118 MAN THE ANIMAL 



occurred. Under such circumstances an individual in temporary 

 possession of political power always wants to "command," and 

 to be freed from the restraints imposed on his will and fancy 

 by laws based upon the "immemorial usages" of the group. To 

 get rid of these irksome hindrances he endeavors to take over 

 completely, and as a purely personal prerogative and appanage, 

 the legislative and judicial functions of the social organization. 

 If the attempt succeeds what appears on the surface to be great 

 efficiency of government temporarily results. But the situation 

 is ephemeral. It is just as true now as it was a century and a 

 half ago, when the Great Pontihcator told his friend General 

 Oglethorpe about it, that "The more contracted power is, the 

 more easily it is destroyed. A country governed by a despot is 

 an inverted cone." 



Ill 



When we have seen that rules and then laws came into the 

 primitive picture of free mammalian behavior from the necessity 

 imposed by sociality, it must always be remembered that it was 

 necessity rather than desire that brought them in. The natural 

 state of living things is the most complete freedom and liberty 

 attainable within the frame of the physical environment. Any 

 and all restrictions on this natural freedom are inherently irk- 

 some. This fact has always constituted a real and serious diffi- 

 culty in the making of workable and acceptable rules and laws. 

 Jeremy Bentham was profoundly right when he said (The 

 Theory of Legislation, Chap. X): "It is with government as 

 with medicine j its only business is the choice of evils. Every law 

 is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty. Government, 

 I repeat it, has but the choice of evils. In making that choice, 

 what ought to be the object of the legislator? He ought to be 

 certain of two things: 1st, that in every case the acts which he 

 undertakes to prevent are really evils j and, 2nd, that these 

 evils are greater than those which he employs to prevent them. 



"He has then two things to note — the evil of the offence, and 

 the evil of the lawj the evil of the malady, and the evil of the 

 remedy. 



