Page:Struggle for Law (1915).djvu/162

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The Struggle for Law


of the shoulders. And just on this account have I exposed the practical side of the question to view, the side which he fully understands; for the idea of law and the interest of the state go, here, hand in hand. There is no feeling of legal right, no matter how healthy it may be, which can, in the long run, resist the influence of bad laws; it grows blunted, withers and decays. For the essence of legal right is, as I have frequently remarked already, action. What the air is to the flame, freedom of action is to the feeling of legal right. Refuse it this freedom, and the feeling dies.

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