VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 1
The Intent of the Law Is to Protect the People
The chapters before told stretch after stretch of warm, wide great principles. Come to this chapter, the way of telling has to change. It has to turn onto one precise, straight line that can shine through layer upon layer of skin. Why? Because the deepest difficulty in this matter of the law is that the skins laid over it are too many, too thick, too intimidating: layer upon layer of statutes, layer upon layer of procedure, layer upon layer of lawful and compliant, layer upon layer of representatives of the law. That soft, wide way of telling cannot shine through them. The first thing this chapter does is shine on the true face of the law and set up two things. One: the intent of the law is to protect the people, and there is only one yardstick to weigh everything by, has it protected the people or not. The other: read the intent, not the letter; what that yardstick measures was never words, it is people. Set these two firmly, and the contrast that makes your scalp crawl, which this whole chapter is to shine through, and that chain of harming the people lawfully for thousands of years, will have a root to stand on.
One. Why Telling the Law Has to Turn from Warm and Wide to Precise
The chapters before told stretch after stretch of warm, wide great principles. That road through culture, the economy, and politics told of a great breadth of heart and a great direction, and that warmth, that width, let you see the road under your feet clearly and kept your heart from panicking. Come to this chapter, the law, the way of telling has to change. It has to turn to another thing: one precise, straight, cold, stern line, without a single thing extra. This line, once drawn, has to go through the thick fog, through layer upon layer of skin, and light up the flesh underneath, clear as day, with nothing left to hide behind.
Why, come to the chapter on law, tell it this way? Because the deepest difficulty in this matter of the law is not that it is too dark or too cold. It is that the skins laid over it are too many, too thick, too intimidating. Layer upon layer of statutes, layer upon layer of procedure, layer upon layer of lawful, compliant, procedurally correct, layer upon layer of representatives, symbols, and embodiments of the law, and every layer is so upright, so proper, so much a thing no one dares touch. But what is hidden underneath? Rulings that drive people to a broken home and family dead. Lawful robbery. Torment whose every move harms the people to death. To shine through skin this thick, that warm, wide way of telling is not enough. It takes one cold, fine, straight line, drawn down in one stroke, shining all the way through.
Two. First, Shine on the Most Fundamental Thing
First shine on the most fundamental thing in this chapter, the thing most in need of being lit up clearly: what the intent of the law is. One line, nailed dead: the intent of the law is to protect the people. That one thing only.
You hear this line, and it is so simple it sounds like idle talk. Isn't that obvious? Isn't the law there to protect the people? Who doesn't know that? But if you truly feel that way in your heart, you have let your guard down. This line looks simple, and it is exactly the point this whole chapter is to shine on; the focus is locked on this one line. The second, third, and fourth sections after it, every contrast, every bombshell, every one that must be saved, every torment whose every move harms the people to death, are all lit up out of this one line.
Do not think small of how simple this line is. The most important truths in this world are often hidden in the simplest line, a line so simple that everyone thinks he already understands it, and so no one ever takes it seriously again. The law protects the people: everyone can say this line. But when it comes down to it, standing before that mountain of statutes, that set of procedures, those people one after another draped in robes, almost no one still remembers to take this line and measure with it. Everyone has been intimidated by those intimidating skins and has forgotten the most fundamental thing underneath. This chapter means to take this line, worn thin by everyone's saying it and yet truly used by no one, and stand it up again as a yardstick, a yardstick that can measure through everything.
Three. The Law Has No Other Intent, Only This One
Let me break open why for you. This thing called the law, from the first day someone set it up, had one intent only. A crowd of people living together always has some matters that need a clear, plain line drawn there, and this line protects every person from being harmed, from being robbed, from being driven to the wall. This line is the law. The whole meaning of its existence is one thing: to protect these people, one by one, living and breathing, to protect their lives, their homes, their freedom, their living and working in peace. That one thing only. The law has no other intent, and no second reason to exist.
Think over this reasoning; nothing could be simpler. In ancient times there was no law. Whoever was strongest had the say, the strong robbed the weak, the big bullied the small, everyone feared for himself, and there was not one day of peace. Later people thought up a way. They set a line everyone acknowledged, drew it there, and said: cross this line to harm people, rob people, bully people, and it will not do, and everyone together will stop you. This line was the first law. Look, the moment it was set up, what was it for? To protect every person on this side of the line who was getting on with his days honestly, so that the strong could no longer bully the weak as they pleased. The law, from the womb, was this kind of thing, a thing for protecting people. It was not to establish authority, not to look orderly, not to give anyone face. It was just to protect living people, one by one, so they could get on with their days in peace. Grip this root tight, and going down through this chapter you can see clearly where those who have used the law crooked went crooked.
The dignity of the law, the authority of the law, the procedure of the law, the system of the law: these words all sound as upright as can be, but they were all added afterward. They are shells, they are means. They exist to protect that innermost intent, protecting the people. If they leave this intent and turn around and harm the people instead, they have betrayed the whole meaning of their existence, and however upright, however imposing, however systematic, they are crooked.
Four. To Weigh Everything, There Is Only One Yardstick
Shine further down, and what is lit is this. To weigh any law, any ruling, any procedure, any act of enforcement, any judge, any lawyer, any lawmaker, there is only one yardstick: has he protected the people? If he has, he is doing the proper work the law ought to do, and he truly understands the law, uses the law, keeps the law. If he has not, or has turned around and harmed the people, he has betrayed the whole intent of the law, and the robe he wears, the gavel he grips, the statutes he recites, the procedures he walks, however complete, are crooked, are empty.
You see, this yardstick is so simple it fits in one line, and yet it is so fierce that in one go it can measure through those representatives of the law from head to toe, layer upon layer of skin. The later sections of this chapter take you to see what this yardstick measured.
Five. This Yardstick Is Held Up by a Golden Saying a Thousand Years Old
Then perhaps you will ask, this yardstick of the intent, on what grounds does it measure this way? This yardstick is not one man's say. It is held up by a golden saying handed down from people a thousand years ago: the law is nothing beyond human feeling.
Common human feeling, common human sense, that bit of strength in the human heart that protects people: the law may not leave these, and leave them and it is not law, it is crooked. These eight characters have come down from the ancestors, a thousand years, two thousand years, and everyone nods and acknowledges them. Today they are brought out and set at the opening of this chapter, to tell you that this yardstick of the intent was handed down over a thousand years; it is not that I insist on measuring this way. The focus is fixed: the intent of the law is to protect the people. The yardstick for weighing everything is one only: has it protected the people. And this yardstick is held up by the thousand-year-old golden saying, the law is nothing beyond human feeling.
Six. Read the Intent, Not the Letter
With the focus set, let me drive this yardstick one layer deeper and tell you how, in the end, it measures, what it means to read the intent and not the letter. You probably think: what does reading the intent mean? The intent sounds hollow, how do you read it? The letter can be seen and touched, why not read it? Let me break it open for you, in the plainest words.
What is reading the letter? It is lowering your head and staring at those lines of statutes, those steps of procedure, those boxes on the forms, word by word, one after another; and when you have read them, checking against the rules and asking one thing: does it fit? It fits, it passes. It doesn't fit, it is penalized. The eyes and the mind are all on those words. What is reading the intent? It is lifting your head, looking past those lines of words, and seeing the living person underneath: this law, this ruling, this procedure, landing on him, has it protected him, or harmed him? The eyes and the mind are all on that person.
Seven. What the Law Measures Was Never Words, It Is People
You see where these two kinds of reading differ. The one who reads the letter looks at words, at clauses, at procedure. The one who reads the intent looks at people, at whether people were protected. And the intent of the law is to protect the people, and the innermost thing in that intent is people. So to read the intent is, at bottom, to read the person on whom this law, this ruling, this procedure lands. The yardstick of the law has never measured words. It measures people.
Take a comparison and you understand at once. A yardstick is for measuring things. You take a yardstick to measure a length of cloth: are your eyes on the cloth, on whether it is long enough, or on the marks along the yardstick, muttering one inch, two inches, three inches? On the cloth, of course. The marks on the yardstick are a tool for measuring the cloth, not something to recite. But the one illiterate in the law, who reads the letter, has it exactly backwards. He holds this yardstick of the law with his eyes fixed dead on its marks, its words, its procedures, reciting them inch by inch until they roll off his tongue, and forgets to lower his head and take one look at the person he is measuring: alive or dead, protected or crushed. He has taken the tool for the purpose, the marks for the cloth. The law measures people; he measures words. This is his deepest blindness.
Where does the one who reads the letter go wrong? It is not that he cannot read, not that he does not know the statutes. Quite the reverse: he may know those words, those clauses, those procedures better than anyone. He goes wrong in that his eyes hold only those words, and not the person underneath. He picks the letter clean, checks the procedure, walks the process, and announces, pleased with himself: compliant. But he never lifts his head to see that this whole round of compliance, landing on a living person, has crushed that person, seized his home, driven him to his death. He does not care. In his eyes there are no people, only words. Give this kind of person a name: illiterate in the law. What he knows is the dead letter; what he is blind to is the living person.
Eight. The Highest Reach of the Law Is to Protect People
And the one who reads the intent, what is he like? He too reads the statutes and looks at the procedures; he knows these too. But after he has read the words and checked the procedures, he lifts his head and looks at the person, and asks one thing: this law, this ruling, landing on this living person, has it protected him? Has it harmed him? If it protected him, he nods: compliant, and true to the intent as well. If it harmed him, then even if not one fault can be picked in the letter or the procedure, he stops, and says in a low voice: this is not right.
Why not right? The letter and the procedure are both compliant, aren't they? Because it harmed the person the law was meant to protect. The intent of the law is to protect people; your whole round of compliance harmed a person, and that is betraying the intent of the law. Compliance in the letter cannot cover crookedness in the intent. This is the deepest difference between reading the intent and reading the letter: for the one who reads the letter, the highest reach is compliance; for the one who reads the intent, the highest reach is having protected people. And the highest reach of the law was never compliance. It is protecting people, protecting the living person underneath. This is exactly what that thousand-year-old golden saying, the law is nothing beyond human feeling, holds up. Human feeling is the person underneath, is common human feeling, that heart that protects people; the law, once it leaves human feeling, is left with a heap of dead letters. But in reality, the ones who occupy the position of representatives of the law, the ones who make it, rule by it, expound it, apply it, are exactly the illiterate in the law who read only the letter. What the next section is to shine through is this contrast.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.