The Struggle for Law
on the other, gives back life to the laws; the relation of objective or abstract legal right and subjective or concrete legal right is the circulation of the blood, which flows from the heart and returns to the heart.
The existence of all the principles of public law depends on the fidelity of public officials in the performance of their duties; that of the principles of private law, on the power of the motives which induce the person whose rights have been violated to defend them: his interest and his sentiment of legal right. If these motives do not come into play, if the feeling of legal right is blunted and weak, and interest not powerful enough to overcome the disinclination to entering into a controversy and the indisposition to go to law, the consequence is that the principle of law involved finds no application.
But, we shall be asked, what matters it? No one suffers from this but the person whose rights have been invaded. I must again have recourse to the illustration already used, of the individual who flees the battle. If there
72
