When certain associations are simply prohibited by law, and the courts of justice have to punish infringements of that law, the evil is far less considerable.

Then every citizen knows beforehand pretty nearly what he has to expect.

He judges himself before he is judged by the law, and, abstaining from prohibited associations, he embarks in those which are legally sanctioned.

It is by these restrictions that all free nations have always admitted that the right of association might be limited.
But if the legislature should invest a man with a power of ascertaining beforehand which associations are dangerous and which are useful, and should authorize him to destroy all associations in the bud or allow them to be formed, as nobody would be able to foresee in what cases associations might be established and in what cases they would be put down, the spirit of association would be entirely paralyzed.

The former of these laws would only assail certain associations; the latter would apply to society itself, and inflict an injury upon it.