Non-fiction ~ article/essay
Published in Aberdeen Press and Journal¹, 16th January 1928
1,185 words
(First read 17/09/2014)
This is the second of two EFB articles I've dug up which bear the legend 'Copyright of the Freedom Association' ~ the other is Governments Who Dig Their Own Graves (1930). In this one Benson talks about how human laws, though on the surface they appear to restrict our lives, are in fact designed to ensure that we can go about our business freely ~ without, for example, the fear of being murdered by our neighbours because we allow our vile filthy nasty dogs to bark incessantly all day while I'm trying to concentrate². He also talks about 'another vast set of ordinances [that are] not legally binding on him', namely religious or moral law ... this is where it gets a bit hazy. He finishes off by apparently saying that while human law has its uses, it is only by following moral/religious³ law that civilization can hope to advance.
¹ And ~ most likely ~ elsewhere. This is just where I happened to find it.
² Oops, wandering off the point a bit here.
³ He actually calls it 'the Christian code' but of course I'm far too PC to mention that.
The article is reproduced below. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time in 96 years that it's appeared before a potentially worldwide readership, in full and free of charge.
Liberty of Law by E. F. Benson
It is only the very inefficient and
pretentious writer who habitually uses paradox in order to convey
what he has to say, and on the whole the more largely he deals in
paradox, the less, so we usually find, he has to tell us, for most
truths can be stated very simply. Nothing, moreover, is so
exasperating to the reader as paradoxical periods: such an author is
like a man who insists on doing conjuring tricks, when all that we
ask of him is normal and rational behaviour; he palms the matches
when you want a light, and pretends to produce them from his
neighbour's nose; he appears, with patter and fumblings, to take an
egg out of the coal scuttle, and finds the evening paper much
crumpled in the sugar-basin. He delights in puzzling us on the one
hand, and in showing us how it is done on the other, and we only hope
that when he has at last left the room, he will not subsequently
emerge from the piano.
Making for Freedom
Occasionally, however, the truth seems
at first sight to be genuinely paradoxical; it is impossible to state
it otherwise than by an apparent contradiction in terms, and thus I
claim the reader's indulgence for the proposition that the laws of
civilised nations generally, which on the surface look like an
encompassing palisade of prohibitions, devised to limit our liberty
of action in every direction, are really a highly elaborate system
framed to increase and extend it.
The law against stealing, for instance,
though it curtails a thief's freedom of action, is designed to enable
us all to enjoy and use our possessions without the fear of having
them snatched from us, and this is the root-reason why stealing is
illegal. Similarly the law against murder was not framed primarily
in order to break the necks of murderers, but to enable the community
in general (who are more numerous than murderers), to go about their
business without being seriously afraid of being stabbed in the back;
and certain laws against transgressions of the moral code afford
other protection for the young and defenceless. In all such cases,
law, which appears to limit the liberty of each individual to do what
he likes, in reality ensures the liberty of a far larger body of
persons, and thus makes for freedom and not for fettering.
Prevention of Bullying
There is not, probably a single
ordinance in the whole body of the law of civilised nations which is
not based on this principle: law which at first seems to be designed
to bully us is in reality a careful and comprehensive code devised to
prevent our being bullied. For this reason every individual is
assumed to have a complete knowledge of the laws of this country, and
if he transgresses any one of them, no plea of his that he was
ignorant of its existence is held to be a valid excuse. If by his
action he was directly or indirectly injuring somebody else, he ought
to have known that he was breaking some law, though he was not aware
that there was such a law.
Though it is open to the
cynically-minded to say that this complete acquaintance with the law
is a good deal to expect of the layman, when the experts, counsel and
judges alike, so often rage furiously together in their
administration of it, and so constantly instruct the jury who are
supposed to know all about it, the basic principle of all law is
clear enough.
As You Please
Laws are not arbitrary. They were not
invented, like the rules that govern Rugby football or the moves of
the pieces on the chess-board, in order to render a game an agreeable
mental or physical pastime, and their intricacies, the interpretation
of which sets highly-trained intellects at loggerheads and renders
the course of justice so slow and expensive a process, are due to the
aims of successive generations of legislators to afford the community
the utmost possible security and freedom. Provided that a man does
not injure another individual or the community at large, as he is
held to do if he commits suicide (thus robbing the State of a
citizen), the law jealously guards his right to do exactly what he
pleases. He is not bound nor even expected to advance anybody's
interest but his own, except in times of common peril. Law only
requires of him that he should not injure others.
Liberty in Obedience
But even in the most materialistic age
every man, down to the most selfish and vicious, is conscious
intermittently of another vast set of ordinances which are not
inscribed in any statute-book that is legally binding on him. He has
(occasionally) impulses of kindness and generosity which he feels he
must obey, and which, if transgressed, will bring their own penalties
of internal uneasiness; in fact, he punishes himself. These form the
code of religious or moral law, and though any individual is free to
repudiate it, he finds, as a matter of fact, that for his own sake,
though he considers himself wholly independent, he prefers to obey
it.
More oddly yet, and more paradoxically,
he observes that the more constantly that he obeys this code, the
greater grows his liberty. Provided that he acts in accordance with
it, he gains, too, an essential immunity from the authority of human
legislation, for when once he makes friends with the principle that
underlies this other code, he not only does not want to secure
advantages for himself at the cost of others but the idea of injuring
others becomes highly repugnant to him. He perceives, moreover, that
what he thought was a vast volume of strait-laced ascetic ordinances
concern him no longer, and that if he has the welfare of others at
heart, he can do exactly what he chooses. If he loves, in fact, as
St Augustine says, he has entire liberty of action.
Clearing the Weeds
We find therefore that human law, which
consists entirely of prohibitions, and the Christian code, which
consists of one injunction, are both based on the same principle,
namely that of securing and enlarging individual freedom. In neither
case does the law fetter, and the limitations imposed by the first
are, so to speak, the negative side of the one injunction of the
second. But, however perfectly and universally observed, these
prohibitions will never bring us a definite step nearer to the
realisation of Utopia, for the prevention of crime cannot do more
than weed the ground where the seed of progress is to be sown. No
doubt the ground must be cleared of such weeds, but the second code
with its one injunction automatically does that, for no weed will
live in ground that has been turned up by the harrow of love.
Judging from the general experience of
the human race, and the sorry results of its civilisations, no other
instrument will serve the purpose; human law with its penalties and
retributions may check the growth of weeds, but will never extirpate
them.
Reproduced from the Aberdeen Press and Journal, 16/01/1928
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