§ 1. Preliminary Principles.
The Personality of Grod involved in the Idea of Law ; and, there ■ fore, all Morality is founded on Religion.
The principal meanings of the word law are, (1.) An estab- lished order in the sequence of events. A law, in this sense, is a mere fact. That the planets are distant from the sun accord- ing to a determined proportion ; that the leaves of a plant are arranged in a regular spiral around the stem ; and that one idea by association suggests another, are simple facts. Yet they are properly called laws, in the sense of established orders of sequence or relation. So also what are called the laws of light, of sound, and of chemical affinity, are, for the most part, mere facts. (2.) A uniformly acting force which determines the regular sequence of events. In this sense the physical forces which we see in operation around us, are called the laws of nature. Gravitation, light, heat, electricity, and magnetism, are such forces. The fact that they act uniformly gives them the character of laws. Thus the Apos- tle speaks also of a law of sin in his members which wars against the law of the mind. (3.) Law is that which binds the conscience. It imposes the obligation of conformity to its demands upon all rational creatures. This is true of the moral law in its widest sense. It is also true of human laws within the sphere of their legitimate operation.
In all these senses of the word, law implies a law-giver ; that is, an intelligence acting voluntarily for the attainment of an end. The irregular, or unregulated action of physical forces produces chaos ; their ordered action produces the cosmos. But ordered action is action preestablished, sustained, and directed for the accomplishment of a purpose.
This is still more obviously true with regard to moral laws. The slightest analysis of our feelings is sufficient to show that moral obligation is the obligation to conform our character and conduct to the will of an infinitely perfect Being, who has the
260 PART HI. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
authority to make his will imperative, and who has the power and the right to punish disobedience. The sense of guilt especially resolves itself into a consciousness of being amenable to a moral governor. The moral law, therefore, is in its nature the revela- tion of the will of God so far as that will concerns the conduct of his creatures. It has no other authority and no other sanction than that which it derives from Him.
The same is true with regard to the laws of men. They have no power or authority unless they have a moral foundation. And if they have a moral basis, so that they bind the conscience, that basis must be the divine will. The authority of civil rulers, the rights of property, of marriage, and all other civil rights, do not rest on abstractions, nor on general principles of expediency. They might be disregarded without guilt, were they not sustained by the authority of God. All moral obligation, therefore, resolves itself into the obligation of conformity to the will of God. And all human rights are founded on the ordinance of God. So that theism is the basis of jurisprudence as well as of morality. This doctrine is taught by Stahl, perhaps the greatest living authority on the philosophy of law. " Every philosophical science," he says, " must begin with the first principle of- all things, that is, with the Absolute. It must, therefore, decide between Theism and Pantheism, between the doctrine that the first cause or principle is the personal, extramundane, self-revealing God, and the doc- trine that the first principle is an impersonal power immanent in the world." 1 It is not pantheism, but fetichism to make all things God. The real question is, Whether the Absolute has personality and self -consciousness or not ? Stahl had previously said to the same effect, that every philosophy, and every religion, and espe- cially the Christian, must proceed on a theory of the universe (a Weltanschauung). It is the Christian doctrine of God and of his relation to the world, that he makes the foundation of legal and political science (of Rechts- und Staatslehre).2 He therefore calls his system " theological " in so far as it makes the nature and will of God the foundation of all duties and the source of all rights.
He recognizes, however, the distinction between morality and religion. u Morality," he says, " is the perfection (Vollendung) of man in himself (so far as the will is concerned) ; or the revelation
1 Die Philosophie des Rechts, von Friedrich Julius Stahl; Rechts- und Staatslehre, i. L 1, § 1 ; 4th edit. Heidelberg, 1870, vol. ii. part 1, p. 7. > Einleitung, § 5, ut supra, p. 4.