The Struggle for Law
and what it can do, so long as it is not wounded; but the violation of legal right compels it to speak, unveils the truth, and manifests its force. I have already said in what this truth consists. His legal right, the law, is the moral condition of existence of the person; the assertion of that right is his moral self-preservation.
The force with which the feeling of legal right reacts, when wounded, is the test of its health. The degree of pain which it experiences tells it what value it attaches to the imperiled goods. But to experience the pain without taking to heart its warning to ward off the impending danger, to bear it patiently and take no measure of defense, is a denial of the feeling of legal right, excusable, perhaps, under certain circumstances, in a particular case, but impossible in the long run without the most disastrous consequences to the feeling of legal right itself. For the essence of that feeling is action. Where it does not act, it languishes and becomes blunted, until finally it grows almost insensible to pain.
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