the perusal of a race of butcher boys or medical students; that we find them, whenever there is a railroad accident, despatching to the scene a corps of blood-thirsty reporters, who bring back a string of items that would disgrace a cannibal bill of fare, mingled with coarse jests, thinking that they thus imitate Shakespeare and heighten tragedy by introducing comedy; that we find them heralding the follies and fooleries over a bogus baby and the crimes of a bogus mother, with as much glee as if they were removing instead of deepening the effects of the crime; that we find them doing all this, and yet complaining of the "vitiated tastes of the public." Yes! the public tastes are vitiated, and it is this bloody detail of the newspapers that has contributed to it in no small degree, so that now almost everybody takes pleasure, a cruel pleasure, in reading accounts of suffering and wrong. Everybody, we repeat, from the stable-boy who gloats over the Police Gazette and feasts on crime which disgraces the metropolis, up to the President, who "most cheerfully admits that the necessity for sending troops into Kansas reflects no credit upon the character of our country." This savage appetite for bloody news, this "most cheerfully" making admissions which should wring sorrow from the heart of a true patriot, is a distinguishing characteristic of our age. It might have existed to some extent among the ancients-in fact, we have no reason to doubt that the little Greeks ran out as eagerly to hear the old man at the gate sing how the "bloody eye-balls rolled in the dust." But Homer sang of his country's glory, these 'take pleasure in laying before their readers' their country's disgrace and crime. He elevated the minds of his hearers, these pander to a taste which they themselves have vitiated. Ancient literature led the Ancients forward. Where is this Press Gang leading us?

È. F. B.

Reverence for Law.

LAW is not self-operative. The legislative and judicial functions are incomplete without the executive; and this, except in so far as it is the representative of force, either moral or physical, is wholly without efficiency. There have been numerous attempts to construct a political system which by virtue of its perfect organization might dispense with external support; in which all the discordant elements of society should

act as checks and balances on each other. From Plato to the French Encyclopaedists, this problem has engaged the attention of philosophers, but has hitherto failed of a satisfactory solution. A self-acting government is as great a desideratum in politics, as a self-acting machine in the arts neither is wholly despaired of. In one respect, however, physical philosophers are more fortunate than political; while the former have only the inertness of matter to overcome, the latter must encounter the active opposition of the human will.

These philosophers seem to have forgotten that when such a government will be possible, none will be required;-the conditions under which it can exist will have removed the necessity for its existence. A government without force is not one suited to the wants of human society. How little of stability any political system in itself possesses may be seen in the sudden overthrow which all have sooner or later experienced. Law is the foundation on which all society rests, but is itself not self-supporting.

Physical laws carry their efficiency with them. The power which established is also exerted in upholding them. The law and its operation are inseparable, are always united both in fact and in idea, for the reason that Nature's laws are not abstract rules, but living, energetic principles.

Civil law is endowed with no such efficiency. Its power is either physical, lodged in the hands of government to enforce obedience, or moral, operating in the mind of the citizen to secure voluntary submission. It is by virtue of these two elements of force that law exerts whatever of influence it possesses. But though generally, if not always, united, they by no means sustain the same unvarying relation to each other. The dominion of brute force and the reign of moral ideas mark the two extremes of social degradation and elevation. But the nature of the force which government employs is not merely a characteristic and consequence of the condition of society; it is likewise an efficient cause of that condition. Government and society act and react on each other; so intimate is the relation between them that the least forward or backward movement in one is attended by a similar movement in the other.

The progress of society is thus coincident with the growth of this moral element in government. The absolute supremacy of the one would be the perfection of the other. Such, however, is not the destiny of humanity. Society will never reach that point of improvement when it can dispense entirely with the aid of physical force; its highest attainment will be only an indefinite approximation to this.

We propose to consider more particularly the moral element of law on which the security of modern Society in so great a measure rests, to discover its origin and conditions, and afterwards to trace its growth. First, its origin.

Law defines the relations existing between the individual and society, and enforces the mutual obligations arising therefrom. The sentiment of reverence which is simply the recognition and acknowledgment within us of this authority, points to the same foundation with society itself, the source of these obligations. The question then resolves itself into that of the origin of society. But the light already acquired will aid us in the investigation. No theory is admissible which fails to satisfy at once both these conditions. Any explanation of society inconsistent with the existence of reverence for law may safely be rejected. Let us apply this test to the various theories of society. There are, as Coleridge remarks, substantially but three, to which all others may ultimately be reduced.

The first is that generally associated with the name of Hobbes. This confounds the distinction between right and wrong, making right to consist simply in the will of the stronger. Wrong, therefore, if it exist, can be only in the condition of the weaker. The social instinct is fear, which brings men into unwilling submission to superior force. Society thus constituted, the aid of custom is called in to overcome the natural repulsion of selfishness and by reconciling man to his lot, to make his wretched condition more endurable.

We read of prisoners who, on being released from a long and dreary confinement, have begged to be conducted back to their dungeons, so that a society organized on the system of Hobbes is perhaps not wholly inconceivable. But the impossibility of reverence for a law, which originating in no obligation is sustained by force, needs no demonstration.

The second theory is that held by the philosophers of the French Revolution, Rousseau and his successors. Asserting the supremacy of human reason it acknowledges no obligation not deducible from it and denies to society, in and of itself, any authority to circumscribe the liberty of the individual. In its anxiety to guard personal freedom it takes from the laws of society that sacredness which alone can secure for them the respect of the citizen. This theory, like the preceding, errs in taking a purely human view of the great fact of society, but the error is in the opposite extreme. The one degrades man to the level of the brute; the other clothes him in the garb of reason and worships him as a god.

The third and last theory regards society neither as a necessity of human weakness, nor as an invention of human reason, but as a divine institution clothed with all the authority requisite for its protection and improvement. This theory alone explains all the phenomena of society in a manner consistent with reverence for law as its expressed will. The motives to obedience which the systems of Hobbes and Rousseau afford are respectively, the fear of punishment and the hope of reward, but this alone, by an appeal to right and justice, can awaken the nobler sentiment of reverence.

Secondly, the conditions under which it is possible for this sentiment to exist we find to be two; a right attitude of the individual toward society, and of society toward the individual.

The first of these we have in effect already stated. Any theory of society which is inconsistent with the idea of reverence for law, must, when held as a practical belief, be hostile to the emotion itself. History affords a striking illustration of this truth. It was easy to foretell the downfall of the government inaugurated by the French Revolution from the absence of the condition on which alone its stability could rest. A correct view of man's relations to society, not necessarily in the form of a philosophical belief, but as a practical conviction, is essential as the first condition of reverence for law.

But this does not comprise all the conditions of the case. Society is under obligations to the individual likewise. If he owes to the laws obedience and support, they also owe him security and protection. If he refuse to discharge his obligation, government has the power to enforce its demands; while for any failure on its own part, it is not directly responsible to the individual. If every other resource fail, he must vindicate for himself the rights which society is either unwilling or unable to secure to him. A state of confusion and violence is the consequence. Lawlessness prevails.

"And why? Because the good old rule

Sufficeth them; the simple plan

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can."

But there is still another and more sacred duty which government owes to itself and to the citizen, a still more imperative condition of reverence; not to be guilty of any positive wrong, or by any voluntary act to outrage the natural sentiment of justice. Politically speaking, sins of omission are far more venial than sins of commission. The criminal law recognizes this principle in affording to the accused every opportunity of justification, preferring the escape of the guilty to the

conviction of the innocent. Government may overlook with impunity a thousand offenses sooner than itself be guilty of one. So far as the government alone is concerned, such an act is suicidal and therefore impolitic. But its guilt and evil do not stop here; it weakens the foundation of society itself. Viewed in this light the recent Dred Scott decision has been productive of incalculable mischief. The immediate wrong which it inflicted on its victim by consigning him to the doom of a slave, or even the possible wrong which it may occasion to those who hereafter may come within its influence, is slight in comparison with the wrong done to justice herself. Driven from the highest judicial tribunal she will yet set up her court in the heart of the citizen, and there not only reverse the sentence pronounced against herself, but also pass judgment on her betrayers.

Thirdly, the growth of this sentiment may be traced first, by its influence upon the form of government, which indicates the amount of physical force necessary for the execution of law; and secondly, by its effect on the criminal code which measures the punishment requisite to restrain crime.

In its effect on government we notice three stages of developemnt. Its first and simplest manifestation is absolute submission to the authority of one. We will not discuss here the claims of the various forms of government to priority. Whether or not an absolute monarchy be first in order of time, it is first in order of ideas, the simplest form under which any extended society can exist. Here, theoretically at least, the will of the sovereign is supreme, and the proud declaration of Louis XIV, "I am the State," is not altogether unwarranted. Law has no separate, independent existence, but is simply the expression of an individual will, dependent on that for its origin and continuance. Neither is it abstract in form. The idea of law is inseparable from that of the lawgiver. This is a necessity of uneducated minds which are insensible to the force of moral ideas, till, like religious truth, they are symbolized and embodied in a visible form and thus made level to their apprehension. The incapacity of an uncivilized people for self-government, lies not so much in their inability to devise a practicable form, or in their incapacity for self-imposed restraint, as in the dulness of their moral perceptions.

Under such a form of government, reverence for law as a distinct feeling can hardly be said to exist; its place is supplied by loyalty to the sovereign. He is the object of gratitude or hatred as his rule is mild or oppressive. The sentiment of reverence requires for its object something more stable than the vacillating will of a sovereign, which itself,