Granting, I say that competition has hitherto been the universal law, the last word, of nature, still if only one man should stand up and say, "It sh… - Edward Carpenter

The poacher … is asserting a right (and an instinct) belonging to a past time—when for hunting purposes all land was held in common. … In those times private property was theft. Obviously the man who attempted to retain for himself land or goods, or who fenced off a portion of the common ground and—like the modern landlord—would allow no one to till it who did not pay him a tax—was a criminal of the deepest dye. Nevertheless the criminals pushed their way to the front, and have become the respectables of modern society.

Every human being grows up inside a sheath of custom, which enfolds it as the swathing clothes enfold the infant.

The law is in a sense the consolidated public opinion of society.