NATURAL
LAW OR THE SCIENCE OF JUSTICE: A TREATISE
ON NATURAL LAW, NATURAL JUSTICE, NATURAL RIGHTS,
NATURAL LIBERTY, AND NATURAL SOCIETY; SHOWING
THAT ALL LEGISLATION WHATSOEVER IS AN ABSURDITY,
A USURPATION, AND A CRIME.
BY LYSANDER SPOONER
BOSTON: A. WILLIAMS &
CO., 283 Washington Street 1882. |
NATURAL LAW.
PART FIRST.
CHAPTER 1.THE SCIENCE OF JUSTICE.
Section I.
- The science of mine and thine --- the
science of justice --- is the science
of all human rights; of all a man's rights of person
and property; of all his rights to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
- It is the science which alone can tell any man
what he can, and cannot, do; what he can, and cannot,
have; what he can, and cannot, say, without infringing
the rights of any other person.
- It is the science of peace; and the only science
of peace; since it is the science which alone can
tell us on what conditions mankind can live in peace,
or ought to live in peace, with each other.
- These conditions are simply these: viz., first,
that each man shall do, towards every other, all
that justice requires him to do; as, for example,
that he shall pay his debts, that he shall return
borrowed or stolen property to its owner, and that
he shall make reparation for any injury he may have
done to the person or property of another.
- The second condition is, that each man shall
abstain from doing so another, anything which justice
forbids him to do; as, [*6] for example, that he
shall abstain from committing theft, robbery, arson,
murder, or any other crime against the person or
property of another.
- So long as these conditions are fulfilled, men
are at peace, and ought to remain at peace, with
each other. But when either of these conditions
is violated, men are at war. And they must necessarily
remain at war until justice is re-established.
- Through all time, so far as history informs us,
wherever mankind have attempted to live in peace
with each other, both the natural instincts, and
the collective wisdom of the human race, have acknowledged
and prescribed, as an indispensable condition, obedience
to this one only universal obligation: viz., that
each should live honestly towards every other.
- The ancient maxim makes the sum of a man's legal
duty to his fellow men to be simply this: "To
live honestly, to hurt no one, to give to every
one his due."
- This entire maxim is really expressed in the
single words, to live honestly; since to
live honestly is to hurt no one, and give to every
one his due.
Section II.
- Man, no doubt, owes many other moral
duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry,
clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for
the sick, protect the defenceless, assist the weak,
and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply
moral duties, of which each man must be
his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether,
and how, and how far, he can, or will, perform them.
But of his legal duty --- that
is, of his duty to live honestly towards his fellow
men --- his fellow men not only may
judge, but, for their own protection, must judge.
And, if need be, they may rightfully compel
him to perform it. They may do this, acting singly,
or in concert. They may do it on the instant, as
the necessity arises, or deliberately and systematically,
if they prefer to do so, and the exigency will admit
of it.[*7]
Section III.
- Although it is the right of anybody and everybody --- of
any one man, or set of men, no less than another --- to
repel injustice, and compel justice, for themselves,
and for all who may be wronged, yet to avoid the
errors that are liable to result from haste and
passion, and that everybody, who desires it, may
rest secure in the assurance of protection, without
a resort to force, it is evidently desirable that
men should associate, so far as they freely and
voluntarily can do so, for the maintenance of justice
among themselves, and for mutual protection against
other wrong-doers. It is also in the highest degree
desirable that they should agree upon some plan
or system of judicial proceedings, which, in the
trial of causes, should secure caution, deliberation,
thorough investigation, and, as far as possible,
freedom from every influence but the simple desire
to do justice.
- Yet such associations can be rightful and desirable
only in so far as they are purely voluntary. No
man can rightfully be coerced into joining one,
or supporting one, against his will. His own interest,
his own judgement, and his own conscience alone
must determine whether he will join this association,
or that; or whether he will join any. If he chooses
to depend, for the protection of his own rights,
solely upon himself, and upon such voluntary assistance
as other persons may freely offer to him when the
necessity for it arises, he has a perfect right
to do so. And this course would be a reasonably
safe one for him to follow, so long as he himself
should manifest the ordinary readiness of mankind,
in like cases, to go to the assistance and defence
of injured persons; and should also himself "live
honestly, hurt no one, and give to every one his
due." For such a man is reasonably sure of always
giving friends and defenders enough in case of need,
whether he shall have joined any association, or
not.
- Certainly no man can rightfully be required to
join, or support, an association whose protection
he does not desire. Nor can any man be reasonably
or rightfully expected to join, or support, any
association whose plans, or method of proceeding,
he does not [*8] approve, as likely to accomplish
its professed purpose of maintaining justice, and
at the same time itself avoid doing injustice. To
join, or support, one that would, in his opinion,
be inefficient, would be absurd. To join or support
one that, in his opinion, would itself do injustice,
would be criminal. He must, therefore, be left at
the same liberty to join, or not to join, an association
for this purpose, as for any other, according as
his own interest, discretion, or conscience shall
dictate.
- An association for mutual protection against
injustice is like an association for mutual protection
against fire or shipwreck. And there is no more
right or reason in compelling any man to
join or support one of these associations, against
his will, his judgement, or his conscience, than
there is in compelling him to join or support any
other, whose benefits (if it offer any) he does
not want, or whose purposes or methods he does not
approve.
Section IV.
- No objection can be made to these voluntary associations
upon the ground that they would lack that knowledge
of justice, as a science, which would be necessary
to enable them to maintain justice, and themselves
avoid doing injustice. Honesty, justice, natural
law, is usually a very plain and simple matter,
easily understood by common minds. Those who desire
to know what it is, in any particular case, seldom
have to go far to find it. It is true, it must be
learned, like any other science. But it is also
true that it is very easily learned. Although as
illimitable in its applications as the infinite
relations and dealings of men with each other, it
is, nevertheless, made up of a few simple elementary
principles, of the truth and justice of which every
ordinary mind has an almost intuitive perception.
And almost all men have the same perceptions of
what constitutes justice, or of what justice requires,
when they understand alike the facts from which
their inferences are to be drawn.
- Men living in contact with each other, and having
intercourse together, cannot avoid learning
natural law, to a very great extent, [*9] even if
they would. The dealings of men with men, their
separate possessions and their individual wants,
and the disposition of every man to demand, and
insist upon, whatever he believes to be his due,
and to resent and resist all invasions of what he
believes to be his rights, are continually forcing
upon their minds the questions, Is this act just?
or is it unjust? Is this thing mine? or is it his?
And these are questions of natural law; questions
which, in regard to the great mass of cases, are
answered alike by the human mind everywhere. <fn1>
- Children learn the fundamental principles of natural
law at a very early age. Thus they very early understand
that one child must not, without just cause, strike
or otherwise hurt, another; that one child must
not assume any arbitrary control or domination over
another; that one child must not, either by force,
deceit, or stealth, obtain possession of anything
that belongs to another; that if one child commits
any of these wrongs against another, it is not only
the right of the injured child to resist, and, if
need be, punish the wrongdoer, and compel him to
make reparation, but that it is also the right,
and the moral duty, of all other children, and all
other persons, to assist the injured party in defending
his rights, and redressing his wrongs. These are
fundamental principles of natural law, which govern
the most important transactions of man with man.
Yet children learn them earlier than they learn
that three and three are six, or five and five ten.
Their childish plays, even, could not be carried
on without a constant regard to them; and it is
equally impossible for persons of any age to live
together in peace on any other conditions.[*10]
- It would be no extravagance to say that, in most
cases, if not in all, mankind at large, young and
old, learn this natural law long before they have
learned the meanings of the words by which we describe
it. In truth, it would be impossible to make them
understand the real meanings of the words, if they
did not understand the nature of the thing itself.
To make them understand the meanings of the words
justice and injustice before knowing the nature
of the things themselves, would be as impossible
as it would be to make them understand the meanings
of the words heat and cold, wet and dry, light and
darkness, white and black, one and two, before knowing
the nature of the things themselves. Men necessarily
must know sentiments and ideas, no less than material
things, before they can know the meanings of the
words by which we describe them.[*11]
CHAPTER II.
THE SCIENCE OF JUSTICE (CONTINUED)
Section I.
- If justice be not a natural principle, it is
no principle at all. If it be not a natural principle,
there is no such thing as justice. If it be not
a natural principle, all that men have ever said
or written about it, from time immemorial, has been
said and written about that which had no existence.
If it be not a natural principle, all the appeals
for justice that have ever been heard, and all the
struggles for justice that have ever been witnessed,
have been appeals and struggles for a mere fantasy,
a vagary of the imagination, and not for a reality.
- If justice be not a natural principle, then there
is no such thing as injustice; and all the crimes
of which the world has been the scene, have been
no crimes at all; but only simple events, like the
falling of the rain, or the setting of the sun;
events of which the victims had no more reason to
complain than they had to complain of the running
of the streams, or the growth of vegetation.
- If justice be not a natural principle, governments
(so-called) have no more right or reason to take
cognizance of it, or to pretend or profess to take
cognizance of it, than they have to take cognizance,
or to pretend or profess to take cognizance, of
any other nonentity; and all their professions of
establishing justice, or of maintaining justice,
or of rewarding justice, are simply the mere gibberish
of fools, or the frauds of imposters.
- But if justice be a natural principle, then it
is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more
be changed --- by any power inferior to
that which established it --- than can
the law of gravitation, the laws of light, the principles
of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle
whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the
part of any man or body of men --- whether
calling themselves governments, or by any other
name --- to set up their [*12] own commands,
wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of
justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being,
are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny,
as would be their attempts to set up their own commands,
wills, pleasure, or discretion in the place of any
and all the physical, mental, and moral laws of
the universe.
Section II.
- If there be any such principle as justice, it
is, of necessity, a natural principle; and, as such,
it is a matter of science, to be learned and applied
like any other science. And to talk of either adding
to, or taking from, it, by legislation, is just
as false, absurd, and ridiculous as it would be
to talk of adding to, or taking from, mathematics,
chemistry, or any other science, by legislation.
Section III.
- If there be in nature such a principle as justice,
nothing can be added to, or taken from, its supreme
authority by all the legislation of which the entire
human race united are capable. And all the attempts
of the human race, or of any portion of it, to add
to, or take from, the supreme authority of justice,
in any case whatever, is of no more obligation upon
any single human being than is the idle wind.
Section IV.
- If there be such a principle as justice, or natural
law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us
what rights were given to every human being at his
birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him
as a human being, necessarily remain with him during
life; and, however capable of being trampled upon,
are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished,
annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his
nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent
authority or obligation.[*13]
- On the other hand, if there be no such principle
as justice, or natural law, then every human being
came into the world utterly destitute of rights;
and coming into the world destitute of rights, he
must necessarily forever remain so. For if no one
brings any rights with him into the world, clearly
no one can ever have any rights of his own, or give
any to another. And the consequence would be that
mankind could never have any rights; and for them
to talk of any such things as their rights, would
be to talk of things that never had, never will
have, and never can have any existence.
Section V.
- If there be such a natural principle as justice,
it is necessarily the highest, and consequently
the only and universal, law for all those matters
to which it is naturally applicable. And, consequently,
all human legislation is simply and always an assumption
of authority and dominion, where no right of authority
or dominion exists. It is, therefore, simply and
always an intrusion, an absurdity, an usurpation,
and a crime.
- On the other hand, if there be no such natural
principle as justice, there can be no such thing
as dishonesty; and no possible act of either force
or fraud, committed by one man against the person
or property of another, can be said to be unjust
or dishonest; or be complained of, or prohibited,
or punished as such. In short, if there be no such
principle as justice, there can be no such acts
as crimes; and all the professions of governments,
so called, that they exist, either in whole or in
part, for the punishment or prevention of crimes,
are professions that they exist for the punishment
or prevention of what never existed, nor ever can
exist. Such professions are therefore confessions
that, so far as crimes are concerned, governments
have no occasion to exist; that there is nothing
for them to do, and that there is nothing that they
can do. They are confessions that the governments
exist for the punishment and prevention of acts
that are, in their nature, simple impossibilities.[*14]
Section VI.
- If there be in nature such a principle as justice,
such a principle as honesty, such principles as
we describe by the words mine and thine, such principles
as men's natural rights of person and property,
then we have an immutable and universal law; a law
that we can learn, as we learn any other science;
a law that tells us what is just and what is unjust,
what is honest and what is dishonest, what things
are mine and what things are thine, what are my
rights of person and property and what are your
rights of person and property, and where is the
boundary between each and all of my rights of person
and property and each and all of your rights of
person and property. And this law is the paramount
law, and the same law, over all the world, at all
times, and for all peoples; and will be the same
paramount and only law, at all times, and for all
peoples, so long as man shall live upon the earth.
- But if, on the other hand, there be in nature
no such principle as justice, no such principle
as honesty, no such principle as men's natural rights
of person or property, then all such words as justice
and injustice, honesty and dishonesty, all such
words as mine and thine, all words that signify
that one thing is one man's property and that another
thing is another man's property, all words that
are used to describe men's natural rights of person
or property, all such words as are used to describe
injuries and crimes, should be struck out of all
human languages as having no meanings; and it should
be declared, at once and forever, that the greatest
force and the greatest frauds, for the time being,
are the supreme and only laws for governing the
relations of men with each other; and that, from
henceforth, all persons and combinations of persons --- those
that call themselves governments, as well as all
others --- are to be left free to practice
upon each other all the force, and all the fraud,
of which they are capable.[*15]
Section VII.
- If there be no such science as justice, there
can be no science of government; and all the rapacity
and violence, by which, in all ages and nations,
a few confederated villains have obtained the mastery
over the rest of mankind, reduced them to poverty
and slavery, and established what they called governments
to keep them in subjection, have been as legitimate
examples of government as any that the world is
ever to see.
Section VIII.
- If there be in nature such a principle as justice,
it is necessarily the only political principle
there ever was, or ever will be. All the other so-called
political principles, which men are in the habit
of inventing, are not principles at all. They are
either the mere conceits of simpletons, who imagine
they have discovered something better than truth,
and justice, and universal law; or they are mere
devices and pretences, to which selfish and knavish
men resort as means to get fame, and power, and
money.[*16]
CHAPTER III.
NATURAL LAW CONSTRASTED WITH
LEGISLATION.
Section I.
- Natural law, natural justice, being a principle
that is naturally applicable and adequate to the
rightful settlement of every possible controversy
that can arise among men; being too, the only standard
by which any controversy whatever, between man and
man, can be rightfully settled; being a principle
whose protection every man demands for himself,
whether he is willing to accord it to others, or
not; being also an immutable principle, one that
is always and everywhere the same, in all ages and
nations; being self-evidently necessary in all times
and places; being so entirely impartial and equitable
towards all; so indispensable to the peace of mankind
everywhere; so vital to the safety and welfare of
every human being; being, too, so easily learned,
so generally known, and so easily maintained by
such voluntary associations as all honest men can
readily and rightully form for that purpose --- being
such a principle as this, these questions arise,
viz.: Why is it that it does not universally, or
well nigh universally, prevail? Why is it that it
has not, ages ago, been established throughout the
world as the one only law that any man, or all men,
could rightfully be compelled to obey? Why is it
that any human being ever conceived that anything
so self-evidently superfluous, false, absurd, and
atrocious as all legislation necessarily must be,
could be of any use to mankind, or have any place
in human affairs?
Section II.
- The answer is, that through all historic times,
wherever any people have advanced beyond the savage
state, and have learned to increase their means
of sub-sistence by the cultivation of soil, a greater
or less number of them have associated and organized
themselves as robbers, to plunder and enslave all
others, [*17] who had either accumulated any property
that could be seized, or had shown, by their labor,
that they could be made to contribute to the support
or pleasure of those who should enslave them.
- These bands of robbers, small in number at fist,
have increased their power by uniting with each
other, inventing warlike weapons, disciplining themselves,
and perfecting their organizations as military forces,
and dividing their plunder (including their captives)
among themselves, either in such proportions as
have been previously agreed on, or in such as their
leaders (always desirous to increase the number
of their followers) should prescribe.
- The success of these bands of robbers was an
easy thing, for the reason that those whom they
plundered and ensalved were comparatively defenceless;
being scattered thinly over the country; engaged
wholly in trying, by rude implements and heavy labor,
to extort a subsistence from the soil; having no
weapons of war, other than sticks and stones; having
no military discipline or organization, and no means
of concentrating their forces, or acting in concert,
when suddenly attacked. Under these circumstances,
the only alternative left them for saving even their
lives, or the lives of their families, was to yield
up not only the crops they had gathered, and the
lands they had cultivated, but themselves and their
families also as slaves.
- Thenceforth their fate was, as slaves, to cultivate
for others the lands they had before cultivated
for themselves. Being driven constantly to their
labor, wealth slowly increased; but all went into
the hands of their tyrants.
- These tyrants, living solely on plunder, and
on the labor of their slaves, and applying all their
energies to the seizure of still more plunder, and
the enslavement of still other defenceless persons;
increasing, too, their numbers, perfecting their
organizations, and multiplying their weapons of
war, they extend their conquests until, in order
to hold what they have already got, it becomes necessary
for them to act systematically, and cooperate with
each other in holding their slaves in subjection.
- But all this they can do only by establishing
what they call a government, and making what they
call laws.[*18]
- All the great governments of the world --- those
now existing, as well as those that have passed
away --- have been of this character.
They have been mere bands of robbers, who have associated
for purposes of plunder, conquest, and the enslavement
of their fellow men. And their laws, as they have
called them, have been only such agreements as they
have found it necessary to enter into, in order
to maintain their organizations, and act together
in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing
to each his agreed share of the spoils.
- All these laws have had no more real obligation
than have the agreements which brigands, bandits,
and pirates find it necessary to enter into with
each other, for the more successful accomplishment
of their crimes, and the more peaceable division
of their spoils.
- Thus substantially all the legislation of the
world has had its origin in the desires of one class --- of
persons to plunder and enslave others, and hold
them as property.
Section III.
- In process of time, the robber, or slaveholding,
class --- who had seized all the lands,
and held all the means of creating wealth --- began
to discover that the easiest mode of managing their
slaves, and making them profitable, was not
for each slaveholder to hold his specified number
of slaves, as he had done before, and as he would
hold so many cattle, but to give them so much liberty
as would throw upon themselves (the slaves) the
responsibility of their own subsistence, and yet
compel them to sell their labor to the land-hodling
class --- their former owners --- for
just what the latter might choose to give them.
- Of course, these liberated slaves, as some have
erroneously called them, having no lands, or other
property, and no means of obtaining an independent
subsistence, had no alternative --- to
save themselves from starvation --- but
to sell their labor to the landholders, in exchange
only for the coarsest necessaries of life; not always
for so much even as that.[*19]
- These liberated slaves, as they were called,
were now scarcely less slaves than they were before.
Their means of subsistence were perhaps even more
precarious than when each had his own owner, who
had an interest to preserve his life. They were
liable, at the caprice or interest of the landholders,
to be thrown out of home, employment, and the opportunity
of even earning a subsistence by their labor. They
were, therefore, in large numbers, driven to the
necessity of begging, stealing, or starving; and
became, of course, dangerous to the property and
quiet of their late masters.
- The consequence was, that these late owners found
it necessary, for their own safety and the safety
of their property, to organize themselves more perfectly
as a government and make laws for keeping these
dangerous people in subjection; that is, laws
fixing the prices at which they should be compelled
to labor, and also prescribing fearful punishments,
even death itself, for such thefts and tresspasses
as they were driven to commit, as their only means
of saving them-selves from starvation.
- These laws have continued in force for hundreds,
and, in some countries, for thousands of years;
and are in force to-day, in greater or less everity,
in nearly all the countries on the globe.
- The purpose and effect of these laws have been
to maintain, in the hands of the robber, or slave
holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as
far as possible, of all other means of creating
wealth; and thus to keep the great body of laborers
in such a state of poverty and dependence, as would
compel them to sell their labor to their tyrants
for the lowest prices at which life could be sustained.
- The result of all this is, that the little wealth
there is in the world is all in the hands of a few --- that
is, in the hands of the law-making, slave-holding
class; who are now as much slaveholders in spirit
as they ever were, but who accomplish their purposes
by means of the laws they make for keeping
the laborers in subjection and dependence, instead
of each one's owning his individual slaves as so
many chattels.[*20]
- Thus the whole business of legislation, which
has now grown to such gigantic proportions, had
its origin in the conspiracies, which have always
existed among the few, for the purpose of holding
the many in subjection, and extorting from them
their labor, and all the profits of their labor.
- And the real motives and spirit which lie at
the foundation of all legislation --- notwithstanding
all the pretences and disguises by which they attempt
to hide themselves --- are the same to-day
as they always have been. They whole purpose of
this legislation is simply to keep one class of
men in subordination and servitude to another.
Section IV.
- What, then, is legislation? It is an assumption
by one man, or body of men, of absolute, irresponsible
dominion over all other men whom they call subject
to their power. It is the assumption by one man,
or body of men, of a right to subject all other
men to their will and their service. It is the assumption
by one man, or body of men, of a right to abolish
outright all the natural rights, all the natural
liberty of all other men; to make all other men
their slaves; to arbitrarily dictate to all other
men what they may, and may not, do; what they may,
and may not, have; what they may, and may not, be.
It is, in short, the assumption of a right to banish
the principle of human rights, the principle of
justice itself, from off the earth, and set up their
own personal will, pleasure, and interest in its
place. All this, and nothing less, is involved in
the very idea that there can be any such thing as
human legislation that is obligatory upon those
upon whom it is imposed.
NOTES
- 1. Sir William Jones, an English
judge in India, and one of the most learned judges
that ever lived, learned in Asiatic as well as European
law, says: "It is pleasing to remark the similarity,
or, rather, the idenity, of those conclusions which
pure, unbiased reason, in all ages and nations,
seldom fails to draw, in such juridical inquiries
as are not fettered and manacled by positive institutions." --- Jones
on Bailments, 133.
- He means here to say that, when
no law has been made in violation of justice, judicial
tribunals, "in all ages and nations," have "seldom"
failed to agree as to what justice is.
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