Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/297

 men more readily condone than women are much more likely to be bad for public morality than those which women condone more freely than men. There is no particular reason for thinking at the present time (though there was ample reason for thinking a few decades ago) that women will be more prone to legislate unnecessarily, and therefore mischievously, than men: and we are in any case bound to pass through a good many years of parliament-worship before we awaken to the fact that the law cannot do everything, and that any reform which is accomplished by the spontaneous influence of public opinion is always a great deal more complete, a great deal more conducive to public self-respect, and a great deal better adjusted to the special requirements of every individual circumstance that it touches, than one which is laboriously and mechanically embodied in statutes which cannot but be imperfect, cannot possibly fail to act oppressively and unjustly in one place or another, and frequently prove to be unworkable from beginning to end.