An argument for the legislative prohibition of the liquor traffic / by Frederic Richard Lees.

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An argument for the legislative prohibition of the liquor traffic / by Frederic Richard Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    DR ARNOLD ON LAW AND RIGHT. that we want, but wiser—a legislation that touches the Causes of Crime, instead of tampering with mere effects. Dr Arnold’s view of the inlluence and duty of a state is thus expressed * < A Nation is a Sovereign Society, and it is something monstrous that the ultimate power in human life should be destitute of a sense of right and wrong ; for there being a right and a wrong in almost all our actions, the Power which can command or forbid these actions without an appeal to any human tribunal higher than itself, must surely have a sense, not only of the wrong of this action forbidden, but of the comparative value of different ends ; lest perchance, while commanding what is in itself good, it may command it at a time, or in a degree, to interfere with some higher good ; and then it is in fact commanding evil. That the power is thus extensive and sovereign, seems admitted, not only historically, but also by our common sense and language. And who does not see that the Police and the Army are not Sovereign Societies—that, because they are not cognizant of Moral ends, they are incapable of directing men’s conduct in the last resort—that they are themselves [not govern- ment, but] subject to a higher power [Law], the representative of a National Life. “A nation’s inner life consists in its action upon and within itself. Now, in order to the perfecting of itself, it must follow certain princi- ples, and acquire certain habits; in other words, it must have its Laws and Institutions adapted to its great end. On these the character of its people so mainly depend, that if these be faulty, the whole inner life is corrupted ; if these be good, it is likely to go on healthfully. ” It has been too much the fashion, in certain quarters, to depreciate Law, and to speak of it misleadingly as the Logic of the Stick. Such representations are unpardonable in any one pretending to philosophic culture. Law is the logic of social life—the develop- ment of national experience. Law has a potency in moulding the plastic population, which is even more important than its penal function : and it is preventive as well as corrective. Law is the first and last wisdom of History. A tribe, by its means, grows into a nation— develops agriculture, commerce, art, and science—■ organizes itself into a permanent and beneficial power — makes anarchy and revolution impossible. And Sovereign Law, that States’ collected Will, Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill.* In the fine language of Hooker, “ Of Law nothing less than this may be acknowledged, that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world,—all things in heaven and earth do her homage,—the very least as feeling her Care, the greatest as not exempted from her Power. ”f We will follow the writer of the ‘Westminster’ into one of his particular illustrations, and then close this discussion of principles. ‘'May a man rightly carry a ton of gunpowder through the streets * 8ia William Jones. + Ecclesiastical Polity. EndofBooki.