Law and Authority - Pierre Kropotkine

Excerpt from Law and Authority: An Anarchist Essay
Art pipes in unison with would-be science. The hero of the sculptor. The painter, the musician shields Law beneath his buckler, and, with ashing eyes and distended nostrils stands ever ready to strike clown the man who would lay hands upon her. Temples are raised to her; revolutionists them selves hesitate to touch the high priests consecrated to her service, and, when revolution is about to sweep away some ancient institution, it is still by law that it endeavours to sanctify the deed.
The confused mass of rules of conduct called Law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdom, feudalism, and royalty, has taken the place of those stone monsters before whom human victims used to be immolated, and whom slavish savages dared not even touch lest they should be slain by the thunder-bolts of heaven.
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