ABSTRACT
Inasmuch as absence of order means chaos, and licence cannot be averted without the aid ofrestraint, it is evidently necessary for society to be governed by laws of some kind. But as it is important for its members to know whether the claim to obedience should be respected as uttered by the voice of the Creator, or distrusted as emanating from no higher authority than Mrs Grundy endeavouring to impose fetters without good reason, therefore it behoves people to remember that there is a motive for everything ifonly they can find it, and to examine boldly into the origin of the laws now in force in order to ascertain whether they are produced by inherent and unalterable conditions of the human race, or due solely to conventionality and prejudice. And the interest attached to the views upon this and other branches of the subject of emancipation of so clever a person as the writer of The
EnJancipated, entitles the work to more attention than the reading public might otherwise be inclined to bestow upon it.
