528 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



of authority, conduce to social welfare : of which last, law, 

 in its modern form, is substantially an elaboration. Already 

 I have pointed out that the kind of law initiated by the 

 consensus of individual interests, precedes the kind of law 

 initiated by political authority. Already I have said that 

 though, as political authority develops, laws acquire the shape 

 of commands, even to the extent that those original prin 

 ciples of social order tacitly recognized at the outset, come 

 to be regarded as obligatory only because personally enacted, 

 yet that the obligation derived from the consensus of indi 

 vidual interests survives, if obscured. And here it remains 

 to show that as the power of the political head declines as 

 industrialism fosters an increasingly free population as 

 the third element in the triune political structure, long sub 

 ordinated, grows again predominant ; there again grows pre 

 dominant this primitive source of law the consensus of 

 individual interests. We have further to note that in its 

 re-developed form, as in its original form, the kind of law 

 hence arising has a character radically distinguishing it from 

 the kinds of law thus far considered. Both the divine 

 laws and the human laws which originate from personal 

 authority, have inequality as their common essential principle ; 

 while the laws which originate impersonally, in the consensus of 

 individual interests, have equality as their essential principle. 

 Evidence is furnished at the very outset. For what is this 

 lex talionis which, in the rudest hordes of men, is not only 

 recognized but enforced by general opinion ? Obviously, as 

 enjoining an equalization of injuries or losses, it tacitly 

 assumes equality of claims among the individuals concerned. 

 The principle of requiring &quot; an eye for an eye and a tooth for 

 a tooth,&quot; embodies the primitive idea of justice everywhere : 

 the endeavour to effect an exact balance being sometimes 

 quite curious. Thus we read in Arbousset and Daumas : 

 &quot; A Basuto whose son had been wounded on the head with a staff, came 

 to entreat me to deliver up the offender, with the same staff and on 

 the same spot where my son was beaten, will I give a blow on the head 

 of the man who did it. &quot; 



