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LAW AS AN EXPRESSION OF IDEALS
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others of the same mental development, and form more or less compact groups. When such a group is first formed, none of the children have the slightest idea of law; but gradually the group evolves ideals and customs to effectuate them, and the dullest child soon learns that he must comply with these customs if he wishes to remain a member of the group. This shows us both how and why laws are made, as well as who makes them. The child study is also useful when we are considering the evolution of the state and its purpose in the social scheme. A group of children always develops around a leader who dominates its activities to a greater or less extent. Although the group begins to evolve ideals and customs to effectuate them as soon as it is formed, none of the children at that time understand the purpose of customs or why they should obey them. All they know is that they must obey them if they wish to remain members of the group. In time, however, they realize that the office of customs is to effectuate group ideals, and that customs are a delusion and a snare, or that they benefit principally those who intend to disobey them, unless the group enforces them. When the group finally grasps that idea, the leader is usually able to make use of it to increase his power. In other words, the leader is able to exercise authority over the group when it is first formed because of his real or fancied superiority; but when group consciousness develops, the idea that he represents the group and should be obeyed for that reason also develops and has a tendency to put him above the law. Since the mind of a child passes through about the same phases in the course of its evolution that the human mind has passed through, it is probable that the state developed in something the same way, or that each of the groups into which the race was divided developed around a leader who exercised more or less authority over it. As group consciousness developed, the leader made use of it to increase his power, which in time became autocratic.

It is impossible, however, to say that the analogy holds; all that can be said is that we have no traditions-much less any record—of a community with laws but without a state to enforce them. It is possible, however, to form a fairly definite idea of the predicament of such a community, for we have a completesystem of international law in so far as familiar situations are concerned, but no machinery to enforce its rules; so, when a state commits any serious breach of international law, the community or communities that are aggrieved fight, as they say,