A MAP OF LIFE material law there is freedom within it, the only freedom possible to man. And a condition of this freedom is the same as in the other case — namely, knowledge of what the law is. In the light of all this it is possible to judge the extent of folly of those who talk of emancipation from the moral law, or from any particular article of the moral law: and because this talk has folly at its root, it runs to folly in every leaf and flower. To take only one instance: one hears the phrase that the modern man is no longer to be bound by the two-thousand-year-old law of marriage. It is as though one were to say that it was beneath the dignity of modern man to be bound by the even older law of gravity. For the question is not whether the law is old, but whether it is a law. A man might very well say that he would not be bound by the law of gravity: yet he would be well advised to keep his affirmation within the sphere of words. Let him push it to act, and he will no longer be a modern man but a corpse, part of that history which, in his newness, he so heartily despises. Another category of this folly is the not uncommon assumption that this or that human authority may abrogate the law, even if the individual would be a little reckless in declaring it not binding upon himself. But the State — to take the most obvious example of all — cannot in any way affect the moral law.* The State declares that a man may — in • Nor can the Church. See page lOO. 22