It would be like playing at paradoxes if I went on to adduce many mysteries and contradictions that strike us when we consider man’s dominion over man.  We can only come to the same conclusion if we bring forward a million of instances; we can only see that the whole human race, individual by individual, are separated one from the other by differences more or less minute, and wherever two human beings are placed together one must inevitably begin to assert mastery over the other.  The method of self-assertion may be that of the athlete, or that of the intriguer, or that of the clear-sighted over the purblind, or that of the subtle over the simple; it matters not, the effort for mastery may be made either roughly or gently, or subtly, or even clownishly, but made it will be.

Would it not be better to cease babbling of equality altogether, and to try to accept the laws of life with some submission?  The mistake of rabid theorists lies in their supposition that the assertion of superiority by one person necessarily inflicts wrong on another, whereas it is only the mastery obtained by certain men over others that makes the life of the civilized human creature bearable.  The very servant who is insolent while performing his duty only dares to exhibit rudeness because he is sure of protection by law.  All men are equal before the law.  Yes—­but how was the recognition of equality enforced?  Simply by the power of the strong.  No monarch in the world would venture to deal out such measure to our rude servitor as was dealt by Clovis to one of his men.  The king regarded himself as being affronted by his soldier, and he wiped out the affront to his own satisfaction by splitting his follower’s head in twain.  But the civilized man is secured by a bulwark of legality built up by strong hands, and manned, like the great Roman walls, by powerful legionaries of the law.  In this law of England, if a peer and a peasant fight out a cause the peer has the advantage of the strength given by accumulated wealth—­that is one example of our multifarious complexities; but the judge is stronger than either litigant, and it is the inequality personified by the judge that makes the safety of the peasant.  In our ordered state, the strong have forced themselves into positions of power; they have decided that the coarseness of brutish conflict is not to be permitted, and one ruling agency is established which rests on force, and force alone, but which uses or permits the use of force only in cases of extremity.  We know that the foundation of all law is martial law, or pure force; we know that when a judge says, “You shall be hanged,” the convict feels resistance useless, for behind the ushers and warders and turnkeys there are the steel and bullet of the soldier.  Thus it appears that even in the sanctuary of equality—­in the law court—­the life and efficiency of the place depend on the assertion of one superior strength—­that is, on the assertion of inequality.