418 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



against Nature instead of acting with it. There is, 

 for example, a Law — an observed order of facts — 

 in respect to Man which the Working Classes too 

 often forget, but which can neither be violated nor 

 neglected with impunity. That Law is the Law 

 of inequality — the various degrees in which the 

 gifts both of Body and of Mind are shared among 

 men. This is one of the most fundamental 

 facts of human nature. Nor is it difficult to see 

 how it should be also one of the most beneficent. 

 But it is a fact against which the spirit of Com- 

 bination is very apt to assume an attitude of per- 

 manent insurrection. It is, of course, the business 

 and the function of Combination to subordinate in 

 some things the Individual to the Class ; and the 

 temptation is to make that subordination exclusive 

 and complete. Hence the jealousy so often shown 

 of wages measured by the amount of work per- 

 formed. This is a jealousy of the superiority of 

 reward which is naturally due to superiority of 

 power, of industry, or of skill. But these are things 

 which God has joined together, and which no man 

 or combination of men have a right to put asunder. 

 It is a marriage made in the morning of the world, 



