The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 11: AntepenultimataBierce, Ambrose
General
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 11: Antepenultimata
Bierce, Ambrose
American essays; American literature
I favor mutilation for anarchists convicted of killing or inciting to
kill—mutilation followed by death; for those who merely deny the right
and expediency of law, plain mutilation—which might advantageously take
the form of removal of the tongue. Why not? Where is the injustice?
Surely he who denies men’s right to make laws will not invoke the laws
that they have wickedly made! That were to say that they must not
protect themselves, yet are bound to protect him. What! if I beat him
will he call the useless and mischievous constabulary? If I draw out
his tongue shall he (in the sign-language) demand it back, and failing
of restitution (for surely I should cut it clean away) shall he have
the law on me—the naughty law, instrument of the oppressor? Why, that
“goes neare to be fonny!”
IV
Two human beings can not live together in peace without laws—many
laws. Everything that either, in consideration of the other’s wish or
welfare, abstains from is inhibited by law, tacit or expressed. If
there were in all the world none but they—if neither had come with any
sense of obligation toward the other, both clean from creation, with
nothing but brains to direct their conduct—every hour would evolve an
understanding, that is to say, a law; every act would suggest one. They
would have to agree not to kill nor harm each other. They must arrange
their work and all their activities to secure the best advantage. These
arrangements, agreements, understandings—what are they but laws? To
live without law is to live alone. Every family is a miniature state
with a complicate system of laws, a supreme authority and subordinate
authorities down to the latest babe. And as he who is loudest in
demanding liberty for himself is sternest in denying it to others,
you may confidently go to the Maison Vaillant, or the Mosthaus, for a
flawless example of the iron hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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