Schlegel observes that the difference between strict law and equitable law is the most arduous problem in all jurisprudence. Strict law is an abstract law, deduced from certain general principles, applied without the least regard to adventitious circumstances. Equity, on the other hand, pays due regard to such circumstances, examines into the peculiar state of things, and the mutual relations of parties; and forms her decisions not according to the caprice of fancy, or the waywardness of feeling, but according to the general principles of right, applied to the variable circumstances and situations of parties. According to the author's definition, the object of the institution of the state is the maintenance of internal and external peace. Justice is the only basis of peace; but _justice is here the means, and not the end_. If justice were the end for which the state was constituted, then neither external nor internal peace could ever be procured or maintained; for the state would then be compelled to wage eternal war against all who, at home or abroad, were guilty of injustice, and could never lay down its arms till that injustice were removed. As peace is essentially the end of that great corporation called the state; it follows that the justice by which its foreign and domestic policy must be regulated, is not that strict or absolute justice spoken of above, but that temperate or conciliatory equity, which is alone applicable to the concerns of men. The maxim, "a thousand years' wrong cannot constitute an hour's right," if applied to civil jurisprudence, would introduce interminable confusion, hardship and misery in the affairs of private life, and if applied to constitutional and international law, would lead to perpetual anarchy at home, and to endless, exterminating war abroad. The Christian religion, as it comes from God, is eminently social--hence it abhors the principle of absolute or inexorable right, whether applied to civil or public law--hence the Christian state, or the state animated with the spirit of Christianity, is in its tendency essentially pacific.