The Struggle for Law
arms, for the sake of a square mile of territory, without inquiring what its value, why not also the peasant for the sake of his strip of land? Or must we dismiss him with the decree: quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi. The nation does not fight for the square mile of territory, but for itself, for its honor and independence; and so in those suits at law in which the disproportion mentioned above exists between the value of the object in controversy and the prospective cost and other sacrifices, there is question not of the insignificant object in controversy, but of an ideal end: the person’s assertion of himself and of his feeling of right. In respect to this end, the person whose rights have been invaded no longer weighs all the sacrifices and inconveniences which the suit at law draws after it—the end in his eyes is compensation for the means. It is not a mere money-interest which urges the person whose rights have been infringed to institute legal proceedings, but moral pain at the wrong which has been endured. He is not concerned simply with
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