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92 other reasoning. In proportion too as this philosophy fixes its grasp on minds which have thought less than others and fortified themselves with smaller observation, its tendency is to become distinctly anarchical. It is surprising to note how many of the Sophismes Anarchiques which Dumont published for Bentham, and which embody Bentham's exposure of errors distinctively French, are derived from the Roman hypothesis in its French transformation, and are unintelligible unless referred to it. On this point too it is a curious exercise to consult the Moniteur during the principal eras of the Revolution. The appeals to the Law and State of Nature become thicker as the times grow darker. They are comparatively rare in the Constituent Assembly; they are much more frequent in the Legislative; in the Convention, amid the din of debate on conspiracy and war, they are perpetual.

There is a single example which very strikingly illustrates the effects of the theory of natural law on modern society, and indicates how very far are those effects from being exhausted. There cannot, I conceive, be any question that to the assumption of a Law Natural we owe the doctrine of the fundamental equality of human beings. That "all men are equal" is one of a large number of legal propositions which, in progress of time, have become political. The Roman jurisconsults of the Antonine era lay down that