12 CHAPTER III. We have seen in the previous chapter how law originatecl in establishecl usage and custom, ·and how, fr.om the beginning it has represented a skilful mixture of social habits, necessary to the preservation of the human race, with other customs, imposed by those who used popular superstition, as well as the , right of the strongest for their own -advanta.ge. This double charactei: of law has determined its own later- development during the growth of political organisation. Whilst in the - course of ages the nucleus of social custom inscribed in law has been subjected to but slight and gradual modifications, the other portion has been largely developed in directions indicated · by the interests of the dominant classes, and to the injury of the classes they oppress. From time to time these dominant classe~ have allowed a law to be extorted from them which presented,' or appea.red to present, s~me guarantee for the disinherited. But then such laws have but repealed a previous law, made for the advantage of th_eruling caste. " The best laws," says Buckle, "were those which repealed the preceding one.s." But what terrible efforts have been needed, what rivers of blood have been spilt, every time there has been a question of the repeal of one of these fundamental enactm~nts serving to hold the people in fetters. Before she could abqlish the last ve.stiges of serfdom and feudal rights, and break up the power of the royal ·court, ·Fra.nce was forced to pass through four years of revolution and twenty years of war. Decades of conflict are needful to repeal the least of the iniquitous laws, bequeathed us by the past, and even then they scarcely disappea.r except in ·periods of revolution. The history of the genesis of capital has already been told by Socialists many times. They have described how it was born of war and pillage, of slavery and serfdom, of modern fraud and exploitation. They have,shown how it is ·nourished by the '· Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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