(2). To study the causes of crimes, social conflicts, imperfections and inequalities, so as to obtain, by contending against these causes, an improvement in men and their social condition. It is true that what we demand here means a complete transformation of the notions of conventional right, not only in our old penal law, but also to a great extent in civil law; but this transformation is inevitable and has even already commenced. Its object is to liberate right from the grasp of an old metaphysico-religious dogmatism, and from crystalized doctrines derived from superannuated custom and abuse, and to found itself on the applied and social natural history of man, who then only will merit the name of homo sapiens which was given to him by Linnaeus, the great nomenclator of living beings.
Jurists have already too long based metaphysics on old barbarous customs and superstitious mysticism, transformed into dogmas. It is time that Themis removed her bandage, studied psychology, psychopathology and science, and submitted the impartial handling of her scales to the influence of truer and juster human factors, even if her work thereby becomes more difficult and more complicated.
Sexual Rights.—While sexual sentiments form part of the most sacred and intimate conditions of individual happiness, they are also closely and indissolubly connected with the social welfare of humanity. In no domain is it more difficult to combine harmoniously the welfare of the community with that of the individual, and this is why questions of right in sexual matters are among the most difficult to solve.
The satisfaction of the sexual appetite in man is part of his natural rights. Natural science compels us to formulate this principle; yet it is a dogma the consequences of which may become very grave and even fatal; for the satisfaction of a man's sexual appetite implies, not only the direct participation of one or more human beings in a common act, but also that of a much greater number in its indirect effects; and it may occasion, according to circumstances, more harm than good.
If the question of reproduction did not exist, it would be more easy to put individualism in more or less harmonious accord with socialism. It is thus the sexual relations which present the greatest difficulties in the social domain.
In spite of the considerable progress which has been accomplished, our modern law is still based to a great extent on the barbarous principle of the legal inequality of the sexes. The mind of man and that of woman are no doubt of different quality; nevertheless, in a society which does not possess asexual individuals like that of the ants and bees, and in which the two sexes are compelled to work together harmoniously for the social welfare, there is no reason to subordinate one sex to the other. Man may have 130 or 150 grammes more brain tissue than woman and be superior to her in his faculty of combination and invention, but this is no reason why we should only accord his wife and mother inferior social rights to his own. His bodily strength will always protect him against the possible encroachments of woman.
A first postulate is, therefore, the equality of the two sexes before the law. A second postulate consists in the emancipation of infancy, in the sense that it should never be considered as an object of possession or of exploitation, as was and is still so often the case.
These are the fundamental principles of a normal sexual law. In no animal do we find the abuses which man is permitted to practice toward his wife and children. Let us now pass on to special questions.
CIVIL LAW
The object of civil law is to regulate the relations of men to each ether. Properly speaking it does not punish, that is to say, it requires no expiation and is not concerned with crime. It seeks to improve the social basis for mutual obligations and contracts. Nevertheless, it borders on penal law as regards the question of damages which one individual must pay another whom he has injured even involuntarily, as well as by the coercive measures, both administrative and operative, which it employs.