“There are two kinds of laws,
laws of nature and laws of right. The laws of nature are simply there, and are
valid as they are. They cannot be gainsaid, although in certain cases they may
be transgressed.
In order to know laws of nature, we must get to work
to ascertain them, for they are true, and only our ideas of them can be false.
Of these laws the measure is outside of us. Our knowledge adds nothing to them,
and does not further their operation. Only our knowledge of them expands.
The knowledge of right is partly of the same nature
and partly different.
The laws of right also are simply there, and we have
to become acquainted with them. In this way the citizen has a more or less firm
hold of them as they are given to him, and the jurist also abides by the same
standpoint. But there is also a distinction.
In connection with the laws of right the spirit of
investigation is stirred up, and our attention is turned to the fact that the
laws, because they are different, are not absolute. Laws of right are
established and handed down by men. The inner voice must necessarily collide or
agree with them. Man cannot be limited to what is presented to him, but
maintains that he has the standard of right within himself.
He may be subject to the necessity and force of
external authority, but not in the same way as he is to the necessity of
nature; for always his inner being says to him how a thing ought to be, and
within himself he finds the confirmation or lack of confirmation of what is
generally accepted."
No comments:
Post a Comment