June/July 2002
Natural Law
- An etymology of "Jurisprudence" -
FREDERICK GRAVES, JD
INTRODUCTION
What is Natural Law?
To unravel this mystery we explore the meaning of Jurisprudence and by understanding this complex word gain a clearer view of our American heritage of law, how we came to the problems we now face, and what we can do together to make things better for the future of our children and the world.
Our search for Natural Law begins with understanding Jurisprudence.
I tracked the etymology and traced the history of Jurisprudence from the Roman senate, where the word had its birth, to today's law schools and the legal literature of our courts, where the venerable old term has too long been ludicrously misused and its potential for the improvement of our systems of law almost universally ignored.
This is no accident, I found. The meaning of Jurisprudence was intentionally hidden from us by humanist philosophers, jurists, textbook writers, and professors of the 20th Century, who replaced the old meaning of Jurisprudence with a new idea, an idea with many names, an idea that seeks to hold the world in its grip and threatens at this present hour by just such deceits as this to establish a global oligarchy of such unprecedented power and control that wise men and women are now resolving to restore the wisdom of Jurisprudence to our land by promoting Public Legal Education so our children will no longer be deceived.
The moguls of modern thinking this past century claimed we no longer need the old idea of jurisprudence. They said the idea is a barrier to mankind's progress. Some went so far as to contend right-thinking people should work to divest our land of such unscientific notions.
So, by fiat of scholars and judges and fools the meaning of Jurisprudence, a treasure men once died for, was abandoned for a hundred years or so in the dusty pages of old books.
Today we are turning again to the heritage of our past to understand what the old word once stood for, and by its wisdom we are rediscovering Natural Law and finding hope for a new tomorrow.
Jurisprudence is derived from two Roman roots—juris and prudens—the Latin words for Justice and Prudence.
Yet, the definition one finds in any modern dictionary is "the science of law". Something vital has obviously been omitted. There is a peculiar gap between "science of law" and the root words juris and prudens. The ideas are not even remotely similar!
Why has this word been re-defined? What did it mean before? Who re-defined it? What was their motive? These questions will all be answered as you read on, and as each question is answered you will be learning how to re-establish what's been purposely stolen from you!
ETYMOLOGY - Juris
Juris is the genitive (possessive) case singular of the Latin noun jus, meaning "right", i.e., that which is good, productive, healthful, uplifting, empowering, nurturing, peaceful, joyful, and liberating for both individuals and nations.
This is not the same word we use when we say a person has rights.
Jus is "right" as when we say a person did what's right, what's good, what's loving.
The Sanskrit equivalent is yoh, meaning "health". A near equivalent is the Hebrew yod, meaning "source of light". In Persia's writings of Zoroaster it is yaozdadaiti, meaning "that which purifies".
Other words equivalent to jus relate to stretching a thing till it is perfectly straight or bending it carefully to make the perfect corner of a square or intersection of a cross.
Note that jus in Latin is not just another word for "law". The words "right" and "law" are distinct ideas in Latin. Each has its own identity. Each stands on its own. Each is different from the other.
The Latin name for "law" is lex, not jus.
Lex is the mechanism of state power, force, compulsion, the written law (right or wrong).
Lex is the body of codified precepts and rules by which governments control people, the law that validates the force of armies and gives power to orders of magistrates.
Lex is law men make for themselves.
Jus is something altogether different. Jus refers to that which is proper and fair in fact. Jus is what's right, whether man's lex makes it legal or illegal. Jus is a reality revealed only by Eternal Truth, transcending the edicts of man's courts and legislatures.
Jus is the first root of Jurisprudence … not lex.
Other languages also make a distinction between eternal "right" and man's written "law".
To the French, what's "right" is droit, while their written "law" is loi. The German says what's "right" is recht, while his code of rules is gesetz. We would be wise in this nation to make the distinction and teach children the difference.
Jus is the rule of Eternal Truth that dictates human consequences in accordance with our actions and failures to act. Jus is the hidden law of nature, what some men call Natural Law, an unavoidable reality that works behind the scenes to dictate the outcome of our behaviour. Jus is the unseen Hand of God that rewards good and punishes evil, no matter what our law may say is right or wrong, no matter what public opinion demands, no matter how angrily we rebel against its supreme authority.
Jus is Natural Law supernaturally rewarding good and tearing down evil, utterly heedless of our human statutes, courts, or legislatures.
Jus is jus, no matter what our lex may say.
Jurisprudence is the search for this Natural Law that transcends our statutes and decrees.
Lex is "law" in fact. Lex is written law, codes, ordinances, human edicts, rule by force, the power of the state, the gavel of our courts, the steel chains and iron doors of our prisons. If we are wise our lex seeks jus.
When we foolishly create lex that ignores jus, then Natural Law teaches us our folly by imposing unpleasant consequences that reveal our errors as surely as night follows day.
George Washington called this Eternal Truth "Providence", a force beyond the reach of reason that, like an Unseen Hand, unavoidably moves in our individual lives and in the lives of nations to decide the outcome of our human efforts. If we are loving and kind the Unseen Hand rewards us, sometimes with mysterious benefits we could never have predicted. If we are selfish and cruel, Natural Law sooner or later brings suffering. Though the effects of jus may be delayed for a time, they are never escaped. Natural Law obeys no human legislation. It's rule is heedless of our most eloquent demands. It is what it is. Only fools ignore it.
As they say on the street, "What goes around comes around." Natural Law is at work.
Jus is eternal and unchanging. Lex is whatever we decide to make it.
Though the two ideas are clearly distinct, the differences outstripped the understanding of many 20th Century writers and law professors who interchanged them at will, obliterating the distinction. As a consequence, our heritage was robbed of the wisdom that once sought to understand eternal principles. Men wrote and taught about a brave new world waiting on time's horizon where lex would always be jus (because they'd hide the difference from us).
They made Jurisprudence a mere science, robbing our foundation of faith in self-evident truths such as those Thomas Jefferson wrote into our Declaration of Independence. They sought to hide the wisdom of jus, promoting laws to control human behavior instead of laws counseling people to submit to Natural Law and gain its benefits.
Today's generation will Lift the Lamp of Liberty, promote Public Legal Education, and restore Jurisprudence in our law schools, legislatures, courts, and even in our public schools where children will learn about the Law beyond our books. Natural Law.
The law degree conferred on students at graduation from most law schools is called Juris Doctor, yet law students for years have been taught mostly lex, while jus was ignored as an intellectual dinosaur of significance only to legal philosophers, of no use at all to aspiring attorneys and judges. The degree conferred by these schools should be called Lex Doctor, since lex is what law schools have emphasized for years.
We will correct this problem by teaching the principles of jus-tice in our public schools.
Jurisprudence seeks to understand Natural Law and to conform our statutes accordingly. Jurisprudence is Wisdom seeking Justice.
Atheists and others deceived by humanism's lies want nothing to do with Eternal Truth in the deliberations of law. This is partly because religionists like William Blackstone wrote books in the Nineteenth Century confusing Natural Law with Biblical Law. The one insists truth is relative. The other insists truth can only be discerned by studying scripture. Both fall short of the mark. Though scripture proposes mandates to inculcate morality, Bibles merely record what God already established. Natural Law existed before Moses, before Abraham, before Adam, and even before formation of the stars and space itself! This is the secret of the ages fools despise and wise men cherish. It is the foundation of our Hope.
Truth is revealed only by Truth.
Jurisprudence searches for Natural Law so it can spare us the consequence of ignorance.
Popular writers of the last century stupidly insisted there is no Natural Law to determine the destinies of men and nations, no God that rewards good and punishes evil. The result was a century of legislation and court administration that increasingly benefited international corporations and prostituted justice for the sake of political expedience.
We will learn to love Truth and Lift the Lamp together to enlighten the ignorance of those who see our nation on the road to destruction and don't know why.
This is why! Look and learn!
Sir John William Salmond wrote soon after the Great War, "Our purpose is to consider in respect of their origins and relations the various names and titles which have been borne by law in different languages in the hope juridical terms may be found to throw some light upon the ideas of which they are manifestations" [Jurisprudence, Sir John Salmond, Sweet and Maxwell, London, 1920]. Sir Salmond distinguishes between the two ideas of law, clarifying the meaning of Jurisprudence. "If we inquire after the cause of this duplication of terms we find it in the double aspect of the juridical concept of law. Law arises from a union of justice and force, of right and might. It is justice recognized and established by authority. It is right realized through power. Since it has two sides and aspects, it may be looked at from two different points of view, and we find it has two different names. Jus is law from the point of view of right and justice; lex is law from the point of view of authority and force" [Ibid].
Shouldn't the formal study of lex (largely controlled by a private organization called the American Bar Association) that leads to a Juris Doctor degree and prepares life-long careers for lawyers, judges, and most legislators be tempered by a balanced view toward jus?
Each of us should ask leadership this question and urge neighbours and friends to demand that our children at every age be taught about jus in our schools! Every American citizen has a right to know the difference between jus or right and lex or force. Understanding this and sharing its truth with your neighbours and friends is essential to building a better tomorrow for your children. Together we are making a difference. We are correcting the errors of our past through Public Legal Education.
Thomas Cowan wrote in 1956, jus is "the law as it ought to be rather than as it is." He said the "abiding concern" of Jurisprudence is the nature of jus-tice [The American Jurisprudence Reader, Thomas A. Cowan, Oceana Publications, New York, 1956].
Consider the Scales of Justice. In one pan of the balance is lex (written law, law as it is). In the other pan is jus (Natural Law, law as it ought to be). What greater goal for legislators and judges than to balance the two, amending lex to conform with the inescapable jus? Why should the truth be hidden any longer. Natural Law is reality, not illusion!
Together we are teaching our children the difference. Beware of those who say, "They're one and the same!" They are not the same. They are not at all the same! Those who say this are enemies of truth. Each word represents a different idea.
We can no more change the meaning of jus than we can change the path of Jupiter!
Jus is jus. Right is right—and it will never change!
Lex is lex. Law is law—but law must change till it holds the Scales in balance according to the plan for American Justice men like George Washington were willing to die for.
Wise men search to discern Natural Law so they may avoid its inescapable consequence. By changing human behaviour through wise laws we can avoid the painful result of living in disobedience to Natural Law. It doesn't matter what we "think" should happen if we do a certain thing. Natural Law decrees the consequences. This is how we learn the "hard knocks" lessons of life. This truth is not apparent to young people, however older men and women know that, as Newton said is true in physics, every action has a reaction. It doesn't make a bit of difference what we "think" is fair or unfair. Natural Law is inescapable. Man's laws will never change it! Eternal Truth is eternally true.
No one is immune to the effects of Natural Law. Interpretation has nothing to do with it. What one chooses to believe has no effect on its Reality, regardless of New Age teachings to the contrary. Natural Law determines the outcome of our temporal decisions, whether as individuals or as nations. It cannot be avoided by wishful thinking or volumes of legislation.
We ignore Truth at our peril.
Atheistic ignorance imperils our children who are too young to understand.
The lamp of Jurisprudence is now being lifted by our cooperative human energies, for by its wisdom we are providing a better future for our children.
Eternal Truth never changes. Natural Law is never violated.
Therefore, we now begin to answer an ancient moral imperative, amending temporal law (lex) until it encourages everyone to live in the reverence of Natural Law (jus) and, though eternity be too short a span for this accomplishment, it will never cease to be the object of our most committed cooperative energies. This is the highest form of loving our neighbours.
We strive for lex so we can secure human happiness through wise obedience to jus.
This is the call of Jurisprudence to all peoples. This alone justifies governments and legitimizes their temporal power. If we say lex is jus simply because it is lex, we err, for jus is the Eternal Law of Right, not man's law of might. The two are not equivalent.
The nemesis of modern juridical thinking is that 20th Century jurists, emancipated from religion's imperatives of Eternal Truth, sought to administer jus based solely on their own secular ideas of justice without acknowledging Natural Law, denying the innate nature of an Ordered Cosmos. In this rebellion wisdom died and tyranny began to raise its ugly head.
What got built was lex and more lex (not jus), while people suffered under foolishness.
Others observed modernists' tendency to ignore Natural Law in matters of Jurisprudence. Cobban predicted dire consequences when he wrote in 1941, "It would seem we must acquiesce to the abandonment of Eternal Truth by the modern world, even though to do so is to accept the rule of arbitrary human will in the life of society. Henceforth there can be no ethical standards of social and political behaviour, because will cannot make right." [emphasis added] [The Crisis of Civilization, J. Cape, London, 1941].
Will cannot make right.
Lex cannot make jus … no, not in a million lifetimes.
Montesquieu saw 200 years ago the emergence of this idea that seeks to hold the world in its grip. He admonished us to see that Natural Law is real. "They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly, for can any thing be more unreasonable than to pretend a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?" He based his thinking on the existence of "a prime reason" and said that "laws are relations subsisting between the prime reason and man." He said, "Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they have some likewise which they never made. Before there were intelligent beings and written laws, there were relations of justice. To say there is nothing just or unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive laws is the same as saying that before one draws a circle all the radii are not equal" [The Spirit of The Laws, Baron de Montesquieu, edited by Thomas Nugent, Hafner Publishing Company, New York, 1949].
ETYMOLOGY - Prudens
Now, let's examine the second root of Jurisprudence.
Prudentia is "practical understanding or sagacity" [Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford Press, Oxord, 1982].
Wisdom. Foresight. Common-sense.
Prudens is the adjective form of prudentia, a contraction of providens, comprised of pro and videns, "forward" and "seeing". Thus Prudence is "the power of seeing in advance, the faculty of looking ahead, anticipating the future, prescience." [Ibid].
Prudence recognizes that all our acts have consequences dictated by a Natural Law not of man's making. Prudence seeks to avoid foreseeable adverse consequences and maximize the probability of success by looking ahead to the unavoidable effect of Natural Law.
Prudence is the highest form of wisdom. It cautions us to, "Think before you act."
Carl Claudy wrote that Prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues recognized by ancient civilizations. The others are Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. "Consider Prudence as the wisdom of both heart and mind, and it becomes something high and holy, much more than mere precaution, the modern meaning of the word" [A Treasury of Thought, edited by Carl Glick, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, 1953].
Yet, if we say Jurisprudence is a high and holy wisdom of heart and mind, a prescience to find Eternal Right and establish Justice by making lex comply with jus, secular scholars may attempt to denounce us as religious fanatics instead of wise citizens seeking a better world for our children. The secular scholars, judges, legislators, and law professors of this recent century tried to build a world where there would be no recognition of Natural Law. They strongly disagreed with those who think lex should seek jus by the high and holy wisdom of Jurisprudence, blind to the undesirable consequence of ignoring self-evident truth.
Solomon, the wisest jurist of all, said, "Prudence is the principle thing; therefore get Prudence, and with all thy getting get understanding" [Proverbs 4:7]. Under-standing is what is so difficult for many people. They don't want to "stand under" Truth. They want to change it to fit their separate interpretations, refusing to see that Truth remains unchanged by their private concepts and theories, however eloquently expressed they may be.
If we ask how Prudence is obtained, Solomon says, "Revere the Truth!" [Proverbs 9:10].
At last we are restoring this nation to its high and holy purpose once again by standing as one and insisting that our leaders recognize that Truth exists apart from our imaginations. We are seeing that those who seek to lead us should submit themselves to the decrees of Natural Law and administer our statutes and ordinances in such manner as will best insure that we derive the greatest benefit from the Unseen Hand that only fools deny.
In this we are promised a great victory!
CHANGES IN USAGE
Jurisprudence is used today as just another word for law.
We have medical jurisprudence, for example, a body of law developing around the field of medicine. There is commercial jurisprudence, a body of business law. We have criminal jurisprudence, the codes by which we protect society from infractors of our law.
In none of these applications, however, is the word being used in its true sense.
In the 60 years from 1925 to 1985, the Supreme Court used the word Jurisprudence in no less than 576 cases. Each time it was just another word for "law." Not once in that period of time did any Justice undertake to define this much forgotten but critically important word.
The Roman jurist Ulpian said, "Juris prudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, justi atque injusti scientia." Jurisprudence is a knowledge both human and divine, to understand what is just and what is unjust.
Cicero penned the same words in 43 B.C.
Blackstone quotes Aristotle: "Jurisprudence is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics." [Study of Law, Blackstone, 1809].
In 1628 Sir Edward Coke praised Jurisprudence as a "gladsome light." By 1762, however, a new form of reason was beginning to appear when men like Adam Smith began saying, "Jurisprudence is the theory of rules by which governments ought to be directed" [Lectures on Jurisprudence, Adam Smith, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978].
This was only a slight shift of meaning, but the hole was in the dyke. No one complained. Perhaps no one even noticed. A flood of error had begun.
In the tumultuous years that followed, Jurisprudence fell on hard times philosophically.
Jeremy Bentham wrote in 1827, "As to the jurisprudentialist, his most common state is a sort of middle state between impostor and dupe."
Clearly, a new idea was gaining sway. The old idea was under attack by fools who sought to lead us.
By the end of the 19th Century, considerations of Jurisprudence as "a knowledge human and divine" were trashed. The ancient wisdom of Eternal Truth was replaced by a new enlightenment called science (wherein nothing is true except in relation to other things). No longer could a thing be true in and of itself. Modernists were certain they would find the answers to life's questions without resort to any worn-out Cosmic Principle of Unchanging Truth or Natural Law that might determine the consequence of man's behaviour. In their zeal they ridiculed those who doubted science's ability to solve all the problems of humanity.
The New Age rebelled against Reality itself, claiming all we know is mere "illusion."
In 1879, Austin distinguished "general Jurisprudence or the philosophy of positive law from what may be styled particular Jurisprudence or the science of law."
Positive law was now in one pan of the balance. In the other pan was science.
At the end of the First World War God was dying. God let boys be killed at the Marne. What sort of God would create a world of hateful death and pain? The God of religionists seemed to have failed mankind, so scholars (secretly hoping to be gods themselves) wrote their epitaph for Jurisprudence: "God is dead."
Soon the news was whispered in the halls of every law school and in the courtrooms of our land where Jurisprudence once was honored as supreme wisdom.
"Science!" was the hue and cry. "God is dead, so we must save ourselves! We are God, and science is our Name!"
Jurisprudence was reduced to theories and hypotheses, a game for scholars, just another sterile branch of science propped precariously on the pinnings of statistical mathematics and the imperatives of commercial necessity. No longer did we have a high and holy search for Natural Law. No longer did we seek to discern Eternal Truth by which human acts receive immutable consequences.
Natural Law was ignored. Jurisprudence was lost by perversion of its name.
LeBuffe and Hayes said, "Jurisprudence is the practical science which investigates the nature, origin, and development of law." [Jurisprudence, Francis LeBuffe and James Hayes, Fordham University Press, New York, 1938].
Men sought for truth while insisting no such thing exists!
By 1957, scholars striving to define Jurisprudence said, "The result of our investigation thus far is to establish the negative conclusion that nowadays the word 'Jurisprudence' does not mean certain things. Indeed, it would appear the word has no usual meaning, and it is no cynicism to say that 'Jurisprudence' means whatever anyone wants it to mean" [Jurisprudence, R.W.M. Dias and G.B.J. Hughes, Butterworth & Company, London, 1957].
Atheists scored what threatened to be lasting victory in academia, but people today are beginning to Lift the Lamp together, promoting Public Legal Education, so the ignorance of yesterday's atheism is being displaced by the wisdom of Jurisprudence once more.
Today's generation is working together to prevent the triumph of ignorance over truth.
From the ancient Roman jurists through the rebellions of International Republicanism and the atrocities of German Nazi Socialism and lastly the horror of our Atomic Age we saw the intentional removal of knowledge human and divine, of what is just and what is unjust. We see today the consequence of 20th Century atheists' corruption of Jurisprudence into a mere science for social engineering. We recognize the error of their premise that American Law is something judges do and mortals merely muddle through. We are no longer deceived.
Who knows best the meaning of Jurisprudence—the Roman jurists, Ulpian and Cicero, or some conceited clique of modernist New England law professors?
Patriotic America is rising up to demand that Natural Law be recognized by our leaders!
HISTORY
Note how misuse of a word and failure to discriminate between jus and lex was prodded by atheists' rejection of Providence and the unwillingness of 20th Century leaders to take a stand for Truth! A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Errors should be opposed quickly or they grow like weeds. Only Truth is true. Nothing else is. History is a record of errors and the courage that successfully opposes them.
Now that 1984 is history, we laugh at Orwell's predictions. Nothing notable happened in 1984. No beast took over to rule our lives and regiment our thinking. We're not being spied on by telescreens like those that pried into Winston's and Julia's intimacies. We are smugly certain Big Brother is not watching us … at least not in any Orwellian sense.
Yet, we miss the darker implication of Orwell's story if we think 1984 was the year we'd see Big Brother take over. Orwell predicted change would not be noticed till much later. He suggested the insidious central control of society his book is about would come so slowly that no one would even notice … and that it would come long after 1984!
"How's the dictionary getting on?" Winston asked his comrade Syme, who worked with him in the Research Department.
"We're getting the language into its final shape," Syme answered. "By the year 2050 at the very latest not a single human being will be alive who could understand the conversation we are having now" [1984, George Orwell].
So begins Orwell's story of mere mortals struggling with tyrannies of power, an ageless saga of unbridled oligarchy bent on self-perpetuation without concern for its harsh human consequences, heedless of history's hard lessons, and committed to build a new tomorrow by destroying the past's traditions, art, and language.
Wonderful, the power of words and the power of those who can alter words' meanings!
It is our language that makes us human, not prehensile thumbs or ability to stand erect on hind legs. With words we build reality out of dreams. With words we prepare for our future. With words we preserve the wisdom of our past … or toss it foolishly aside.
With words we hide from truth by revising reality to suit our selfish purposes.
The choice of seeking to adjust society to the imperatives of Natural Law or following after man's amusement is again before us, as it has been presented to every age. We may work together to establish Jurisprudence on the principle that Reality dictates a consequence of morality both to individuals and nations—or we may turn from Truth to seek instead the wisdom of the strong and permit ourselves to be ruled by an elite caste of atheists whose goal is pleasure for themselves no matter what the cost to our posterity. This is the timeless choice, and every age acts on it one way or another. Failure to choose is nonetheless choice and, either way, we cannot escape the consequence of our decision or refusal to decide.
Fortunately, many are choosing to restore the wisdom of our American legal heritage.
The potency of Jurisprudence to wisely discern the inescapable dictates of Natural Law (Truth that ultimately controls our destinies) lies in sharing its wisdom with the people themselves. As we do so we empower the populace to wisely counsel lawmakers and judges. As patriotic men and women Lift the Lamp of Public Legal Education, Jurisprudence will revive from the forgotten, yellowed pages of old books. We will take it up again, avoiding the unpleasant consequence of violating Natural Law, submitting to Truth. In this way God will bless our land with peace and prosperity for future generations. We will awaken wisdom from its slumber and turn our children's hearts to goodness once more (as the founders of our nation intended us to do).
Jurisprudence will offer its promise till the end of time, in spite of our eloquent debates, heedless of scholarly writing and political ear-scratching rhetoric. Jurisprudence cannot be kept imprisoned in books nor trapped within the frailty of a single human mind. It must live. Truth will prove the wisdom of Jurisprudence as we teach our children this knowledge holy and divine. We will learn again how to discern what is right and just. Our nation will once more base her laws on a Jurisprudence we share and approve together in unity.
At present, however, we have no unifying Jurisprudence in the United States of America, so we must work hard to Lift the Lamp and put aside our anger and petty differences!
Until now, right and wrong has been whatever a majority of television viewers say it is.
We have had no Jurisprudence in this nation for 200 years! By the force of law our lives will be either blessed by Liberty or stolen by tyranny. We have a choice to make. We can base our laws on principles or convenient preference.
Rudolph von Ihering wrote: "The end of the law is peace. The means to that end is war. So long as the law is compelled to hold itself in readiness to resist the attacks of wrong (and this it will be compelled to do until the end of time) it cannot dispense with war. The life of the law is a struggle, a struggle of nations, of state power, of classes, and of individuals." [The Struggle of Law, Rudolph von Ihering, Callaghan and Company, Chicago, 1879].
The struggle of law is real, yet we can overcome the most determined foe if we work in harmony to restore our Jurisprudence based on Natural Law.
Without such a Jurisprudence, all law is tyranny.
Only by a Jurisprudence can we set limits for law and justify its means by being mindful of its ends.
Natural Law is self-evident to men and women of wisdom and good conscience.
At the beginning of last century, there was a great revolution in Western Jurisprudence. Before that time, Jurisprudence rested on the premise that there exist certain immutable and eternal principles of Justice, i.e., self evident truths. Reality was no mere illusion. Truth was absolute, not relative. Natural Law was assumed an accepted fact. There was consensus that legislatures and courts had a moral duty to make written law conform to Natural Law and thereby protect people from the consequence of their folly. Wise men took this for granted.
An example is that "all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights". This was considered self-evident.
All reasonable persons agreed in those days that each of us inhabits a world that comes complete with rules, Natural Law that dictates consequences to human behavior, unwritten principles we need to understand and publish for the sake of our children's future.
Blackstone said, "Man is entirely a dependent being, subject to the laws of his Creator, to whose will he must conform." He is not saying we do not have free will. Not at all. Rather he and those who followed his teaching believed that none of us can be completely happy so long as we refuse to live in harmony with Natural Law. Truth alone decides our happiness. Joy flows from our own behaviour, the Golden Rule, and knowledge that our every word and deed cause predictable results fixed forever by Eternal Truth whose edicts never vary.
Blackstone's "Classical Jurisprudence" took Eternal Truth and Natural Law for granted.
Change came when our leaders began to use law as a tool for social engineering. They rejected principles, replacing them with practicality. There were no absolutes. Darwinism was their Jurisprudence.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., said in 1881, "Law is what the courts do in fact", and by that sweeping sentence he condemned the heritage of Faith that was this nation's birthright.
Professors still insist, "Law is whatever nine men say it is." This statement reflects a lack of Jurisprudence. It is an untenable and fearful excuse for Jurisprudence. It has no principles to sustain it. We innately know it is error for our law to be only what our judges say it is.
Yet, throughout the 20th Century our Jurisprudence was subverted by the atheists' plan to save humanity through social engineering. Their law is based on theories of social science. Their methods are mass propaganda and statistics. Their goals are the objectives of secular humanism, a vain philosophy our Supreme Court has given the noble title of religion.
This is the idea that has the world in its grip.
Truth is relative, depending on man's interpretation, so man must set standards for man heedless of the consequences of Natural Law. It is a horrid lie, yet it has taken root because patriotic men and women have not before been willing to work for Public Legal Education as they now are doing by ever increasing numbers. The Lamp is being lifted today.
Our nation will no longer follow fools who deny Truth in order to promote the lies of humanism that insidiously infect our age with destructive deceit. Good people are beginning to stand up for Truth and oppose the lies humanists sold throughout the preceding century.
Humanists were as real as Nazis and Bolsheviks. Their plan was the creation of a purely atheistic society to be in place by the beginning of our new millennium. Their society would be guided by principles of communal ownership of property. The quest for "the good life" was their central task. The men and women who supported their views were unlike the rank and file populace. They enthusiastically promoted the cause of atheism while the rest of 20th Century society basked in a deceptive sense of economic security that lulled them into a dangerous complacency from which we are now at last awakening.
Social science is the sum of atheistic jurisprudence. Statistics is the basis for its morality.
A new world order run by atheists was their stated objective.
In 1933, the humanists published their first manifesto. Some of its statements follow, paraphrased from the 1933 text. [You are invited to read the original to test my abridgment. It can be found on the internet]:
1. The universe is
self-existing and not created.
2. Man is the product of evolution.
3. Man has no soul, and consciousness
dies with the body.
4. Culture and civilization are
products of evolution.
5. There is no cosmic consequence
controlling human values.
6. Goals based on eternal values
are obsolete.
7. Man must use governments to
establish right and wrong.
8. The only rule of life is to
live it to the fullest.
9. The only goal is self-fulfillment.
10. Spiritual life will not be
allowed.
11. Sentiment, hopes and wishful-thinking
will be disallowed.
12. Religions shall be reconstituted
as quickly as possible.
13. Socialist communism shall
replace acquisitive capitalism.
In 1973, the second manifesto revealed the humanist plan for one world government, dedicated to atheism. A few points touched upon in that document follow, paraphrased from the 1973 text:
1. False hopes of heaven
are harmful.
2. Reasonable minds look to other
methods of survival.
3. The 21st Century should be
the humanistic century.
4. Humanism intends a secular
society on a planetary scale.
5. There is no divine purpose
for the human species.
6. Religion is an obstacle to
human progress.
7. Ethics is autonomous and situational.
8. Abortion and divorce are human
rights.
9. Sexual and homosexual exploration
are human rights.
10. Euthanasia and suicide are
human rights.
11. The limits of national sovereignty
must be transcended.
12. A transnational federal government
should be established.
No high and holy wisdom based on Eternal Principles of Justice would be permitted in the grand utopia these fools envisioned. Jurisprudence would be forgotten, and in its place they would erect legal mechanisms, public policies, and a promise of the good life for all who agree with their godless proposals. They condemned as heresy the thought we humans might place our hope in an Eternal Law of Love and Truth to guide and ennoble our lives.
Their New Age became the political goal of the last century, however their Jurisprudence was without foundation and so is crumbling as men and women of conscience and wisdom turn back to Truth in this new millennium. Their classroom secularists refrained from divine considerations when they spoke of law, so their system began to break down in accordance with the rule of Natural Law, predictably. Their religion threatened to displace philosophies and beliefs that teach Eternal Truth, a march of resolute ignorance that would not retreat one single inch, yet it is this weakness that gives us today the power to overcome their lies and restore Jurisprudence once again as the high and holy wisdom it will ever be!
CHOICES
Perhaps you now see why we heard so much about "human rights" this last century. It is a humanist term. Atheists who gained power after World War II had no real Jurisprudence. They attempted to lead our generation by the nose to a New Tomorrow we would not find to our liking! We tried to be fair and liberal, but we were neither just nor prudent, and the price of our foolishness has not yet been counted! Scholars of the last century were deceitful barons of knowledge wandering about concealing or uprooting ancient landmarks. It was as if our heritage and every noble thought of our forefathers was rendered foolishness by the unchallenged edict of Twentieth Century scholarship swayed by humanistic atheism.
Their scholars were so completely lost in their conceit they proposed to re-define reality and so, with words, cause it to bend to every desire of their imaginations. They sought to replace the meaning of Jurisprudence with measurements of social science and the vanity of godless philosophies. You are witness to the consequence of their stealthily emerging ideas that threatened to destroy the fabric of civilization and cast your children headlong into the terror of an intolerable anarchy where rule would be by force alone and justice would be a thing only the most wealthy and politically favoured could afford.
Now we teach Natural Law once more and will cause our man-made laws to conform.
At issue is nothing more or less than The Truth.
CONCLUSION
A mighty beam suspends the pans of justice! A razors edge is its fulcrum! But, the burden of its judgments can only be sustained by a foundation rooted and grounded in Truth.
Tennyson wrote:
Our little systems
have their day;
They have their day and
cease to be:
They are but broken lights
of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art
more than they.
Many still believe we have no right to speak of Eternal Truth or Natural Law in public. They claim it violates their code, unwritten edicts of the politically correct. They wish us to believe the very idea of Eternal Truth or Natural Law has no place in society, much less in political and jurisprudential deliberations.
Let us ask them in reply, "Why not?"
Why not seek to discern what Natural Law dictates as a consequence to our errors?
Why not frame our laws to protect the innocent and warn the impudent?
Why not exercise wisdom and acknowledge that which cannot be denied?
Our most prestigious law schools were founded by legal educators devoted to promoting public awareness of the eternal principles of right and wrong. Harvard, Yale, and dozens of others were built and staffed in their early years by teachers who taught Natural Law.
To those who say Natural Law has no place in our discussions of law we can reply that our founding fathers were staunch believers who acknowledged self-evident Truth as their guide. It is time we told those who conceit themselves wiser than the founders of this nation that they shall have no place in our classrooms, legislatures, or courthouses.
Jurisprudence is being restored!
Though today's usage is so foreign to its original meaning and so divested of its lofty purpose and its noble goal as to have become a non sequitur, we can nonetheless return it to its proper place by insisting that our leaders recognize Natural Law.
Jurisprudence is not just another name for law. It is not just a branch of social science. It certainly is not an arcane discipline between the abstrusities of social ethics and that maze men call epistemology. It is the wisdom of law, and we need it today more than ever.
We can be empowered as a people once again by its value and greatness, for it was the wise Jurisprudence of our founders that launched this great nation. The success they hoped for will be ours as we resurrect Jurisprudence from its holy tomb.
Atheist thinkers selectively defined the term to eliminate its meaning and replace it with their humanist substitute (social engineering) by which, if we allowed it, they would commit heinous crimes against humanity in their vain effort to evade what cannot be escaped.
Natural Law is an unavoidable part of Reality, and Reality is no illusion (except to fools).
The ancients venerated words, using them to contemplate deeper truths. By words they searched for Truth and the destiny ordained by Natural Law, concerned for the welfare of their own children.
We can re-establish Truth. We can take our nation back from the liberated generation of the preceding century and refuse to cross the wide uncharted sea of the future guided only by science and social pressures. We can heed the wisdom of the past, instead of seeking profit for today at the expense of tomorrow.
Our founders knew there'd come a time when we'd forget their vision. Many predicted our refusal to rely on the landmarks of their wise architecture. Orwell predicted important words would be displaced by newspeak and newthink. By the year 2050, where will truth be? Where justice? Where liberty?
As we come together at the dawn of this wonderful millennium we choose to ensure that liberty, justice, and truth will be secure for our children and for their children, dispelling the darkness that has too long attempted to destroy us with atheism's lies.
Jurisprudence has been called the "queen of reason". Come, let us reason together! Let us see that those who ignore the mandates of Natural Law are unworthy to lead us, for they serve a darkness that denies Eternal Truth. They are not friends of humanity as they claim.
Jurisprudence, like the torch held high by Lady Liberty in New York's harbour, lights our search for Truth. It is the code by which wisdom will codify our laws. It is not mere law nor a body of laws or the science or study of laws. It is wisdom looking toward the future for the welfare of us all. It is Prudence searching to discern the mandates of Natural Law.
Without Jurisprudence we are barbarians who go to war and criminals to punish those whose acts offend us, for without Jurisprudence we have no authority but our own desires.
We are wiser with a faulty Jurisprudence than with none at all.
The founders of this nation rested on the wisdom of the past, looked into the future, and laboured resolutely with concern for us who are their posterity.
Now, we will join together to take up their cause and truly follow in their footsteps.
Only Truth is true.
Only Wisdom is wise.
Let our Wisdom seek to discover Truth once again and in its Freedom rejoice!
* * * * *
©
2000 by Frederick Graves, JD - All Rights Reserved
Not to be used or reproduced without permission and proper credit
to the author.
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