Restriction

“ The restrictions of external circumstances we most of us accept without over much of rancour. What we do not accept, that against which we are in eternal revolt, is the restriction imposed upon us by other wills than ours. ”

“ I cannot doubt that the very business contemplated by the rule would be discussed directly, plainly, briefly, according to the essential nature of the question, even without any restriction. But, if unnecessary, why make a change which will look so ill that it were better to bear inconvenience rather than have such a deformity? ”

“ So absolutely free of all restrictions had our people always been, indeed so specially privileged in this way above all other lands, that it took many years to bring them under what they looked upon as the yoke. ”

“ There must, in every society, be some power or other, from which there is no appeal, which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole mass of the community, regulates and adjusts all subordination, enacts laws or repeals them, erects or annuls judicatures, extends or contracts privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by physical necessity. ”

“ Government and law, in their very essence, consist of restrictions on freedom, and freedom is the greatest of political goods. ”

“ The rules and restrictions under which I have lived among my own people cannot, I now realize, be expected to apply to situations so unusual or to people and places so foreign to those whose lives they were intended to govern. ”

“ To his way of thinking, the laws were cleverly-designed restrictions promulgated by that marvelous epitome of humanity, the common man, to keep the mysterious scientists from meddling with things they oughtn't to. ”

“ on the same principle as that now generally accepted—that it is the restrictions placed on vice by our social code which make its pursuit so peculiarly agreeable. ”

“ Passing the question whether this assumed restriction is not in the nature of things imaginary as the result of the scope of the authority asserted, let us come to dispose of the contention made by examining the propositions relied upon to sustain it.
They are: 1. ”

“ Regulations for these purposes may press with more or less weight upon one than upon another, but they are designed, not to impose unequal or unnecessary209 restrictions upon any one, but to promote, with as little individual inconvenience as possible, the general good. ”

“ The duce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affair—and if I had one—as I do all things out of all rule—I would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had done—Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it—a pretty story! is a man to follow rules—or rules to follow him? ”

“ If we look into history we shall find, that laws, which are, or ought to be, conventions between men in a state of freedom, have been, for the most part the work of the passions of a few, or the consequences of a fortuitous or temporary necessity ”

“ In the sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable, and lay hold, as it were, on the eternities. At the very centre of your being, there is a fixed element, and that of a kind or degree essentially sovereign. A standard is set up in your very thought, by which a great part of your questions are determined, and about which your otherwise random thoughts may settle into order and law. ”

“ Are we at liberty, upon any principles of reason, or common sense, to adopt a restrictive meaning, which will defeat an avowed object of the constitution, when another equally natural and more appropriate to the object is before us? ”

“ Could you, to-morrow, reduce all men to one uniform and perfect level, in condition, in property, and in privileges, not a week would pass away without producing changes utterly destructive of perfect equality. ”

“ Society, therefore, must frame and enforce rules for the regulation and control of the conduct of its individual members, must even restrain them to some extent from the gratification of some of their desires. ”

“ But for the very reason that this absolute and unrestricted freedom must naturally lead you to the very extreme limit of propriety, so much the more scrupulous must you be not to transgress any outward duty ”

“ In view of these things, may we fairly raise the question as to whether there are exceptions to so universal a rule? Were we to set up a different right, would it not be the right of the weak? Would it not be to make the sick and the infirm masters over the well and the strong? ”

“ Each case with decision being thus limited as law to itself alone would in turn pass away and be forgotten, leaving behind it no record of principle established, or light to guide, or rule to govern the future. ”

“ Examine the writers on the laws of nature; and you will always find, that, whatever principles they set out with, they are sure to terminate here at last, and to assign, as the ultimate reason for every rule which they establish, the convenience and necessities of mankind. A concession thus extorted, in opposition to systems, has more authority than if it had been made in prosecution of them. ”

“ The rule of law, Restrict your freedom through the conception of the freedom of all other persons with whom you come in contact! receives, it is true, a new sanction for conscience through the Moral Law; but the deduction of this sanction forms a part of the Science of Morality, and does not belong to the Science of Rights. ”

“ With the evolution of society, made possible by institutions maintaining order, and associating in men's minds the sense of obligation with prescribed acts and with desistances from forbidden acts, there arose opportunities for seeing the bad consequences naturally flowing from the conduct interdicted and the good consequences from the conduct required. ”

“ But laws, in their more confined sense, and in which it is our present business to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct: that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and freewill, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour. ”

“ There are in the world, in fact, two different laws of conduct each valid on its own plane, the rale principally dependent on external status and the rule independent of status and entirely dependent on the thought and conscience. ”

“ Law and religion forbid the bans on the ground of propinquity or consanguinity; society steps in to separate classes; and in all this most critical matter, has common sense, has wisdom, never a word to say? ”

“ In saying this, I mean only to designate the general spirit of human law. Every principle, on its application to practice, must be limited and modified by circumstances; our reason by our common sense. ”

“ Thus the idea of legal constraint is still the generating idea of the notion of justice, though undergoing several transformations before that notion, as it exists in an advanced state of society, becomes complete. ”

“ It thus appears, that the laws of our political condition, the laws of the natural world, and the constitution of our bodies, alike demand that we rise with the light of day to prosecute our employments, and that we retire within doors, when this light is withdrawn. ”

“ And the ultimate abolition of all limits to the freedom of each, save those imposed by the like freedom of all, must result from the complete equilibration between man’s desires and the conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions. ”

“ In the present state of civilization society cannot act effectively for determining and maintaining the line, the equilibrium, between necessary freedom and necessary restraint, or in short, justice, except through some governmental organization with power to define and enforce. ”

“ We confess that we ourselves think there ought to be a Statute of Limitations, and that after a certain lapse of time any offence, however bad, against morality might be held not to have been committed. ”

“ The Standing Rules of some societies are really By-Laws, as the society cannot suspend them, nor can they be amended until previous notice is given. This produces confusion without any corresponding benefit. ”

“ It is certain, that there is no middle in nature, between judging by fixed and steady rules, and judging according to discretion, which is another word for fancy, avarice, resentment, or ambition, when supported by power, or freed from fear. ”

“ The home, the school, the church, the club, business, profession, trade, and union, all insist on strict, correct conformity to standard; all demand authoritatively implicit obedience and submission to rule and regulation. ”

“ The free handling of a given material is characteristic for all forms in which a free social will shapes itself; but such a one is the will which must be reduced to the acts of the allied individuals themselves. We include here both the will which attains to expression in a normal legislation, and that which attains expression in a normal science. It is clear how legislation can proceed from convention. ”

“ There is both a minuter subdivision of functions, and a wider freedom of choice in the selection of their functions by individuals. In the rudest state, the relative condition and mode of life of whole classes are rigidly fixed by their birth or by arbitrary violence. ”

“ Let us bear in mind that the life and health of multitudes of people hang upon the distinction between a clear and definite regulation which is framed to be carried out and a vague and misty one which may represent a principle and an intention, but cannot be reduced to practice in its clouded shape, and we shall understand the vital importance of a clear, straightforward, and definite regulation. ”

“ DEDUCTION OF AN EQUILIBRIUM OF RIGHTS.—All law relations are determined by this principle: each one must restrict his freedom by the possibility of the freedom of the other. ”

“ But before the crucial question of justice which divides modern society, namely, whether we shall lay emphasis upon adjustment of rewards to previous abilities, habits, possessions, character, or shall lay stress upon needs, and the possibility of bringing about a greater measure of equality, the doctrine which would find its standard in an a priori reason is helpless. ”

“ Scarcely any degree of utility, short of absolute necessity, will justify a prohibitory regulation, unless it can also be made to recommend itself to the general conscience; unless persons of ordinary good intentions either believe already, or can be induced to believe, that the thing prohibited is a thing which they ought not to wish to do. ”

“ Now that they are superseded, the chief feeling is one of surprise that a system of laws, intended to be unchangeable, should have endured so long in presence of the changing character of the wants and habits of mankind. ”

“ Again, I find that there are rules of social life, which take the form of what are called "laws," and these are imposed by the will of some governing authority; they are always the product of some one human will, or of the collective will of a greater number of persons. ”

“ Now I take it we retain enough realism and common sense not to wish to transfer these complicated conventions and compromises to a land of such ruthless logic and such rending divisions. We may hope to reproduce our laws, we do not want to reproduce our legal fictions. ”

“ A ‘condition’ cannot be made without the mutual consent of parties, and, therefore, what this writer terms ‘a condition,’ is nothing less than an unjust, arbitrary, and deceitful imposition. ‘Such is the deadly and stupifying influence of habit or custom,’ says Mr. ”