The Struggle for Law
ing the essence of the healthy feeling of legal right—I mean that idealism which sees in a violation of law an attack not only on the object, but on the person himself. Our civil law does not give this idealism the least support. The measure with which it measures all violations of legal right, with the exception of an attack on a man’s honor, is that of material value. It is nothing but the perfect expression of petty, sober materialism.
But what should the law guarantee to the person whose legal rights have been infringed, in his property, but the litigated object or its value? If this be true, the thief, too, might be allowed to depart, who had restored the object stolen. But, we are told, the thief commits a crime not only against the person whom he has robbed, but also against the laws of the state, against order, against the moral law. And does not the debtor who denies the loan which has been made him, the seller or the lessor who breaks his contract, the agent who abuses the confidence I placed in him to overreach me, do the same?
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