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[69]
Owing to the low ebb of public sentiment, such1
a method of procedure, I find, is neither by custom
accounted morally wrong nor forbidden either by
statute or by civil law; nevertheless it is forbidden
by the moral law. For there is a bond of fellowship—although I have often made this statement, I
must still repeat it again and again—which has the
very widest application, uniting all men together
and each to each. This bond of union is closer
between those who belong to the same nation, and
more intimate still between those who are citizens
of the same city-state. It is for this reason that
our forefathers chose to understand one thing by the
universal law and another by the civil law. The
[p. 341]
civil law is not necessarily also the universal law;
but the universal law ought to be also the civil law.
But we possess no substantial, life-like image of true
Law and genuine Justice; a mere outline sketch is
all that we enjoy. I only wish that we were true
even to this; for, even as it is, it is drawn from the
excellent models which Nature and Truth afford.
For how weighty are the words:
1 Civil law vs. moral law.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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