MATERIALS OF THE SCIENCE OF LAW. 599 



plied to the limits aflSxed to its freedom of action. But this objection, 

 when once understood, is of little practical importance. It is sufficient 

 to establish that there are certain definite limits which circumscribe 

 the free action of every governing authority, and that these limita- 

 tions admit of being formulated into more or less precisely articulated 

 propositions. Such propositions, capable as they are of being handled, 

 interpreted, and enforced, in courts of justice, have all the essential 

 qualities that belong to the general rules framed by the governing 

 authority itself, for the guidance of the conduct of all persons sub- 

 mitted to its dominion. 



The topics of these general rules or laws will be those matters 

 which have already been described as essentially inviting the direction 

 of the corporate strength of the community. Such matters are the re- 

 lations of family life, so far as outward actions and public decorum 

 are involved, the security of property, the protection of individual 

 liberty, the enforcement of contracts, and the prevention of those vio- 

 lent and exceptional excesses denominated crimes. 



At a very early period in the history of the community, the inter- 

 est that each citizen has in the wise and efi*ectual regulation of such 

 matters as these becomes conspicuous to all, and more especially to 

 those usually, or, on the average, more advanced and intelligent mem- 

 bers of the community who find themselves charged, through, it may 

 be, a series of political vicissitudes, with the duties of government. 

 It is probable that these several and various objects will attach to 

 themselves, at difierent epochs, a very unequal and disproportionate 

 share of attention. 



The security of property may alternate with security of the person 

 as an object of governmental care ; and the classification of crimes 

 and civil injuries, or even of crimes and religious ofienses or sins, may 

 be, in the highest degree, irregular and unsystematic. The vices, the 

 selfishness, the ignorance of individual rulers, will, from time to time, 

 bring into relief some classes of laws to the disparagement or neglect 

 of others. At one epoch a state will suffer from having too few laws, 

 at another from having too many. Particular classes of persons may 

 lose or gain at one period of legislation, and other classes may lose or 

 gain at another. These eras and disasters are of none the lighter con- 

 sequence that they have been universal. It is in spite of them, and 

 not by means of them, that states have finally endured and fought 

 their way to a climax of intelligent legislation and conscious political 

 life. In the case of such states, the heart of the people, as estimated 

 from generation to generation, has been sound, and the heads of their 

 rulers wise. The laws have gradually been adapted to promote indi- 

 vidual liberty, and not to impair it ; and the province of government 

 has been so mapped out as to make the government an institution 

 conducive to the good of the people, and not a mere organ for the 

 sacrifice of a nation to a class. 



