LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 6^j 



reciprocal confidence, the latter leading to renewed watchfulness 

 or inducing retaliatory aggressions. 



Primitive man, being unrestricted except by the wills of others, 

 would find himself in an environment in which his will would be 

 moderated by the desires of others ; and, whether the first bond 

 of union had its origin in accident or experimental degrees of 

 association, it is evident that, so soon as the advantages of the new 

 conditions were experienced, the new duties involved in the new 

 trust were readily acknowledged and willingly performed : and this 

 coming together from a state of isolation, until by slow and grad- 

 ual growth a visible bond of union was established, must have 

 been a dual development, in which trusts and duties balanced, for 

 mutual benefits give rise to mutual obligations, and not until a 

 breach of duty revealed the existence of new dangers would an 

 enforced compliance, much less a compact, be suggested. 



" Do as you would be done by " is the natural inclination of 

 man, and, though weakened and impaired by legislation, its many 

 features still endure, for upon the operation of the golden rule 

 does the permanency of all bonds of union rest. The dishonest 

 gambler is watchful of the play, expecting to be cheated ; he does 

 not hesitate to cheat in turn, but he holds with sacred regard the 

 debts of honor contracted at the table. The Texan cow-boy who 

 shoots his man at sight would scorn to hide himself from the fury 

 of an antagonist; careless in taking the lives of others, he is 

 equally reckless concerning his own. The Indian neither extends 

 to others nor hopes himself for mercy. The untrusting are un- 

 worthy of our confidence ; thus love begets love, confidence in- 

 spires confidence, and with our higher types of manhood those 

 superior to the law will transgress its mandates rather than vio- 

 late their conscience, of which class we have records of many 

 notable examples. 



The whole history of human development is replete with the 

 recognition of new duties, and the primitive bonds of savage union 

 have been successively extended from families to tribes and clans, 

 thence to states, which have further united into nations, while 

 the final evolution points to a universal brotherhood. As pre- 

 viously stated, these two forces are met with everywhere — the 

 active and the reactive, the positive and the negative, the ag- 

 gressive and the permissive, the individual and the social — but 

 they have been separated by legislation, much as you would sepa- 

 rate the electricities by friction, and, as with the electricities, the 

 like forces are repellent, while the unlike are mutually attracted. 



Let us apply this law of nature to a well-known and familiar 

 evil. I refer to joint-stock companies and corporations. The cor- 

 poration of to-day differs from those of the Elizabethan period, in 

 so far as such grants were then regarded as special favors, often 



