The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [225]
The Lawgiver
Chapter 1
1. If one listens to the wisdom of those who sat in the councils of kings, and witnessed the government in many lands;
2. One learns that whereas it is possible to rule lives and bodies, it is not so easy to try ruling minds – but nor is it right,
3. For the human mind is a kingdom in itself, and wise rulers know where the borders of their own kingdoms lie.
4. If people’s minds were as easily controlled as their tongues, every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by compulsion would cease;
5. For all subjects would shape their lives according to the intentions of their rulers,
6. And would count a thing true or false, good or evil, just or unjust, in obedience to their dictates.
7. But no one’s mind can lie wholly at the command of another,
8. For no one can willingly give away the natural right of free reason and judgement, even if compelled to do so.
9. For this reason government which attempts to control minds is accounted tyrannical,
10. An abuse of sovereignty and a usurpation of the rights of subjects; To seek to prescribe what must be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men, is wrong.
11. All these questions fall within a person’s natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with consent,
12. Even under the lash of tyranny over body and life.
13. Judgement can be biased in many ways, sometimes to a great degree,
14. So that while exempt from direct external control, it may be so dependent on another person’s words, that it can be said to be ruled by him;
15. That is the way of proselytisers, demagogues and teachers of the young and credulous,
16. Who use their authority to fill others with beliefs and ideas of their own choosing;
17. But although this influence carries far, it has never gone so far as to invalidate this truth:
18. That every person’s understanding is his or her own, and that minds are as diverse as palates.
19. Demagogues have gained at times such a hold over popular judgement that they were accounted superhuman,
20. And believed to speak and act with special authority;
21. Nevertheless even the most famous of them could not escape murmurs and evil interpretations.
22. How much less then can other monarchs avoid them!
23. Yet such unlimited power, if it exists at all, must belong to a monarch,
24. And least of all to a democracy where the whole or a great part of the people wield authority collectively.
25. However unlimited, therefore, the power of a sovereign may be, it can never prevent people from forming judgements according to their own intellects, or being influenced by their emotions.
26. Since, therefore, no one can abdicate the freedom of judgement and feeling; since all are by indefeasible natural right the owner of their own thoughts,
27. It follows that people thinking in diverse and contradictory fashions, cannot, without disastrous results, be compelled to speak only according to the dictates of the supreme power.
28. Not even the most experienced, to say nothing of the multitude, know how to keep silence.
29. The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience,
30. But rather to free all the people from fear, that they may live in security;
31. Which is to strengthen their natural right to exist and work without injury to themselves or others.
32. So the object of government is not to change people from rational beings into beasts or puppets,
33. But to enable them to develop themselves in security, and to employ their reason unshackled;
34. Neither showing hatred, anger or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice.
35. In short, the true aim of government is liberty.
Chapter 2
1. Because it is impossible to preserve peace unless individuals compromise their right of acting entirely on their own judgement,
2. They justly cede the right of free action in appropriate and necessary cases, though not the right of free reason and judgement;
3. For people cannot act against the authorities without danger to the