Aristotle once said "the law is reason free from passion" and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of what happens when the two are introduced, at the expense of justice. The purpose of all laws is, supposedly, justice: the force of sound reason and fairness. The trial court system is the global standard of fairness, but in the novel, it fails to deliver justice to the town of Macomb. The novel illustrates …showed first 75 words of 818 total…

…showed last 75 words of 818 total…their faults, as does any human institution" [p.233], but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop the pursuit of real social justice even if it is unreachable. The pursuit of justice is the pursuit of truth, and at the spirit of that pursuit is the idealism that is the glue of civilization. In the scales of justice, there is a need for democracy, but also a need to harbor caution for the passions of the masses.