LAW The general plan of this little book being to start from the influences that determine man's destiny in a physical, external, necessary sort of way, and to work up gradually to the spiritual, internal, voluntary factors in human nature--that strange "compound of clay and flame"-- it seems advisable to consider law before religion, and religion before morality, whether in its collective or individual aspect, for the following reason.

There is more sheer constraint to be discerned in law than in religion, whilst religion, in the historical sense which identifies it with organized cult, is more coercive in its mode of regulating life than the moral reason, which compels by force of persuasion.
To one who lives under civilized conditions the phrase "the strong arm of the law" inevitably suggests the policeman.

Apart from policemen, magistrates, and the soldiers who in the last resort must be called out to enforce the decrees of the community, it might appear that law could not exist.

And certainly it is hard to admit that what is known as mob-law is any law at all.

For historical purposes, however, we must be prepared to use the expression "law" rather widely.