Page:Struggle for Law (1915).djvu/67

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Origin of the Law


during such conflict. For the law is Saturn devouring his own children. The law can renew its youth only by breaking with its own past. A concrete legal right or principle of law, which, simply because it has come into existence, claims an unlimited and therefore eternal existence, is a child lifting its arm against its own mother; it despises the idea of the law when it appeals to that idea; for the idea of the law is an eternal Becoming; but that which has Become must yield to the new Becoming, since

——— Alles was entsteht,
Ist werth dass es zu Grunde geht.

And thus the historical development of law presents us with a picture of research, struggle, fight, in short of toilsome, wearying endeavor. The human mind working unconsciously towards the formation of language is met by no forcible resistance, and art has no opponent to overcome but its own past—the prevailing taste. It is not so with law considered as an end. Cast into the chaotic whirl of human aims, endeavors, interests,

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