If today I have a quarrel with another man, I do not get beaten merely because I am physically weaker and he can knock me down. I go to law, and the law will decide as fairly as it can between the two of us. Thus in disputes between man and man right has taken the place of might. Moreover the law protects me from robbery and violence. Nobody may come and break into my house, steal my goods, or run off with my children. Of course, there are burglars, but they are very rare, and the law punishes them whenever it catches them.
It is difficult for us to realize how much this safety means. Without safety those higher activities of mankind which make up civilization could not go on. The inventor could not invent, the scientist find out or the artist make beautiful things. Hence order and safety although they are not themselves civilization are things without which civilization would be impossible. They are necessary to our civilization as the air we breathe is to us and we have grown so used to them that we do not notice them any more than we notice the air.
