8* 



and social phenomenon, have shown to-day 

 how absurd and illegitimate was the preten- 

 sion of the legislator and the judge to weigh 

 and measure the " fault " of the delinquent in 

 order that the punishment might be an exact 

 counterpoise, instead of contenting themselves 

 with excluding from civil society temporarily 

 or perpetually those individuals who cannot 

 adapt themselves to its necessities, as one does 

 with lunatics or those afflicted with con- 

 tagious diseases. 



The same with marriage. The free right of 

 dissolution which was recognised in primitive 

 society has been gradually replaced by the 

 absolute formulae of theology and spiritualism 

 which imagine that " free will " can fix the 

 destiny of a person by a monosyllable pro- 

 nounced at a moment of such unstable 

 psychical equilibrium as is the period of 

 betrothal and marriage. Later, the reversion 

 to the spontaneous and primitive form of 

 consent is imposed and the matrimonial union 

 with the custom continually more frequent and 

 easy of divorce returns to its origin and gives 

 to the family, that is to say to the social cell, 

 a healthier constitution. 



This same phenomenon is established in 

 property. Spencer himself has been forced to 

 recognise that there was a fatal tendency to a 

 reversion to a primitive collectivism when the 

 appropriation of the land, at first for the family 

 then for industrial purposes as he has himself 

 shown, has attained its culminating point, so 

 that in certain countries (Torrens Act in 

 Australia) the land has become a sort of 



