But life is not made up of isolated moments or periods.
It is a continuous process, in which each moment is affected by the moments that have gone before, and by the prospective character of the moments that are to come after.

If it were not for this fact, the majority of the voters of New York State, "by electing a governor of their own way of thinking," might not only put a limit to the income which any citizen might possess.

It might do a great deal more besides.
It might enact a law which limited the amount which any citizen might eat.

It might limit everybody to two ounces a day.

Besides enacting that no father should bequeath his wealth to his children, it might enact just as readily that no father should have the custody of his children.
It might enact, in obedience to the persuasions of some plausible quack, that no one should take any medicines but a single all-curing pill.
There is nothing in the principles so solemnly laid down by "X" which would render any of these enactments more impossible than those which he himself contemplates.