404 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



pursue. Proposals for legislative interference with 

 a view to arrest some of the most frightful evils of 

 Society, are still constantly opposed not by care- 

 ful analysis of their tendency, but by general 

 assertions of Natural Law as opposed to all legis- 

 lation of the kind. " You cannot make men moral 

 by Act of Parliament " — such is a common enun- 

 ciation of Principle, which, like many others of the 

 same kind, is in one sense a truism, and in every 

 other sense a fallacy. It is true that neither 

 wealth, nor health, nor knowledge, nor morality 

 can be given by Act of Parliament. But it is also 

 true that the acquisition of one and of all of these 

 can be impeded and prevented by bad laws, as 

 well as aided and encouraged by wise and appro- 

 priate legislation. 



There is no doctrine in Physics more certainly 

 true than this doctrine in Politics — that every 

 practice which the authority of Society recognises 

 or supports has its own train of consequences, 

 which, for evil or for good, can be modified or 

 changed in an infinite variety of degrees according 

 as that sanction is given or withheld. Innumer- 

 able illustrations of this truth will arise wherever 



