M. Guizot, statesman and historian, thought it a gross delusion to believe in the sovereign power of political machinery. Every day discloses a failure, every day there reappears the belief that it needs but an act of some legislative body and a corps of officials to effect any purpose. The faith of mankind is nowhere better seen. Disappointment has been preached from the first: “Put not thy trust in legislation.” Yet the trust in legislation seems scarcely diminished. Is it not time to reject the law as a social panacea? We should now realize that measures are usually quite different in effect from what has been expected. It would be difficult to estimate the number of legislative disappointments in English and American history; “or the amount of harm which has been inflicted on society by abortive attempts at statesmanship.” History demonstrates the incapacity of law-givers. Says Mr. Jensen, “From the statute of Merton (20 Henry III.) to the end of 1872, there had been passed 18,110 public acts, of which he estimated that four-fifths had been partially or wholly repealed.” And Herbert Spencer estimated a few years ago that “in the last three sessions of the English parliament, there have been totally repealed 650 acts, belonging to the present reign alone.” Buckle said, in this connection, every great reform has consisted “not in doing something new, but in undoing something old. The most valuable additions made to legislation have been enactments destructive of preceding legislation, and the best laws which have been passed have been those by which some former laws were repealed.... We owe no thanks to law-givers as a class; for, since the most valuable improvements in legislation are those which subvert preceding legislation, it is clear that the balance of good cannot be on their side. It is clear that the progress of civilization cannot be due to those who, on the most important subjects, have done so much harm that their successors are considered benefactors, simply because they reverse their policy, and thus restored affairs to the state in which they would have remained, if politicians had allowed them to run on in the course which the wants of society required.” In the name of “liberty and equality,” a brave battle has been fought for individuality. Unjust and unwise interference by the state has been ably resisted. It is demanded that private judgment be released from the embrace of authority. The truth is, one man has no natural right to make laws for another. True, he may repel another, when his own rights are infringed, but he has no right to govern him. The individual is sovereign merely over himself, and not over his fellow-man.