QUESTIONS of law are constantly confronting us, for all human association and action are based upon law. While state legislatures and the Federal Congress are law-making bodies, the courts interpret these laws. Lawyers are legal specialists who are supposed to understand the statutes and their application to our every-day affairs, and officers of the law are employed to enforce the legislative enactments. The affairs of mortals, as well as their bodies, are generally supposed to be governed by laws, and society is believed to be built upon a foundation of law. The minutiæ of mortal existence is thus, according to popular understanding, inextricably connected with law of one kind or another; and while the average citizen is generally unfamiliar with abstract legal questions, it is becoming more and more apparent to the Christian Scientist that his progress and success involve an intelligent and scientific comprehension of what constitutes law. To distinguish between the true and the spurious, to know the source and authority of the laws that govern us, is a matter of prime importance to every one, for ignorance of the law neither protects nor exculpates the lawbreaker.
Observing the phenomena of human existence, it becomes evident that every effect produced, every event that takes place, is the result of the operation of so-called law. Under the analysis of Christian Science, it is seen that mortal man exists at the standpoint of effect as a victim of the supposed laws of nature, while man who is the son of God, exists at the standpoint of effect as a beneficiary of the law of Life. It is also discovered that law, in its last analysis, is altogether mental. Law is not something we may see, handle, or appreciate through any of the physical senses. We may read a series of laws on the statute books, but what we see there is only the symbol of the thing itself. Law is always mental; it is immaterial, or unmaterial.
To illustrate: Suppose that public opinion in any state of the Union agrees that the sale of liquor shall be prohibited. This consensus of opinion, in due time, crystallizes in a legislative enactment, and we have a temperance law put upon the statutes of that state. The mental nature and origin of this law is clearly apparent. The law originated in the wish or the will of a majority of the people of the state; it is the expression of the desire or thought of a major portion of the citizens on this particular subject, and it will not be disputed that the desires, opinions, wishes, and thoughts of men are entirely mental qualities. Law is here seen to have its origin in a state of consciousness, to be the outward expression of a state of mind.
