Thomas Hobbes, A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England
Used with the permission of the Online Library of Liberty
What makes you say, that the study of the law is less rational than the study of the mathematics?
I say not that; for all study is rational, or nothing worth: but I say, that the great masters of the mathematics do not so often err as the great professors of the law.
In whatsoever study, I examine whether my inference be rational: and have looked over the titles of the statutes from Magna Charta downward to this present time. […] But I did not much examine which of them was more or less rational; because I read them not to dispute, but to obey them, and saw in all of them sufficient reason for my obedience, and that the same reason, though the Statutes themselves were changed, remained constant. I have also diligently read over Littleton’s book of Tenures, with the commentaries thereupon of the renowned lawyer Sir Edward Coke; in which I confess I found great subtilty, not of the law, but of inference from law, and especially from the law of human nature, which is the law of reason: and I confess that it is truth which he says in the epilogue to his book, that by arguments and reason in the law, a man shall sooner come to the certainty and knowledge of the law: and I agree with Sir Edward Coke, who upon that text farther says, that reason is the soul of the law; and upon section 138, nihil, quod est contra rationem, est licitum; that is to say, nothing is law that is against reason; and that reason is the life of the law, nay the common law itself is nothing else but reason; and upon section 21, æquitas est perfecta quædam ratio, quæ jus scriptum interpretatur et emendat, nulla scriptura comprehensa, sed solum in vera ratione consistens; i. e. Equity is a certain perfect reason, that interpreteth and amendeth the law written, itself being unwritten, and consisting in nothing else but right reason. When I consider this, and find it to be true, and so evident as not to be denied by any man of right sense, I find my own reason at a stand; for it frustrates all the laws in the world. For upon this ground any man, of any law whatsoever, may say it is against reason, and thereupon make a pretence for his disobedience. I pray you clear this passage, that we may proceed.
I clear it thus, out of Sir Edward Coke (i. Inst. sect. 138), that this is to be understood of an artificial perfection of reason, gotten by long study, observation, and experience, and not of every man’s natural reason; for nemo nascitur artifex. This legal reason is summa ratio; and therefore if all the reason that is dispersed into so many several heads, were united into one, yet could he not make such a law as the law of England is; because by so many successions of ages it hath been fined and refined by an infinite number of grave and learned men.
This does not clear the place, as being partly obscure, and partly untrue. That the reason which is the life of the law, should be not natural, but artificial, I cannot conceive. I understand well enough, that the knowledge of the law is gotten by much study, as all other sciences are, which when they are studied and obtained, it is still done by natural, and not by artificial reason. I grant you, that the knowledge of the law is an art; but not that any art of one man, or of many, how wise soever they be, or the work of one or more artificers, how perfect soever it be, is law. It is not wisdom, but authority that makes a law. Obscure also are the words legal reason. There is no reason in earthly creatures, but human reason. But I suppose that he means, that the reason of a judge, or of all the judges together without the King, is that summa ratio, and the very law: which I deny, because none can make a law but he that hath the legislative power. That the law hath been fined by grave and learned men, meaning the professors of the law, is manifestly untrue; for all the laws of England have been made by the kings of England, consulting with the nobility and commons in parliament, of which not one of twenty was a learned lawyer.
Thus far I agree with you, that statute law taken away, there would not be left, either here, or any where, any law at all that would conduce to the peace of a nation; yet equity and reason, (laws Divine and eternal, which oblige all men at all times, and in all places), would still remain, but be obeyed by few: and though the breach of them be not punished in this world, yet they will be punished sufficiently in the world to come. Sir Edward Coke, for drawing to the men of his own profession as much authority as lawfully he might, is not to be reprehended; but to the gravity and learning of the judges they ought to have added in the making of laws, the authority of the King, which hath the sovereignty: for of these laws of reason, every subject that is in his wits, is bound to take notice at his peril, because reason is part of his nature, which he continually carries about with him, and may read it, if he will.
It is very true; and upon this ground, if I pretend within a month or two to make myself able to perform the office of a judge, you are not to think it arrogance; for you are to allow to me, as well as to other men, my pretence to reason, which is the common law, (remember this, that I may not need again to put you in mind, that reason is the common law): and for statute law, seeing it is printed, and that there be indexes to point me to every matter contained in them, I think a man may profit in them very much in two months.
A pleader commonly thinks he ought to say all he can for the benefit of his client, and therefore has need of a faculty to wrest the sense of words from their true meaning, and the faculty ofrhetoric to seduce the jury, and sometimes the judge also, and many other arts which I neither have, nor intend to study.
He may without danger recede from the letter, if he do not from the meaning and sense of the law; which may be by a learned man, (such as judges commonly are,) easily found out by the preamble, the time when it was made, and the incommodities for which it was made. But I pray tell me, to what end were statute laws ordained, seeing the law of reason ought to be applied to every controversy that can arise.
But what is justice?
Without law, every thing is in such sort every man’s, as he may take, possess, and enjoy, without wrong to any man; every thing, lands, beasts, fruits, and even the bodies of other men, if his reason tell him he cannot otherwise live securely. For the dictates of reason are little worth, if they tended not to the preservation and improvement of men’s lives. Seeing then without human law all things would be common, and this community a cause of encroachment, envy, slaughter, and continual war of one upon another, the same law of reason dictates to mankind, for their own preservation, a distribution of lands and goods, that each man may know what is proper to him, so as none other might pretend a right thereunto, or disturb him in the use of the same. This distribution is justice, and this properly is the same which we say is one’s own; by which you may see the great necessity there was of statute laws, for preservation of all mankind. It is also a dictate of the law of reason, that statute laws are a necessary means of the safety and well-being of man in the present world, and are to be obeyed by all subjects, as the law of reason ought to be obeyed, both by King and subjects, because it is the law of God.
All this is very rational; but how can any laws secure one man from another, when the greatest part of men are so unreasonable, and so partial to themselves as they are, and the laws of themselves are but a dead letter, which of itself is not able to compel a man to do otherwise than himself pleaseth, nor punish or hurt him when he hath done a mischief?
By the laws, I mean laws living and armed. […] If a nation choose a man, or an assembly of men, to govern them by laws, it must furnish him also with armed men and money, and all things necessary to his office; or else his laws will be of no force, and the nation remains, as before it was, in confusion. It is not therefore the word of the law, but the power of a man that has the strength of a nation, that make the laws effectual. […]
We agree then in this, that in England it is the King that makes the laws, whosoever pens them; and in this, that the King cannot make his laws effectual, nor defend his people against their enemies, without a power to levy soldiers; and consequently, that he may lawfully, as oft as he shall really think it necessary to raise an army, (which in some occasions be very great) I say, raise it, and money to maintain it. I doubt not but you will allow this to be according to the law, at least of reason.
For my part I allow it. But you have heard how, in and before the late troubles the people were of another mind. Shall the King, said they, take from us what he pleases, upon pretence of a necessity whereof he makes himself the judge? What worse condition can we be in from an enemy? What can they take from us more than what they list?
The people reason ill. They do not know in what condition we were, in the time of the Conqueror, when it was a shame to be an Englishman; who, if he grumbled at the base offices he was put to by his Norman masters, received no other answer than this, thou art but an Englishman. Nor can the people, nor any man that humours their disobedience, produce any example of a King that ever raised any excessive sums, either by himself or by the consent of his Parliament, but when they had great need thereof; nor can show any reason that might move any of them so to do.
But I know, that there be statutes express, whereby the King hath obliged himself never to levy money upon his subjects without the consent of his Parliament. […]; which statutes have been since that time confirmed by divers other Kings, and lastly by the King that now reigneth.
All this I know, and am not satisfied. […] How shall I be defended from the domineering of proud and insolent strangers that speak another language, that scorn us, that seek to make us slaves, or how shall I avoid the destruction that may arise from the cruelty of factions in a civil war, unless the King, to whom alone, you say, belongeth the right of levying and disposing of the militia by which only it can be prevented, have ready money, upon all occasions, to arm and pay as many soldiers, as for the present defence, or the peace of the people, shall be necessary? Shall not I, and you, and every man be undone? Tell me not of a Parliament, when there is no Parliament sitting, or perhaps none in being, which may often happen. And when there is a Parliament, if the speaking and leading men should have a design to put down monarchy, as they had in the Parliament which began to sit the third of November, 1640, shall the King, who is to answer to God Almighty for the safety of the people, and to that end is intrusted with the power to levy and dispose of the soldiery, be disabled to perform his office, by virtue of these acts of Parliament which you have cited? If this be reason, it is reason also that the people be abandoned, or left at liberty to kill one another, even to the last man; if it be not reason, then you have granted it is not law.
It is true, if you mean recta ratio; but recta ratio, which I grant to be law, as Sir Edward Coke says, (1 Inst. sect. 138), is an artificial perfection of reason, gotten by long study, observation, and experience, and not every man’s natural reason; for nemo nascitur artifex. […]
Do you think this to be good doctrine? Though it be true, that no man is born with the use of reason, yet all men may grow up to it as well as lawyers; and when they have applied their reason to the laws, (which were laws before they studied them, or else it was not law they studied), may be as fit for and capable of judicature, as Sir Edward Coke himself, who whether he had more or less use of reason, was not thereby a judge, but because the King made him so. […] If one should ask him who made the law of England, would he say a succession of English lawyers or judges made it, or rather a succession of kings? And that upon their own reason, either solely, or with the advice of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, without the judges or other professors of the law? You see therefore that the King’s reason, be it more or less, is that anima legis, that summa lex, whereof Sir Edward Coke speaketh, and not the reason, learning, or wisdom of the judges. […]Therefore unless you say otherwise, I say, that the King’s reason, when it is publicly upon advice and deliberation declared, is that anima legis; and that summa ratio and that equity, which all agree to be the law of reason, is all that is or ever was law in England, since it became Christian, besides the Bible.
Are not the Canons of the Church part of the law of England, as also the imperial law used in the Admiralty, and the customs of particular places, and the by-laws of corporations and courts of judicature?
Why not? For they were all constituted by the Kings of England; and though the civil law used in the Admiralty were at first the statutes of the Roman empire, yet because they are in force by no other authority than that of the King, they are now the King’s laws, and the King’s statutes. The same we may say of the Canons; such of them as we have retained, made by the Church of Rome, have been no law, nor of any force in England, since the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but by virtue of the great seal of England.
No. I am satisfied that the kings that grant such liberties, are bound to make them good, so far as it may be done without sin: but if a King find that by such a grant he be disabled to protect his subjects, if he maintain his grant, he sins; and therefore may, and ought to take no notice of the said grant.
Nor do I hereby lay any aspersion upon such grants of the King and his ancestors. Those statutes are in themselves very good for the King and the people, as creating some kind of difficulty for such Kings as, for the glory of conquest, might spend one part of their subjects’ lives and estates in molesting other nations, and leave the rest to destroy themselves at home by factions. That which I here find fault with, is the wresting of those, and other such statutes, to the binding of our Kings from the use of their armies in the necessary defence of themselves and their people. […] You may therefore think it good law, for all your books, that the King of England may at all times, that he thinks in his conscience it will be necessary for the defence of his people, levy as many soldiers and as much money as he please, and that himself is judge of the necessity.
I know what it is that troubles your conscience in this point. All men are troubled at the crossing of their wishes; but it is our own fault. First, we wish impossibilities; we would have our security against all the world upon right of property, without paying for it; this is impossible. We may as well expect that fish and fowl should boil, roast, and dish themselves, and come to the table, and that grapes should squeeze themselves into our mouths, and have all other the contentments and ease which some pleasant men have related of the land of Cockaigne. Secondly, there is no nation in the world where he or they that have the sovereignty, do not take what money they please for the defence of those respective nations, when they think it necessary for their safety. The late Long Parliament denied this; but why? Because there was a design amongst them to depose the King. Thirdly, there is no example of any King of England that I have read of, that ever pretended any such necessity for levying money against his conscience. The greatest sums that ever were levied, comparing the value of money, as it was at that time, with what it is now, were levied by King Edward III and King Henry V; kings in whom we glory now, and think their actions great ornaments to the English history. […]
If you allow this that I have said, then say, that the people never were, shall be, or ought to be, free from being taxed at the will of one or other; that if civil war come, they must levy all they have, and that dearly, from the one or from the other, or from both sides. Say, that adhering to the King, their victory is an end of their trouble; that adhering to his enemies there is no end; for the war will continue by a perpetual subdivision, and when it ends, they will be in the same estate they were before. That they are often abused by men who to them seem wise, when then their wisdom is nothing else but envy of those that are in grace and in profitable employments; and that those men do but abuse the common people to their own ends, that set up a private man’s propriety against the public safety. But say withal, that the King is subject to the laws of God, both written and unwritten, and to no other; and so was William the Conqueror, whose right is all descended to our present King.
Would you have every man to every other man allege for law his own particular reason? There is not amongst men a universal reason agreed upon in any nation, besides the reason of him that hath the sovereign power. Yet though his reason be but the reason of one man, yet it is set up to supply the place of that universal reason, which is expounded to us by our Saviour in the Gospel; and consequently our King is to us the legislator both of statute-law, and of common-law.
I grant you that the King is sole legislator; but with this restriction, that if he will not consult with the Lords of Parliament, and hear the complaints and informations of the Commons, that are best acquainted with their own wants, he sinneth against God, though he cannot be compelled to any thing by his subjects by arms and force.
There is no doubt of that; for otherwise there would be no congruity of judgments with the laws. I grant also that he is the supreme judge over all persons, and in all causes civil and ecclesiastical within his own dominions; not only by act of Parliament at this time, but that he has ever been so by the common law. For the judges of both the Benches have their offices by the King’s letters-patent; and so as to judicature have the bishops. Also the Lord Chancellor hath his office by receiving from the King the Great Seal of England. And, to say all at once, there is no magistrate, or commissioner for public business, neither of judicature nor execution, in State or Church, in peace or war, but he is made so by authority from the King.
We have hitherto spoken of laws without considering anything of the nature and essence of a law; and now unless we define the word law, we can go no farther without ambiguity and fallacy, which will be but loss of time; whereas, on the contrary, the agreement upon our words will enlighten all we have to say hereafter.
That is to say, law is a just statute, commanding those things which are honest, and forbidding the contrary. From whence it followeth, that in all cases it must be the honesty or dishonesty that makes the command a law; whereas you know that but for the law we could not, as saith St. Paul, have known what is sin. Therefore this definition is no ground at all for any farther discourse of law. Besides, you know the rule of honest and dishonest refers to honour, and that it is justice only, and injustice, that the law respecteth. But that which I most except against in this definition, is, that it supposes that a statute made by the sovereign power of a nation may be unjust. There may indeed in a statute-law, made by men, be found iniquity, but not injustice.
A court of justice is that which hath cognizance of such causes as are to be ended by the positive laws of the land; and a court of equity is that, to which belong such causes as are to be determined by equity; that is to say, by the law of reason.
You see then that the difference between injustice and iniquity is this; that injustice is the transgression of a statute-law, and iniquity the transgression of the law of reason. But perhaps you mean by common-law, not the law itself, but the manner of proceeding in the law, as to matter of fact, by twelve men, freeholders; though those twelve men are no court of equity, nor of justice, because they determine not what is just or unjust, but only whether it be done or not done; and their judgment is nothing else but a confirmation of that which is properly the judgment of the witnesses. For to speak exactly, there cannot possibly be any judge of fact besides the witnesses.
Thus; a law is the command of him or them that have the sovereign power, given to those that be his or their subjects, declaring publicly and plainly what every of them may do, and what they must forbear to do.
Again, whereas you make it of the essence of a law to be publicly and plainly declared to the people, I see no necessity for that. Are not all subjects bound to take notice of all acts of Parliament, when no act can pass without their consent?
If you had said that no act could pass without their knowledge, then indeed they had been bound to take notice of them; but none can have knowledge of them but the members of the houses of Parliament; therefore the rest of the people are excused. […] I know that most of the statutes are printed; but it does not appear that every man is bound to buy the book of statutes, nor to search for them at Westminster or at the Tower, nor to understand the language wherein they are for the most part written.
I grant it proceeds from their own faults; but no man can be excused by ignorance of the law of reason, that is to say, by ignorance of the common-law, except children, madmen, and idiots. But you exact such a notice of the statute-law, as is almost impossible. Is it not enough that they in all places have a sufficient number of the penal statutes?
Justice is the constant will of giving to every man his own; that is to say, of giving to every man that which is his right, in such manner as to exclude the right of all men else to the same thing. A just action is that which is not against the law. A just man is he that hath a constant will to live justly; if you require more, I doubt there will no man living be comprehended within the definition.
Seeing then that a just action, according to your definition, is that which is not against the law; it is manifest that before there was a law, there could be no injustice; and therefore laws are in their nature antecedent to justice and injustice. And you cannot deny but there must be law-makers, before there were any laws, and consequently before there was any justice, (I speak of human justice); and that law-makers were before that which you call own, or property of goods or lands, distinguished by meum, tuum, alienum.
That must be granted; for without statute-laws, all men have right to all things; and we have had experience, when our laws were silenced by civil war, there was not a man, that of any goods could say assuredly they were his own.
You see then that no private man can claim a propriety in any lands, or other goods, from any title from any man but the King, or them that have the sovereign power; because it is in virtue of the sovereignty, that every man may not enter into and possess what he pleaseth; and consequently to deny the sovereign anything necessary to the sustaining of his sovereign power, is to destroy the propriety he pretends to.
Since you acknowledge that in all controversies, the judicature originally belongeth to the King, and seeing that no man is able in his own person to execute an office of so much business: what order is taken for deciding of so many and so various controversies?
There be divers sorts of controversies, some of which are concerning men’s titles to lands and goods; and some goods are corporeal, as lands, money, cattle, corn, and the like, which may be handled or seen; and some incorporeal, as privileges, liberties, dignities, offices, and many other good things, mere creatures of the law, and cannot be handled or seen; and both of these kinds are concerning meum and tuum. Others there are concerning crimes punishable divers ways: and amongst some of these, part of the punishment is some fine or forfeiture to the King. […] There be also other controversies concerning the government of the Church, in order to religion and virtuous life. The offences both against the Crown and against the laws of the Church, are crimes; but the offences of one subject against another, if they be not against the Crown, the King pretendeth nothing in those pleas but the reparation of his subjects injured.
A crime is an offence of any kind whatsoever, for which a penalty is ordained by the law of the land: but you must understand that damages awarded to the party injured, has nothing common with the nature of a penalty, but is merely a restitution or satisfaction, due to the party grieved by the law of reason, and consequently is no more a punishment than is the paying of a debt.
All crimes are indeed sins, but not all sins crimes. A sin may be in the thought or secret purpose of a man, of which neither a judge, nor a witness, nor any man can take notice; but a crime is such a sin as consists in an action against the law, of which action he can be accused, and tried by a judge, and be convinced or cleared by witnesses. Farther; that which is no sin in itself, but indifferent, may be made sin by a positive law: as when the statute was in force that no man should wear silk in his hat, after the statute such wearing of silk was a sin, which was not so before. Nay, sometimes an action that is good in itself, by the statute law may be made a sin; as if a statute should be made to forbid the giving of alms to a strong and sturdy beggar, such alms, after that law, would be a sin, but not before; for then it was charity, the object whereof is not the strength or other quality of the poor man, but his poverty. Again, he that should have said in Queen Mary’s time, that the Pope had no authority in England, should have been burnt at a stake; but for saying the same in the time of Queen Elizabeth, should have been commended. You see by this, that many things are made crimes, and no crime, which are not so in their own nature, but by diversity of law, made upon diversity of opinion or of interest by them which have authority: and yet those things, whether good or evil, will pass so with the vulgar, if they hear them often with odious terms recited, for heinous crimes in themselves, as many of those opinions, which are in themselves pious and lawful, were heretofore, by the Pope’s interest therein, called detestable heresy.
[Omitted is a discussion of the jurisdictions of various English courts.]
[…] Now as to the authority you ascribe to custom, I deny that any custom of its own nature can amount to the authority of a law. For if the custom be unreasonable, you must, with all other lawyers, confess that it is no law, but ought to abolished; and if the custom be reasonable, it is not the custom, but the equity that makes it law. For what need is there to make reason law by any custom how long soever, when the law of reason is eternal? Besides, you cannot find it in any statute, though lex et consuetudo be often mentioned as things to be followed by the judges in their judgments, that consuetudines, that is to say, customs or usages, did imply any long continuance of former time; but that it signified such use and custom of proceeding, as was then immediately in being before the making of such statute. Nor shall you find in any statute the word common-law, which may not be there well interpreted for any of the laws of England temporal; for it is not the singularity of process used in any court that can distinguish it, so as to make it a different law from the law of the whole nation.
Seeing also all judges ought to give their sentence according to equity, if it should chance that a written law should be against the law of reason, which is equity, I cannot imagine in that case how any judgment can be righteous.
It cannot be that a written law should be against reason; for nothing is more reasonable than that every man should obey the law which he hath himself assented to. But that is not always the law, which is signified by grammatical construction of the letter, but that which the legislature thereby intended should be in force; which intention, I confess, is a very hard matter many times to pick out of the words of the statute, and requires great ability of understanding, and greater meditations and consideration of such conjuncture of occasions and incommodities, as needed a new law for a remedy. For there is scarce anything so clearly written, that when the cause thereof is forgotten, may not be wrested by an ignorant grammarian, or a cavilling logician, to the injury, oppression, or perhaps destruction of an honest man. And for this reason the Judges deserve that honour and profit they enjoy. Since the determination of what particular causes every particular court should have cognizance, is a thing not yet sufficiently explained, and is in itself so difficult, as that the sages of the law themselves, (the reason Sir Edward Coke will leave to law itself), are not yet agreed upon it; how is it possible for a man who is no professed or no profound lawyer, to take notice in what court he may lawfully begin his suit, or give counsel in it to his client?
I confess that no man can be bound to take notice of the jurisdiction of courts, till all the courts be agreed upon it amongst themselves; but what rule to give judgment by, a judge can have, so as never to contradict the law written, nor displease his legislator, I understand not.
I think he may avoid both, if he take care by his sentence that he neither punish an innocent man, nor deprive him of his damages due from one that maliciously sueth him without reasonable cause, which to the most of rational men and unbiassed, is not, in my opinion, very difficult. And though a judge should, as all men may do, err in his judgment, yet there is always such power in the laws of England, as may content the parties, either in the Chancery, or by commissioners of their own choosing, authorized by the King; for every man is bound to acquiesce in the sentence of the judges he chooseth.
Very many, whereof Sir Edward Coke nameth three: fraud, accident, and breach of confidence. But there be many more; for there be a very great many reasonable exceptions almost to every general rule, which the makers of the rule could not foresee; and very many words in every statute, especially long ones, that are, as to grammar, of ambiguous signification, and yet to them that know well to what end the statute was made, perspicuous enough; and many connexions of doubtful reference, which by a grammarian may be cavilled at, though the intention of the lawmaker be never so perspicuous. And these are the difficulties which the judges ought to master, and can do it in respect of their ability for which they are chosen, as well as can be hoped for; and yet there are other men can do the same, or else the judges’ places could not be from time to time supplied.
Let us stop here; for this which you have said satisfies me, that seek no more than to distinguish between justice and equity; and from it I conclude, that justice fulfils the law, and equity interprets the law, and amends the judgments given upon the same law. Wherein I depart not much from the definition of equity cited in Sir Edward Coke (1 Inst. sec .xxi.); viz. equity is a certain perfect reason, that interpreteth and amendeth the law written; though I construe it a little otherwise than he would have done; for no one can mend a law but he that can make it, and therefore I say it amends not the law, but the judgments only when they are erroneous. And now let us consider of crimes in particular, the pleas whereof are commonly called the Pleas of the Crown, and of the punishments belonging to them. And first of the highest crime of all, which is high-treason. […]
[Omitted is a lengthy discussion of the legal definition of treason, heresy, and other crimes.]
[…] But let us give over this, and speak of the legal punishments to these crimes belonging. And in the first place I desire to know who it is that hath the power, for an offence committed, to define and appoint the special manner of punishment. For I suppose you are not of the opinion of the Stoics in old time, that all faults are equal, and that there ought to be the same punishment for killing a man, and for killing a hen.
The manner of punishment in all crimes whatsoever, is to be determined by the common-law. That is to say, if it be a statute that determines it, then the judgment must be according to the statute; if it be not specified by the statute, then the custom in such cases is to be followed: but if the case be new, I know not why the judge may not determine it according to reason.
But according to whose reason? If you mean the natural reason of this or that judge authorized by the King to have cognizance of the cause, there being as many several reasons, as there are several men, the punishment of all crimes will be uncertain, and none of them ever grow up to make a custom. Therefore a punishment certain can never be assigned, if it have its beginning from the natural reasons of deputed judges; no, nor from the natural reason of the supreme judge. For if the law of reason did determine punishments, then for the same offences there should be, through all the world and in all times, the same punishments; because the law of reason is immutable and eternal.
Why not? For I think that in this very difference between the rational faculties of particular men, lieth the true and perfect reason that maketh every punishment certain. For, but give the authority of defining punishments to any man whatsoever, and let that man define them, and right reason has defined them, suppose the definition be both made, and made known before the offence committed. For such authority is to trump in card playing, save that in matter of government, when nothing else is turned up, clubs are trumps. Therefore seeing every man knoweth by his own reason what actions are against the law of reason, and knoweth what punishments are by this authority for every evil action ordained; it is manifest reason, that for breaking the known laws he should suffer the known punishments. Now the person to whom this authority of defining punishments is given, can be no other, in any place of the world, but the same person that hath the sovereign power, be it one man or one assembly of men. For it were in vain to give it to any person that had not the power of the militia to cause it to be executed; for no less power can do it, when many offenders be united and combined to defend one another. There was a case put to King David by Nathan, of a rich man that had many sheep, and of a poor man that had but one, which was a tame lamb: the rich man had a stranger in his house, for whose entertainment, to spare his own sheep he took away the poor man’s lamb. Upon this case the King gave judgment, “Surely the man that hath done this shall die.” What think you of this? Was it a royal, or tyrannical judgment?
I will not contradict the canons of the Church of England, which acknowledge the King of England within his own dominions hath the same rights, which the good Kings of Israel had in theirs; nor deny King David to have been one of those good Kings. But to punish with death without a precedent law, will seem but a harsh proceeding with us, who unwillingly hear of arbitrary laws, much less of arbitrary punishments, unless we were sure that all our Kings would be as good as David. […]
I cite not this precedent of King David, as approving the breach of the great charter [i.e. Magna Carta], or justifying the punishment with loss of life or member, of every man that shall offend the King; but to show you that before the charter was granted, in all cases where the punishments were not prescribed, it was the King only that could prescribe them; and that no deputed judge could punish an offender but by force of some statute, or by the words of some commission, and not ex officio. […] And generally it is a rule of reason, that every judge of crimes, in case the positive law appoint no punishment, and he have no other command from the King, then do consult the King before he pronounce sentence of any irreparable damage on the offender: for otherwise he doth not pronounce the law, which is his office to do, but makes the law, which is the office of the King. And from this you may collect, that the custom of punishing such and such a crime, in such and such a manner, hath not the force of law in itself, but from an assured presumption that the original of the custom was the judgment of some former King. And for this cause the judges ought not to run up, for the customs by which they are warranted, to the time of the Saxon Kings, nor to the time of the Conquest. For the most immediate antecedent precedents are the fairest warrants of their judgments; as the most recent laws have commonly the greatest vigour, as being fresh in the memory of all men, and tacitly confirmed, because not disapproved, by the sovereign legislator. What can be said against this?
Sir Edward Coke, (3 Inst. p. 210), in the chapter of judgments and executions, saith, that of judgments some are by the common-law, some by statute-law, and some by custom; wherein he distinguisheth common-law both from statute-law and from custom.
But you know, that in other places he makes the common-law, and the law of reason, to be all one; as indeed they are, when by it is meant the King’s reason. And then his meaning in this distinction must be, that there be judgments by reason without statute-law, and judgments neither by statute-law nor by reason, but by custom without reason. For if a custom be reasonable, then, both he and other learned lawyers say, it is common-law; and if unreasonable, no law at all.
I believe Sir Edward Coke’s meaning was no other than yours in this point, but that he inserted the word custom, because there be not many that can distinguish between customs reasonable and unreasonable.
But custom, so far forth as it hath the force of a law, hath more of the nature of a statute, than of the law of reason, especially where the question is not of lands and goods, but of punishments, which are to be defined only by authority. Now to come to particulars, what punishment is due by law for high-treason?
[Omitted is a discussion of customary definitions of crimes, customary punishments, and customs relating to the English aristocracy and the calling of parliament. In each case, Hobbes has the character of the philosopher convince the lawyer that custom is not sufficient justification for law, unless it be backed up by reason, or, better yet, by the will of the King.]
The purpose of the following attempt to determine the province of jurisprudence, stated or suggested
The matter of jurisprudence is positive law: law, simply and strictly so called, or law set by political superiors to political inferiors. But positive law (or law, simply and strictly so called) is often confounded with objects to which it is related by resemblance and with objects to which it is related in the way of analogy: with objects which are also signified, properly and improperly, by the large and vague expression law. To obviate the difficulties springing from that confusion, I begin my projected Course with determining the province of jurisprudence, or with distinguishing the matter of jurisprudence from those various related objects: trying to define the subject of which I intend to treat, before I endeavour to analyse its numerous and complicated parts.
Law: what, in most comprehensive literal sense
A law, in the most general and comprehensive acceptation in which the term, in its literal meaning, is employed, may be said to be a rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having power over him. Under this definition are concluded, and without impropriety, several species. It is necessary to define accurately the line of demarcation which separates these species from one another, as much mistiness and intricacy has been infused into the science of jurisprudence by their being confounded or not clearly distinguished. In the comprehensive sense above indicated, or in the largest meaning which it has, without extension by metaphor or analogy, the term law embraces the following objects: laws set by God to his human creatures, and laws set by men to men.
Law of God
The whole or a portion of the laws set by God to men is frequently styled the law of nature, or natural law, being, in truth, the only natural law of which it is possible to speak without a metaphor, or without a blending of objects which ought to be distinguished broadly. But, rejecting the appellation Law of Nature as ambiguous and misleading, I name those laws or rules, as considered collectively or in a mass, the Divine law, or the law of God.
Laws set by men to men are of two leading or principal classes: classes which are often blended, although they differ extremely; and which, for that reason, should be severed precisely, and opposed distinctly and conspicuously.
First class. Laws set by political superiors
Of the laws or rules set by men to men, some are established by political superiors, sovereign and subject: by persons exercising supreme and subordinate government, in independent nations, or independent political societies. The aggregate of the rules thus established, or some aggregate forming a portion of that aggregate, is the appropriate matter of jurisprudence, general or particular. To the aggregate of the rules thus established, or to some aggregate forming a portion of that aggregate, the term law, as used simply and strictly, is exclusively applied. But, as contradistinguished to natural law, or to the law of nature (meaning by those expressions the law of God), the aggregate of the rules, established by political superiors, is frequently styled positive law, or law existing by position. As contradistinguished to the rules which I style positive morality, and on which I shall touch immediately, the aggregate of the rules, established by political superiors, may also be marked commodiously with the name of positive law. For the sake, then, of getting a name brief and distinctive at once, and agreeably to frequent usage, I style that aggregate of rules, or any portion of that aggregate, positive law: though rules, which are not established by political superiors, are also positive, or exist by position if they be rules or laws, in the proper signification of the term.
Second class. Laws set by men not political superiors
Though some of the laws or rules, which are set by men to men, are established by political superiors, others are not established by political superiors, or are not established by political superiors, in that capacity or character.
Objects improperly but by close analogy termed laws
Closely analogous to human laws of this second class, are a set of objects frequently but improperly termed laws, being rules set and enforced by mere opinion, that is, by the opinions or sentiments held or felt by an indeterminate body of men in regard to human conduct. Instances of such a use of the term law are the expressions 'The law of honour'; "The law set by fashion'; and rules of this species constitute much of what is usually termed 'International law'.
The two last placed in one class under the name positive morality
The aggregate of human laws properly so called belonging to the second of the classes above mentioned, with the aggregate of objects improperly but by close analogy termed laws, I place together in a common class, and denote them by the term positive morality. The name morality severs them from positive law, while the epithet positive disjoins them from the law of God. And to the end of obviating confusion, it is necessary or expedient that they should be disjoined from the latter by that distinguishing epithet. For the name morality (or morals), when standing unqualified or alone, denotes indifferently either of the following objects: namely, positive morality as it is, or without regard to its merits; and positive morality as it would be, if it conformed to the law of God, and were, therefore, deserving of approbation.
Objects metaphorically termed laws
Besides the various sorts of rules which are included in the literal acceptation of the term law, and those which are by a close and striking analogy, though improperly, termed laws, there are numerous applications of the term law, which rest upon a slender analogy and are merely metaphorical or figurative. Such is the case when we talk of laws observed by the lower animals; of laws regulating the growth or decay of vegetables; of laws determining the movements of inanimate bodies or masses. For where intelligence is not, or where it is too bounded to take the name of reason, and, therefore, is too bounded to conceive the purpose of a law, there is not the will which law can work on, or which duty can incite or restrain. Yet through these misapplications of a name, flagrant as the metaphor is, has the field of jurisprudence and morals been deluged with muddy speculation.
Having suggested the purpose of my attempt to determine the province of jurisprudence: to distinguish positive law, the appropriate matter of jurisprudence, from the various objects to which it is related by resemblance, and to which it is related, nearly or remotely; by a strong or slender analogy: I shall now state the essentials of a law or rule (taken with the largest signification which can be given to the term properly).
Laws or rules properly so called, are a species of commands
Every law or rule (taken with the largest signification which can be given to the term properly) is a command. Or, rather, laws or rules, properly so called, are a species of commands.
Now, since the term command comprises the term law, the first is the simpler as well as the larger of the two. But, simple as it is, it admits of explanation. And, since it is the key to the sciences of jurisprudence and morals, its meaning should be analysed with precision.
Accordingly, I shall endeavour, in the first instance, to analyse the meaning of 'command:' an analysis which I fear will task the patience of my hearers, but which they will bear with cheerfulness, or, at least, with resignation, if they consider the difficulty of performing it. The elements of a science are precisely the parts of it which are explained least easily. Terms that are the largest, and, therefore, the simplest of a series are without equivalent expressions into which we can resolve them concisely. And when we endeavour to define them, or to translate them into terms which we suppose are better understood, we are forced upon awkward and tedious circumlocutions.
The meaning of the term command
If you express or intimate a wish that I shall do or forbear from some act, and if you will visit me with an evil in case I comply not with your wish, the expression or intimation of your wish is a command. A command is distinguished from other significations of desire, not by the style in which the desire is signified, but by the power and the purpose of the party commanding to inflict an evil or pain in case the desire be disregarded. If you cannot or will not harm me in case I comply not with your wish, the expression of your wish is not a command, although you utter your wish in imperative phrase. If you are able and willing to harm me in case I comply not with your wish, the expression of your wish amounts to a command, although you are prompted by a spirit of courtesy to utter it in the shape of a request. 'Preces erant, sed quibus contradict nonposset.' Such is the language of Tacitus, when speaking of a petition by the soldiery to a son and lieutenant of Vespasian.
A command, then, is a signification of desire. But a command is distinguished from other significations of desire by this peculiarity: that the party to whom it is directed is liable to evil from the other, in case he comply not with the desire.
The meaning of the term duty
Being liable to evil from you if I comply not with a wish which you signify, I am bound or obliged by your command, or I lie under a duty to obey it. If, in spite of that evil in prospect, I comply not with the wish which you signify, I am said to disobey your command, or to violate the duty which it imposes.
The terms command and duty are correlative
Command and duty are, therefore, correlative terms: the meaning denoted by each being implied or supposed by the other. Or (changing the expression) wherever a duty lies, a command has been signified; and whenever a command is signified, a duty is imposed.
Concisely expressed, the meaning of the correlative expressions is this. He who will inflict an evil in case his desire be disregarded, utters a command by expressing or intimating his desire: he who is liable to the evil in case he disregard the desire, is bound or obliged by the command.
The meaning of the term sanction
The evil which will probably be incurred in case a command be disobeyed or (to use an equivalent expression) in case a duty be broken, is frequently called a sanction, or an enforcement of obedience. Or (varying the phrase) the command or the duty is said to be sanctioned or enforced by the chance of incurring the evil.
Considered as thus abstracted from the command and the duty which it enforces, the evil to be incurred by disobedience is frequently styled a punishment. But, as punishments, strictly so called, are only a class of sanctions, the term is too narrow to express the meaning adequately.
To the existence of a command, a duty, and a sanction, a violent motive to compliance is not requisite
I observe that Dr Paley, in his analysis of the term obligation, lays much stress upon the violence of the motive to compliance. In so far as I can gather a meaning from his loose and inconsistent statement, his meaning appears to be this: that unless the motive to compliance be violent or intense, the expression or intimation of a wish is not a command, nor does the party to whom it is directed lie under a duty to regard it.
If he means, by a violent motive, a motive operating with certainty, his proposition is manifestly false. The greater the evil to be incurred in case the wish be disregarded, and the greater the chance of incurring it on that same event, the greater, no doubt, is the chance that the wish will nor be disregarded. But no conceivable motive will certainly determine to compliance, or no conceivable motive will render obedience inevitable. If Paley's proposition be true, in the sense which I have now ascribed to it, commands and duties are simply impossible. Or, reducing his proposition to absurdity by a consequence as manifestly false, commands and duties are possible; but are never disobeyed or broken.
If he means by a violent motive, an evil which inspires fear, his meaning is simply this: that the party bound by a command is bound by the prospect of an evil. For that which is not feared is not apprehended as an evil: or (changing the shape of the expression) is not an evil in prospect.
The truth is that the magnitude of the eventual evil, and the magnitude of the chance of incurring it, are foreign to the matter in question. The greater the eventual evil, and the greater the chance of incurring it, the greater is the efficacy of the command, and the greater is the strength of the obligation: or (substituting expressions exactly equivalent), the greater is the chance that the command will be obeyed, and that the duty will not be broken. But where there is the smallest chance of incurring the smallest evil, the expression of a wish amounts to a command, and, therefore, imposes a duty. The sanction, if you will, is feeble or insufficient; but still there is a sanction, and, therefore, a duty and a command.
Rewards are not sanctions
By some celebrated writers (by Locke, Bentham, and, I think, Paley), the term sanction, or enforcement of obedience, is applied to conditional good as well as to conditional evil: to reward as well as to punishment. But, with all my habitual veneration for the names of Locke and Bentham, I think that this extension of the term is pregnant with confusion and perplexity. Rewards are, indisputably, motives to comply with the wishes of others. But to talk of commands and duties as sanctioned or enforced by rewards, or to talk of rewards as obliging or constraining to obedience, is surely a wide departure from the established meaning of the terms.
If you expressed a desire that I should render a service, and if you proffered a reward as the motive or inducement to render it, you would scarcely be said to command the service, nor should I, in ordinary language, be obliged to render it. In ordinary language, you would promise me a reward, on condition of my rendering the service, whilst I might be incited or persuaded to render it by the hope of obtaining the reward.
Again: if a law hold out a reward as an inducement to do some act, an eventual right is conferred, and not an obligation imposed, upon those who shall act accordingly, the imperative part of the law being addressed or directed to the party whom it requires to render the reward.
In short, I am determined or inclined to comply with the wish of another, by the fear of disadvantage or evil. I am also determined or inclined to comply with the wish of another, by the hope of advantage or good. But it is only by the chance of incurring evil, that I am bound or obliged to compliance. It is only by conditional evil, that duties are sanctioned or enforced. It is the power and the purpose of inflicting eventual evil, and not the power and the purpose of imparting eventual good, which gives to the expression of a wish the name of a command. If we put reward into the import of the term sanction, we must engage in a toilsome struggle with the current of ordinary speech; and shall often slide unconsciously, notwithstanding our efforts to the contrary, into the narrower and customary meaning.
The meaning of the term command, briefly restated
It appears, then, from what has been premised, that the ideas or notions comprehended by the term command are the following: 1. A wish or desire conceived by a rational being, that another rational being shall do or forbear. 2. An evil to proceed from the former, and to be incurred by the latter, in case the latter comply not with the wish. 3. An expression or intimation of the wish by words or other signs.
The inseparable connection of the three terms, command, duty, and sanction
It also appears from what has been premised, that command, duty, and sanction are inseparably connected terms: that each embraces the same ideas as the others, though each denotes those ideas in a peculiar order or series. A.wish conceived by one, and expressed or intimated to another, with an evil to be inflicted and incurred in case the wish be disregarded, are signified directly and indirectly by each of the three expressions. Each is the name of the same complex notion.
The manner of that connection
But when I am talking directly of the expression or intimation of the wish, I employ the term command: the expression or intimation of the wish being presented prominently to my hearer; whilst the evil to be incurred, with the chance of incurring it, are kept (if I may so express myself) in the background of my picture.
When I am talking directly of the chance of incurring the evil, or (changing the expression) of the liability or obnoxiousness to the evil, I employ the term duty, or the term obligation: the liability or obnoxiousness to the evil being put foremost, and the rest of the complex notion being signified implicitly.
When I am talking immediately of the evil itself, I employ the term sanction, or a term of the like import, the evil to be incurred being signified directly; whilst the obnoxiousness to that evil, with the expression or intimation of thewish, are indicated indirectly or obliquely.
To those who are familiar with the language of logicians (language unrivalled for brevity, distinctness, and precision), I can express my meaning accurately in a breath: each of the three terms signifies the same notion; but each denotes a different part of that notion, and connotes the residue.
Laws or rules distinguished from commands which are occasional or particular
Commands are of two species. Some are laws or rules. The others, have not acquired an appropriate name, nor does language afford an expression which will mark them briefly and precisely. I must, therefore, note them as well as I can by the ambiguous and inexpressive name of 'occasional or particular commands'.
The term laws or rules being not infrequently applied to occasional, or particular commands, it is hardly possible to describe a line of separation which shall consist in every respect with established forms of speech. But the distinction between laws and particular commands may, I think, be stated in the following manner. By every command, the party to whom it is directed is obliged to do or to forbear. Now where it obliges generally to acts or forbearances of a class, a command is a law or rule. But where it obliges to a specific act or forbearance, or to acts or forbearances which it determines specifically or individually, a command is occasional or particular. In other words, a class or description of acts is determined by a law or rule, and acts of that class or description are enjoined or forbidden generally. But where a command is occasional or particular, the act or acts, which the command enjoins or forbids, are assigned or determined by their specific or individual natures as well as by the class or description to which they belong.
The statement which I have given in abstract expressions I will now endeavour to illustrate by apt examples. If you command your servant to go on a given errand, or not to leave your house on a given evening, or to rise at such an hour on such a morning, or to rise at that hour during the next week or month, the command is occasional or particular. For the act or acts enjoined or forbidden are specially-determined or assigned.
But if you command him simply to rise at that hour, or to rise at that hour always, or to rise at that hour till further orders, it may be said, with propriety, that you lay down a rule for the guidance of your servant's conduct. For no specific act is assigned by the command, but the command obliges him generally to acts of a determined class. If a regiment be ordered to attack or defend a post, or to quell a riot, or to march from their present quarters, the command is occasional or particular. But an order to exercise daily till further orders shall be given would be called a general order, and might be called a rule.
If Parliament prohibited simply the exportation of com, either for a given period or indefinitely, it would establish a law of rule: a kind or sort of acts being determined by the command, and acts of that kind or sort being generally forbidden. But an order issued by Parliament to meet an impending scarcity, and stopping the exportation of corn then shipped and in port, would not be a law or rule, though issued by the sovereign legislature. The order regarding exclusively a specified quantity of corn, the negative acts or forbearances, enjoined by the command, would be determined specifically or individually by the determinate nature of their subject.
As issued by a sovereign legislature, and as wearing the form of a law, the order which I have now imagined would probably be called a law. And hence the difficulty of drawing a distinct boundary between laws and occasional commands. Again: an act which is not an offence, according to the existing law, moves the sovereign to displeasure: and, though the authors of the act are legally innocent or unoffending, the sovereign commands that they shall be punished. As enjoining a, specific punishment in that specific, case, and as not enjoining generally acts or forbearances of a class, the order uttered by the sovereign is not a law or rule.
Whether such an order would be called a law, seems to depend upon circumstances which are purely immaterial: immaterial, that is, with reference to the present purpose, though material with reference to others. If made by a sovereign assembly deliberately, and with the forms of legislation, it would probably be called a law. If uttered by ah absolute monarch, without deliberation or ceremony, it would scarcely be confounded with acts of legislation, and would be styled an arbitrary command. Yet, on either of these suppositions, its nature would be the same. It would not be a law or rule, but an occasional or particular command of the sovereign One or Number.
To conclude with an example which best illustrates the distinction, and which shows the importance of the distinction most conspicuously, judical commands are commonly occasional or particular, although the commands which they are calculated to enforce are commonly laws or rules.
For instance, the lawgiver commands that thieves shall be hanged. A specific theft and a specified thief being given, the judge commands that the thief shall be hanged, agreeably to the command of the lawgiver.
Now the lawgiver determines a class or description of acts; prohibits acts of the class generally and indefinitely; and commands, with the like generality, that punishment shall follow transgression. The command of the lawgiver is, therefore, a law or rule. But the command of the judge is occasional or particular. For he orders a specific punishment, as the consequence of a specific offence.
According to the line of separation which I have now attempted to describe, a law and a particular command are distinguished thus: acts or forbearances of a class are enjoined generally by the former. Acts determined specifically, are enjoined or forbidden by the latter. A different line of separation has been drawn by Blackstone and others. According to Blackstone and others, a law and a particular command are distinguished in the following manner: a law obliges generally the members of the given community, or, a law obliges generally persons of a given class. A particular command obliges a single person, or persons whom it determines individually.
That laws and particular commands are not to be distinguished thus, will appear on a moment's reflection.
For, first, commands which, oblige generally the members of the given community, or commands which oblige generally persons of given classes, are not always laws or rules.
Thus, in the case already supposed; that in which the sovereign commands that all corn actually shipped for exportation be stopped and detained; the command is obligatory upon the whole community, but as it obliges them only to a set of acts individually assigned, it is not a law. Again, suppose the sovereign to issue an order, enforced by penalties, for a general mourning, on occasion of a public calamity. Now, though it is addressed to the community at large, the order is scarcely a rule, in the usual acceptation of the term. For, though it obliges generally the members of the entire community, it obliges to acts which it assigns specifically, instead of obliging generally to acts or forbearances of a class. If the sovereign commanded that black should be the dress of his subjects, his command would amount to a law. But if he commanded them to wear it on a specified occasion, his command would be merely particular.
And, secondly, a command which obliges exclusively persons individually determined may amount, notwithstanding, to a law or a rule.
For example, a father may set a rule to his child or children; a guardian, to his ward; a master, to his slave or servant. And certain of God's laws were as binding on the first man, as they are binding at this hour on the millions who have sprung from his loins. Most, indeed, of the laws which are established by political superiors, or most of the laws which are simply and strictly so called, oblige generally, the members of the political community, or oblige generally persons of a class. To frame a system of duties for every individual of the community were simply impossible; and if it were possible, it were utterly useless: Most of the laws established by political superiors are, therefore, general in a twofold manner: as enjoining or forbidding generally acts of kinds or sorts; and as binding the whole community, or, at least, whole classes of its members.
But if we suppose that Parliament creates and grants an office, and that Parliament binds the grantee to services of a given description, we suppose a law established by political superiors, and yet exclusively,binding a specified or determinate person. Laws established by-political superiors, and exclusively binding specified or determinate persons, are styled, in the language of the Roman jurists, privilegia. Though that, indeed, is a name which will hardly denote them distinctly: for, like most of the leading terms in actual systems of law, it is not the name of a definite class of objects, but of a heap of heterogeneous objects.
The definition of a law or rule, properly so called. It appears, from what has been premised, that a law, properly so called, may be defined in the following manner. A law is a command which obliges a person or persons.
But, as contradistinguished or opposed to an occasional or particular command, a law is a command which obliges a person or persons, and obliges generally to acts or forbearances of a class. In language more popular but less distinct and precise, a law is a command which obliges a person or persons to a course of conduct.
The meaning of the correlative terms superior and inferior
Laws and other commands are said to proceed from superiors, and to bind or oblige inferiors. I will, therefore, analyse the meaning of those correlative expressions; and will try to strip them of a certain mystery, by which that simple meaning appears to be obscured. Superiority is often synonymous with precedence or excellence. We talk of superiors in rank; of superiors in wealth; of superiors in virtue: comparing certain persons with certain other persons; and meaning that the former precede or excel the latter in rank, in wealth or in virtue. But, taken with the meaning wherein I here understand it, the term superiority signifies might: the power of affecting others with evil or pain, and of forcing them, through fear of that evil, to fashion their conduct to one's-wishes.
For example, God, is emphatically the superior of Man. For his power of affecting us with pain, and of forcing us to comply with his will, is unbounded and resistless.
To a limited extent, the sovereign One or Number is the superior of the subject or citizen: the master, of the slave or servant: the father, of the child.
In short, whoever can oblige another to comply, with his wishes, is the superior of that other, so far as the ability reaches: the party who is obnoxious to the impending evil, being, to that same extent, the inferior.
The might or superiority of God, is simple or absolute. But in all or most cases of human superiority, the relation of superior and inferior, and the relation of inferion and superior, are reciprocal. Or (changing the expression) the party who is the superior, as viewed from one aspect, is the inferior as viewed from another.
For example, to an indefinite, though limited extent, the monarch is the superior of the governed: his power being commonly sufficient to enforce compliance with his will. But the governed, collectively or in mass, are also the superior of the monarch who is checked in the abuse of his might by his fear of exciting their anger; and of rousing to active resistance the might which slumbers in the multitude.
A member of a sovereign assembly is the superior gf the judge: the judge being bound by the law which proceeds from that sovereign body. But, in his character of citizen or subject, he is the inferior of the judge: the judge being the minister of the law, and armed with the power of enforcing it.
It appears, then, that the term superiority (like the terms duty and sanction) is implied by the term command. For superiority is the power of enforcing compliance with a wish: and the expression or intimation of a wish, with the power and the purpose of enforcing it, are the constituent elements of a command.
'That laws emanate from superiors' is, therefore, an identical proposition. For the meaning which it affects to impart is contained in its subject.
If I mark the peculiar source of a given law, or if I mark the peculiar source of laws of a given class, it is possible that I am saying something which may instruct the hearer. But to affirm of laws universally 'that they flow from superiors', or to affirm of laws universally 'that inferiors are bound to obey them', is the merest tautology and trifling.
Laws (improperly so called) which are not commands
Like most of the leading terms in the sciences of jurisprudence and morals, the term laws is extremely ambiguous. Taken with the largest signification which can be given to the term properly, laws are a species of commands. But the term is improperly applied to various objects which have nothing of the imperative character: to objects which are not commands; and which, therefore, are not laws, properly so called.
Accordingly, the proposition 'that laws are commands' must be taken" with limitations. Or, rather, we must distinguish the various meanings of the term laws; and must restrict the proposition to that class of objects which is embraced by the largest signification that can be given to the term properly.
I have already indicated, and shall hereafter more fully describe, the objects improperly termed laws, which are not within the province of jurisprudence (being either rules enforced by opinion and closely analogous to laws properly so called; or being laws'so called by a metaphorical application of the term merely). There are other objects improperly termed laws (not being commands) which yet may properly be included within the province of jurisprudence, these I shall endeavour to particularise:
1. Acts on the part of legislatures to explain positive law, can scarcely be called laws, in the proper signification of the term. Working no change in the actual duties of the governed, but simply declaring what those duties are, they properly are acts of interpretation by legislative authority. Or, to borrow an expression from the writers on the Roman Law, they are acts of authentic interpretation. But, this notwithstanding, they are frequently styled laws; declaratory laws, or declaratory statutes. They must, therefore, be noted as forming an exception to the proposition 'that laws are a species of commands'. It often, indeed, happens (as I shall show in the proper place), that laws declaratory in name are imperative in effect: legislative, like judicial interpretation, being frequently deceptive; and establishing new law, under guise of expounding the old.
2. Laws to repeal laws, and to release from existing duties, must also be excepted from the proposition 'that laws are a species of commands'. In so far as they release from duties imposed by existing laws, they are not commands, but revocations of commands. They authorise or permit the parties, to whom the repeal extends, to do or to forbear from acts which they were commanded to forbear from or to do. And, considered with regard to this, their immediate or direct purpose, they are often named permissive laws, or, more briefly and more properly, permissions.
Remotely and indirectly, indeed, permissive laws are often or always imperative. For the parties released from duties are restored to liberties or rights: and duties answering those rights are, therefore, created or revived.
But this is a matter which I shall examine with exactness, when I analyse the expressions 'legal right', 'permission by the sovereign or state', and 'civil or political liberty'.
3. Imperfect laws, or laws of imperfect obligation, must also be excepted from the proposition 'that laws are a species of commands'. An imperfect law (with the sense wherein the term is used by the Roman jurists) is a law which wants a sanction, and which, therefore, is not binding. A law declaring that certain acts are crimes, but annexing no punishment to the commission of acts of the class, is the simplest and most obvious example.
Though the author of an imperfect law signifies a desire, he manifests no purpose of enforcing compliance with the desire. But where there is not a purpose of enforcing compliance with the desire, the expression of a desire is not a command; Consequently, an imperfect law is not so properly a law, as counsel, or exhortation, addressed by a superior to inferiors.
Examples of imperfect laws are cited by the Roman jurists. But with us in England; laws professedly imperative are always (I believe) perfect or obligatory. Where the English legislature affects to command the English tribunals not unreasonably presume that the legislature exacts obedience. And, if no specific sanction be annexed to a given law, a sanction is supplied by the courts of justice, agreeably to a general maxim which obtains in cases of the kind.
The imperfect laws, of which I am now speaking, are laws which are imperfect, in the sense of the Roman jurists: that is to say, laws which speak the desires of political superiors, but which their authors (by oversight or design) have not provided with sanctions. Many of the writers on morals, and on the so-called law of nature, have annexed a different meaning to the term imperfect. Speaking of imperfect obligations, they commonly mean duties which are not legal: duties imposed by commands of God, or duties imposed by positive morality, as contradistinguished to duties imposed by positive law. An imperfect obligation, in the sense of the Roman jurists, is exactly equivalent to no obligation at all. For the term imperfect denotes simply that the law wants the sanction appropriate to laws of the kind. An imperfect obligation, in the other meaning of the expression, is a religious or a moral obligation. The term imperfect does not denote that the law imposing the duty wants the appropriate sanction. It denotes that the law imposing the duty is not a law established by a political superior: that it wants that perfect, or that surer or more cogent sanction, which is imparted by the sovereign or state.
Laws (properly so called) which may seem not imperative
I believe that I have now reviewed all the classes of objects, to which the term laws is improperly applied. The laws (improperly so called) which I have here lastly enumerated, are (I think) the only laws which are not commands, and which yet may be properly included within the province of jurisprudence. But though these, with the so-called laws set by opinion and the objects metaphorically termed laws, are the only laws which really are not commands, there are certain laws (properly so called) which may seem not imperative. Accordingly, I will subjoin a few remarks upon laws of this dubious character.
1. There are laws, it may be said, which merely create rights: And seeing that every command imposes a duty, laws of this nature are not imperative.
But, as I have intimated already, and shall show completely hereafter, there are no laws merely creating rights. There are laws, it is true, which merely create duties: duties not correlating with correlating rights, and which, therefore may be styled absolute. But every law, really conferring a right, imposes expressly or tacitly a relative duty/or a duty correlating with the right. If it specify the remedy to be given, in case the right shall be infringed, it imposes the relative duty expressly. If the remedy to be given be not specified, it refers tacitly to preexisting law, and. clothes the right which it purports to create with a remedy provided by that law. Every law, really conferring a right, is, therefore, imperative: as imperative, as if its only purpose were the creation of a duty, or as if the relative duty, which it inevitably imposes, were merely absolute.
The meanings of the term right, are various and perplexed; taken with its proper meaning, it comprises ideas which are numerous and complicated; and the searching and extensive analysis, which the term, therefore, requires, would occupy more room than-could be given' to it in the present "lecture. It is not, however, necessary, that the analysis should be performed here. I purpose, in my earlier lectures, to determine the province of jurisprudence; or to distinguish the laws established by political superiors; from the various laws,'* proper "and improper, with which they are frequently confounded. And this I may accomplish exactly enough, without a nice inquiry into the import of the term right.
2. According to an opinion which I must notice incidentally here, though the subject to which it relates will be treated directly hereafter, customary laws must be excepted from the proposition 'that laws are a species of commands'.
By many of the admirers of customary laws (and, especially, of their German admirers), they are thought to oblige legally (independently of the sovereign of state), because the citizens or subjects have observed or kept them. Agreeably to this opinion, they are not the creatures of the sovereign or state, although the sovereign or state may abolish them at pleasure. Agreeably to this opinion, they are positive law (or law, strictly so called), inasmuch as they are enforced by the courts of justice. But, that notwithstanding, they exist as positive taw by, the spontaneous adoption of the governed, and not by position or establishment on the part of political superiors. Consequently, customary laws, considered as positive law, are not commands. And, consequently, customary laws,"considered as positive law, are not laws orrules properly so called.
An opinion less mysterious, but somewhat allied to this, is not uncommonly held by the adverse party: by the party which is strongly opposed to customary law; and to all law made judicially, or in the way of judicial legislation. According to the latter opinion, all judge-made law, or all judge-made law established by subject judges, is purely the creature of the judges by whom it is established immediately. To impute it to the sovereign legislature, or to suppose that it speaks the will of the sovereign legislature, is one of the foolish or knavish/Icft'onj with which lawyers, in every age and nation have perplexed and darkened the simplest and clearest truths.
I think it will appear, on a moment's reflection, that each of these opinions is groundless: that customary law is imperative, in the proper signification of the term; and that all judge-made law is the creature of the sovereign or state.
At its origin, a custom is a rule of conduct which the governed observe spontaneously, or not in pursuance of a law set by a political superior. The custom is transmuted into positive law, when it is adopted as such by the courts of justice, and when the judicial decisions fashioned upon it are enforced by the power of the state. But before it is adopted by the courts, and clothed"with the legal sanction, it is merely a rule of positive morality: a rule generally observed by the citizens or subjects; but deriving the only force, which it can be said to possess, from the general disapprobation falling oh those who transgress it.
Now when judges transmute a custom into a legal rule (or make a legal rule not suggested by a custom), the legal rule which they establish is established by the sovereign legislature. A subordinate or subject judge is merely a minister. The portion of, the sovereign power which lies at his disposition is merely delegated. The rules which he makes derive their legal force from authority given by the state: an authority which the statcmay confer expressly, but which it commonly imparts in the way of acquiescence. For, since the state may reverse the rules which he makes, and yet permits him to enforce them by the power of the political community, its sovereign will 'that his rules shall obtain as law' is clearly evinced by its conduct, though not by its express declaration.
The admirers of customary law love to trick out their idol with mysterious and imposing attributes. But to those who can see the difference between positive law and morality, there is nothing of mystery about it. Considered as rules of positive morality, customary laws arise from the consent of the governed, and not from the position or establishment of political superiors. But, considered as moral rules turned into positive laws, customary laws are established by the state: established by the state directly, when the customs are promulged in its statutes; established by the state circuitously, when the customs are adopted by its tribunals.
The opinion of the party which abhors judge-made laws springs from their inadequate conception of the nature of commands.
Like other significations of desire, a command is express or tacit. If the desire be signified by words (written or spoken), the command is express. If the desire be signified by conduct (or by any signs of desire which are not words), the command is tacit.
Now when customs are turned into legal rules by decisions of subject judges, rules which emerge from the customs are tacit commands of the sovereign legislature. The state, which is able to abolish, permits its ministers to enforce them: and it, therefore, signifies its pleasure, by that its voluntary acquiescence, 'that they shall serve as a law to the governed'.
My present purpose is merely this: to prove that the positive law styled customary (and all positive law made judicially) is established, by the state directly or circuitously, and, therefore, is imperative. I am far from disputing that law made judicially (or in the way of improper legislation) and law made by statute (or in the properly legislative manner)are distinguished by weighty differences. I shall inquire, in future lectures, what those differences are; and why subject judges, who are properly ministers of the law, have commonly shared with the sovereign in the business of making it.
Laws which are not commands enumerated
I assume, then, that the only laws which are not imperative, and which belong to the subject-matter, of jurisprudence, are the following: Declaratory laws, or laws explaining the import of existing positive law.
Laws abrogating or repealing existing positive law. Imperfect laws, or laws of imperfect obligation (with the sense wherein the expression is used by the Roman jurists. But the space occupied in the science by these improper laws is comparatively narrow and insignificant. Accordingly, although I shall take them into account so often as prefer to them directly, I shall throw them out of account.on other, occasions. Or (changing the expression) I shall limit the term law to laws which are imperative, unless I extend it expressly to laws which are not.
1. Where a privilegium merely imposes a duty, it exclusively obliges a determinate person or persons. But where a privilegium confers a right, and the right conferred avails against the world at large, the law is privilegium as viewed from a certain aspect, but is also a general law as viewed from another aspect. In respect of the right conferred, the law exclusively regards a determinate person, and, therefore, is privilegium. In respect of the duty imposed, and corresponding to the right conferred, the law regards generally the members of the entire community. This I shall explain particularly at a subsequent point of my Course, when I consider the peculiar nature of so-called privilegia, or of so-called private laws.
Laws proper or properly so called, and laws improper or improperly so called
The term law, or the term laws, is applied to the following objects: to laws proper or properly so called, and to laws improper or improperly so called; to objects which have all the essentials of an imperative law or rule; and to objects which are wanting in some of those essentials, but to which the term is unduly extended either by reason of analogy or in the way of metaphor.
Strictly speaking, all improper laws are analogous to laws proper: and the term law, as applied to any of them, is a metaphorical or figurative expression.
For every metaphor springs from an analogy: and every analogical extension given to a term is a metaphor or figure of speech. The term is extended from the objects which it properly signifies to objects of another nature; to objects not of the class wherein the former are contained, although they are allied to the former by that more distant resemblance which is usually styled analogy. But, taking the expressions with the meanings.which custom or usage has established, there is a difference between an employment of a term analogically and a metaphor.
Analogy and metaphor as used in common parlance, defined
Analogy is a species of resemblance. The word resemblance is here taken in that large sense in which all subjects which have any property in common, are said to resemble. But-besides this more extended acceptation according to which resemblance is a genus, and analogy one of the species included therein, there is another and a narrower sense, in which resemblance is opposed to analogy. Two resembling subjects are said to resemble, in,the narrower meaning of the term, when they both belong to some determinate genus or species expresslyor tacitly referred to; when they both have every property which belongs to all the subjects included in the class. Two resembling subjects are said on the contrary to be analogous when one of them belongs to some class expressly or tacitly referred to, and the other does not: when one possesses all the properties common to the class and the other only some" of them. I choose; for instance, on account of a particular convenience; to range together in one class aH'animals having feet. When I am speaking with reference to this class,' the foot of a liori arid the foot of a man would be said to resemble in the narrower as well as in the wider sense of the word. But the foot of a table, though it resembles the foot of a lion and of a man in the more enlarged sense, does not resemble these in the narrower sense, but is only analogous to "them. For these"possess the whole of the qualities belonging universally to the class, while it possesses only a part of the same qualities. If I were not tacitly referring to a genus, I might say that all the three objects resemble, but if the genus be referred to, the foot of the lion and the foot of the man resemble, the foot of the table is only analogous to them.
Resemblance is hence an ambiguous term. When two things, resemble in the narrower sense, that is, when they both possess all the propertie's which belong ^universally to the class, the common name (such as foot in the instance above given) is applied to both of them strictly and properly. When they are analogous, that is when the one possesses all, the'other only some of the properties which belong universally to the class, the name .denotes'the one properly, the other improperly or analogically.
It is extremely important to fix our conception with respect to this ambiguity as the words analogy and analogous often recur in the science of jurisprudence, and by the laxity with which they are employed involve it in a scarcely penetrable mist. The nature of unwritten law, and the principles of interpretation or construction, are among the<-most obscure of all the questions which arise"ih jurisprudence. This obscurity springs, as is usually the case, from nonsense or jargon; which1 jargon, on;these questions, arises fromhence, that men talk profusely of analogy and things analogous, without ascertaining the" precise meaning of those terms or taking pains to employ them with any precise meaning. Professor Thibaut of Berlin, in his treatise on the interpretation of the Roman Law, is, as far as I know, the only writer who has seen this perplexity; and notwithstanding my warm respect for that learned and discerning jurist, it seems to me that even he has scarcely solved the difRcu!ty;though he has pointed out the path by which we may arrive at a solution.
A metaphoris the transference of a term from its primitive signification to subjects to which it is applied not in that, but in a secondary sense. An analogy, real or supposed, is always the ground of the" transference; hence every metaphor is an analogical application of a term, and every analogical application of a term is a metaphor. But a metaphorical or figurative application is scarcely, in common parlance, synonymous with an analogical application. By a metaphorical or figurative application, we usually mean one in which the analogy is faint, the alliance between the primitive and the derivative signification remote. When the analogy is clear, strong, and close; when the subjects to which the term is deflected lie on the confines of the class properly denoted by it, and have many of the properties common to the class, we hardly say that the name is employed figuratively or metaphorically.
In the language of logic, objects which have all the qualities composing the essence of the class, and all the qualities which are the necessary consequences of those composing the essence, resemble. When an object does not possess all the essence of the class, but possesses many of the qualities which compose the essence, or many of those which necessarily result from the essence, the application of the name to that object will be said to be analogical and not a metaphor. The difference.between metaphor and analogy is hence a difference of degree and not to be settled precisely by drawing a strict line between them.
Laws improper are of two kinds: 1. Laws closely analogous to laws proper; 2. Laws metaphorical or figurative
Now a broad distinction obtains between laws improperly so called. Some are closely, others are remotely, analogous to laws proper. The term law is extended to some by a decision of the reason or understanding. The term law is extended to others by a turn or caprice of the fancy.
In order that I may mark this distinction briefly and commodiously, I avail myself of the difference, established by custom or usage, between the meanings of the expressions analogical and figurative. I style laws of the first kind laws closely analogous to laws proper. I say that they are called laws by an analogical extension of the term. I style laws of the second kind laws metaphorical or figurative. I say that they are called laws by a metaphor or figure of speech.
Division of laws proper, and of such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper
Now laws proper, with such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper, are divisible thus. Of laws properly so called, some are set by God to his human creatures; others are set by men to men. Of the laws properly so called which are set by men to men, some are set by men as political superiors, or by men, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights. Others may be described in the following negative manner: they are not set by men as political superiors, nor are they set by men, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights.
The laws improperly so called, which are closely analogous to the proper, are merely opinions or sentiments held or felt by men in regard to human conduct. As I shall show hereafter, these opinions and sentiments are styled laws because they are analogous to laws properly so called: because they resemble laws properly so called in some of their properties or some of their effects or consequences.
Distribution of laws proper, and of such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper, under three capital classes: 1. The law of God, or the laws of God; 2. Positive law, or positive laws; 3. Positive morality, rules of positive morality, or positive moral rules
Accordingly, I distribute laws proper, with such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper, under three capital classes.
The first comprises the laws (properly so called) which are set by God to his human creatures. The second comprises the laws (properly so called) which are set by men as political superiors, or by men, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights. The third comprises laws of the two following species:
The laws (properly so called) which are set by men to men, but not by men as political superiors, nor by men as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights;
The laws which are closely analogous to laws proper, but are merely opinions or sentiments held or felt by men in regard to human conduct.
I put laws of these species into a common class, and I mark them with the common name to which I shall advert immediately, for the following reason. No law of either species is a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number in the character of political superior. In other words, no law of either species is a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author. Consequently, laws of both species may be aptly opposed to laws of the second capital class. For every law of that second capital class is a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number in the character of political superior: that is to say; a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number to a person or persons in a state of subjection in its author.
Laws comprised by these three capital classes I mark with the following names. I name laws of the first class the law or laws of God, or the Divine law or laws. For various reasons which I shall produce immediately, I name laws of the second class positive law, or positive laws. For the same reasons, I name laws of the third class positive morality, rules of positive morality, or positive moral rules.
Digression to explain the expressions positive law and positive morality
My reasons for using the two expressions 'positive law' and 'positive morality' are the following. There are two capital classes of human laws. The first comprises the laws (properly so called) which are set by men as political superiors, or by men as private persons, urpursuance of legal rights. The second comprises the laws (proper and improper) which belong to the two species mentioned on the preceding page.
As merely distinguished from the second; the first of those capital classes might be named simply law. As merely distinguished from the first, the second of those capital classes might be named simply morality. But both must be distinguished from the law of God: and, for the purpose of distinguishing both from the law of God, we must qualify the names law and morality. Accordingly, I style the first of those capital classes 'positive law': and I style the second of those capital classes 'positive morality'. By the common epithet positive, I denote that both classes flow from human sources. By the distinctive names law and morality, I denote the difference between the human sources from which the two classes respectively emanate.
Strictly speaking, every law properly so called is positive law. For it is put or set by its individual or collective author, or it exists by position or institution of its individual or collective author.
But, as opposed to the law of nature (meaning the law of God), human law of the first of those capital classes is styled by writers on jurisprudence 'positive law'. This application of the expression 'positive law' was manifestly made for the purpose of obviating confusion; confusion of human law of the first of those capital classes with that Divine law which is the measure or test of human.
And, in order to obviate similar confusion, I apply the expression 'positive morality' to human law of the second capital class. For the name morality, when standing unqualified or alone, may signify the law set by God, or human law of that second capital class. If you say that an act or omission violates morality, you speak ambiguously. You may mean that it violates the law which I style 'positive morality', or that it violates the Divine law which is the measure or test of the former. Again: the human laws or rules which I style 'positive morality', I mark with that expression for the following additional reason.
I have said that the name morality, when standing unqualified or alone, may signify positive morality or may signify the law of God. But the name morality, when standing unqualified or alone, is perplexed with a further ambiguity. It may import indifferently either of the two following senses:
1. The name morality, when standing unqualified or alone, may signify positive morality which is good or worthy of approbation, or positive morality as it would be if it were good or worthy of approbation. Inother words, the name morality, when standing unqualified or alone, may signify positive morality which agrees with its measure or test, or positive morality as it would be if it agreed with its measure or test.
2. The name morality, when standing unqualified or alone, may signify the human laws, which I style positive morality, as considered without regard to their goodness or badness. For example, such laws of the class as are peculiar to a given age, or such laws of the class as are peculiar to a given nation, we style the morality of that given age or nation whether we think them good or deem them bad. Or, in case we mean to intimate that we approve or disapprove of them, we name them the morality of that given age or nation and we qualify that name with the epithet good or bad.
Now, by the name 'positive morality', I mean the human laws which I mark with that expression as considered without regard to their goodness or badness. Whether human laws be worthy of praise or blame, or whether they accord or not with their measure or test, they are 'rules of positive morality', in the sense which I give to the expression, if they belong to either of the two species lastly mentioned on p. 94. But, in consequence of that ambiguity which I have now attempted to explain, I could hardly express my meaning with passable distinctness by the unqualified name morality.
Explanation of the following expressions: viz. science of jurisprudence and science of, positive morality; science of ethics or deontology, science of legislation and science of morals
From the expression positive law and the expression positive morality, I pass to certain expressions with which they are closely connected. The science of jurisprudence (or, simply and briefly, jurisprudence) is concerned with positive laws, or with laws strictly so called, as considered without regard to their goodness or badness.
Positive morality, as considered without regard to its goodness or badness, might be the subject of a science closely analogous to jurisprudence. I say 'might be' since it is only in one of its branches (namely, the law of nations or international law) that positive morality, as considered without regard to its goodness or badness, has been treated by writers in a scientific or systematic manner. For the science of positive morality, as considered without regard to its goodness, or badness, current or established language, will hardly afford us a name. The name morals, or science of morals, would denote it ambiguously: the name morals, or, science of morals, being commonly applied (as I shall show immediately) to a department of ethics or deontology. But, since the science of jurisprudence is not unfrequently styled 'the science of positive law', the science in question might be styled analogically 'the science of positive morality'. The department of the science in question which- relates to international law, has actually been styled by Von Martens, a recent writer of celebrity, 'positives Oder practisches Volkerrecht', that is to say, 'positive international law' or 'practical international law'. Had he named that department of the science 'positive international morality', the name would have hit its import with perfect precision. The science of ethics (or, in the language of Mr Bentham, the science of deontology) may be defined in the following manner: it affects to determine the test of positive law and morality, or it affects to determine the principles whereon they must be fashioned in order that they may merit approbation. In other words, it affects to expound them as they should be; or it affects to expound them as they ought to be; or it affects to expound them as they would be if they were good or worthy of praise; or it affects to expound them as they would be if they conformed to an assumed measure.
The science of ethics (or, simply and briefly, ethics) consists of two departments: one relating specially to positive law, the other relating specially to positive morality. The department which relates specially to positive law is commonly styled the science of legislation, or, simply and briefly, legislation. The department which relates specially to positive morality is commonly styled the science of morals, or, simply and briefly, morals.
Meaning of the epithet good or bad as applied to a human law
The foregoing attempt to define the science of ethics naturally leads me to offer the following explanatory remark.
When we say that a human law is good or bad, or is worthy of praise or blame, or is what it should be or what it should not be, or is what it ought to be or what it ought not to be, we mean (unless we intimate our mere liking or aversion) this: namely, that the law agrees with or differs from a something to which we tacitly refer it as to a measure or test.
For example, according to either of the hypotheses which I stated in preceding lectures; a human law is good or bad as it agrees or does not agree with the law of God: that is to say, with the law of God as indicated by the principle of utility, or with the law of God as indicated by the moral sense. To the adherent of the theory of utility, a human law is good if it be generally useful, and a human law is bad if it be generally pernicious. For, in his opinion, it is consonant or not with the law of God inasmuch as it is consonant or not with the principle of general utility. To the adherent of the hypothesis of a moral sense, a human law is good if he likes it he knows not why, and a human law is bad if he hates it he knows not wherefore. For, in his opinion, that his inexplicable feeling of liking or aversion shows that the human law pleases or offends the Deity.
To the atheist, a human law is good if it be generally useful, and a human law is bad if it be generally pernicious. For the principle of general utility would serve as a measure or test, although it were not an index to an ulterior measure or test. But if he call the law a good one without believing it useful, or if he call a law a bad one without believing it pernicious, the atheist simply intimates his mere liking or aversion. For, unless it be thought an index to the law set by the Deity, an inexplicable feeling of approbation or disapprobation can hardly be considered a measure or test And, in the opinion of the atheist, there is no law of God which his inexplicable feeling can point at.
To the believer in a supposed revelation, a human law is good or bad as it agrees with or differs from the terms wherein the revelation is expressed.
In short, the goodness or badness of a human law is a phrase of relative and varying import. A law which is good to one man is bad to another, in case they tacitly refer it to different and adverse tests.
Meaning of the epithet good as applied to the law of God
The Divine laws may be styled good, in the sense with which the atheist may apply the epithet to human. We may style them good, or worthy of praise, inasmuch as they agree with utility considered as an ultimate test. And this is the only meaning with which we can apply the epithet to the laws of God. Unless we refer them to utility considered as an ultimate test, we have no test by which we can try them. To say that they are good because they are set by the Deity is to say that they are good as measured or tried by themselves. But to say this is to talk absurdly: for every object which is measured, or every object which is brought to a test, is compared with a given object other than itself. If the laws set by the Deity were not generally useful, of if they did not promote the general happiness of his creatures, or if their great Author were hot wise and benevolent, they would not be good or worthy of praise, but were devilish and worthy of execration.
Before I conclude the present digression I must submit this further remark to the attention of the reader. The expression law of nature, or natural law, has two disparate meanings. It signifies the law of God. or a portion of positive law and positive morality
I have intimated in the course of this digression mat the phrase law of nature, or the phrase natural law, often signifies the law of God. Natural law as thus understood, and the natural law which I mentioned in my fourth lecture, are disparate expressions. The natural law which I there mentioned is a portion of positive law and positive morality. It consists of the human rules, legal and moral, which have obtained at all times and obtained at all places.
According to the compound hypothesis which I mentioned in my fourth lecture, these human rules, legal and moral, have been fashioned on the law of God as indicated by the moral sense. Or, adopting the language of the classical Roman jurists, these human rules, legal and moral, have been fashioned on the Divine law as known by natural reason.
But, besides the human rules which have obtained with all mankind, there are human rules, legal and moral, which have been limited to peculiar times or limited to peculiar places.
Now, according to the compound hypothesis which I mentioned in my fourth lecture, these last have not been fashioned on the law of God, or have been fashioned on the law of God as conjectured by the light of utility.
Being fashioned on the law of God as known by an infallible guide, human rules of the first class are styled the law of nature: for they are not of human position purely or simply, but are laws of God or Nature clothed with human sanctions. As obtaining at all times and obtaining at all places, they are styled by the classical jurists jus gentium, or jus omnium gentium.
But human rules of the second class are styled positive. For, not being fashioned on the law of God, or being fashioned on the law of God as merely conjectured by utility, they, certainly or probably, are of purely human position. They are not laws of God or Nature clothed with human sanctions.
As I stated in my fourth lecture, and shall show completely hereafter, the distinction of human rules into natural and positive involves the compound hypothesis which I mentioned in that discourse.
The connection of the present (the fifth) lecture with the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth
Positive laws, the appropriate matter of jurisprudence, are related in the way of resemblance, or by a close or remote analogy, to the following objects:
In the way of resemblance, they are related to the laws of God.
In the way of resemblance, they are related to those rules of positive morality which are laws properly so called.
By a close or strong analogy, they are related to those rules of positive morality which are merely opinions or sentiments held or felt by men in regard to human conduct.
By a remote or slender analogy, they are related to laws merely metaphorical, or laws merely figurative.
To distinguish positive laws from the objects now enumerated is the purpose of the present attempt to determine the province of jurisprudence.
In pursuance of the purpose to which I have now adverted, I stated, in my first lecture, the essentials of a law or rule (taken with the largest signification which can be given to the term properly).
In my second, third, and fourth lectures, I stated the marks or characters by which the laws of God are distinguished from other laws. And, stating those marks or characters, I explained the nature of the index to his unrevealed laws, or I explained and examined the hypotheses which regard the nature of that index. I made this explanation at a length which may seem disproportionate, but which I have deemed necessary because these laws, and the index by which they are known, are the standard or measure to which all other laws should conform and the standard measure or test by which they should be tried.
But before I can complete the purpose to which I have adverted above, I must examine or discuss especially the following principal topics (and must touch upon other topics of secondary or subordinate importance):
I must examine the marks or characters by which positive laws are distinguished from other laws.
I must examine the distinguishing marks of those positive moral rules which are laws properly so called.
I must examine the distinguishing marks of those positive moral rules which are styled laws or rules by an analogical extension of the term.
I must examine the distinguishing marks of laws merely metaphorical, or laws merely figurative.
In order to give an explanation of the marks which distinguish positive laws, I must analyse the expression sovereignty, the correlative expression subjection, and the inseparably connected expression independent political society. For the essential difference of a positive law (or the difference that severs it from a law which is not a positive law) may be stated thus. Every positive law, or every law simply and strictly so called, is set by a sovereign person, or a sovereign body of persons, to a member or members of the independent political society wherein that person or body is sovereign or supreme. Or (changing the expression) it is set by a.monarch, or sovereign number, to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author.
But my analysis of those expressions occupies so large a space that in case I placed it in the lecture which I am now delivering, the lecture which I am now delivering would run to insufferable length.
The purpose mentioned above will, therefore, be completed in the following order. Excluding from my present discourse my analysis of those expressions, I shall complete, in my present discourse, the purpose mentioned above, so far as I can complete it consistently with that exclusion. In my present discourse I shall examine or discuss especially the following principal topics: namely, the distinguishing marks of those positive moral rules which are laws properly so called; the distinguishing marks of those positive moral rules which are styled laws or rules by an analogical extension of the term; the distinguishing marks of the laws which are styled laws by a metaphor.
I shall complete, in my sixth lecture, the purpose mentioned above, by explaining the marks or characters which distinguish positive laws, or laws strictly so called: an explanation involving an analysis of the capital expression sovereignty, the correlative expression subjection, and the inseparably connected expression independent political society.
Having shown the connection of my present discourse with foregoing and following lectures, I now examine or discuss its appropriate topics or subjects.
The essentials of a law properly so called, together with certain consequences which those essentials import
In my first lecture, I endeavoured to resolve a law (taken with the largest signification which can be given to the term properly) into the necessary or essential elements of which it is composed.
Now those essentials of a law proper, together with certain consequences which those essentials import, may be stated briefly in the following manner:
1. Laws properly so called are a species of commands. Bui, being a command, every law properly so called flows from a determinate source, or emanates from a determinate author. In other words, the author from whom it proceeds is a determinate rational being, or a determinate body or aggregate of rational beings. For whenever a command is expressed or intimated, one party signifies a wish that another shall do or forbear: and the latter is obnoxious to an evil which the former intends to inflict in case the wish be disregarded. But every signification of a wish made by a single individual, or made by a body of individuals as a body or collective wholey supposes that the individual or body is certain or determinate. And every intention or purpose held by a single individual, or held by a body of individuals as a body or collective whole, involves the same supposition.
2. Sanction properly so called is an eventual evil annexed to a command. Any eventual evil may operate as a motive to conduct: but, unless the conduct be commanded and the evil be annexed to the command purposely to enforce obedience, the evil is not a sanction in the proper acceptation of the term. Every duty properly so called supposes a command by which it is created. For every sanction properly so called is an eventual evil annexed to a command. And duty properly so called is obnoxiousness to evils of the kind.
The laws of God, and positive laws, are laws properly so called
Now it follows from these premises, that the laws of God, and positive laws, are laws proper, or laws properly so called.
The laws of God are laws proper, inasmuch as they are commands express or tacit, and therefore emanate from a certain source.
Positive laws, or laws strictly so called, are established directly or immediately by authors of three kinds: by monarchs or sovereign bodies as supreme political superiors; by men in a state of subjection as subordinate political superiors; by subjects, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights. But every positive law, or every law strictly so called, is a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number in the character of political superior: that is to say, a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author. And being a command (and therefore flowing from a determinate source), every positive law is a law proper, or a law properly so called.
The generic character of positive moral rides
Besides the human laws which I style positive law, there are human laws which I style positive morality, rules of positive morality, or positive moral rules.
The generic character of laws of the class may be stated briefly in the following negative manner: no law belonging to the class is a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number in the character of political superior. In other words, no law belonging to the class is a direct or circuitous command of a monarch or sovereign number to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author.
Of positive moral rules, some are laws proper, but others are laws improper. The positive moral rules, which are laws properly so called, are commands. But of positive moral rules, some are laws proper, or laws properly so called: others are laws improper, or laws improperly so called. Some have all the essentials of an imperative law or rule: others are deficient in-some of those essentials and are styled laws or rules by an analogical extension of the term.
The positive moral rules, which are laws properly so called, are distinguished from other laws by the union of two marks:
They are imperative laws or rules set by men to men.
They are not set by men as political superiors, nor are they set by men as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights.
Inasmuch as they bear the latter of these two marks, they are not commands of sovereigns in the character of political superiors. Consequently, they are not positive laws: they are not clothed with legal sanctions, nor do they oblige legally the persons to whom they are set. But being commands (and therefore being established by determinate individuals or bodies), they are laws properly so called: they are armed with sanctions, and impose duties, in the proper acceptation of the terms.
It will appear from the following distinctions that positive moral rules which are laws properly so called may be reduced to three kinds.
Of positive moral rules which are laws properly so called, some are established by men who are not subjects, or are not in a state of subjection: meaning by 'subjects', or by men in a state of subjection, men in a state of subjection to a monarch or sovereign number. Of positive moral rules which are laws properly so called, and are not established by men in a state of subjection, some are established by men living in the negative state which is styled a state of nature or a state of anarchy: that is to say, by men who are not in the state which is styled a state of government, or are not members, sovereign or subject, of any political society. Of positive moral rules which are laws properly so called, and are not established by men in a state of subjection, others are established by sovereign individuals or bodies but are not established by sovereigns in the character of political superiors. Or a positive moral rule of this kind may be described in the following manner: it is set by a monarch or sovereign number but not to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author.
Of laws properly so called which are set by subjects, some are set by subjects as subordinate political superiors. But of laws properly so called which are set by subjects, others are set by subjects as private persons: meaning by 'private persons' subjects not in the class of subordinate political superiors, or subordinate political superiors not considered as such. Laws set by subjects as subordinate political superiors'are positive laws: they are clothed with legal sanctions and impose legal duties. They are set by sovereigns or states in the character, of political superiors, although they are set by sovereigns circuitously or remotely. Although they are made directly by subject or subordinate authors, they are made through'legal rights granted by sovereigns or states and held by those subject authors as mere trustees for the granters. Of laws set by subjects as private persons, some are not established by sovereign or supreme authority. And these are rules of positive morality: they are not clothed with legal sanctions, nor do they oblige legally the parties to whom they are set. But of laws set by subjects as private persons, others are set or established in pursuance of legal rights residing in the subject authors. And these are positive laws or laws strictly so called. Although they are made directly by subject authors, they are made in pursuance of rights granted or conferred by sovereigns in the character of political superiors: they legally oblige the parties to whom they are set, or are clothed with legal sanctions. They are commands of sovereigns as political superiors, although they are set by sovereigns circuitously or remotely.
It appears from the foregoing distinctions that positive moral rules which are laws properly so called are of three kinds:
Those which are set by men living in a state of nature.
Those which are set by sovereigns, but not by sovereigns as political superiors.
Those which are set by subjects as private persons and,are not set by the subject authors in pursuance of legal rights.
To cite an example of rules of the first kind were superfluous labour. A man living in a state of nature may impose an imperative law: though, since the man is in a state of nature, he cannot impose the law in the character of sovereign, and cannot impose the law in pursuance of a legal right. And the law being imperative and therefore proceeding from a determinate source is a law properly so called: though, for want of a sovereign author proximate or remote, it is not a positive law but a rule of positive morality.
An imperative law set by a sovereignto a sovereign, or by one supreme government to another supreme government, is an example of rules of the second kind. Since no supreme government is in a state of subjection to another, an imperative law set by a sovereign to a sovereign is not set by its author in the character of political superior. Nor is it set by its author in pursuance of a legal right: for every legal right is conferred by a supreme government and is conferred on a person or persons in a state of subjection to the granter. Consequently, an imperative law set by a sovereign to a sovereign is not a positive law or a law strictly so called. But being imperative (and therefore proceeding from a determinate source), it amounts to a law in the proper signification of the term, although it is purely or simply a rule of positive morality.
If they be set by subjects as private persons, and be not set by their authors in pursuance of legal rights, the laws following are examples of rules of the third kind: namely, imperative laws set by parents to children; imperative laws set by masters to servants; imperative laws set by lenders to borrowers; imperative laws set by patrons to parasites. Being imperative (and therefore proceeding from determinate sources), the laws foregoing are laws properly so called though, if they be set by subjects as private persons, and be not set by their authors in pursuance of legal rights, they are not positive laws but rules of positive morality.
Again: a club or society of men, signifying its collective pleasure by, a vote of its assembled members, passes or makes a law to be kept by its members severally under pain of exclusion from its meetings. Now if it be made by subjects as private persons, and be not made by its authors in pursuance of a legal right, the law voted and passed by the assembled members of the club is a further example of rules of the third kind. If it be made by subjects as private persons, and be not made by its authors in pursuance of a legal right, it is not a positive law or a law strictly so called. But being an imperative law (and the body by which it is set being therefore determinate), it may be styled a law or rule with absolute precision or propriety, although it is purely or simply a rule of positive morality.
The positive moral rules, which are laws improperly so called, are laws set or imposed by general opinion
The positive moral rules which are laws improperly so called, are laws set or imposed by general opinion: that is to say, by the general opinion of any class or any society of persons. For example, some are set or imposed by the general opinion of persons who are members of a profession or calling; others, by that of persons who inhabit a town or province; others, by that of a larger society formed of various nations.
A few species of the laws which are set by general opinion have gotten appropriate names. For example, there are laws or rules imposed upon gentlemen by opinions current amongst gentlemen. And these are usually styled the rules of honour, or the laws or law of honour. There are laws or rules imposed upon people of fashion-by opinions current in the fashionable world. Arid these are usually styled the law set by fashion. There are laws which regard the conduct of independent political societies in their various relations to one another: or, rather, there are laws which regard the conduct of sovereigns or supreme governments in their various relations to one another. And laws or rules of this species, which are imposed upon nations or sovereigns by opinions current amongst nations, are usually styled the taw of nations or international law.
A law set or imposed by general opinion, is merely the opinion or sentiment of an indeterminate body of persons in regard to a kind of conduct
Now a law set or imposed by general opinion is a law improperly so called. It is styled a law or rule by an analogical extension of the term. When we speak of a law set by general opinion, we denote, by that expression, the following fact: some indeterminate body or uncertain aggregate of persons regards a kind of conduct with a sentiment of aversion or liking: or (changing the expression) that indeterminate body opines unfavourably or favourably of a given kind of conduct. In consequence of that sentiment, or in consequence of that opinion, it is likely that they or some of them will be displeased with a party who shall pursue or not pursue conduct of that kind. And, in consequence of that displeasure, it is likely that some party (what party being undetermined) will visit the party provoking it with some evil or another.
The body by whose opinion the law is said to be set does not command; expressly or tacitly, that conduct of the given kind shall be forborne or pursued. For, since it is not a body precisely determined or certain, it cannot, as a body, express or intimate a wish. As a body, it cannot signify' a wish by oral or written words, or by positive or negative deportment. The so-called law or rule which its opinion is said to impose is merely the sentiment which it feels, or is merely the opinion which it holds, in regard to a kind of conduct.
A determinate member of the body, who opines or feels with the body, may doubtless be moved or impelled, by that very opinion or sentiment, to command that conduct of the kind shall be forborne or pursued. But the command expressed or intimated by that determinate party is not a law or rule imposed by general opinion. It is a law properly so called, set by a determinate author. For example, the so-called law of nations consists of opinions or sentiments current among nations generally. It therefore is not law properly so called. But one supreme government may doubtless command another to forbear from a kind of conduct which the law of nations condemns. And, though it is fashioned on law which is law improperly so called, this command is a law in the proper signification of the term. Speaking precisely, the command is a rule of positive morality set by a determinate author. For, as no supreme government is in a state of subjection to another, the government commanding does not command in its character of political superior. If the government receiving the command were in a state of subjection to the other, the command, though fashioned on the law of nations, would amount to a positive law.
The foregoing description of a law set by general opinion imports the following consequences: that the party who will enforce it against any future transgressor is never determinate and assignable. The party who actually enforces it against an actual transgressor is, of necessity, certain. In other words, if an actual transgressor be harmed in consequence of the breach of the law, and in consequence of that displeasure which'the breach of the law has provoked, he receives the harm from a party who, of necessity, is certain. But that certain party is not the executor of a command proceeding from the uncertain body. He has not been authorised by that uncertain body to enforce that so-called law which its opinion is said to establish. He is not in the position of a minister of justice appointed by the sovereign or state to execute commands which it issues. He harms the actual offender against the so-called law or (to speak in analogical language) he applies the sanction annexed to it, of his own spontaneous movement. Consequently, though a party who actually enforces it is, of necessity, certain, the party who will enforce it against any future offender is never determinate and assignable.
A brief statement of the analogy between a law proper and a law set or imposed by general opinion
It follows from the foregoing reasons that a so-called law set by general opinion is not a lawin the proper signification of the term. It also follows from the same reasons that it is not armed with a sanction, and does not impose a duty, in the proper acceptation of the expressions. For a sanction properly so called is an evil annexed to a command. And duty properly so called is an obnoxiousness to evils of the kind.
But a so-called law set by general opinion is closely analogous to a law in the proper signification of the term. And, by consequence, the so-called sanction with which the former is armed, and the so-called duty which the former imposes, are closely analogous to a sanction and a duty in the proper acceptation of the expressions.
The analogy between a law in the proper signification of the term and a so-called law set by general opinion, may be stated briefly in the following manner:
In the case of a law properly so called, the determinate individual or body by whom the law is established wishes that conduct of a kind shall be forborne or pursued. In the case of a law imposed by general opinion, a wish that conduct of a kind shall be forborne or pursued is felt by the uncertain body whose general opinion imposes it.
If a party obliged by the law proper shall not comply with the wish of the determinate individual or body, he probably will suffer, in consequence of his not complying, the evil or inconvenience annexed to the law as a sanction. If a party obnoxious to their displeasure shall not comply with the wish of the uncertain body of persons, he probably will suffer, in consequence of his not complying, some evil or inconvenience from some party or another.
By the sanction annexed to the law proper, the parties obliged are inclined to act or forbear agreeably to its injunctions or prohibitions. By the evil which probably will follow the displeasure of the uncertain body, the parties obnoxious are inclined to act or forbear agreeably to the sentiment or opinion which is styled analogically a law.
In consequence of the law properly so-called, the conduct of the parties obliged has a steadiness, constancy, or uniformity, which, without the existence of the law, their conduct would probably want. In consequence of the sentiment or opinion which is styled analogically a law, the conduct of the parties obnoxious has a steadiness, constancy, or uniformity which, without the existence of that sentiment in the uncertain body of persons, then conduct would hardly present. For they who are obnoxious to the sanction which arms the law proper, commonly do or forbear from the acts which the law enjoins or forbids; whilst they who are obnoxious to the evil which will probably follow the displeasure of the uncertain body of persons, commonly do or forbear from the acts which the body approves or dislikes. Many of the applications of the term law which are merely metaphorical or figurative were probably suggested (as I shall show hereafter) by that uniformity of conduct which is consequent on a law proper.
Distinction between a determinate and an indeterminate body of single or individual persons
In the foregoing analysis of a law set by general opinion, the meaning of the expression 'indeterminate body of persons' is indicated rather than explained. To complete my analysis of a law set by general opinion (and to abridge that analysis of sovereignty which I shall place in my sixth lecture) I will here insert a concise exposition of the following pregnant distinction: namely, the distinction between a determinate and an indeterminate body of single or individual persons. If my exposition of the distinction shall appear obscure and crabbed, my hearers (I hope) will recollect that the distinction could hardly be expounded in lucid and flowing expressions.
I will first describe the distinction in general or abstract terms, and will then exemplify and illustrate the general or abstract description.
If a body of persons be determinate, all the persons who compose it are determined and assignable, or every person who belongs to it is determined and may be indicated.
But determinate bodies are of two kinds. A determinate body of one of those kinds is distinguished by the following marks:
1. The body is composed of persons determined specifically or individually, or determined by characters or descriptions respectively appropriate to themselves.
2. Though every individual member must of necessity answer to many generic descriptions, every individual member is a member of the determinate body not by reason of his answering to any generic description but by reason of his bearing his specific or appropriate character.
A determinate body of the other of those kinds is distinguished by the following marks:
It comprises all the persons who belong to a given class, or who belong respectively to two or more of such classes. In other words, every person who answers to a given generic description, or to any of two or more given generic descriptions, is also a member of the determinate body.
Though, every individual member is of necessity determined by a specific or appropriate character, every individual member is a member of the determinate body, not by reason of his bearing his specific or appropriate character, but by reason of his answering to the given generic description.
If a body be determinate, all the persons who compose it are not determined and assignable. Or (changing the expression) every person who belongs to it is not determined, and, therefore, cannot be indicated. For an indeterminate body consists of some of the persons who belong to another and larger aggregate. But how many of those persons are members of the indeterminate body, or which of those persons in particular are members of the indeterminate body, is not .and cannot be known completely and exactly.
For example, the trading firm or partnership of A B and C is a determinate body of the kind first described above. Every member of the firm is determined specifically, or by a character or description peculiar or appropriate to himself. And every member, of the firm belongs to the determinate body, not by reason of his answering to any generic description but by reason of his'bearing his specific or appropriate character. It is as being that very individual person that A B or C is a limb of the partnership.
The British Parliament for the time being is a determinate body of the kind lastly described above. It comprises the only person who answers for the time being to the generic description of king. It comprises every person belonging to the class of peers who are entitled for the time being to vote in the upper house. It comprises every person belonging to the class of commoners who for the time being represent the commons in parliament. And, though every member of the British Parliament is of necessity determined, by a specific or appropriate character, he is not a member of the parliament by reason of his bearing thatcharacter, but by reason of his answering to the given generic description. It is not as being the individual George, but as being the individual who answers to the generic description of king, that George is king of Britain and Ireland, and a limb of the determinate body which is sovereign or supreme therein. It is not as being the individual Grey, or as being the individual Peel, that Grey is a member of the upper house, or Peel a member of the lower. Grey is a member of the upper house, as belonging to the class of peers entitled to vote therein. Peel is a member of the lower house, as answering the generic description representative of the commons in parliament. The generic characters of the persons who compose the British Parliament are here described generally, and, therefore, inaccurately. To describe those generic characters minutely and accurately were to render a complete description of the intricate and perplexed system whichis styled the British Constitution. A maxim of that Constitution may illustrate the subject of the present paragraph. The meaning of the maxim, 'the king never dies', may, I believe, be rendered in the following manner. Though an actual occupant of the kingly office is human, mortal, and transient, the duration of the office itself has no -possible limit which the British Constitution can contemplate. And on the death of an actual occupant, the office instantly devolves to that individual person who bears the generic character which entitles to take the crown: to that individual person who is then heir to the crown, according to the generic description contained in the Act of Settlement.
To exemplify the foregoing description of an indeterminate body I will revert to the nature of a law set by general opinion. Where a so called law is set by general opinion, most of the persons who belong to a determinate body or class opine or feel alike in regard to a kind of conduct. But the number of that majority, or the several individuals who compose it, cannot be fixed or assigned with perfect fullness or accuracy. For example, a law set or imposed by the general opinion of a nation, by the general opinion of a legislative assembly, by the general opinion of a profession, or by the general opinion of a club, is an opinion or sentiment, relating to conduct of a kind, which is held or felt by most of those who belong to that certain body. But how many of that body, or which of that body in particular, hold or feel that given opinion or sentiment is not arid cannot be known completely and correctly. Consequently, that majority of the certain body forms a body uncertain. Or (changing the expression) the body which is formed by that majority is an indeterminate portion of a determinate body or aggregate. Generally speaking, therefore, an indeterminate body is an indeterminate portion of a body determinate or certain. But a body or class of persons may also be indeterminate because it consists of persons of a. vague generic character. For example, the body or class of gentlemen consists of individual persons whose generic character of'gentleman cannot be described precisely. Whether a given man were a genuine gentleman or not is a question which different men might answer in different ways. An indeterminate body may therefore be indeterminate after a twofold manner. It may consist of an uncertain portion of an uncertain body or class. For example, a law set or imposed by the general opinion of gentlemen is an opinion or sentiment of most of those who are commonly deemed"gentlemanly. But what proportion of the class holds the opinion in question, or what proportion, of the class feels the sentiment in question, is not less indeterminate than the generic character of gentlemen. The body by whose opinion the so called law is set, is therefore, an uncertain portion of an uncertain body or aggregate. And here I may briefly remark that a certain portion of a certain body is itself a body determinate. For example, the persons who answer the generic description 'representative of the commons in parliament', are,a certain portion of the persons who answer the generic description 'commoner of the, United Kingdom'. A select committee of the representative body, or any portion of the body happening to form a house, is a certain or determined portion of the "representatives of the commons in parliament. And, in any of these or similar cases, the certain portion of the certain body is itself a body determinate.
A determinate body of persons is capable of corporate conduct, or is capable, as a body, of positive or negative deportment. Whether it consists of persons determined by specific characters, or of persons determined or defined by a character or characters generic, every person who belongs to it is determined and may be indicated. In the first case, every person who belongs to it may be indicated by his specific character. In the second case, every person who belongs to it is also knowable: for every person who answers to the given generic description, or who answers to any of the given generic descriptions, is therefore a member of the body. Consequently, the entire body, or any proportion of its members, is capable, as a body, of positive or negative deportment: as, for example, of meeting at determinate times and places; of issuing expressly or tacitly a law or other command; of choosing and deputing representatives to perform its intentions or wishes; of receiving obedience from others, of from any of its own members.
But an indeterminate body is incapable of corporate conduct, or is incapable, as a body, of positive or negative deportment. An indeterminate body is incapable of corporate conduct, inasmuch as the several persons of whom it consists cannot be known and indicated completely and correctly. In case a portion of its members act or forbear in concert, that given portion of its members is, by that very concert, a determinate or certain body. For example, a law set or imposed by the general opinion of barristers condemns the sordid practice of hugging or caressing attorneys. And as those whose opinion or sentiment sets the so called law are an indeterminate part of the determinate body of barristers, they form a body uncertain and incapable of corporate conduct. But in case a number or portion of that uncertain body assembled and passed a resolution to check the practice of hugging, that number or portion of that uncertain body would be, by the very act, a certain body or aggregate. It would form a determinate body consisting of the determined individuals who assembled and passed the resolution. Aiaw imposed by general opinion may be the cause of a law in the proper.acceptation of the term. But the law properly so called, which is the consequent or effect, utterly differs from the so called law which is the antecedent or cause. The one is an opinion or, sentiment of an uncertain body of persons; of a body essentially incapable of joint or, corporate conduct. The other is set or established by the positives negative deportment of a certain individual or aggregate.
For the purpose of rendering my exposition as little intricate as possible, I have supposed that a body of persons, forming a body determinate, either consists of persons determined by specific characters, or of persons determined or defined by a generic description or descriptions. But a body of persons, forming a body determinate may consist of persons determined by specific or appropriate characters, and also of persons determined by a character or characters generic. Let us suppose, for example, that the individual Oliver, Cromwell was sovereign or supreme in England: or that the individual Cromwell, and the individuals Ireton and Fleetwood, formed a triumvirate,which was sovereign in that country. Let us suppose, moreover, that Cromwell, or the triumvirs, convened ahouseof commons elected in the ancient manner: and that Cromwell, or the triumvirs, yielded a part in the sovereignty to this representative body. Now the sovereign or supreme body formed by Cromwell and the house, or the sovereign and supreme body formed by the triumvirs and the house, would have consisted of a person orpersons determined: or defined specifically, and of persons determined or defined by a generic character or description. The members of the house of commons would have been members of the sovereign body, as answering the generic description representatives of the commons in parliament. But it is as being the very individual Cromwell, or as being the very individuals Cromwell, Ireton, and Fleetwood, that he or they would have formed ajimb of the sovereign or supreme body. It is not as answering to a given generic description, or as acquiring a part in the sovereignty by a given generic mode, that he or they would have shared the sovereignty with the body representing the people. A body of persons, forming abody determinate, may also consistofpersohs determined or defined specifically, and determined or defined moreover by a character or characters generic. A select committee of a body representing a people or nation consists of individual persons named or appointed specifically to sit on that given committee. But those specific individuals could not be members of the committee unless they answered the generic description representative of the people or nation.
It follows from the exposition .immediately preceding that the ones or the number which is sovereign in an independent political society is a determinate individual person or a determinate body of.persons. If the sovereign one or number were not determinate or certain, it could not command expressly or tacitly, and could not be an object of obedience to the subject members of the community. Inasmuch as this principle is amply explained by the exposition immediately preceding, I shall refer to it in my sixth lecture, as to a principle sufficiently known. The intricate and difficult analysis which I shall place in mat discourse will thus be somewhat facilitated, and not inconsiderably abridged.
As closely connected with the matter of the exposition immediately preceding, the following remark concerning supreme government may be put commodiously in.the present place. In order that a supreme government may possess much stability, and that the society wherein it is supreme may enjoy much tranquillity, the persons who take the sovereignty, in the way of succession must take or acquire by a given generic mode, or by given generic modes. Or (changing the expression) they must take by reason of their answering to a given generic description, or by reason, of their respectively answering to given generic descriptions. For example, the Roman Emperors or Princes (who were virtually monarchs or autocrators) did not succeed to the sovereignty of the Roman Empire or World by a given generic title: by a mode of acquisition given or preordained, and susceptible of generic description. It was neither as lineal descendant of Julius Caesar or Augustus, nor by the testament or other disposition of the last possessor of the throne, nor by the appointment or nomination of the Roman people or senate,.nor by the election of a determinate body formed of the military class, nor by any mode of acquisition generic and preordained, that every successive Emperor, or every successive Prince, acquired the Virtual sovereignty of the Roman Empire or World. Every, successive Emperor acquired by a mode of acquisition which ,was purely anomalous or accidental: which had not been predetermined by any law or custom or by any positive law or rule of positive morality. Every actual occupant of the Imperial office or dignity (whatever may have been the manner wherein he had gotten possession) was obeyed, for the time, by the bulk of theamilitary class; was acknowledged, of course, by the impotent, and trembling senate; arid received submission, of course, from the inert and helpless mass which inhabited the city and provinces. By reason of this irregularity in the succession to the virtual sovereignty, the demise of an Emperor was not uncommonly followed by a shorter or longer dissolution of the general supreme government. Since no one could claim to succeed by a given generic title, or as answering for the time, being to a given generic description, a contest for the prostrate sovereignty almost inevitably arose between the more influential of the actual military chiefs. And till one of the military' candidates had vanquished and crushed his rivals, and hadforced with an armed hand his way to the, vacant throne, the generality or bulk of the inhabitants in the Roman Empire or World, could hardly render obedience to one and the same superior. By reason also of this irregularity in the succession to the Imperial office, the general and habitual obedience to an actual occupant of the office was always extremely precarious. For, since he was not occupant by a given generic title, or by reason of his having answered to a given generic description, the title of any rebel, who might anyhow eject him, would not have been less legitimate or less constitutional than his own. Or (speaking with greaterprecision) there was no mode of acquiring the office which could be styled legitimate, or which could be styled constitutional: which was susceptible of generic description, and which had been predetermined by positive law or morality. There was not, in the Roman World, any determinate person whom positive law or morality had pointed out to its inhabitants as the exclusively appropriate object of general and habitual obedience. The reasoning which applies in the case of a monarchy will also apply, with few variations, in the case of a government by a number. Unless the members of the supreme body held their respective stations by titles generic and fixed, the given supreme government must be extremely unstable, and the given society wherein it is supreme must often be torn by contests for the possession of shares in the sovereignty.
Laws set by general opinion, or opinions or sentiments of indeterminate bodies, are the only opinions or sentiments that have gotten the name of laws. But an opinion or sentiment held or felt by an individual, or by all the members or a certain aggregate, may be as closely analogous to a law proper as the opinion or sentiment of an indeterminate body
Before I close my analysis of those laws improperly so called which are closely analogous to laws in the proper acceptation of the term, I must advert to a seeming caprice of current or established language.
A law set or imposed by general opinion is an opinion or sentiment, regarding conduct of a kind, which is held or felt by an indeterminate body: that is to say, an indeterminate portion of a certain or uncertain aggregate.
Now a like opinion or sentiment held or felt by an individual, or held or felt universally by the members of a body determinate, may be as closely analogous to a law proper as a so-called law. set by general opinion. It may bear an analogy to a law in the proper acceptation of the term, exactly or nearly resembling the analogy to a law proper which is bome by an opinion or sentiment of an indeterminate body. An opinion, for example, of a patron, in regard to conduct of a kind, may be a law or rule to his own dependent or dependants, just as a like opinion of an indeterminate body is a law or rule to all who might suffer by provoking its displeasure. And whether a like opinion be held by an uncertain aggregate, or be held by every member of a precisely determined body, its analogy to a law proper is exactly or nearly the same.
But when we speak of a law set or imposed by opinion, we always or commonly mean (I rather incline to believe) a law set or imposed by general opinion: that is to say, an opinion or sentiment, regarding conduct of a kind, which is held or felt by an uncertain body or class. The term law, or law set by opinion, is never or rarely applied to a like opinion or sentiment of a precisely determined party: that is to say, a like opinion or sentiment held or felt by an individual, or held or felt universally by the members of a certain aggregate.
This seeming caprice of current or established language probably arose from the following causes.
An opinion, regarding conduct, which is held by an individual person, or which is held universally by a small determinate body, is commonly followed by consequences of comparatively trilling importance. The circle of the persons to whom its influence reaches, or whose desires or conduct it affects or determines, is rarely extensive. The analogy which such opinions bear to laws proper has, therefore, attracted little attention and has, therefore, not gotten them the name of laws. An opinion held universally by a large determinate body is not less largely influential, or is more largely influential, than an opinion of an uncertain portion of the same certain aggregate. But since the determinate body is large or numerous, an opinion held by all its members can hardly be distinguished from an opinion held by most of its members. An opinion held universally by the members of the body determinate is, therefore, equivalent in practice to a general opinion of the body and is, therefore, classed with the laws which generate opinion imposes.
Deferring to this seeming caprice of current or established language, I have forborne from ranking sentiments of precisely determined parties with the laws improperly so called which are closely analogous to the proper. I have restricted that description to sentiments, regarding conduct, of uncertain bodies or classes. My foregoing analysis or exposition of laws of that description is therefore, an analysis of laws set by general opinion.
If the description ought to embrace (as, I think, it certainly ought) opinions, regarding conduct, of precisely determined parties, my foregoing analysis or exposition will still be correct substantially. With a few slight and obvious changes, my foregoing analysis of a law set by general opinion will serve as an analysis of a law set by any opinion: of a law set by the opinion of an indeterminate body, and of a law set by the opinion of a precisely determined party.
For the character or. essential difference of a law imposed by opinion is this: that the law is not a command, issued expressly or tacitly, but is merely an opinion or sentiment, relating to conduct of a kind, which is held or felt by an uncertain body, or by a determinate party. A wish that conduct of the kind shall be pursued or forborne is not signified expressly or tacitly, by that uncertain body, or that determinate party: nor does that body or party intend to inflict an evil upon any whose conduct may deviate from the given opinion or sentiment. The opinion or sentiment is merely an opinion or sentiment, although it subjects a transgressor to the chance of a consequent evil, and may even lead to a command regarding conduct of the kind.
Between the opinion or sentiment of the indeterminate body, and, the opinion or sentiment of the precisely determined party, there is merely the following difference: the precisely determined party is capable of issuing a command in pursuance of the opinion or sentiment. But the uncertain body is not. For, being essentially incapable of joint or corporate conduct, it cannot, as a body, signify a wish or desire, and cannot, as a body, hold an intention or purpose.
The foregoing distribution of laws proper, and of such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper, briefly recapitulated
It appears from the expositions in the preceding portion of my discourse that laws properly so called, with such improper laws as are closely analogous:, to the proper, are of three capital classes:
The law of God, or the laws of God.
Positive law, or positive laws.
Positive morality, rules of positive morality, or positive moral rules.
It also appears from the same expositions, that positive moral rules are of two species:
1. Those positive moral rules which are express or tacit commands, and which are therefore laws in the proper acceptation of the term.
2. Those laws improperly so called (but closely analogous to laws in the proper acceptation of the term) which are set by general opinion; or are set by opinion: which are set by opinions of uncertain bodies; or by opinions of uncertain bodies, and opinions of determinate parties.
The sanctions, proper and improper, by which those laws are respectively enforced; the duties, proper and improper, which those laws respectively impose; and the rights, proper and improper, which those laws respectively confer. The sanctions annexed to the laws of God may be styled religious. The sanctions annexed to positive laws may be styled, emphatically, legal: for the laws to which they are annexed are styled, simply and emphatically, laws or law. Or, as every positive law supposes a civitas, or supposes a society political and independent, the epithet political may be applied to the sanctions by which such laws are enforced. Of the sanctions which enforce compliance with positive moral rules, some are sanctions properly so called, and others are styled sanctionsby an analogical extension of the term: that is to say, some are annexed to rules which are laws imperative and proper, and others enforce the rules which are laws set by opinion. Since rules of either species may be styled positive morality, the sanctions which enforce compliance with rules of either species may be styled moral sanctions. Or (changing the expression) we may say of rules of either species that they are sanctioned or enforced morally.
The duties imposed by the laws of God may be styled religious. The duties imposed by positive laws may be styled, emphatically, legal, or, like the laws by which they are imposed, they may be said to be sanctioned legally. Of the duties imposed by positive moral rules, some are duties properly so called, and others are styled duties by an analogical extension of the term: that is to say, some are creatures of rules which are laws imperative and proper, and others are creatures of the rules which are laws set by opinion. Like the sanctions proper and improper by which they are respectively enforced, these duties proper and improper may be styled moral. Or we may say of the duties, as of the rules of which they are imposed that they are sanctioned or enforced morally.
Every right supposes a duty incumbent on a party orparties other than the party entitled. Through the imposition of that corresponding duty, the right was conferred. Through the continuance of that corresponding duty, the right continues to exist. If that corresponding duty be the creature of a law imperative, the right is a right properly so called. If that corresponding duty be the creature of a law improper, the right is styled a right by ah analogical extension of the term. Consequently, a right existing through a duty imposed by the law of God, or a right existing through a duty imposed by positive law, is a right properly so called. Where the duty is the creature of a positive moral rule, the nature of the corresponding right depends upon the nature of the rule. If the rule imposing the duty be a law imperative and proper, the right is a right properly so called. If the rule imposing the duty be a law set by opinion, the right is styled a right through an analogical extension of the term. Rights conferred by the law of God, of rights existing through duties imposed by the law of God, may be styled Divine. Rights conferred by positive law, or rights existing through duties imposed by positive law, may be styled, emphatically, legal. Or it may be said of rights conferred by positive law, that they are sanctioned or protected legally. The rights proper and improper which are conferred by positive morality may be styled moral. Or it may be said of rights conferred by positive morality that they are sanctioned or protected morally.
The law of God, positive law, arid positive morality sometimes coincide, sometimes do not coincide, and sometimes conflict
The body or aggregate of laws which may be styled the law of God, the body or aggregate of laws which may be styled positive law, and the body or aggregate of laws which may be styled positive morality, sometimes coincide, sometimes do not coincide, and sometimes conflict.
One of these bodies of laws coincides with another when acts, which are enjoined or forbidden by the former, are also enjoined or are also forbidden by the latter. For example, the killing which is styled murder is forbidden by the positive law of every political society: it is also forbidden by a so called law which the general opinion of the society has set or imposed: it is also forbidden by the law of God as known through the principle of utility. The murderer commits a crime, or he violates a positive law: he commits a conventional immorality, or he violates a so called law which general opinion has established; he commits a sin, or he violates the law of God. He is obnoxious to punishment, or other evil, to be inflicted by sovereign authority: he is obnoxious to the hate and the spontaneous ill-offices of the generality or bulk of the society: he is obnoxious to evil or pain to be suffered here or hereafter by the immediate appointment of the Deity.
One of these bodies of laws does not coincide with another when acts, which are enjoined or forbidden by the former, are not enjoined or are not forbidden by the latter. For example, though smuggling is forbidden by positive law, and (speaking generally) is not less pernicious than theft, it is not forbidden by the opinions or sentiments of the ignorant or unreflecting. Where the impost or tax is itself of pernicious tendency, smuggling is hardly forbidden by the opinions or sentiments of any: and it is therefore practised by any without the slightest shame, or without the slightest fear of incurring general censure. Such, for instance, is the case where the impost or tax is laid upon the foreign commodity, not for the useful' purpose of raising a public revenue, but for the absurd and mischievous purpose of protecting a domestic manufacture. Offences against the game laws are also in point: for they are not offences against positive morality, although they are forbidden by positive law. A gentleman is not dishonoured, or generally shunned by gentlemen, though he shoots without a qualification. A peasant who wires a hare escapes the censure of peasants, though the squires, as doing justiceship, send him to the prison and the treadmill.
One of these bodies of laws conflicts with another when acts, which are enjoined or forbidden by the former, are forbidden or enjoined by the latter. For example, in most of the nations of modern Europe the practice of duelling is forbidden by positive law. It is also at variance with the law which is received in most of those nations as having been set by the Deity in the way of express revelation. But in spite of positive law, and in spite of his religious convictions, a man of the class of gentlemen may be forced by the law of honour to give or to take a challenge. If he forebore from giving, or if he declined a challenge, he might incur the general contempt of gentlemen or men of honour; and might meet with slights and insults sufficient to embitter his existence. The negative legal duty which certainly, is incumbent upon him, and the negative religious duty to which he believes himself subject, are therefore mastered and controlled by that positive moral duty which arises from the so called law set by the opinion of his class.
The simple and obvious considerations to which I have now adverted are often overlooked by legislators. If they fancy a practice pernicious, or hate it they know not why, they proceed, without further thought, to forbid it by positive law. They forget that positive law may be superfluous or impotent, and therefore may lead to nothing but purely gratuitous vexation. They forget that the moral or the religious sentiments of the community may already suppress the practice as completely as it can be suppressed, or that, if the practice is favoured by those moral or religious sentiments, the strongest possible fear which legal pains can inspire may be mastered by a stronger, fear of other and conflicting sanctions.
In consequence of the frequent coincidence of positive law and morality, and of positive law and the law of God, the true nature and fountain of positive law is often absurdly mistaken by writers upon jurisprudence. Where positive law has been fashioned on positive morality, or where positive law has been fashioned on the law of God, they forget that the copy is the creature of the sovereign, and impute it to the author of the model.
For example: customary laws are positive laws fashioned by judicial legislation upon pre-existing customs. Now, till they become the grounds of judicial decisions upon cases and are clothed with legal sanctions by the sovereign one or number, the customs are merely rules set by opinions of the governed, and sanctioned or enforced morally. Though, when they become the reasons of judicial decisions upon cases, and are clothed with legal sanctions by the sovereign one or number, the customs are rules of positive law as well as of positive morality. But, because the customs were observed by the governed before they were clothed with sanctions by the sovereign one or number, it is fancied that customary laws exist as positive laws by the institution of the private persons with whom the customs originated. Admitting the conceit, and reasoning by analogy, we ought to consider the sovereign the author of the positive morality which is often a consequence of positive law. Where a positive law, not fashioned on a custom, is favourably received by the governed, and enforced by their opinions or sentiments, we must deem the so called law, set by those opinions or sentiments, a law imperative and proper of the supreme political superior.
Again: the portion of positive law which is parcel of the taw of nature (or, in the language of the classical jurists, which is parcel of the jus gentium) is often supposed to emanate, even as positive law from a Divine or Natural source. But (admitting the distinction of positive law into law natural and law positive) it is manifest that law natural, considered as a portion of positive, is the creature of human sovereigns, and not of the'Divine monarch. To say that it emanates, as positive law, from a Divine or Natural source is to confound positive law with law whereon it is fashioned, or with law whereunto it conforms.
The foregoing distribution of laws proper, and of such improper laws as are closely analogous to the proper, tallies, in the main, with a division of laws which is given incidentally by Locke in his Essay on Human Understanding. And since this division of laws, or of the sources of duties or obligations, is recommended by the great authority which the writer has justly acquired, I gladly append it to my own division or analysis. The passage of his essay in which the division occurs is part of an inquiry into the nature,of relation, and is therefore concerned indirectly with the nature and kinds of law. With the exclusion of all that is foreign to the nature and kinds of law, with the exclusion of a few expressions which are obviously redundant, and with the correction of a few expressions which are somewhat obscure, the passage containing the divisions may be rendered iri the words following.
The conformity or disagreement men's voluntary actions have to a rule to which they are referred, and by which they are judged of, is a sort of relation which may be called moral relation.
Human actions, when with their various ends; objects, manners, and circumstances, they are framed into distinct complex ideas, are, as has been shown, so many mixed modes, a great part whereof have names annexed to them. Thus, supposing gratitude to be a readiness to acknowledge and return kindness received; or polygamy to be the having more wives than one at once, when we frame those notions thus in our minds, we have there so many determined ideas of mixed modes.
But this is not all that concerns our actions. It is not enough to have determined ideas of them, and to know what names belong to such and such combinations of ideas. We have a further and greater concernment. And that is to know whether such actions are morally good or bad. Good or evil is nothing but pleasure or pain, or that which occasions or procures pleasureior pahvto us. Moral good or evil, then, is only the conformity or disagreement of our,voluntary actions to some law, whereby good or evil is drawn on us by.the will and power of the law-maker: which good or evil; pleasure or pain, attending our observance or breach of the law, by the decree of the law-maker, is that we call reward or punishment. Of these moral rules or laws, to which men generally refer, and by which they judge of the rectitude or depravity of their actions, there seem to me to be three sorts, with their three different enforcements, of rewards and punishments. For since it would be utterly in vain to suppose a rule set to the free actions of man, without annexing toit some enforcement of good and evil to determine his will, we must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also some reward or punishment annexed to'that law. It would be in vain for one intelligent being to set a rule to the actions of another, if he had it not in his power to reward the compliance with, and punish deviation from his rule; by some good and evil that is not the. natural product and consequence,of the action itself: for that being a natural convenience or inconvenience, would operate of itself without a law. This, if I mistake not, js the true nature of all law properly so called. The laws that men generally refer their actions to, to judge of their rectitude or obliquity, seem to me to be these three:
The Divine law.
The civil law.
The law,of opinion or reputation, if I may so call it.
By the relation they bear to the first of these, men judge whether their actions are sins or duties: by the second, whether they be criminal or innocent: and by the third, whether they, be virtues or vices.
By the Divine law, I mean that law which God hath set to the actions of men, whether promulgated to them by the light of nature; or the voice of revelation. This is the only true touchstone of moral rectitude. And by comparing them to this law it is that men judge of the most considerable moral good or evil of their actions: that is, whether as duties or sins, they are like to procure them happiness or misery from the hands of the Almighty.
The civil law, the rule set by the commonwealth, to the actions of those who belong to it, is a rule to which men refer their actions, to judge whether they be criminal or no. This law nobody overlooks, the rewards and punishments that enforce it being ready at hand; and suitable to the power that makes it: which is the force of the commonwealth engaged to protect the lives, liberties and possessions of those who live according to its law, and has power to take away life, liberty or goods from him who disobeys.
The law of opinion or reputation is another law that men generally refer their actions to; to judge of their rectitude or obliquity.
Virtue and vice are names pretended, and supposed everywhere to stand for actions in their own nature fight or wrong: and as far as they really are so applied, they so far are coincident with the Divine law above mentioned. But yet, whatever is pretended, this is visible, that these names virtue and vice, in the particular instances of their application through the several nations and societies of men in the world; are constantly attributed to such actions only as in each country and society are in reputation or discredit. Nor is it to be thought strange, that men everywhere should give the name of virtue to those actions which amongst them are judged praiseworthy, and call that vice which they account blameable; since they would condemn themselves, if they should think anything right, to which they allowed not commendation, or anything wrong, which they let pass without blame.
Thus the measure of what is everywhere called and esteemed virtue and vice, is this approbation or dislike, praise or blame, which by a secret and tacit consent establishes itself in the several societies, tribes, and clubs of men in the world whereby several actions come to find credit or disgrace amongst them, according to the judgment, maxims, or fashions of that place. For though men uniting into politick societies have resigned up to the publick the disposing of all their force, so that they cannot employ it against any fellow citizens any further than the law of the country directs, yet they retain still the power of thinking well or ill, approving or disapproving of the actions of those whom they live amongst and converse with and by this approbation and dislike, they establish amongst themselves what they will call virtue and vice.
That this is the common measure of virtue and vice will appear to any one who considers, that, though that passes for vice in one country, which is counted virtue (or, at least, not vice) in another, yet everywhere virtue and praise, vice and blame go together. Virtue is everywhere that which is thought praiseworthy and nothing but that which has the allowance of public esteem is called virtue. Virtue and praise are so united, that they are often called by the same name. 'Sunt sua pracemia laudi, says Virgil. And, says Cicero, 'nihil habet natura prasstantius, quam honestatem, quam laudem, quam dignitatem, quam decus', all which, he tells you, are names for the same thing. Such is the language of the heathen philosophers, who well understood wherein the notions of virtue and vice consisted.
But though, by the different temper, education, fashion, maxims, or interest of different sorts of men, it fell out, that what was thought praiseworthy in one place, escaped not censure in another, and so in different societies virtues and vices were changed, yet, as to the main, they for the most part kept the same everywhere. For since nothing can be more natural than to encourage with esteem and reputation that wherein everyone finds his advantage, and to blame and discountenance the contrary, it is no wonder that esteem and discredit, virtue and vice, should in a great measure everywhere correspond with the unchangeable rule of right and wrong which the law of God hath established, there being nothing that so directly and visibly secures arid advances the general good of mankind in this world as obedience, to the law He has set them, and nothing that breeds such mischiefs and confusion as the neglect of it. And therefore men, without renouncing all sense and reason, and their own interest, could not generally mistake in placing their commendation or blame on that side which really deserved it not. Nay, even those men, whose practice was otherwise, failed not to give their approbation right: few being depraved to that degree, as not to condemn, at least in others, the faults they themselves were guilty of. Whereby, even in the corruption of manners, the law of God, which ought to be the rule of virtue and vice, was pretty well observed.
If any one shall imagine that I have forgotten my own notion of a law, when I make the law, whereby men judge of virtue and vice, to be nothing but the consent of private men who have not authority to make a law; especially wanting that which is so necessary and essential to a law, a power to enforce it: I think, I may say, that he who imagines commendation and disgrace not to be strong motives on men to accommodate themselves to the opinions and rules of those with whom they converse, seems little skilled in the nature or history of mankind, the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern themselves chiefly, if not solely, by this law of fashion, and so : they do that which keeps them in reputation with their company, little regard the law of God or the magistrate. The penalties that attend the breach of God's law, some, nay, perhaps most men seldom seriously reflect on; and amongst those that do, many, whilst they break the law, entertain thoughts of future reconciliation, and making their peace for such breaches. And as to the punishments due from the law of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter themselves with the hope of impunity. But no man escapes the punishment of their censure and dislike, who offends against the fashion and opinion of the company he keeps, arid would recommend himself to. Nor is there one often thousand, who is stiff and insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club. He must be of a strange and unusual constitution, who can content himself to live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular society. Solitude many men have sought and been reconciled to: but nobody that has the least thought or sense of a man about him, can live in society under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars, and those he converses with. This is a burthen too heavy for human sufferance: and he must be made up of irreconcilable contradictions, who can take pleasure in company, and yet be
124 The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
insensible of contempt and disgrace from his companions.
The law of God; the law of politick societies, and the law of fashion or private censure, are, then, the three rules to which "men variously compare their actions. And it is from their conformity or disagreement to one of these rules, that they judge of their rectitude or obliquity, and name them good or bad.
Whether we take the rule, ■ to which, as to a touchstone, we bring our voluntary actions, from the fashion of the country; or from the will of a law-maker, the mind is easily able to observe the relation any action hath to it, and to judge whether the action agrees or disagrees with the rule. And thus the mind hath a notion- of moral goodness or evil: which is either conformity or not conformity of any action to that rule. If I find an action to agree or, disagree with the esteem of the country I have been bred in, and to be held by most men there worthy of praise or blame,J call the action virtuous or vicious. If I have thewill of a supreme invisible law-maker for my rule, then, as I suppose the action commanded or forbidden by God, I Tr_ call it good or evil, duty or sin. And if I compare it to the civil law, the rule made by the,legislative power of.tne country, I call it-lawful or unlawful, no crime or a crime. So that whencesoever we take the rule of actions, or by what standard soever we frame in our minds the ideas of virtues or vices, their rectitude or obliquity consists in their agreement or disagreement with the patterns prescribed by some law.
Before I quit this argument, I would observe that, in the relations which I call moral relations, I have a true notion of relation, by comparing the action with the rule, whether the rule be true or false. For if I measure any thing by a supposed yard, I know whether the thing I measure be longer or shorter than that supposed yard, though the yard I measure by be not exactly . the standard. Measuring an action by a wrong rule, I shall judge amiss of its moral rectitude: but I shall not mistake the relation which the action bears to the rule whereunto I compare it..
Essay concerning Human .Understanding. Book II; Chap. XXVIII.
Laws metaphorical or figurative. The common and negative nature of laws of the class
The analogy bome to a law proper by a law which opinion imposes, lies mainly in the following point of resemblance. In the case of a law set by opinion, as well as in the case of a law properly so called, a rational being or beings are obnoxious "to contingent evil, in the event of their not complying with a known or presumed desire of another being or beings of a like nature. If, in either, of the^two cases,
Lecture V 125
the contingent evil is suffered, it is suffered by a rational being, through a rational being: and it is suffered by a rational being, through a rational being, in consequence of the suffering party having disregarded a desire of a rational being or beings. The analogy, therefore, by which the laws are related mainly lies in the resemblance of the improper sanction and duty to the sanction and duty properly so called. The contingent evil in prospect which enforces the law improper, and the present obnoxiousness to that contingent evil, may be likened to the genuine sanction which enforces the law proper, and the genuine duty or obligation which the law proper imposes. The analogy between a law in the proper acceptation of the term, and a law improperly so called which opinion sets or imposes, is, therefore, strong or close. The defect which excludes the latter from the rank of a law proper merely consists in this: that the wish or desire of its authors has not been duly signified, and that they have no formed intention of inflicting evil or pain upon those who may break or transgress it.
But, beside the laws improper which are set or imposed by opinion, there are laws improperly so called which are related to laws proper by slender or remote analogies. And, since they have gotten the name of laws from their slender or remote analogies to,laws properly so called, I style them laws metaphorical, or laws merely metaphorical.
The metaphorical applications of the term law are numerous and different. The analogies by which they are suggested, or by which metaphorical laws are related to laws proper, will, therefore, hardly admit of a common and positive description. But laws metaphorical, though'numerous and different, have the following common and. negative nature. No property or character of any metaphorical law can be likened to a sanction or a duty. Consequently, every metaphorical law wants that point of resemblance which mainly constitutes the analogy between a law proper and a law set by opinion.
The common and negative nature of laws metaphorical or figurative, shown by
To show that figurative laws want that point "of resemblance, .and are therefore
remotely analogous to laws' properly so called, I will touch slightly and briefly
upon a few of the numberless cases in which the term law is extended and applied
by a metaphor.
The most frequent and remarkable of those metaphorical applications is suggested by that uniformity, or that stability of conduct, which is one of the ordinary consequences of a" law proper. By reason of the sanction working on their wills or desires, the parties obliged by a law proper commonly adjust their conduct to the pattern which the law prescribes. Consequently,.wherever we observe a uniform order of events, or a uniform order of coexisting phenomena,
126 The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
we are prone to impute that order to a law set by its author, though the case presents us with nothing that can be likened to a sanction or a duty.
For example: we say that the movements of lifeless bodies are determined by certain laws: though, since the bodies are lifeless and have no desires or aversions, they cannot be touched by aught which in the least resembles a sanction, and cannot be subject to aught which in the least resembles an obligation. We mean that they move in certain uniform modes, and that they move in those uniform modes through the pleasure and appointment of God: just as parties obliged behave in a uniform manner through the pleasure and appointment of the party who imposes the law and the duty. Again: we say that certain actions of the lower and irrational animals are determined by certain laws: though, since they cannot understand the purpose and provisions of a law, it is impossible that sanctions should effectually move them to obedience, or that their conduct should be guided by a regard to duties or obligations. We mean that they act in certain uniform modes, either in consequence of instincts (or causes which we cannot explain), or else in consequence of hints which they catch from experience and observation:and that, since their uniformity,pf action is an effect of the Divine pleasure, it closely resembles the uniformity of conduct which is wrought by the authors of laws in those who are obnoxious to the sanctions.6 In short, whenever we talk of laws governing the irrational world, the metaphorical application of the term law is suggested by this double analogy:
The successive and synchronous phasnomena composing the irrational world, happen and exist, for the most part, in uniform series: which uniformity of succession and coexistence resembles the uniformity of conduct produced by an imperative law.
That uniformity of succession and coexistence, like the uniformity of conduct produced by an imperative law, springs from the will and intention of an intelligent and rational author.
When an atheist speaks of laws governing the irrational world, the metaphorical application^ suggested by an'analogy still more slender and remote than that which I have now analysed. He means that the uniformity of succession and coexistence resembles the uniformity of conduct produced by an imperative rule. If, to draw the analogy closer, he ascribes those laws to an author, he personifies a verbal abstraction, and makes it play the legislator. He attributes the uniformity of succession and coexistence to Jaws set by nature: meaning, by nature, the world itself; or, perhaps, that very uniformity which he imputes to nature's commands.
Many metaphorical applications of the term law or rule are suggested by the analogy following. An imperative law or rule guides the conduct of the obliged,
Lecture V 127
or is a norma, model, or pattern, to which their conduct conforms. A proposed guide of human conduct, or a model or pattern offered to human imitation, is, therefore, frequently styled a law or rule of conduct, although there be not in the case a shadow of.a sanction or a duty.
For example: to every law properly so called there are two distinct parties: a party by whom it is established, and a party to whom it is set. But, this notwithstanding, we often speak of a law set by a man to himself: meaning that he intends to pursue some given course of conduct as exactly as he would pursue it if he were bound to pursue it by a law. An intention of pursuing exactly some given course of conduct is the only law or rule which a man can set to himself. The binding virtue of a law lies in the sanction annexed to it. But in the case of a so called law set by a man to himself, he is not constrained to observe it by aught that resembles a sanction. For though he may fairly purpose to inflict a pain on himself, if his conduct shall depart from the guide which he intends it shall follow, the infliction of the conditional pain depends upon his own will. Again: when we talk of rules of art, the metaphorical application of the term rules is suggested by the analogy in question. By a rule of art, we mean a prescription or pattern which is offered to practitioners of an art, and which they are advised to observe when performing some given process. There is not the semblance of a sanction, nor is there the shadow of a duty. But the offered prescription or pattern may guide the conduct of practitioners, as a rule imperative and proper guides the conduct of the obliged.7
Laws metaphorical and figurative are often blended and confounded with laws imperative and proper
The preceding disquisition on figurative laws is not so superfluous as some of my hearers may deem it. Figurative laws are not unfrequently mistaken for laws imperative and proper. Nay, attempts have actually been made, and by writers of the highest celebrity, to explain and illustrate the nature of laws imperative and proper by allusions to so called laws which are merely such through a metaphor. Of these most gross and scarcely credible errors, various cases will be mentioned in future stages of my Course. For the present, the following examples will amply demonstrate that the errors are not impossible.
In an excerpt torn Ulpian placed at the beginning of the Pandects, and also inserted by Justinian in the second title of his Institutes, a fanciedyus naturale, common to all animals, is thus distinguished from the jus naturale or gentium to which I have adverted above.
Jus naturale est, quod natura omnia animalia docuit: nam jus istud non humani generis proprium, sed omnium animalium, qua; in terra, qua? in mari
128 The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
nascuntur, avium quoque commune est. Hinc descendit maris atque feminas conjunctio, quam nos matrimonium appellanus; hinc liberorum procreatio, hinc educatio: videmus etenim cetera quoque animalia, feras etiam, istius juris peritia censeri. Jus gentium est, quo gentes humana; utuntuf. Quod a naturali recedere, inde facile intelligere licet; quia illud omnibus animal ibus, hoc solis hominibus inter se commune est.
The jus naturale which Ulpian here describes, and which he here^ distinguishes from the jusnaturale or gentium, is a name for the instincts of animals. More especially, it denotes that instinctive appetite which leads them to propagate their kinds, with that instinctive sympathy which inclines parent animals to nourish and educate their young. Now the instincts of animals are related to laws by the slender or remote analogy which I have already endeavoured to explain. They incline the animals to act in certain uniform modes, and they are given to the animals for that-purpose by an intelligent and rational Author. But these metaphorical laws which govern the lower animals, and which govern (though less despotically) the human species itself, should not have been blended and confounded, by a grave writer upon jurisprudence, with laws properly so called. It is true that the instincts of the animal man, like many of his affections which are not instinctive, are amongst the causes of laws in the proper acceptation of the term. More especially, the laws regarding the relation of husband and wife, and the laws regarding the relation of parent and child, are mainly caused by the instincts which Ulpian particularly points at. And that, it is likely, was the reason which determined this legal oracle to class the instincts of animals with laws imperative and proper. But nothing can be more absurd than the ranking with laws themselves the causes which lead to their existence. And if human instincts are laws because they are causes of laws, there is~scarcely a faculty or affection belonging to the human mind, and scarcely a class of objects presented by the outward world, that must'not be esteemed a law and an appropriate subject of jurisprudence. I must, however, remark, that the jus qubdnatura omnia animalia docuit is a conceit peculiar to Ulpian: and that diis most foolish conceit, though inserted in Justinian's compilations, has no perceptible influence oh the detail of the Roman law. The jus naturale of the classical jurists generally, and they'us naturale occurring generally in the Pandects, is equivalent to the natural law of modern writers upon jurisprudence, and is synonymous with the jus gentium, or the jus naturale et gentium,.vfhich I have tried to explain concisely at the end of a preceding note. It means those positive laws and those rules of positive morality which are not peculiar or appropriate to any nation'or age; but obtain, or are thought to obtain, in all nations and ages: and which, by reason of their obtaining in all nations and ages, are supposed to be formed or fashioned on the law of God or Nature as known by the moral sense.
Lecture V 129
Omnes populi :[says Gaius] qui legibus et moribus reguntur, partim suo proprio, partim communi omnium hominumjjurevutuntur. Nam quod quisque populus ipse sibi jus constituit, id ipsius proprium est, vocaturque jus civile; quasi jus proprium ipsius civitatis. Quod vero naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id aput omnes populos perasque custoditur, vocaturque jus gentium; quasi quo jure omnes gentes uruntur.
The universal leges et mores here described by Gaius, and distinguished from the leges et mores peculiar to a particular nation, are styled indifferently, by most of the classical jurists,y«5 gentium, jus naturale, or jus naturale et gentium. And the law of nature, as thus understood, is not intrinsically absurd. For as some of the dictates of utility are always and everywhere the same, and are also so plain and glaring that they hardly admit of mistake, there are legal and moral rules which are nearly or quite universal, and the expediency of which must be seen by merely natural reason, or by reason without the lights of extensive experience and observation. The distinction of law and morality into natural and positive is a needless and: futile subtility:-but still the distinction is: founded oh a real and manifest difference. Thej'ws naturale or gentium would be liable to little objection if it were not supposed to be the offspring of a moral instinct or sense, or of innate practical principles. But, since it is closely allied (as I shall show hereafter8) to that misleading and pernicious jargon, it ought to be expelled, with the natural law of the modems, from the sciences of jurisprudence and morality. The/ollowing passage is the first sentence in Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws:
Les lois, dans la signification la plus etendue, sont les rapports necessaires qui derivent de la nature des choses: et dans* ce sens tous les etres ont leurs lois: la Divinile a ses lois; le monde materiel a ses lois; les intelligences super-ieures a l'homme ont leurs lois; les betes ont leurs lois; l'homme a ses lois.
Now objects widely different, though bearing a common name, are here blended and confounded. Of the laws which govern the conduct of intelligent and rational creatures, some are laws imperative and proper, and others are closely analogous to laws of that description; But the so called laws which govern the material world, with the so called laws which govern the lower animals, are merely laws by a metaphor. And the so called laws which govern or determine the Deity are clearly in the same predicament. If his actions were governed or determined by laws imperative and proper, he would be in a state of dependence on another arid superior being. When we say that the actions of the Deity are governed or determined by laws,Twe mean that they conform to intentions which the Deity himself, has conceived, and which he pursues or observes witK inflexible steadiness or constancy. To mix these figurative laws with laws imperative and
130 The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
proper is to obscure, and not to elucidate, the nature or essence of the latter. The beginning of the passage is worthy of the sequel. We are told that laws are the necessary relations which flow from the nature of things. But what, I would crave, are relations? What, I would also crave, is the nature of things? And how do the necessary relations which flow from the nature of things differ from those relations which originate in other sources? The terms of the definition are incomparably more obscure than the term which it affects to expound.
If you read the disquisition in Blackstone on the nature of laws in general, or the fustian description of law in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, you will find the same confusion of laws imperative and proper with laws which are merely such by a glaring perversion of the term. The cases of this confusion are, indeed, so numerous that they would All a considerable volume.
Physical or natural sanctions
From the confusion of laws metaphorical with laws imperative and proper, I turn to a mistake, somewhat similar, which, I presume to think, has been committed by Mr Bentham.
Sanctions proper and improper are of three capital classes: the sanctions properly so called which are annexed to the laws of God; the sanctions properly so called which are annexed to positive laws; the sanctions properly so called; and the sanctions closely analogous to sanctions properly so called, which respectively enforce compliance with positive moral rules. But to sanctions religious, legal, and moral, this great philosopher and jurist adds a class of sanctions which he styles physical or natural.
When he styles these sanctions physical, he does not intend to intimate that they are distinguished from other sanctions by the mode wherein they operate: he does not intend to intimate that these are the only .sanctions which affect the suffering parties through physical or material means. Any sanction of any class may reach the suffering party through means of that description. If a man were smitten with blindness by. the immediate appointment of the Deity, and in consequence of a sin he had committed against the Divine law, he would suffer a religious sanction through his physical or bodily organs.. The thief who is hanged or imprisoned by virtue of a judicial command suffers a legal sanction through physical or material means. If a man of the class of gentlemen violates the law of honour, and happens to be shot in a duel arising from his moral delinquency, he suffers a moral sanction in a physical or material form.
The meaning annexed by Mr Bentham to the expression 'physical sanction', may, I believe, be rendered in the following manner: a physical sanction is an evil brought upon the suffering party by an act or omission of his own. .But, though it is brought upon the sufferer by an act or omission of his own, it is not
Lecture V 131
brought upon the sufferer through any Divine law, or through any positive law, or rule of positive morality. For example: if your house be destroyed by fire through your neglecting to put out a light, you bring upon yourself, by your negligent omission, & physical or natural sanction: supposing, I mean, that your omission is not to be deemed a sin, and that the consequent destruction of your house is not to be deemed a punishment inflicted by the hand of the Deity. In short, though a physical sanction is an evil falling on a rational being, and brought on a rational being by an act or omission of his own, it is neither brought on the sufferer through a law imperative and proper, nor through an analogous law set or imposed by opinion. In case I borrowed the just, though tautological, language of Locke, I should describe a physical sanction in such some ■terms as the following: 'It is an evil naturally produced by the conduct whereon it is consequent: and, being naturally produced by the-conduct whereon it is consequent, it reaches the suffering party without the intervention of a law.''
Such physical or naturalevils are related by the following analogy to sanctions properly so called.
When they are actually suffered, they are suffered by rational beings through acts or omissions of their own.
Before they are actually suffered, or whilst they exist in prospect, they affect the wills or desires of the parties obnoxious to them as sanctions properly so called affect the wills of the obliged. The parties are urged to the acts which may avert the evils from their heads, or the parties are deterred from the acts which may bring the evils upon them.
But in spite of the specious analogy at which I have now^pointed, I dislike, for various reasons, the application of the term sanction to these physical or natural evils. Of those reasons I will briefly mention the following:
Although these evils are suffered by intelligent rational beings, and by intelligent rational beings through acts or omissions of their own, they are not suffered as consequences of their not complying with desires of intelligent rational beings. The acts or omissions whereon these evils are consequent can hardly be likened to breaches of duties, or to violations of imperative laws. The analogy borne by these evils to sanctions properly so called is nearly as remote as the analogy borne by laws metaphorical to laws imperative and proper.
By the term sanction, as it is now restricted, the evils enforcing compliance with laws imperative and proper, or with the closely analogous laws which opinion sets or imposes, are distinguished from other evils briefly and commodiously: If the term were commonly extended to these physical or
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natural evils, this advantage would be lost. The term would then comprehend every possible evil which a man may bring upon Himself by his own voluntary conduct. The term would then comprehend every contingent evil which can work on the will or desires as a motive to action or forbearance.
In strictness, declaratory law, laws repealing laws, and laws of imperfect obligation (in the sense of the Roman jurists), ought to be classed respectively with laws, metaphorical or figurative, and rules of positive morality
I close my disquisitions on figurative laws, and on those metaphorical sanctions which Mr Bentharri denominates physical? with the following connected remarks.
Declaratory laws, laws repealing laws, and laws of imperfect obligation (in the sense of the Roman jurists) are merely analogous to laws in the proper acceptation of the term. Like laws imperative and proper, declaratory laws, laws repealing laws, and Jaws of imperfect obligation (in the sense of the Roman jurists) are signs of pleasure or desire proceeding from law-makers. A law of imperfect obligation (in the sense of the Roman jurists) is also allied to an imperative law by the following point of resemblance. Like a law imperative and proper, it is offered as a norma, or guide of conduct, although it is not armed with a legal or political sanction.
Declaratory laws, and laws repealing laws, ought in strictness to be classed with laws metaphorical of figurative: for the analogy by which they are related to laws imperative and proper is extremely slender or remote. Laws of imperfect obligation (in the sense of the Roman jurists) are laws set'or imposed by the opinions of the law-makers, and ought in strictness to be classed with rules of positive morality. But though laws of these three species are merely analogous to laws in the proper acceptation of the term, they are closely connected with positive laws, and are appropriate subjects of jurisprudence. Consequently I treat them as improper laws of anomalous or eccentric sorts, and exclude them from the classes of laws to which in strictness they belong.
Note: on the prevailing tendency to confound what is with what ought to be law or morality, ^that is, first, to confound positive law with'the science of legislation, and positive morality with deontology; and secondly, to confound positive law with positive morality, and both with legislation and deontology. (Seep. 119.)
First: tendency to confound positive law with the science of legislation, and positive morality with deontology. Example from Blackstone
The existence of law is one thing; its merit or demerit is another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed
Lecture V 133
standard is a different enquiry. A law, which actually exists, is a law, though we happen to dislike it, or though it vary from the text by which we regulate our approbation and disapprobation. This truth, when formally announced as an abstract proposition, is so simple and glaring that it seems idle to insist upon it. But simple and glaring as it is, when enunciated in abstract expressions the enumeration of the instances in which it has been forgotten would fill a volume. Sir William Blackstone; for example, says in his Commentaries that the laws of God are superior in obligation to all other laws; that no human laws should be suffered to contradict them; that human laws are of no validity if contrary to them; and that all valid laws derive their force from that Divine original.
Now, he may mean that all human laws ought to conform to the Divine laws. If this be his meaning, I assent to it without hesitation. The evils which we are exposed to suffer from the hands of God as a consequence of disobeying His commands are the greatest evils to which we are obnoxious; the obligations which they impose are consequently paramount to those imposed by any other laws, and if human commands conflict with the Divine law, we ought to disobey the command which is enforced by the less powerful sanction; this is implied in the term ought: the proposition is identical, and therefore perfectly indisputable—it is in our interest to choose the smaller and more uncertain evil, in preference to the greater and surer. If this be Blackstone's meaning, I assent to his proposition, and have only to object to it that it tells us just nothing. Perhaps, again, he means that human lawgivers are themselves obliged by the Divine laws to fashion the laws which they impose by that ultimate standard, because if they do not, God will punish them. To this also I entirely assent: for if the index to the law of God be the principle of utility, that law embraces the whole of our voluntary actions in so far as motives applied from without are required to give them a direction conformable to the general happiness.
But the meaning of this passage of Blackstone, if it has a meaning, seems rather to be this: that no human law which conflicts with the Divine law is obligatory or binding; in other words, that no human law which conflicts with the Divine law is a law, for a law without an obligation is a contradiction in terms. I suppose this to be his meaning, because .when we say of any transaction that it is invalid or void, we mean that it is not binding: as, for example, if it be a contract, we mean that the political law will not lend its sanction to enforce the contract.
Now, to say that human laws which conflict with the Divine law are not binding, that is to say, are not laws, is to talk stark nonsense. The most pernicious laws, and therefore those which are most opposed to the will of God, have been and are continually enforced as laws by judicial tribunals. Suppose an act innocuous,.or positively beneficial, beprohibited by the sovereign under the penalty of death; if I commit this act, I shall be tried and condemned, and if 1 object to the sentence, that it is contrary to the law of God, who has commanded
134 The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
that human lawgivers shall not prohibit acts which have no evil consequences, the Court of Justice will demonstrate the inconclusiveness of my reasoning by hanging me up, in pursuance of the law of which I have impugned the validity. An exception, demurrer, ot plea founded on the law of God was never heard in a Court of Justice, from the creation of the world down to the present moment. But this abuse of language is not merely puerile, it is mischievous. When it is said that a law ought to be disobeyed, what is meant is that we are urged to disobey it by motives more cogent and compulsory than those ^by which it is itself sanctioned. If the laws of God are certain, the motives which they hold out to disobey any human command which is at variance with mem are paramount to all others. But the laws of God are not always certain. All divines, at least all reasonable divines, admit that no scheme of duties perfectly complete and unambiguous .was ever imparted to us by revelation. As an index to the Divine will, utility is obviously insufficient- What appears pernicious to one person may appear beneficial to another. And as for the moral sense, innate practical principles, conscience, they are merely convenient cloaks for ignorance or sinister interest: they mean either that I hate the law to which I object and cannot tell why, or that I hate the law, and that the cause of my hatred is one which I find it incommodious to avow. If I say openly, X hate the law, ergo, it is not binding and ought to be disobeyed, no one will'listen to me; but by calling my hate my conscience or my moral sense, I urge the same argument in another and more plausible form:.I seem to assign a reason for ray dislike, when in truth I have only given it a sounding and specious name. In times of civil discord the mischief of this detestable abuse of language is apparent. In quiet times the dictates of utility are fortunately so obvious that the anarchical doctrine sleeps, and men habitually admit the validity of laws which they dislike. To prove by pertinent reasons mat a law is pernicious is highly useful, because such process may lead to the abrogation of the pernicious law. To incite the public to resistance by determinate views of utility may be useful, for resistance, grounded on clear and definite prospects of good, is sometimes beneficial. But to proclaim generally that all laws which are pernicious or contrary to the will of God are void and not to.be tolerated is to preach anarchy, hostile and perilous as much to wise and benign rule as to stupid and galling tyranny.
Another example from Blackstone
In another passage of his Commentaries, Blackstone enters into an argument to prove that a master cannot have a right to the labour of his slave. Had he contented himself with expressing his disapprobation, a very well-grounded one certainly, of the institution of slavery, no objection could "have been made to his so
Lecture V 135
expressing himself. But to dispute the existence orthe possibility of the right is to talk absurdly. For in every age, and in almost every nation, the right has been given by positive law, whilst that pernicious disposition of positive law has been backed by the positive morality of the free or master classes.
Paley 's definition of civil liberty l
Paley's admired" definition of civil liberty appears to me to be obnoxious to the very same objection: it is a definition of civil liberty as it ought to be. 'Civil liberty', he says, 'is the not being restrained by any law but which conduces in a greater degree to the public welfare'; arid this is distinguished from natural ' liberty, which is the not being restrained at all. But when liberty is not exactly synonymous with right, it means, and can mean nothing else, but exemption from restraint or obligation, and is therefore altogether incompatible with law, the very idea of which implies restraint and obligation. But restraint is restraint although it be useful, and liberty is liberty though it may be pernicious. Vou may, if you please, call a useful restraint liberty, and refuse the name liberty to exemption from restraint when restraint is for the public advantage. But by this abuse,of language you throw not a ray of light upon the nature of political liberty; you only add to the ambiguity and indistinctness in which it is ajready involved. I shall have to define and analyse the notion of liberty hereafter, on account of its intimate connection with right, obligation, and sanction.
Example from the "writers on international law
Grotius, Puffendorf, and the other writers on the so called law of nations, have fallen into a similar confusion of ideas: they have confounded positive international morality, or the rules which actually obtain among civilised nations in their mutual intercourse, with their own vague conceptions of international morality as if ought to be% with" that indeterminate something which they conceived it would be, if it conformed to that indeterminate something which they calljhe' law of nature. Professor Von Martens, of GOttingen, who died only a few years ago9 is actually the first of the writers on the law of nations w6o has seized this distinction with a firin grasp,'the first who has distinguished the rules which ought to be received in the intercourse of nations, or'which would be received if they conformed to an assumed standard of whatever kind, from those which are so received, endeavoured to collect from the practice of civilised communities what are the rules actually recognised and acted upon by them, and gave to these rules the name of positive international law.
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Second: tendency to confound positive law with'positive morality, and both with legislation and deontology. Examples from the Roman jurists
I have given several instances in which law and morality as they ought to be are confounded with the law and morality which actually exist. I shall next mention some examples in which positive law is confounded with positive morality, and both with the science of legislation and deontology.
Those who know the writings of the Roman lawyers only by hearsay arc accustomed to admire their philosophy. Now this, in my estimation, is the only part of their writings which deserves contempt. Their extraordinary merit is evinced, not in general speculation, but as expositors of the Roman law. They have seized its general principles with great clearness and penetration, have applied these principles with admirable logic to the explanation of details, and have thus reduced this positive system of law to a compact and coherent whole. But the philosophy which they borrowed from the Greeks, or which, after the examples of the Greeks, they themselves fashioned, is naught. Their attempts to define jurisprudence and to determine the province of the jurisconsult are absolutely pitiable,.and it is hardly'conceivable how men of such admirable discernment should have displayed such contemptible imbecility.
At the commencement of the Digest is a passage attempting, to define jurisprudence. I shall first present you with this passage in a free translation, and afterwards in the original. 'Jurisprudence*, says this definition, 'is the knowledge of things divine and human; the'science which teaches men to discern the just from the unjust.* 'Jurisprudent!a est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, justi atque injusti scientia.' In the excerpt from Ulpian, which is placed at.,the beginning of the Digest, it is attempted to define the office or province of the jurisconsult: t
Law derives its name from justice, justitia, and is the science or skill in the good and the equitable. Law being the creature of justice, we the jurisconsults may be considered as her priests, for justice is the goddess whom we worship, and to whose service we are devoted. Justice and equity are our vocation; we teach men to know the difference between the just and the unjust, the lawful and the unlawful; we strive to reclaim them from vice, not only by the terrors of punishment, but also by the blandishment of rewards; herein, unless we flatter ourselves, aspiring to sound and real philosophy, and not like some whom we could mention, contenting 4 ourselves with vain and empty pretension.
Juri operam daturum prius nosse oportet, unde nomen juris descendat. Est autem ajustitia appellatum; nam, ut eleganter Celsus definit, jus est ars boni et aequi. Cujus merito quis nos sacerdotes appellet; justitiam namque
Lecture V 137
colimus, et boni et Eequi notitiam profitemur, aequum ab iniquo separantes, licitum ab illicita discementes, bonos npn solum metu pcenarum verum etiam prcemiorum qupque exhortatione efficere cupientes, veram, nisi fallor, philosophiam, non simulatam affectantes.
Were I to present you with all the, criticisms which these two passages suggest, I should detain you a full hour. I shall content myself with one observation on the scope and purpose of them both. That is, that they affect to define jurisprudence, or what comes exactly to the same thing, the office or province of the jurisconsult. Now jurisprudence, if it is anything, is the science of law, or at most the science of law combined with the art of applying it;- but what is here given as a definition of it embraces not only law, but positive morality, and even the test to which both these are to be referred. It therefore comprises the science of legislation and deontology. Further, it affirms that law is the creature of justice, which is as much as to say that it is the child of its own offspring. For when by just we mean anything but to express our own approbation, we mean something which accords with some given law. True, we speak of law and justice, or of law and equity, as opposed to each other, but when we do so, we mean to express mere dislike of the law, or to intimate that it conflicts with another law, the law of God, which is its standard. According to this, every pernicious law is unjust. But, in truth, law is itself the standard of justice; What deviates from any law is unjust with reference to that law, though it may be just with reference to another law of superior authority. The terms justand^unjust imply a standard, and conformity to that standard and a deviation from it; else they signify mere dislike, which it would be far better to signify by a grunt or a groan than by a mischievous and detestable abuse of articulate language. But justice is commonly erected into an entity, and spoken of as a legislator, in which character it is supposed to prescribe the law, conformity to which it should denote. The veriest dolt who is placed in a jury box, the merest old woman who happens to be raised to the bench, will talk finely of equity or justice—the justice of the case, the equity of the case, the imperious demands of justice, the plain dictates of equity. He forgets that he is there to enforce the law of the land, else he does not administer that justice or that equity with which alone he is immediately concerned.
Example from Lord Mansfield
This is well known to have been a strong tendency of Lx>rd Mansfield—a strange obliquity in so great a man. I will give an instance. By the English law, a promise to give something or to do something for the benefit of another is not binding without what is called a consideration; that is, a motive assigned for the promise, which motive must be of a particular kind. Lord Mansfield, however, overruled
138 The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
the distinct provisions of the law by ruling that moral obligation was a sufficient consideration. Now, moral obligation is an obligation imposed by opinion, or an obligation imposed by God: that is, moral obligation is anything which we choose to call so, for the precepts of positive morality are infinitely varying, and the will of God, whether indicated by utility or by a moral sense, is equally a matter of dispute. This decision of Lord Mansfield, which assumes that the judge is to enforce morality, enables the judge to enforce just whatever he pleases.
I must here observe that I am not objecting to Lord Mansfield for assuming the office of a legislator. I by no means disapprove of what Mr Bentham has chosen to call by the disrespectful, and therefore, as I conceive, injudicious, name of judge-made law.^For I consider it injudicious to call by any name indicative of disrespect what appears to me highly beneficial and even absolutely necessary. I cannot understand how any person who has considered the subject can suppose that society could possibly have gone on if judges'had not legislated, or that there is, any danger whatever in allowingthem that power which they have in fact .exercised, to make up for the negligence or the incapacity of the avowed legislator. That part of the law of every country which was made by judges has been far better made than that-part which consists of statutes enacted ^by the legislative. Notwithstanding my great admiration for Mr Bentham, I cannot but think thay instead of blaming judges for having legislated, he should blame them for the timid, narrow, and piecemeal manner in which they have legislated, and for legislating under cover of vague and indeterminate phrases, such as Lord Mansfield employed in the above example; and which would be censurable in any legislator.
.1. Laws set by men, as private persons, in pursuance'of legal rights
A law set by a subject as a private person, but in pursuance of a legal right residing in the subject author, is either a positive law purely or simply, or is compounded of a positive law and a rule of positive morality. Or (changing the expression) it is either a positive law purely or simply, or it is a positive law, as viewed from one aspect, and a rule of positive morality as viewed from another.
The person who makes the law in pursuance of the legal right is either legally bound to make the law, or he is not. In the first case, the law is a positive law purely or simply. In the second case, the law is compounded of a positive law and a positive moral rule.
For example, a guardian may have a'right over his pupil or ward, which he is legally bound to exercise, for the benefit of the pupil or ward, in a given or specified manner. In other words, a' guardian may be clothed with a right, over his pupil or ward, in trust to exercise the same, for the benefit of the pupil or ward, in a given or specified manner.' Now if, in pursuance of his right, and agreeably to his duty or
Lecture V 139
trust, he sets a law or.rule to the pupil or ward, the law is a positive law.purely or simply. It is properly a law which the state sets to the ward through its minister or instrument, the guardian. It is not made by the guardian of his own spontaneous movement, or is made in pursuance of a duty which the state has imposed upon him. The position of the guardian is closely analogous to the position of subordinate political superiors who hold their delegated powers of direct or judicial legislation as mere trustees for the sovereign granters.
Again: the master has legal rights over or against his slave, which are conferred by the state upon the master for his own benefit. And; since they are conferred upon him for his own benefit, he is not legally bound to exercise or use them. Now if, in pursuance of these rights,t.he sets a law to his slave, the law is compounded of a positive law and a positive moral, rule. _Being made by-sovereign authority, and clothed by the sovereign with sanctions, the law made by the master is properly a positive law. But, since it is made by the master of his own spontaneous movement, or is not made by the master in.pursuance of a legal duty, it is properly ,a rule of positive morality, as well as a positive law. Though the law set by the master is set circuitously by the sovereign, it is set or established by the sovereign at the pleasure of the subject author. The master is not the instrument of the sovereign or state, but the sovereign or state is rather the instrument of the master.
Before I dismiss the subject of the present note, I must make two remarks. One. Of laws made by men as private persons, some are frequently styled 'laws autonomic*. Or it is frequently said of some of those laws, that they are made through an autovopia residing in the subject authors. Now laws autonomics autonomical, are laws made by subjects, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights: that is to say, in pursuance of legal rights which they are free to exercise or not, or in pursuance of legal rights which are not saddled with trusts. A law of the kind is styled autonomic because it is made by its author of his own spontaneous disposition, or not in pursuance of a duty imposed upon him by. the state.
It is clear, however, that the term autonomic is not exclusively applicable to laws of the kind in question. The term will apply to every law which is not made by its author in pursuance of a legal duty. It will apply, for instance, to every law which is made immediately or directly by a monarch or sovereign number: independence of legal duty being of the essence of sovereignty.
7W...Laws which are positive law as viewed from one aspect; but which are
positive morality as viewed from another, I place simply or absolutely in the first of
those capital classes. If, affecting exquisite precision, I placed them in each of those
classes, I could hardly indicate .the boundary by which.those classes are severed
without resorting to expressions of repulsive complexity and length.
2. The term morality, moral, or morally, is often opposed tacitly to immorality,
immoral, or immorally, and imports that the object to which it is applied or referred
is approved of by the speaker or writer. But by the term morality, I merely denote
the human rules which I. style 'positive morality'. And by the terms 'moral
sanctions', 'rules sanctioned morally', 'moral duties or rights', and 'duties or rights
sanctioned morally1,1 merely mean that the rules to which the sanctions are annexed,
or by which the duties or rights are imposed or conferred, are positive moral rules:
140 The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
rules bearing the generic character which I-have stated and explained above. If I mean to praise or blame a positive human rule, or a duty or right which the rule imposes or confers, I style it consonant to the law of God, or contrary to the law of God. Or. (what, in effect, is the same thing) I style it generally useful, or generally pernicious. 3. Here I may briefly observe that, in order to a complete determination of the appropriate province of jurisprudence, it is necessary to explain the import of the term right. For, as 1 have stated already, numerous positive laws proceed directly from'subjects through rights conferred upon the authors by supreme political superiors. And, for various other reasons which will appear in my sixth lecture, the appropriate province of jurisprudence cannot be defined completely unless an explanation of the term right constitute a part of the definition. But, in order to an explanation of right in abstract (or in order to an explanation of the nature which is common to all rights), I must previously explain the differences of the principal kinds of rights, with the meaning of various terms which the term right implies. And as that previous explanation cannot be given with effect till positive law is distinguished from the objects to which it is related, it follows that an explanation of the expression right cannot enter into the attempt to determine the province of jurisprudence.
At every step which he takes on his long and scabrous road, a difficulty similar to that which I have now endeavoured to suggest encounters the expositor of the science. As every department of the science is implicated with every other, any detached exposition of a single and separate department is inevitably a fragment more or less imperfect. 4. The acts and forbearances which, according to the theory of utility, are objects of the law of God; and other acts and forbearances which, according to'the same theory, ought to be objects respectively of positive morality and law There are classes of useful acts which it were useless to enjoin, and classes of mischievous acts which it were useless to forbid: for we are sufficiently prone to the useful, and sufficiently averse from the mischievous acts, without the incentives and restraints applied by religious sanctions,'or ..by sanctions legal or moral. And, assuming that general utility is the index to the Divine commands, we may fairly infer that acts of such classes are not enjoined or forbidden by the law of God; that he no more enjoins or forbids acts of the classes in question, than he enjoins or forbids such acts as are generally pernicious or useful.
There are also classes of acts, generally useful or pernicious, which demand the incentives or restraints applied by religious sanctions or by sanctions legal or moral. Without the incentives and restraints applied by religious sanctions, or applied by sanctions legal or moral, we are not sufficiently prone to those which are generally useful, and are not sufficiently averse from those which are generally pernicious. -And," assuming that general utility is the index to the Divine commands, all these classes of useful, and all these classes of pernicious acts, are enjoined and forbidden respectively by the law of God.
Being enjoined or being forbidden by the Deity, all these classes of useful, and all these classes of pernicious acts, ought to be enjoined or forbidden by positive
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morality: that is to say, by the positive morality which consists of opinions or sentiments. But, this notwithstanding, some of these classes of acts ought not to be enjoined or forbidden by positive law. Some of these classes of acts ought not to be enjoined or forbidden even by the positive morality which consists of imperative
Every act or forbearance that ought to be an object of positive law, ought to be an object of the positive morality which consists of opinions or sentiments. Every act or forbearance that ought to be an object of the latter is an object of the law of God as construed by the principle of utility. But the circle embraced by the law of God, and which may be embraced to advantage by positive morality, is larger than the circle which can be embraced to advantage by positive law. Inasmuch as the two circles have one and the same centre, the whole of the region comprised by the latter is also comprised by the former. But the whole of the region comprised by the former is not comprised by the latter.
To distinguish the acts and forbearances that ought to be objects of law from those that ought to be abandoned to the exclusive cognisance of morality is, perhaps, the hardest of the problems which the science of ethics presents. The only existing approach to a solution of the problem may be found in the writings of Mr Bentham who, in most of the departments of the two great branches of ethics, has accomplished more for the advancement of the science than all his predecessors put together. See, in particular, his Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. xvii. 5. Locke's division or analysis is far from being complete, and the language in which it is stated is often extremely unapt. It must, however, be remembered that the nature of relation generally (and not the nature of law, with its principal kinds) is the appropriate object of his inquiry. Allowing for the defects, which, therefore, were nearly inevitable, his analysis is strikingly accurate. It evinces that matchless power of precise and just thinking, with that religious regard for general utility and truth, which marked the incomparable man who emancipated human reason from the yoke of mystery and jargon. And from this, his incidental excursion into the field of law and morality, and from other passages of his essay wherein he touches upon them, we may infer the important services which he would have rendered to the science of ethics if, complying with the instances of Molyneux, he had examined the subject
Speaking with absolute precision, the lower animals, or the animals inferior to man, are not destitute of reason. Since their conduct is partly determined by conclusions drawn from experience, they observe, compare, abstract, and infer. But the intelligence of the lower animals is so extremely limited that, adopting the current expression, I style them irrational. Some of the more sagacious are so far from being irrational that they understand and observe laws set to them by human masters. But these laws being few and of little importance, I throw them, for the sake of simplicity, out of my account. I say universally of the lower animals that they cannot understand a law, or guide their conduct by duty.
Supposed difference between law and rule. [MS note inserted by R. Campbell.]
Lecture xxxii post.
This, it will be remembered, was spoken in the year 1830 or 1831.