CHAPTER IX. THE RIGHT OR LAW: THE SECOND ULTIMATE REALITY 34. General Significance. THE principles of reason and all necessary inferences from them when known as regulative of power are called laws. They are laws to power of every kind, intellectual, physical and voluntary. I. They are laws to intellectual and physical power. 1. To intellectual and physical power they are laws in the sense that they determine what it is possible or impossible for power to effect. In these cases the relation of the truth to the power as its law is expressed by the verbs, must, can, cannot, and by the nouns, necessity, possibility, impossibility. In this sense these truths are laws of thought. The conclusion of a demonstration in geometry is, “It must be so" it is impossible with the demonstration in mind to think the contrary to be true. In the same sense they are laws to physical power. When we see a stone moving we know that it must have had a cause, it is impossible it should move without a cause. A builder cannot make a structure stable, if it is not constructed according to the principles of geometry and mechanics; it must fall. A projectile of a certain weight propelled by a certain force at a certain angle of elevation and meeting a certain resistance from the air must describe a certain curve in its flight. All instances are summed up in the maxim, "The absurd cannot be real." No power can give reality to that which contradicts reason. Whatever is real is capable of reasonable explanation. 2. Conformity of the action of intellectual or physical power to the truths of reason as law, is called right, non-conformity is called wrong. boy's solution of an algebraic problem is right; a steam-engine works right, that is, its action is what it must be if in all its parts it constructed according to the principles of mechanics. 3. The phrase "law of nature" is commonly used to denote an observed uniform sequence of antecedent and consequent. This, however, is not a regulative principle of reason, but merely a generalized fact. We do not say, "It must be so," but only that, so far as observed, it uniformly is so. The word law is here used in a secondary sense; it does not denote a true law of reason, and we are not concerned with it in the present discussion. It is important, however, to note the distinction; because observed uniform sequence is not only dignified with the name of law, but also deified as the cause which sufficiently accounts for the existence and order of the universe. 4. Some laws of nature, which are usually regarded as merely uniform sequences, do in reality rest on rational principles from which they derive all their significance as laws. The law of gravitation is commonly spoken of as expressing merely an observed uniform sequence, but in truth this law is not known by experience but is deduced from an a priori mathematical principle. The same is true of the law of the dispersion of light. Also, when science carries an observed sequence beyond the observed facts, the induction rests entirely on self-evident intuition of reason. Also, the laws of mechanics rest partly on the law of causation and partly on mathematical principles both of which are first principles of reason. II. The principles of reason and all necessary inferences from them are also laws to the will. 1. To the will they are laws, in the sense that they declare what the will in its free action ought to do, what is its duty or obligation. To the will the law does not determine what it is possible or impossible for it to effect, nor declare necessity or what the will must do. Every man is conscious that in the exercise of free will he can disobey law and can exert all his energies to accomplish ends contrary to reason; yet every man is still conscious that the truth of reason is a law which he ought to obey. 2. Conformity of the action of the will with law is right, its nonconformity is wrong. 3. Truth known as law to a free will is moral law, and conformity of a will to law is right in the distinctively moral or ethical meaning of the word. III. The law to intellectual power, the law to physical power, and the law to free will have the common characteristic of law in that each is a truth of reason known as a law to the action of power. They are the three classes of rational laws or laws of reason. The third differs from the first and second in that it is addressed to rational beings having free will, it commands action and requires obedience, it imposes obligation or duty, and it may be obeyed or disobeyed; but it brings with it no necessity of action. It is moral law. On the contrary the first and second are not laws to free will; they utter no command, they impose no obligation or duty, they can neither be obeyed nor disobeyed, they carry with them simply necessity. They are not moral law. The word right as applied in each case has the common meaning of the conformity of action to law; but right in its ethical sense denotes distinctively the conformity of the action of a rational being with law by his own free choice of ends and determination of actions. Law and Right have moral or ethical significance only as applied to rational beings determining by free will their own ends and actions. Reason knows itself as regulative of all power. In respect to rational free-agents reason knows itself as having authority to give law, to command obedience, to impose obligation. 35. The Ethical Significance of Right and Law. I. The ethical idea of right and law arises in the rational intuition that I ought to act reasonably, that is, in accordance with the truths of reason; or, more generally formulated, "A rational being ought to obey reason," or, "what is true to the reason is a law to the will." In this intuition the person comes to the knowledge of a new reality which is expressed in the word ought and to which the nouns corresponding are obligation, duty, law. This new reality is that he exists under law; that the universal principles and the necessary inferences from them, which he knows as truths, are laws which he is under obligation to obey. Like other intuitions, this one is practically operative on his action before he formulates it in reflective thought or even recognizes it as a judgment. But as he reflects he finds that what he knows as true to his reason he knows to be a law to action; he finds himself saying I ought, and learns the significance of obligation and duty; he finds himself approving some actions because conformed to principles which he knows as true; and this common quality of these acts he calls right, and the contrary quality he calls wrong. Thus the ideas of right and wrong rise directly from rational intuition. Without rational intuition man could never have known the difference of right and wrong or had any idea of law, duty and obligation. II. Significance of ethical terms. 1. Ought, obligation, duty. Like all words designating knowledge given directly in intuition, these terms cannot be analytically defined. They can be understood only by intuitively knowing them. It is a sphere of reality entirely unique and no definition or explanation can give any idea of it to a being who is incapable of rational intuition. Ethical terms can be explained only by referring to the consciousness of those who have ethical knowledge. I have already explained the three words, as far as it is possible, in indicating their origin. 2. Right. Ought expresses the relation between a rational being acting freely and the truth of reason. Right, as an adjective, is predicated of action or character which is conformed to the truth of reason. The Right, as a noun, is the name of this common and essential quality of such character or action; it means the conformity of action or character to the truth of reason, known as law to action. Holiness and sin, virtue and vice, as denoting character and action, are properly predicated of persons. The man is virtuous or vicious. Right and wrong are more properly predicated immediately of character and action; as, virtue is right, vice is wrong. We sometimes say, however, the man is right, meaning right in character or action; for right and wrong have no ethical significance except as related to the action or character of a rational free agent. Right is also used in a different application, as correlative with duty. If I owe five dollars, it is my duty to pay it to my creditor and his right to receive it. The rights of one are correlative to the duty of another. No man has rights in respect to others any farther than they owe duties to him. If all men did all their duties, all men would have all their rights. Selfishness inflames a man to loud declaration of his own rights, while he thinks little of his own duties. Christ puts it the opposite way. He requires universal love; he would right human wrongs by teaching men to think first of their own duties rather than of their own rights. 3. Law is truth considered as that to which rational beings are under obligation to conform their characters and action. When I know myself under obligation to conform my action to truth I know the truth as a law to my action. Law is correlative to obligation. 4. Authority is the right to declare and enforce law. The right of an individual to receive payment of a debt or any service due, is a right derived from the law to which both parties are subject; it is. not the right to declare and enforce law. This belongs only to a government and is called authority. The reason, as it reveals itself in the consciousness of an individual, reveals itself as having authority to command. Hence Bishop Butler recognizes authority as the distinctive characteristic of the conscience.* But while the individual's conscience has authority to command him, it does not command others, nor give the individual the right to do so. He must indeed see that what is a universal truth to reason is a law to all men; he may instruct others as to their duty to obey it. But he has no right to command or to en Sermons on Human Nature, IL force obedience. That right is called authority. That authority rests only in a government. 5. Government, in its primary meaning, is the action of will in the light and by the authority of reason, declaring the truth of reason as law and enforcing obedience by the punishment of transgressors. This is the most abstract definition of government possible. Law which is the truth of reason, is distinguished from government which involves the action of will. Law being of the reason, will can neither create, change nor annul it. Law is above will; will is always subject to law. It is not the function even of government to create law, but only to discover, declare and enforce the laws which are truths of reason; and in so doing government itself must obey the unchanging laws of reason. The authority of government, or its right to govern rests on the reason. The theory of popular government, as Judge McLean expressed it in one of his opinions, is that law is supposed to declare "the collective reason of the people." The authority of government rests ultimately in God, the Supreme and Absolute Reason. We must distinguish law, considered as the eternal principles of right, from statutes or enactments, in which government declares how these principles are to be applied to particular cases. Government must enact statutes to meet particular circumstances and change or annul them as changing circumstances require. But even here it must use its best wisdom to make enactments accordant with truth and righteousness. Ethics is the science of law both as unchanging principles and as regulative of conduct in specific cases; both as unchangeable principles in the reason, and as declared and enforced by government. Jurisprudence also discusses the principles of right and their application to conduct, but is confined to the authority and enactments of civil government. Thus Austin begins his "Jurisprudence" with a discussion of the grounds of the authority of government and law and of the obligation to obedience. It is one of the ablest vindications of the erroneous theory of Utilitarianism. Jurisprudence is a branch of ethics. Austin recognizes this; but uses the phrase "positive law" in the sense of enactment or statute: "The science of ethics consists of two departments, one relating specially to positive law, the other relating specially to positive morality. The department which relates to positive law is commonly styled the science of legislation; the department which relates specially to positive morality is commonly called the science of morals."* III. Ethical ideas and moral distinctions, being known by rational intuition, are of the highest certainty. * Jurisprudence, Vol. i. p. 115. |