form of laws and systems is improvement in the spirit of the men who administer them. For all that, it is fatal to think that public feeling can be divorced from Law in the social organism. In effect these critics say:

'It is impossible to diminish cruelty and injustice, by Law; any attempt to do so will only divert the cruelty or injustice banned, to another form of expression.' Very well! It is therefore demonstrably needless and even ridiculous to prohibit by Law-murder, rape, and the deliberate torture of children. The murderer, the ravisher, and the torturer should be allowed to vent their cruelty in these forms, for fear that if they are not so allowed, they will vent it in other forms! That is the reductio ad absurdum implicit in all such anarchistic doctrine; and how far it is really held by those who talk of the futility of passing laws against inhumanity one must leave to their own consciences. In any case the doctrine takes no account of the real nature of laws. In a democratic society, such as ours, only Public Opinion, or I would rather say, the true, secret consensus of general thought, makes laws possible I am speaking of laws against inhumanity. And laws, so made, are but constant reminders to every one that public opinion is against such and such a thing. Laws were made against

murder and rape because public feeling against such acts became so strong that, until the laws were made, normal individuals did not rest till they had torn to pieces persons who acted in such abnormal ways. It was therefore considered more convenient that certain recognised professional persons should undertake the work of punishment. And so on through all the gamut of laws down to those against quite minor cruelties, which would not perhaps provoke individual retaliation, but which nevertheless would evoke pity and anger from a majority of those who with their own eyes saw them inflicted. Admitting that the state of public feeling toward a particular form of cruelty must always be more or less a matter of discretionary judgment for legislators, it is yet quite wrong to suppose that laws must wait until the majority of individuals in a community have openly declared a feeling of which perhaps, never having been tested personally, they are not conscious. When one urges the passing of laws to prohibit certain cruelties, one is only urging that the legislature should give concrete expression to what it believes would be the general opinion of the country if every man and woman therein could be taken apart-isolated, as juries are and then actually put face to face with instances of these cruelties, so that they might

judge them with the fresh and genuine feelings of unfettered men and women. One is, in fact, only urging the recording of a judgment which he believes to have been secretly delivered; asking that this secret judgment should be published in the form of Law as a daily and forcible reminder that some things are 'not done.'

'Ah!' would say these critics who want to see no more Laws made because men cannot be made humane by Law, and who certainly should logically wish all our present laws removed by Law (for this criticism is radical and not one of degree!)-'Ah! but,' they would say, 'all you have done is to make A. and B. mechanically avoid, for example, caging wild song-birds, or docking horses' tails; but the devil of natural man is so strong in A. and B. that they will instantly set to work to invent some other form of torture.' This is too cynical. Many of the cruelties that can be prohibited by Law-that is to say those for whose prohibition the true and secret public feeling is ripe are cruelties that come rather from lack of thought than from a natural savagery. And it is very large order to say that, because you stop A. and B. from 'not thinking' in a certain direction, their lack of thought must result in other cruelties. True, the reason for their 'lack of thought' is often that they profit by

it; but even so, it does not follow that if one channel of thoughtless and pain-provoking profit be cut off, they must necessarily seek another. As a fact, many social cruelties (such as the sweating of women, foul housing, and the harmful kind of child labour) are but dubious sources of profit in the long run; and some cruelties practised on animals (such as the wearing of certain feathers, or the docking of horses' tails) are but the outcome of 'fashion.'

To put it another way: We feel there are certain things our neighbours must not do-we even feel that we ourselves must not do them; and we pass laws to put it out of our own reach to yield to the temptation of profit or temper!

Take a person who is guiltless of thought or temptation in the matter, and show him first a number of wild song-birds in freedom, and then a bird-fancier's shop, with the same kinds of birds in their tiny cages, and ask him whether or no he thinks they ought to be kept like that. In nine cases out of ten he will say: "Poor little beggars, no!"

If then the legislature passes a law to penalise such caging, this law will be effective and will in time stop wild birds from being caged, because the secret feeling of the majority is really against such a practice.

But pass a law to penalise the moderate smacking of small naughty children, it will simply be disregarded, because nine out of ten people do not see any harm in either their neighbours or themselves moderately smacking their imps.

Spirit and Body (that is, public feeling and the law) in the social organism are as inextricably conjoint as the spirit and body of a man-public feeling needing its proper clothing of laws, as our souls need due clothing by our bodies. And if men cannot be made kind by law, they can and are by law reminded that they must not, under temptation, do what, in cool and disinterested blood, they disapprove of their neighbours doing.

But there is another and perhaps more convincing answer to these critics. You say it's no good passing laws. If men are prevented from ill-treating one object, they'll only ill-treat another. So be it! Is that any reason for not trying to save the victims of such cruelty as we can actually see? Are we in fact to disregard the sufferer because his torture may break out in a fresh direction? That would be as much as to say that a man watching another making his beasts go faster to market by jabbing them with a pitchfork, must pass by on the other side and do nothing to help the creatures, because, if the prodder be prevented, he may to-morrow cut off