Revolution, when the lawyers rose to power, they did their best to strengthen the principle upon which their ascendancy depended. The middle-class at once accepted it as a dike to dam up the popular torrent. The priestly crew hastened to sanctify it, to save their bark from
