536 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



of a law is punished not because of the intrinsic criminality of 

 the act committed, but because of the implied insubordina 

 tion. And the disregard of governmental authority continues, 

 through subsequent stages, to constitute, in legal theory, the 

 primary element in a transgression. 



In societies that become large and complex, there arise forma 

 of activity and intercourse not provided for in the sacred code ; 

 and in respect of these the ruler is free to make regulations. 

 As such regulations accumulate there comes into exist 

 ence a body of laws of known human origin ; and though 

 this acquires an authority due to reverence for the men who 

 made it and the generations which approved it, yet it has not 

 the sacredness of the god-descended body of laws : human 

 law differentiates from divine law. But in societies which 

 remain predominantly militant, these two bodies of laws 

 continue similar in the respect that they have a personally- 

 derived authority. The avowed reason for obeying them is 

 that they express the will of a divine ruler, or the will of a 

 human ruler, or, occasionally, the will of an irresponsible 

 oligarchy. 



But with the progress of industrialism and growth of a 

 free population which gradually acquires political power, the 

 humanly-derived law begins to sub-divide; and that part 

 which originates in the consensus of individual interests, 

 begins to dominate over the part which originates in the 

 authority of the ruler. So long as the social type is one 

 organized on the principle of compulsory cooperation, law, 

 having to maintain this compulsory cooperation, must be 

 primarily concerned in regulating status, maintaining in 

 equality, enforcing authority ; and can but secondarily con 

 sider the individual interests of those forming the mass. 

 But in proportion as the principle of voluntary cooperation 

 more and more characterizes the social type, fulfilment of 

 contracts and implied assertion of equality in men s rights, 

 become the fundamental requirements, and the consensus of 

 individual interests the chief source of law : such authority 



