Elements of Morals Part 19

1. _Impartiality and neutrality._--The judge must necessarily remain _neutral_ among all parties; he should have no regard to persons, should render equal justice to the rich and to the poor, to the high and to the low. _Equality before the law_, which is one of the principles of our modern inst.i.tutions, should not only be a principle in the abstract; it should also be a practical principle, and be brought before the eyes of the judges as one among the first of their obligations.

2. _Integrity and disinterestedness._--No less strict a duty for the judges, and which it is scarcely necessary to point out, is integrity. The magistrate should be free from all suspicion of venality. Under the old _regime_, as may be seen in Racine's comedy of _The Pleaders_, the judges were not always free from such suspicion. Of course, it is but a comedy; but such a comedy could no longer be written nowadays; it would no longer be understood; our morals are too much improved for that. The obligation should, nevertheless, be pointed out.

3. Impartiality and integrity concern above all civil justice. The duty which more especially concerns criminal justice, is _equity_; namely, a moderate justice, intermediary between a dangerous lenity and an excessive severity. In truth, in most cases, at least in the graver cases, the judge has scarcely anything more to do than to apply the law. It is for the jury, a sort of free and irresponsible magistracy, to decide upon the culpability or innocence of the prisoners. It is for the jury to find a just medium between harshness and lenity. But the juryman who, above all, judges as a man, and often recoils from responsibility, should fear the excess of lenity: the judge, on the contrary, accustomed to repression, and above all preoccupied with the interests of society, should rather defend himself against excess of rigor and severity.

4. _Knowledge._--What is for most men but a luxury, becomes in such or such a profession a strict duty. _The knowledge of the laws_, for example, is, for the magistrate, as the knowledge of the human body for the physician, a strict obligation. He who wishes to enter the magistracy, should therefore carry the study of the law as far as his youth permits it; but he should not stop his studies the moment he has entered upon his career. He has always something to learn; he should keep himself informed of the progress jurisprudence is making. It is useless to say that, independently of this general work, the special and thorough study of each case brought before him is for the judge a duty still more strict.

Alongside of the magistracy, and co-operating with it, is placed the _bar_, which is charged with the defense of private interests from a civil or criminal point of view.

From a civil point of view, the trial is between two citizens, each claiming his right in the case; they are what is called _pleaders_, and the trial itself is called a _law-suit_. The pleaders, not knowing the laws, need an intermediary to explain and defend their cause, bring it clearly to the comprehension of the magistrates and enforce its reasons.

This is the part of the lawyers.

From a criminal point of view, the trial is not between two individuals; but between society and the criminal. Society, to defend itself, employs what is called a _public prosecutor_; the criminal needs a _counsel_. The part of a counsel belongs again to the lawyers.

The duties of lawyers are varied according as the cases are civil or criminal cases.

In civil law-suits, the absolute duty is the following: not to take up _bad cases_. Only it is necessary to understand well this principle. It is generally believed that a bad case is the losing one, and a good case the winning one. Thus would there in every law-suit be a lawyer who failed in his duty: the one, namely, who lost the case. This is a false idea, which very unjustly throws in many minds discredit upon the profession of the law.

Certainly there are cases where the law is so clear, jurisprudence so established, the morality so evident and imperious, that a suit having the three against itself, may be called a bad case; and the lawyer who can allow his client to believe the suit defensible, and who employs his skill and eloquence in defending it, fails in his professional duty. But this is not generally the case. In most cases, it is very difficult to tell beforehand who is right, who wrong, and precisely because it is difficult, are there judges whose proper function it is to decide. Now, in order that the judge may decide, he must be acquainted with all the details of the case; all possible reasons from both sides must be laid before him.

Everybody knows that one can never of one's own account find in favor of a solution or conclusion, all the reasons which the interested party can; now, it is just that these reasons be set forth: this is the business of the lawyers. One must not forget that in every law-suit there is a pro and a con. It is for this very reason there is a suit. The lawyers are specially here to plead for the pro and con, each from his own standpoint.

One could very well understand, for example, that the court should have at its disposal functionaries commissioned to prepare the cases and plead for the contending parties: one would take up Peter's cause, the other, Paul's; this is just the part of the lawyers, with this difference, that the choice of the lawyer is left to the client, because it is but just that a deputy be chosen by him he is supposed to represent.

In criminal cases there are equally very delicate questions. How can a lawyer defend as innocent one who is guilty? Were it not an actual lie?

And yet society does not allow that any accused, whoever he be, be left without counsel; and when none present themselves, it provides one, charging him to save the life of the accused if he can. It is the interest of society that no innocent person be condemned, and that even the guilty should not be punished beyond what he deserves; in short, it takes care that all the reasons that can be brought forth to attenuate the gravity of an offense be well weighed, and even set forth in a manner to arouse pity and sympathy. Such is the business of the lawyers.

It is evident that these considerations, which show the lawyer's profession to be one so legitimate and exalted, should not be improperly understood. These general rules must be interpreted with delicacy of feeling and conscience.

=106. IV. Science--Teaching--Medicine--The letters and arts.=--Beside the _social powers_ which _make_, _execute_ and _apply_ the laws, there is _science_, which instructs men, enlightens them, directs their work, and which even, setting utility aside, is yet in itself an object of disinterested research. Side by side with the sciences are the letters and arts, which pursue and express the _beautiful_, as science pursues the _true_. Finally, to science and art are added _morality_ and _religion_, whose object is the _good_. The moralists, it is true, do not const.i.tute a particular profession in society, or at least their part is blended with teaching in general; religion has its interpreters, who find in their dogmas and traditions the rules of their duties. It is not the business of lay morality to teach these. Let us, therefore, content ourselves with a few principles concerning the sciences and letters.

=107. Science--Duties of Scientists.=--Science may be cultivated in two different ways and from two different standpoints: 1, for itself; 2, for its social advantages--for the services it renders to men. There is but a small number of men who have a natural taste for pure science, and the leisure to give themselves up to the love of it; but those who choose such a life contract thereby certain duties.

The first of all is the _love of truth_. The only object for the scientist to pursue is truth. He must, therefore, lay aside all interests and pa.s.sions antagonistic to truth; and, above all, personal interest which inclines one to prefer one theme to another, because of the advantages it may bring; this is, however, so gross a motive, that it would not be supposed to exist with a true scholar; yet are there other causes of error no less dangerous--for example, the interest of a cause--of a conviction which is dear to us; the interest of our self-love, which makes us persist in error known to be such; the spirit of system, by which one shows his peculiar forte, etc. All these pa.s.sions should give way before the pure love of truth.

=108. The communication of science--Teaching.=--The princ.i.p.al duty of those who are possessed of science is to communicate it to other men. Certainly, all men are not called to be scholars; but all should in some degree have their intelligence cultivated by _instruction_. Hence the duty of teaching imposed upon scholars; but this duty brings with it many others.

1. The masters who teach others should themselves first be educated.

Hence the duty of intellectual work, not merely to acquire knowledge, without which one cannot be a teacher, but to preserve and increase it.

The teacher should, therefore, set an example to his pupil of a.s.siduous and continuous intellectual work.

2. The teacher should love his pupils--children, if he is called upon to teach children; young men, if he is to address young men. The teacher should not only think of the science he teaches, but of the fruits his pupils are to reap from it; one can only be interested in what he loves. A teacher indifferent toward the young, will never make the necessary effort to lead and educate them.

3. The teacher, in teaching, should unite in a just measure _discipline_ and _liberty_. Instruction naturally presupposes one that knows and one that does not know; and it is necessary that the one should direct the other; hence the necessity of discipline. But the purpose of instruction is to teach to do without the master--to be one's own master in thought and conduct; hence the necessity of liberty. This liberty should grow along with the instruction, and, of course, proportionately to age; but, at any age, one should take advantage of the faculties of a child, and make it as much as possible find out by itself what is within its reach.

4. The teacher should not separate _instruction_ from _education_. He should not only communicate knowledge--he should above all form men, characters, wills. Instruction is, besides, already in itself an education. Can one instruct without accustoming young minds to work, to obedience, to correct habits of thought; without putting into their hands good books; without giving them good examples? It is most true that one does not form men with pure and abstract science alone,--it is necessary to add the letters, history, morality, religion. The teacher, besides, should study the character of his pupils, should, through work and moral and physical exercises, put down presumption, correct unmanliness, combat selfishness, antic.i.p.ate or restrain the pa.s.sions.

=109. Applied science--Industry--Medicine.=--Science may find its application in two ways, either to _things_, or to _men_. Applied to things, it is called _industry_; applied to men, _medicine_. There are no special duties concerning industrial pursuits. Engineers, private or in the service of the State, employed in civil or military works, have no other duties then the general duties of functionaries, military-men, employees, etc. It is not the same with medicine. There are here obligations of a special and graver nature.

=110. Duties of the physician--His knowledge.=--Knowledge is an obligation in every profession; everywhere it is indispensable to know the thing one is engaged in; but, in medicine, ignorance is of a much more serious character: for it may end in _manslaughter_. How can any one attend the sick if he knows nothing of the human body; if he is ignorant of the symptoms of a disease? He has, it is true, the resource of doing nothing; but might not this also be manslaughter? Does he not then take the place of him who knows and might save the patient?

2. _Secrecy._--The physician is above all held to secrecy. He must not make known the diseases which have been revealed to him. This is what is called _medical secrecy_. This obligation may in certain cases give rise to the most serious troubles of conscience; but, as a principle, it may be said that secrecy is as absolute a duty for the physician as it is for the father-confessor.

3. _Courage._--The physician, we have seen, has his _point d'honneur_, like the military-man; he often runs equally great dangers: he must, if necessary, devote himself and risk his life. He requires also a great moral courage, when he is brought before a serious illness where, at the moment of a dangerous operation, when his hand must be as firm as his mind, he needs all the self-possession he can command.

4. Duties toward the sick: _Kindness_ and _severity_.--The physician should be firm in the treatment of his patients; he should insist that his prescriptions be unconditionally followed, for his responsibility rests on this: he should rather give up the case than consent to a dangerous disobedience. At the same time he must encourage the patient, raise his strength by inspiring him with confidence, which is half the cure. He must also, without deceiving it, uphold the courage of the family. In some cases it may be necessary to tell the patient the danger he is in.

=111. Writers and artists.=--The morality of writers and artists is, as in all the preceding cases, determined by the object these persons devote their lives to. The object of the writer and artist is the realization of the _beautiful_, either in speech or writing (literature), or through color and lines (painting, sculpture), or through sound (music). In all these arts, the leading thought should be the interests of the art one is cultivating. One should as much as possible beware turning it into a trade--that is to say, into a mercenary art, having gain only for its object. Certainly one must live, and it is rare that writers, poets, artists, have at their command resources enough to do without the pecuniary fruit of pen or hand; but the attainment of the beautiful should be preferred to that of the useful: study, the imitation of the great masters, contempt for fas.h.i.+on, striving after all that is delicate, n.o.ble, pure, the avoiding of all that is low, frivolous, fact.i.tious: such are the principles which should regulate the morality of artist and writer. It is useless to add that they should seek their success in what elevates the soul, and not in what corrupts and degrades it. Coa.r.s.eness, brutality, license, should be absolutely condemned. Better to devote one's self to a useful and humble profession than employ one's talent in depraving morals, and degrading souls.

The duties of the poet have been eloquently expressed by Boileau in his _Art poetique_.

1. It is a duty to devote one's self to poetry and the fine arts only when one has a decided vocation for them.

"Be rather a mason, if that be your talent."

2. The poet should listen to good advice.

"Make choice of a solid and wholesome censor."

3. The poet and artist should, in their verses and works, be the interpreters of virtue.

"Let your soul and your morals, depicted in your works, Never present of you but n.o.ble images."

Love, then, virtue; nourish your soul therewith.

"The verse always savors of the baseness of the heart."

4. They must avoid jealousies and rivalries.

"Flee, above all, flee base jealousies."

5. They must prefer glory to gain.

"Work for glory and let no sordid gain Ever be the object of a n.o.ble writer."

CHAPTER IX.

DUTIES OF NATIONS AMONG THEMSELVES--INTERNATIONAL LAW.

SUMMARY.

=General principles of international law.=--They are the principles of the natural law applied to the relations nations sustain to each other.

=Of war.=--War founded on the right of self-defense. The reasons for a just war.

=Defensive and offensive wars.=--This division does not necessarily correspond to that of just or unjust wars.--Precautions and preparations.--Duties in times of war: to reconcile as much as possible the rights of humanity with those of patriotism.--Rights of war concerning the enemy's property.--Conquest.--Neutrality.

=International treaties=: their character; their forms; their different species.--Essential conditions for public treaties: they are the same as for private contracts.