Part 16 (2/2)
”Natural law, so far from being uncertain, when compared with statutory and const.i.tutional law, is the only thing that gives any certainty at all to a very large portion of our statutory and const.i.tutional law. The reason is this. The words in which statutes and const.i.tutions are written are susceptible of so many different meanings,--meanings widely different from, often directly opposite to, each other, in their bearing upon men's rights,--that, unless there were some rule of interpretation for determining which of these various and opposite meanings are the true ones, there could be no certainty at all as to the meaning of the statutes and const.i.tutions themselves. Judges could make almost anything they should please out of them. Hence the necessity of a rule of interpretation. _And this rule is, that the language of statutes and const.i.tutions shall be construed, as nearly as possible, consistently with natural law._
The rule a.s.sumes, what is true, that natural law is a thing certain in itself; also that it is capable of being learned. It a.s.sumes, furthermore, that it actually is understood by the legislators and judges who make and interpret the written law. Of necessity, therefore, it a.s.sumes further, that they (the legislators and judges) are _incompetent_ to make and interpret the _written_ law, unless they previously understand the natural law applicable to the same subject. It also a.s.sumes that the _people_ must understand the natural law, before they can understand the written law.
It is a principle perfectly familiar to lawyers, and one that must be perfectly obvious to every other man that will reflect a moment, that, as a general rule, _no one can know what the written law is, until he knows what it ought to be_; that men are liable to be constantly misled by the various and conflicting senses of the same words, unless they perceive the true legal sense in which the words _ought to be taken_. And this true legal sense is the sense that is most nearly consistent with natural law of any that the words can be made to bear, consistently with the laws of language, and appropriately to the subjects to which they are applied.
Though the words _contain_ the law, the _words_ themselves are not the law. Were the words themselves the law, each single written law would be liable to embrace many different laws, to wit, as many different laws as there were different senses, and different combinations of senses, in which each and all the words were capable of being taken.
Take, for example, the Const.i.tution of the United States. By adopting one or another sense of the single word ”_free_,” the whole instrument is changed. Yet the word _free_ is capable of some ten or twenty different senses. So that, by changing the sense of that single word, some ten or twenty different const.i.tutions could be made out of the same written instrument. But there are, we will suppose, a thousand other words in the const.i.tution, each of which is capable of from two to ten different senses. So that, by changing the sense of only a single word at a time, several thousands of different const.i.tutions would be made. But this is not all. Variations could also be made by changing the senses of two or more words at a time, and these variations could be run through all the changes and combinations of senses that these thousand words are capable of. We see, then, that it is no more than a literal truth, that out of that single instrument, as it now stands, without altering the location of a single word, might be formed, by construction and interpretation, more different const.i.tutions than figures can well estimate.
But each written law, in order to be a law, must be taken only in some _one_ definite and distinct sense; and that definite and distinct sense must be selected from the almost infinite variety of senses which its words are capable of. How is this selection to be made? It can be only by the aid of that perception of natural law, or natural justice, which men naturally possess.
Such, then, is the comparative certainty of the natural and the written law. Nearly all the certainty there is in the latter, so far as it relates to principles, is based upon, and derived from, the still greater certainty of the former. In fact, nearly all the uncertainty of the laws under which we live,--which are a mixture of natural and written laws,--arises from the difficulty of construing, or, rather, from the facility of misconstruing, the _written_ law; while natural law has nearly or quite the same certainty as mathematics. On this point, Sir William Jones, one of the most learned judges that have ever lived, learned in Asiatic as well as European law, says,--and the fact should be kept forever in mind, as one of the most important of all truths:--”_It is pleasing to remark the similarity, or, rather, the ident.i.ty of those conclusions which pure, unbia.s.sed reason, in all ages and nations, seldom fails to draw, in such juridical inquiries as are not fettered and manacled by positive inst.i.tutions._”[76] In short, the simple fact that the written law must be interpreted by the natural, is, of itself, a sufficient confession of the superior certainty of the latter.
The written law, then, even where it can be construed consistently with the natural, introduces labor and obscurity, instead of shutting them out. And this must always be the case, because words do not create ideas, but only recall them; and the same word may recall many different ideas. For this reason, nearly all abstract principles can be seen by the single mind more clearly than they can be expressed by words to another. This is owing to the imperfection of language, and the different senses, meanings, and shades of meaning, which different individuals attach to the same words, in the same circ.u.mstances.[77]
Where the written law cannot be construed consistently with the natural, there is no reason why it should ever be enacted at all. It may, indeed, be sufficiently plain and certain to be easily understood; but its certainty and plainness are but a poor compensation for its injustice. Doubtless a law forbidding men to drink water, on pain of death, might be made so intelligible as to cut off all discussion as to its meaning; but would the intelligibleness of such a law be any equivalent for the right to drink water? The principle is the same in regard to all unjust laws.
Few persons could reasonably feel compensated for the arbitrary destruction of their rights, by having the order for their destruction made known beforehand, in terms so distinct and unequivocal as to admit of neither mistake nor evasion. Yet this is all the compensation that such laws offer.
Whether, therefore, written laws correspond with, or differ from, the natural, they are to be condemned. In the first case, they are useless repet.i.tions, introducing labor and obscurity. In the latter case, they are positive violations of men's rights.
There would be substantially the same reason in enacting mathematics by statute, that there is in enacting natural law. Whenever the natural law is sufficiently certain to all men's minds to justify its being enacted, it is sufficiently certain to need no enactment. On the other hand, until it be thus certain, there is danger of doing injustice by enacting it; it should, therefore, be left open to be discussed by anybody who may be disposed to question it, and to be judged of by the proper tribunal, the judiciary.[78]
It is not necessary that legislators should enact natural law in order that it may be known to the _people_, because that would be presuming that the legislators already understand it better than the people,--a fact of which I am not aware that they have ever heretofore given any very satisfactory evidence. The same sources of knowledge on the subject are open to the people that are open to the legislators, and the people must be presumed to know it as well as they.
The objections made to natural law, on the ground of obscurity, are wholly unfounded. It is true, it must be learned, like any other science; but it is equally true that it is very easily learned.
Although as illimitable in its applications as the infinite relations of men to each other, it is, nevertheless, made up of simple elementary principles, of the truth and justice of which every ordinary mind has an almost intuitive perception. _It is the science of justice_,--and almost all men have the same perceptions of what const.i.tutes justice, or of what justice requires, when they understand alike the facts from which their inferences are to be drawn. Men living in contact with each other, and having intercourse together, _cannot avoid_ learning natural law, to a very great extent, even if they would. The dealings of men with men, their separate possessions, and their individual wants, are continually forcing upon their minds the questions,--Is this act just? or is it unjust? Is this thing mine? or is it his? And these are questions of natural law; questions, which, in regard to the great ma.s.s of cases, are answered alike by the human mind everywhere.
Children learn many principles of natural law at a very early age.
For example: they learn that when one child has picked up an apple or a flower, it is his, and that his a.s.sociates must not take it from him against his will. They also learn that if he voluntarily exchange his apple or flower with a playmate, for some other article of desire, he has thereby surrendered his right to it, and must not reclaim it. These are fundamental principles of natural law, which govern most of the greatest interests of individuals and society; yet children learn them earlier than they learn that three and three are six, or five and five, ten. Talk of enacting natural law by statute, that it may be known! It would hardly be extravagant to say, that, in nine cases in ten, men learn it before they have learned the language by which we describe it. Nevertheless, numerous treatises are written on it, as on other sciences. The decisions of courts, containing their opinions upon the almost endless variety of cases that have come before them, are reported; and these reports are condensed, codified, and digested, so as to give, in a small compa.s.s, the facts, and the opinions of the courts as to the law resulting from them. And these treatises, codes, and digests are open to be read of all men.
And a man has the same excuse for being ignorant of arithmetic, or any other science, that he has for being ignorant of natural law. He can learn it as well, if he will, without its being enacted, as he could if it were.
If our governments would but themselves adhere to natural law, there would be little occasion to complain of the ignorance of the people in regard to it. The popular ignorance of law is attributable mainly to the innovations that have been made upon natural law by legislation; whereby our system has become an incongruous mixture of natural and statute law, with no uniform principle pervading it. To learn such a system,--if system it can be called, and if learned it can be,--is a matter of very similar difficulty to what it would be to learn a system of mathematics, which should consist of the mathematics of nature, interspersed with such other mathematics as might be created by legislation, in violation of all the natural principles of numbers and quant.i.ties.
But whether the difficulties of learning natural law be greater or less than here represented, they exist in the nature of things, and cannot be removed. Legislation, instead of removing, only increases them. This it does by innovating upon natural truths and principles, and introducing jargon and contradiction, in the place of order, a.n.a.logy, consistency, and uniformity.
Further than this; legislation does not even profess to remove the obscurity of natural law. That is no part of its object. It only professes to subst.i.tute something arbitrary in the place of natural law. Legislators generally have the sense to see that legislation will not make natural law any clearer than it is. Neither is it the object of legislation to establish the authority of natural law.
Legislators have the sense to see that they can add nothing to the authority of natural law, and that it will stand on its own authority, unless they overturn it.
The whole object of legislation, excepting that legislation which merely makes regulations, and provides instrumentalities for carrying other laws into effect, is to overturn natural law, and subst.i.tute for it the arbitrary will of power. In other words, the whole object of it is to destroy men's rights. At least, such is its only effect; and its designs must be inferred from its effect. Taking all the statutes in the country, there probably is not one in a hundred,--except the auxiliary ones just mentioned,--that does not violate natural law; that does not invade some right or other.
Yet the advocates of arbitrary legislation are continually practising the fraud of pretending that unless the legislature _make_ the laws, the laws will not be known. The whole object of the fraud is to secure to the government the authority of making laws that never ought to be known.”
In addition to the authority already cited, of Sir William Jones, as to the certainty of natural law, and the uniformity of men's opinions in regard to it, I may add the following:
”There is that great simplicity and plainness in the Common Law, that Lord c.o.ke has gone so far as to a.s.sert, (and Lord Bacon nearly seconds him in observing,) that 'he never knew two questions arise merely upon common law; but that they were mostly owing to statutes ill-penned and overladen with provisos.'”--_3 Eunomus_, 157-8.
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