THE LAW How many ancient ideas have become obscured and confused in our time! How many ancient terms have changed, or change before our eyes to-day, their original significance ! Thus has changed, and changed by no means for the better, the conception of the law. From one side regarded, law is a regulation, from the other a commandment, and on this conception of a commandment is based its moral acceptation. The prototype of all law remains the decalogue, "Honour thy father and thy mother... Thou shalt do no murder ... Thou shalt not steal... Thou shalt not covet." Independently of what in modern phrase we denominate "sanction," independently of punishment for its violation, the commandments have the power of affecting the consciences of men by establishing, with the authority of supreme power, the distinction between light and darkness, between equity and iniquity. And not in the material punishment for its violation is the fundamental, invincible sanction of the law, but in the conscience of man, rebuking his iniquity. Material punishment he may flee, the imperfection of human justice may cast it on the innocent, but from this internal chastisement he can in no way be delivered. This deep significance of the law is entirely overlooked in the new theories and new practices of legislators. For them the law has but one significance, as the regulation of external action, the preserver of mechanical equilibrium of the diverse operations of human activity in their juridical relations. In the preparation of the law great labour is expended on analysis and technicality. The importance of technicality and analysis cannot be gainsaid; but is it wise in providing for these to forget the essential significance of the law? Yet this significance is often not only forgotten, but actually abjured. Thus we encumber beyond measure the immense edifice of the law, and live incessantly devising rules and forms and formulas of every kind. In the name of freedom and the rights of man we do this, yet we have gone so far that no man can move in freedom from the network of rules and ordinances extending everywhere, threatening everyone—all in the name of freedom. We seek to define, to measure, and to weigh all things by formulas, formulas human-therefore imperfect, and often delusive. We strive to emancipate the individual, but everywhere we dig pitfalls about his feet, the victims of which more often are the innocent than the guilty. When we consider the infinite multitude of laws, and regulations, and the bewilderment of legislators and judges, the fiction that ignorance of the law is in no way justification assumes an appalling significance. The simple man cannot know the law, or vindicate his rights, or defend himself against attacks and accusations; he falls then into the hands of attorneys, the sworn mechanics of the machine of justice, whom he pays for every step which his case advances in the courts. |