ell as to any injunctions whatever laid by the State upon its
subjects, is unconditionally suppressed by force. The mark of the State
is sovereignty, or the identification of force and right, and the
measure of the perfection of the State is furnished by the completeness
of this identification. In the present condition of English political
thought it may be worth while to dwell for a few moments upon the
beneficent nature of this dual action of the State.

Within its jurisdiction the State maintains order and law and in this
way makes life worth living for its subjects. Order and law are the
necessary conditions of men's normal activities, of their industry, of
their ownership of whatever the State allows them to possess--for
outside of the State there is no ownership--of their leisure and of
their freedom to enjoy it. The State is even the basis of men's
characters, for it sets up and establishes a minimum standard of
conduct. Certain acts are defined as unlawful and punished as crimes.
Other acts, though not criminal, are yet so far subject to the
disapproval of the courts that the man who does them may have to
compensate those who suffer injury or damage in consequence of them.
These standards have a dual origin, in legislation and precedent.
Legislation is a formal expression of the agreement of the community
upon the definition of crimes, and common law has been produced by the
decisions of the courts in actions between man and man. Every case tried
in a civil court is a conflict between two parties, a struggle for
justice, the judgment being justice applied to the particular case. The
growth of English law has been through an endless series of conflicts,
and the law of to-day may be described as a line passing through a
series of points representing an infinite number of judgments, each the
decision of a conflict in court. For seven hundred years, with hardly an
interruption, every judgment of a court has been sustained by the force
of the State. The law thus produced, expressed in legislation and
interpreted by the courts, is the foundation of all English conduct and
character. Upon the basis thus laid there takes place a perpetual
evolution of higher standards. In the intercourse of a settled and
undisturbed community and of the many societies which it contains, arise
a number of standards of behaviour which each man catches as it were by
infection from the persons with whom he habitually associates and to
which