RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Religion and Society ~ 390 ~ the basis of human values. Scholars are agreed that this discovery of values is not possible by purely rational methods, and constitutionalists have not even found the correct structure within which to frame the laws they propose. They may be agreed that there are certain fundamental values which they feel it would be desirable to incorporate in the law, yet, try as they may to do so, they find that while some values may be maintained, there are always others which elude them. It is rather like a man trying to weigh five frogs up with five others. He gathers five frogs on one end of the scale. Then he turns his attention to the other five. In the meantime the first five jump off. And so it has happened with all our efforts to frame a perfect set of laws. The establishment of one set of laws has led to the forfeit of others. There is no end in sight to our predicament. The only ‘solution’ that western civilization has found, says, W. Friedmann, is to “keep wavering from one extreme to the other.”2 One latter-day extreme which we have reached is the sanctioning or repeal of laws according to whether they find favour with the public or not. Some laws, in spite of being ethically and