Every society, every state, must from necessity be made up of the Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent and the law-makers of that society, that state, will from necessity be compelled to frame laws suited to that community. Hence, the laws will not be absolutely the best, considering the question as an abstract question, but they will be the best which that community is capable of receiving.
All legislation, like all Society, is a compromise.
In a state of Nature I would be absolutely free. But I would be alone. To protect myself in person, property or family, I would have to rely upon my individual arm. My absolute freedom would be an absolute isolation and a relative helplessness.
I would find that I could not endure such a life. I would therefore seek companionship among other men who felt the same needs that I felt, and we would come together for the “good of all.” One hundred families coming together in this way form the nucleus of Society, of the State. Each man gives up a portion of his individual freedom when he enters this union of families which forms such a nucleus.
Why does he surrender a portion of his wild, natural, individual freedom? Why does he agree to be bound by the will of the Community instead of his own will? Why does he consent to be governed by the public when he had previously been his own ruler? He does it because it is to his interest to do it. He finds that, while he has surrendered much, he has gained more. The Community throws around him the protection of a hundred strong arms where previously he had but his own.
The Community, in a hundred ways, ministers to his wants, his weaknesses, his desires, his prosperity.
In other words, the Community gives more than it took.
Association which improves the Community tends to improve each member thus associated; and from this association come all those blessings which we call Civilization.
Resolve the Association back into its elements; let each individual separate from the mass; let each one say, “I’m my own man,”—and what becomes of Civilization?
It perishes, of course.