VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 4

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 4

The Ones Illiterate in the Law Are Everywhere, and What Is Pinched in Their Hands Is a Person's Road to Life or Road to Death

The last section set up that contrast that makes the scalp crawl, the representatives of the law, so many of them, are the ones illiterate in the law, reading the letter and losing the intent. This section comes down to the ground, to let you see how many there are of this kind, that they are everywhere, layer upon layer, from the front-line one who handles your matters up to the one who sits high and makes the ruling, and at each layer, that one thought in the hand, toward the dead letter and away from the intent, holds a person's road to life or road to death. See this section clearly, and you understand why the harm this thing does is so wide and so deep.

Let me first tell you where this kind is. You suppose the illiterate-in-the-law is only that one high figure sitting on the bench making rulings. It is not. This kind is everywhere, layer upon layer, all through that whole chain that holds the law, that carries it out, that handles matters by it.

At the lowest layer, it is the one at the window handling your matter, the fourth chapter spoke of him. He holds a rule and looks at your form, and reads only the dead letter, this box is not filled right, go back and do it again, this stamp is off by a hair, it will not pass. In his hand is a small scrap of the law, of the rule, and he reads only the letter, and the living intent under it, whether your matter is reasonable, whether you are a person to be helped, he does not see. Up a layer, it is the one who enforces, holding a rule and looking at your doings, reading only the dead letter, you did this, it is over the line, fine you, punish you, and the intent under it, whether you truly harmed anyone, whether there was cause, he does not weigh. Up another layer, it is the one who prosecutes, who defends, who advises, each holding his stretch of the dead letter. And at the highest layer, it is the one sitting on the bench making the ruling, holding the whole book of the dead letter, and by the dead letter deciding a case, this clause says so, the procedure was complete, the ruling stands.

You see, from the lowest window up to the highest bench, layer upon layer, at every layer there can sit one of this kind, reading the letter and losing the intent. And a matter, a person, passing down through this chain, layer by layer, meets at each layer that one thought toward the dead letter. One layer reads him over the line, the next layer, holding the dead letter, presses it heavier, and up to the highest layer, the dead letter is stamped down, and a living person is, lawfully, by the book, driven to his end. They are everywhere, and so this harm is not one point, it is a whole chain, layer upon layer, pressing a person down.

Then let me have you feel clearly, in the hand of each of these, what is pinched. It is not a stamp, not a form, not a clause. It is a living person's road to life and road to death.

Think it through. That one at the window reads your matter to a standstill, and it looks small, but behind that matter may hang your livelihood, your medical care, the roof over your family, and his one thought to press it dead may push your whole family off a cliff. That one who enforces reads you over the line and fines you, and the fine may be exactly the mouthful your family lives on, and his one thought to strike may break your family's last thread. That one on the bench makes a ruling, and at the end of that ruling is whether a person keeps his home or loses it, keeps his freedom or loses it, keeps his good name or loses it, and in the heaviest, keeps his life or loses it. In the hand of each of them is pinched a stretch of a person's road to life and road to death, and his one thought, toward the intent or toward the dead letter, decides whether that person walks on into life or is pushed into death.

This is the most weight-bearing, and most frightening, line of this section. In the hand of the one who holds the law is pinched a person's life and death. An ordinary trade, done wrong, spoils a batch of goods, loses some money, and it can be redone. But the one who holds the law, his one thought done wrong, toward the dead letter and away from the intent, spoils a living person, and a person, once driven to a broken home, to lost people, to death, cannot be redone. So this hand, more than any other hand in this world, cannot be allowed to lose the intent, cannot be allowed to hold only the dead letter. Because what it decides is not goods, not money, it is a living person's road to life and road to death.

And here is the place that most makes the scalp crawl. In the hand of each of these is pinched a person's life and death, and yet in the heart of each, so often, there is no weight of it at all. He does not feel that under his hand is a living person's fate. He feels that under his hand is a clause, a procedure, a case number. He handles the case by the dead letter, stamps it, closes it, and goes home to his dinner, and that living person driven to ruin by his one stroke of the pen, he does not think on at all, or if he does, he feels it has nothing to do with him, he only went by the rule. He has pinched a person's life and death in his hand, and treated it as a dead thing, a clause, a form, and this numbness is more frightening than open cruelty. Open cruelty at least knows it is harming a person. This numbness does not even know, it drives a person to death and feels it did its job right, and can eat and sleep in peace.

Then how did this numbness come to be? Look back at the last section, this kind is raised crooked by that education gone wrong, that teaches only the letter and does not grow the character. In the whole of his learning, of his promotion, no one ever earnestly set before his eyes the living person at the end of his pen. He was taught to look at the clause, look at the procedure, look at the case, and never taught to look at the person. So he grew numb of himself, seeing the case and not the person, seeing the dead letter and not the life. It is not that he was born without a heart, it is that that education, from the start, taught him to set the person aside and look only at the letter, and looking long, his heart to the person went numb.

So the harm this kind does is not, like a robber's, a knife stab you can see. It is quiet, it is by the book, it is layer upon layer, everywhere. From the window up to the bench, at each layer there may sit one of this kind, and a person passing down through this chain is, at each layer, measured by the dead letter, pressed one layer heavier, and at the end, lawfully, by the book, driven to ruin, with nowhere even to reason it out. This is a harm that spreads through the whole body of the law, everywhere, and bites, quietly, onto every ordinary person who has to pass through it.

See how wide, how deep, this thing spreads, and you understand why the next few sections have to take this harm and lay it out for you, link by link. This kind illiterate in the law, everywhere, in the hand of each a person's life and death, and their one thought toward the dead letter, joined up, is exactly a chain, a chain that harms the people lawfully. This chain has four links, and the next two sections take them, link by link, and lay them open. The first two links, tormenting that grinds life, and crushing that breaks life. Let me tell you first, these four links are not four scattered bad deeds, they are, from light to heavy, a person being ground, step by step, from a small torment, down to the losing of his very life. See this chain clear, and you understand why it is said, this chain must be cut.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.