Common-law judges sometimes talk about the law, and school-masters
talk about the latin tongue, in a way to make their hearers think
they mean entities pre-existent to the decisions or to the words and
syntax, determining them unequivocally and requiring them to obey.
But the slightest exercise of reflexion makes us see that, instead
of being principles of this kind, both law and latin are results.
Distinctions between the lawful and the unlawful in conduct, or
between the correct and incorrect in speech, have grown up
incidentally among the interactions of men's experiences in detail;
and in no other way do distinctions between the true and the false
in belief ever grow up. Truth grafts itself on previous truth,
modifying it in the process, just as idiom grafts itself on previous
idiom, and law on previous law. Given previous law and a novel case,
and the judge will twist them into fresh law. Previous idiom; new
slang or metaphor or oddity that hits the public taste:--and presto,
a new idiom is made. Previous truth; fresh facts:--and our mind
finds a new truth.
All the while, however, we pretend that the eternal is unrolling,
that the one previous justice, grammar or truth is simply
fulgurating, and not being made.
Pages:
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200