ABSTRACT

In ordinary debate uniformity of law is continually identified with centralization of government. The pioneers of liberalism in England understood this distinction very well: they were the great promoters of national union under a common law and of international peace under international law. The troubled and troublesome areas of the world are those where this civil society is not yet established. Thus the weak and disorderly states are vulnerable because they are unable as yet to participate in this world-wide civil society which maintains the world-wide division of labor. Ever since the earliest beginnings of the industrial revolution men have been advancing the frontiers of the region in which dependable law exists, making the world habitable for men who live by the division of labor. This movement, known to doctrine as liberalism, has behind it the irresistible energy developed by an immeasurably superior mode of obtaining a living from the earth, and no human power can long withstand it.