Article April 6, 1918 Issue

True Civil Law

PERCY PHILLIP VYLE

Like perplexed and troubled Pilate thousands of legal authorities down through the centuries have meditated upon and asked the vibrant question: "What is truth?" This question is necessitated by the intrusion of a false sense, untruth, into human consciousness. Untruth presents such an array of feasible reasons for being accepted as reality, that the mortal mind, either wearied with the arguments for and against, or afflicted with that mental laziness which welcomes every excuse for passivity, having no fixed principle on which to base a righteous decision, simply reiterates, What is truth?

This momentous question would never have been asked in the Roman judgment hall had mankind been obedient to divine law or true civil law, and not sought other gods or attempted to establish its own opinions as the standard of practice. That the usurpation of mere human opinion for true civil law has been unsuccessful for the regulation of human affairs throughout the history of the world will be readily admitted, and even as the various peoples of Biblical times drifted from the true conception of government to the establishing of something more appeasive of mortal desire, so we of to-day are subjected to the enacting of almost as many laws as there are desires in the human mind. Such laws are the result of the ebb and flow of mortal opinion; they may be said to be the yardstick with which to measure mankind's varying mental states.

From a metaphysical standpoint let us analyze this assertion regarding civil law as of human authorship. In the first place we see that what are called laws are generally not laws at all but attempts to establish human opinion as law. These so-called laws are the general acceptance of theories promulgated by those elected to authority for the regulation of public conduct. These regulations may be said, in general, to be the outcome of human needs, of human wants predicated on the temporary beliefs of mortal mind, or they are of political origination, the more selfish form of the latter being known as the "joker," the selfish implication being concealed among fair-sounding words.

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Unfailing Guidance
April 6, 1918
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