They only guard the personality, the liberty, the
property of others. They hold themselves on the defensive; they defend
the equal right of all. They fulfil a mission whose harmlessness is
evident, whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is not to be
disputed. This is so true that, as a friend of mine once remarked to me,
to say that _the aim of the law is to cause justice to reign_, is to use
an expression which is not rigorously exact. It ought to be said, _the
aim of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning_. In fact, it is
not justice which has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one
results from the absence of the other.
But when the law, through the medium of its necessary agent--force,
imposes a form of labour, a method or a subject of instruction, a creed,
or a worship, it is no longer negative; it acts positively upon men. It
substitutes the will of the legislator for their own will, the
initiative of the legislator for their own initiative. They have no need
to consult, to compare, or to foresee; the law does all that for them.
The intellect is for them a useless lumber; they cease to be men; they
lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
Endeavour to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, which is not a
violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, which
is not a violation of property.
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