the source of all law, but of that human and relative necessity which is the source of those ephemeral laws by which human beings seek to combat their own errors and crimes by making provision for them. Vis major, whilst it lasts, has the same claim to obedience as vis omnipotens, over those to whom it is vis major. To them it is vis omnipotens, in which, for the time being, reason and power coincide,1 and right is identified with might. But, till we intellectually recognise its character as absolutely irresistible, we are bound by our reason to resist it. We must give way only when we feel satisfied that to strive longer is to strive against God, and that we are throwing away the means which He has given us for His service, because He will not permit us to employ them in our own way.

The ultimate question whether, or to what extent, the abnormal relations may be separable or inseparable from the life of man upon earth, mounts into regions of theology and ethics which altogether transcend the science of jurisprudence. The jurist has no more to do with it than the physician has to do with the question of the possibility or impossibility of the ultimate removal of physical disease. In the presence of war and pestilence both may well cry, "O God, how long?" but neither is permitted to wait for the answer. If man be but "a little lower than the angels," we cannot tell what "the providence which shapes his fate" may have in store for him. But, hoping all things, our plain duty for the present is humbly to accept the facts of nature, physical and moral, as they are presented to us, and to cope with its imperfections, so long as

1 Institutes of Law, p. 427.

they are not obviously beyond the reach of human will and human power. History unfolds to us many a dark and blood-stained page, but if we read our poor human story carefully and reverently, we shall find nothing in its general tenor which cuts us off from possibilities that transcend the loftiest aspirations of optimism. Enough has been effected to prove to us that the abnormal forces which spread death and destruction around us are under the control of the human will to an extent which, for the present, is quite incalculable. To look only at the material side of the problem: it is not impossible that, by a general effort of that rational will which is the meeting-point between right and might, in the direction of international organisation, future generations may be able to set free, for purposes of direct progressive development, those enormous resources-exceeding in this country, as Mr Bright tells us,1 four-fifths of its whole expenditure-which are now devoted to war and preparation for war. The world would then become "rich beyond the dreams of avarice;" and though it is most true that "the gift of God is not to be purchased for money," that is no reason, surely, why the chief object to which we devote His bounty should be the destruction of one another. The tendency of knowledge and wellbeing is to check that thoughtless and reckless multiplication of the human species which is one of the causes of disease and suffering; and we need have no suspicion that even if we were to apply the bewildering sum of "four thousand four hundred and fourteen millions sterling," which we are said, by the same authority, to have spent on war

1 Glasgow Rectorial Address, 22d April 1883.

since the beginning of the century, to the reduction of taxation, the advancement of science, and the promotion of education, we should be increasing either the magnitude or the difficulty of the problems with which Government has at present to deal. The anarchical forces, which occasionally manifest themselves in forms so alarming as to threaten civilisation, are begotten, not of health and wealth, but of disease and starvation. Whether the over- caution which wellbeing is said to engender might not tend to limit that supply of surplus population, by which the unappropriated regions of the globe are being replenished, and whether even the vices of the Proletariat may not thus have their uses, is a question which one is sometimes tempted to ask. But, even as regards productivity, the limitations imposed by providence and selfrespect could scarcely equal the waste of war and preventible disease, whereas the quality of the population, both physical and moral, would certainly be improved by the substitution of the former for the latter, as checks on overrapid increase. Those who were born would be stronger, healthier, and longer lived when the debilitating, corrupting, and degrading influences of poverty and ignorance were removed, and when the flower of each generation ceased to be cut off by war before they had had time to become husbands and fathers. Progress might still be intermittent, -and so long as the study of its ethical and jural conditions is pushed into the background by the study of its material conditions, it must necessarily be slow, but it would be both steadier and more rapid when the advancing host was recruited mainly from those who were capable

of self-support and self-control.

One of the causes of the

lop-sided character of our present intellectual activity is no doubt to be found in the urgency with which material problems are still pressed upon us by physical wretchedness.

When we contrast the death-rate of our urban with that of our rural districts, and reflect on the rapidity with which, not in this country alone, but almost everywhere in Europe, the rural populations are being driven into the towns by causes which are not beyond our control, we feel that it would be inhuman to turn to any other subject whilst thus standing beside the open graves which we have dug for our own chilren. In comparison with the ceaseless ravages of the morbus urbanus, the waste even of war sinks into insignificance.1

CHAPTER II.

OF THE ACTIVE ABNORMAL JURAL RELATIONS.

Within the sphere of the normal relations, we have seen that proximate will cannot jurally be constrained in behalf of ultimate will, for the very obvious reason that there, ex hypothesi, it is in accordance with ultimate will. Jurispru

1 "For every 10,000 of estimated population in the principal towns of Scotland, the deaths were at the annual rate of 264; in the large towns the rate was 210; in the small towns, 192; in the insular-rural districts, 186; and in the mainland-rural, 163. In Glasgow the death rate was 320 per 10,000 inhabitants; in Dundee and in Greenock, 273; in Paisley, 255; in Leith, 227; in Perth, 221; and in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, 195."-Report of Registrar-General for Scotland for the quarter ending 30th June 1883, p. 3.

dence, consequently, enjoins every separate entity to abstain from interfering with every other, and passive take preIcedence of active relations. But the reverse is the case

It

when we enter the sphere of the abnormal relations. Here proximate will is already in conflict with ultimate will ; and active relations, ethically, and, as a necessary consequence, jurally, take precedence of passive relations. is only they that are sick who need the physician, but the existence of the need that justifies his interposition. The object of the jural recognition of an abnormal relation, being the removal of the conditions which have given rise to its abnormality, nothing short of inability to act can justify inactivity. It is only when we cannot help it, that we are at liberty to let ill alone, and that we may blamelessly abandon either our own cause or the cause of our neighbour. If A. is barring B.'s way, or even impeding his march towards the realisation of his ultimate freedom, B. is not only entitled, but bound, to clear his own way of him if he can, even at the cost of A.'s proximate freedom. If A. and B. are injuring or hindering each other, C. must prevent them if he can, even at the cost of the proximate freedom of both of them. Each separate rational entity must act in behalf of his own or his neighbour's real and ultimate freedom, and consequent perfection, even at the cost of encroaching on his own or his neighbour's proximate and phenomenal freedom. He must go forth to battle, and spend and be spent for his own and his neighbour's freedom, up to the point at which his present activity is counteracted by the expenditure of the means of future action, or 1 Ante, vol. i. p. 231.