"Higher law" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forces that slept in the uncorrupted consciences of the masses. Thus the example of the Hebrew nation laid down the parallel lines on which all freedom has been won—the doctrine of national tradition and the doctrine of the higher law; the principle that a constitution grows from a root, by process of development, and not of essential change; and the principle that all political authorities must be tested and reformed according to a code which was not made by man. The operation of these principles, in unison, or in ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... microscopic brain so far as concerns its vital functions, but subordinate to a higher purpose in relation to the functions of the organ; each living a separate life individually, though socially subject to a higher law ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... philosophy by declaring, "If to morrow I perish utterly, then my fathers will be to me only as the ground out of which my bread corn is grown. I shall care nothing for the generations of mankind. I shall know no higher law than passion. Morality will vanish." 8 Ah, man reveres his fathers and loves to act nobly, not because he is to live forever, but because he is a man. And, though all the summer hopes of escaping the grave were taken from human life, choicest and tenderest virtues might still ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... benign law of civilization could be relied upon always to govern, then all would be well. But as long as sharks still live, the cruel law of nature cannot be ignored. The highest principles and the highest wisdom, combined, would seem to suggest the higher law as the rule of action toward the weaker, and the natural law as the rule for defense against the stronger. This country has, happily, already made some progress in both directions. If that is continued a few more years, then all, strong as well as weak, will be glad to "arbitrate" if ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... and casting down princes. He upholds all things by the direct exercise of his power. "The uniformities of nature are his ordinary method of working; its irregularities his method upon occasional condition; its interferences his method under the pressure of a higher law." There can be no general providence which is not special, no care for the whole which does not include care for all the parts, no provided safety for the head which does not number all the hairs. The Old Testament doctrine of a special and minute ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... In one way, by being altogether free from its authority: hence the subjects of one city or kingdom are not bound by the laws of the sovereign of another city or kingdom, since they are not subject to his authority. In another way, by being under a yet higher law; thus the subject of a proconsul should be ruled by his command, but not in those matters in which the subject receives his orders from the emperor: for in these matters, he is not bound by the mandate of the lower authority, since he is directed by that of a higher. In this way, one who is simply ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... example to Puritans, for we teach forever by example and not by precept. Rulers who kill their enemies are teaching murder as a fine art, and fixing private individuals in the belief that for them to kill their enemies is according to the "higher law," and also preparing them for the abuse of power when they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... How one acts Is, both of us agree, our chief concern: And how you 'll act is what I fain would see If, like the candid person you appear, You dare to make the most of your life's scheme As I of mine, live up to its full law Since there's no higher law that counterchecks. Put natural religion to the test You've just demolished the revealed with—quick, 820 Down to the root of all that checks your will, All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve, Or even to be an atheistic priest! Suppose a pricking ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... but one issue to the conflict was possible: obedience to the higher law. In a conversation held with his friend Krumpholz, he expressed doubts as to the value of his work hitherto. "From now on I shall strike out on a new road," he said. He is now dominated by a greater seriousness; his mission ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... word simply. Again I say, it is not hypnotism. It is by the exercise of power. One feels the spirit of peace as definitely as heat is perceived on a hot summer day. The power can be as surely used as the sun s rays can be focused and made to do work, to set fire to wood." The Higher Law, vol. iv. pp. 4, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... of the main truths which have been established concerning species. Are these truths ultimate and irresolvable facts, or are their complexities and perplexities the mere expressions of a higher law? ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... has opened the way of repentance and reform whereby we may obtain forgiveness of sin, as taught by the Lord of Love: the Christ. Not indeed contrary to law, for His laws are immutable, but by application of a higher law, whereby we accomplish here that which would otherwise be delayed until death had forced the day of reckoning. The ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... sentimental feeling for this social bond into which we all are born when we come into the world, and whose comforts and protection we all indifferently share throughout our lives:- but even to them, no more than to our Western saints and heroes, does the law of the state supersede the higher law of duty. Without hesitation and without remorse, they transgress the stiffest enactments rather than abstain from doing right. But the accidental superior duty being thus fulfilled, they at once return in allegiance to the common duty of all citizens; and hasten to denounce ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not the summum bonum, nor the totality of all forces at work in the development of man, nor actually the perfect way, though they are the gate of the way of perfection. Now, the mystic claims to be in possession of the higher law which transcends the ethical, from which the ethical derives, and to which it must be referred for its reason. That the lost secret of Freemasonry is concerned with special applications of this ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... master's approach, or his agent's, I should have conducted him, or the three, six miles, through the woods, to Detroit River, procured a boat and sent them across to Canada, regretting the existence of the "Fugitive Slave Law," and obeying a higher law. ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... blood boiled at the way he had been put off. He was half inclined to cry the rannag, but he was not yet ready for the death duel which would determine whether he or Uglik would rule the tribe. There was no other solution, for, while he ruled, the Father's word was law, subject only to the higher law of Degar Astok as given out by the High Priestess. This overlordship was more nominal than actual, for those priestesses who lived long lives were invariably those who found that the will of the Father coincided exactly with the law of Degar Astok. Anak revolved the problem in his mind ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... advantage," added the squire, who was deacon as well, and who, now that he had concluded his official duties, was not adverse to laying down the higher law. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... set me apart. And Prince and poet and painter Travelled to touch my hand, The minds which had toiled and suffered, The minds which could understand, Marvelling in my workshop At the shining forms they saw.... The children of my spirit Born of a higher law. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... has ventured to entitle a Lay of the Higher Law the following composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the Higher Culture. The principles which justify the name ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... the angels as he forgets self in the love of God and his kind; and that nation is the most prosperous, happy, and powerful that subordinates all selfish local interests, all sectional antagonisms, to the higher law of national unity and brotherhood, that holds 'the hallowed hopes of a national patriotism' as ever paramount to the misguided ambition of a vulgar, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... yet authorizes the health officer of Rochester to refuse work certificates to children physically unfit to become wage earners. A higher law than that which any legislature can pass or revoke, has given Dr. Goler power over children and parents, namely, interest in children and knowledge of the industrial handicap that results from physical defects. This higher law authorizes every health officer ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... itself of the intellect of the world, and in mastering Rome had found access to all those vast regions conquered by Roman arms, opened out by Roman roads, governed by Roman law, and by it helped to the conception of a higher law. But the Greek and the Roman civilisations had, each of them, corrupted its way, and yielded to the seductions of pride, sense, and material prosperity; and, as a consequence, both had become incapable of rendering ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... men—especially white men. For a quadroon woman to be true to herself and to her God was not the kind of thing that white men—if he knew them—rewarded. But if the case was not of that sort, and the relation was what he hoped it was, and according to his ideas of higher law it had a right to be, why, then, she might reasonably hope for a good fat slice—if there should turn out, after all, to be ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... If there is a lack of harmony on some points, between the two, it is not our fault. We have endeavored to give you some useful hints in reference to the beautiful and the fitting in costume, based on a higher law than the enactments of the fashion-makers. You must judge for yourself how far you can make the latter bend to the former. We have been talking of dress as an individual matter. In future chapters we shall have ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... leads to the revelation of a higher law than that of selfishness. The very assertion of the self which leads into evil, ultimately leaves the self assertion futile. There is the disappointment of utter failure; the sinner is thrown back upon himself empty-handed. He finds himself ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... for future settlement, it may be taken for granted that a civilized society is one in which order and individual rights to life, personal liberty, and lawfully acquired property are respected; in which the rule of brute strength is supplanted by the higher law of reason and social justice and in which the people are free to develop their artistic and aesthetic tastes into a complete and harmonious whole. Applying this standard to the world's history there are found great civilized communities that ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. The man that takes his earnings, must be able to convince him that he has a perfect right to do so. It must not depend upon mere force; the slave must know no Higher Law than his master's will. The whole relationship must not only demonstrate, to his mind, its necessity, but its absolute rightfulness. If there be one crevice through which a single drop can fall, it will certainly ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... it safeguarded the Union and secured the political achievements of the past. Moreover, the two great party organizations had done much to assimilate the foreign elements injected into our population. No doubt the politician who cultivated "the Irish vote" or "the German vote," was obeying no higher law than his own interests; but his activities did much to promote that fusion of heterogeneous elements which has been one of the most extraordinary phenomena of American society. With the disappearance of the Whig party, one of the two great agencies ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... must be added that nothing can extenuate the enormity of the broad fact that an innocent country has been horribly devastated because her guilty neighbors formed two huge explosive combinations against one another instead of establishing the peace of Europe, but that is an offence against a higher law than any recorded on diplomatic scraps of paper, and when it comes to judgment the outraged conscience of humanity will not have much patience with the naughty child's plea of ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Satan!" Mikah shouted, leaping to his feet and pacing back and forth before Jason, clasping and unclasping his hands with agitation. "You seek to confuse me with your semantics and so-called ethics that are simply opportunism and greed. There is a Higher Law that cannot ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness." Her marriage, after the initial act, had in it nothing whatever of lawlessness. She believed there exists a higher rule than that of Parliament, and to this higher law she submitted. To her this was not a law of self-will and personal inclination, but the law of nature and social obligation. That she was not overcome by the German individualistic and social tendencies may be seen in the article on "Weimar ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... crowns now, and how can we say Solomon was not right when he said the end of it all was vanity? What is Nature, and on what compulsion must we obey her? The imperative mandates of our own hearts? But what if our hearts are at war with our heads? Are we to follow no higher law than the blind instinct that moves the house-fly? Or will we aspire to the indomitable soul of the mocking-birds that feed their young in captivity until they see they are prisoners for life, and then bring ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... so beautiful through these bars?" I reflected as I walked. "Is not this the effect of the aesthetic law of contrasts, according to which azure stands out prominently beside black? Or is it not, perhaps, a manifestation of some other, higher law, according to which the infinite may be conceived by the human mind only when it is brought within certain boundaries, for instance, when it is enclosed within ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... interesting," I said;—"but I do not know how far it could be made to accord with accepted doctrine.... And what of the person able, through knowledge and practice of the higher law, to remain superior to all weaknesses ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... between themselves, and Saul Chadron, and each member of the Drovers' Association, had the power of their mighty organization to uphold his hand. That power was incontestable in the Northwest in its day; there was no higher law. ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... time to time Sir Walter's titles, his offices, his Elizabethan monopolies and his appointments were all taken from him. All his emoluments were wanted for hungry favourites ; and finally the Sherburne estate which he had been permitted to entail on his son went by no higher law than the king's, ' I ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... matter from the tribunal of man into the presence of God; nor can human law be pleaded at this bar as the excuse for a violation of conscience. It is a dangerous doctrine, doubtless, to preach that there may be a "higher law" than obedience to law; but truth is not to be rejected because dangerous, and the time is not long past when the phrase voiced a conviction, the forcible assertion of which brought ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... You see a man of strong animal propensities, but with a lofty soul, appearing in a wicked and materialistic—and possibly atheistic—age, overturning all previous systems of philosophy, and inculcating a new and higher law of morals. You see him spending his whole life,—and a long life,—in disinterested teachings and labors; teaching without pay, attaching himself to youth, working in poverty and discomfort, indifferent to wealth and honor, and even ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... language, and literature, binding hostile races together, and proclaiming the sovereignty of intelligence,—the [Greek: nous kratei] of the old Ionian philosophers,—with that higher sovereignty which Moses based upon the Ten Commandments, and that higher law still which Jesus taught ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... that is but imitation of a higher law. A fragment of the force that we control is greater than the whole power of all the guns in the world, and forever we are seeking the knowledge of how to protect ourselves against it, so that we may safely experiment with higher potencies. As we learn the secret of safety we increase ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... hear you say those very words, Captain," said he; "because now I know you'd do anything in the world to help a good girl out of trouble, or to keep her out of it. Now, about the law. I'm sure, Captain, you believe in the higher law—the supreme law— the chivalry of the southern man, don't you?" Wilson waved him away again, but still gazed at him curiously. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no considerable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... harmonious association with the States on the Atlantic and the Pacific. It is undeniably demonstrated that it is unsafe to trust it to administer a government in accordance with republican ideas; for it acknowledges a higher law than even the human conscience, in the will of a person whom it professes to believe a vicegerent of Divinity, and in obedience to whom perjury, robbery, incest, and even murder, may be justifiable,—for his commands are those of Heaven. It is obvious that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... not have us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolences, our churches, our pauper-societies, much better than she likes our frauds and wars. They are but so many yokes to the neck. Our painful labours are unnecessary and fruitless. A higher law than that of our will regulates events. If we look wider, things are all alike: laws and creeds and modes of living are a travesty of truth. Only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become strong. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... back by the pendulum of mood and emotion, and by steadfastly affirming the superiority they remain polarized on the Positive pole. The Master, of course, attains a far greater degree of proficiency, because he understands the law which he is overcoming by a higher law, and by the use of his Will he attains a degree of Poise and Mental Steadfastness almost impossible of belief on the part of those who allow themselves to be swung backward and forward by the mental ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... a supreme authority exercising the function of setting aside acts of legislative bodies which it deemed inconsistent with a higher law was familiar to Americans from an early period of our colonial history.[Footnote: See Chap. I; Dicey, "Law of the Constitution," 152; "Two Centuries Growth of American Law," 12, 19.] The charter of each colony served the office of a constitution. The Lords of ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... report that those States are not entitled to representation in this body, are you bound by their action? Is there not a higher law, the supreme law of the land, which says if they be States that they shall each be entitled to two Senators on this floor? And shall a report of a joint committee of the two houses override and overrule the fundamental law of the land? Sir, it is dangerous as a precedent, and I protest ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... crises in a nation's history, when some ancient evil is to be thrown off, and some powerful system is to be crushed, there will be violence, at which easy-going people, who have never passed through like times, will hold up their hands in horror and with cheap censure. No doubt we have a higher law than Jehu knew, and Christ has put His own gentle commandment of love in the place of what was 'said to them of old time.' But let us, while we obey it for ourselves, and abjure violence and blood, judge the men of old 'according to that which they had, and not according to that which they had not.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... happiness which only comes where the world cannot enter, and the free nature has lifted itself to the light, knowing nothing of, and caring nothing for, the bonds of custom and of prejudice with which men have paralysed and cramped themselves, calling the lower the higher law. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... of being. So long as we believe that soul can sin or that immortal Soul is in 311:21 mortal body, we can never understand the Science of be- ing. When humanity does understand this Science, it will become the law of Life to man, - even the higher law 311:24 of Soul, which prevails over material sense through ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... whispered Eleanore, "hasn't anything to do with these people; it was committed against the higher law of morals, against our feeling of right usage and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... have lost? Let these people then be silent, and know that when a transcendent exhibition of original genius wins success beyond the reach of measurement by their plumb and line and square and compass, the higher law governing the seeming miracle will be duly revealed: and the Taj is just such a miracle, from all I can learn of ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... once asked by the Association for the Advancement of Science what branch of science he was especially interested in, he did not reply because he did not want to make himself the laughing-stock of the scientific community, which did not believe in a science which deals with the higher law—his higher law, which bears the ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... light. But she felt bound to go on believing as she had been taught; for sometimes the most original mind has the strongest sense of law upon it, and will, in default of a better, obey a beggarly one—only till the higher law that swallows it up manifests itself. Obedience was as essential an element of her creed as of that of any purest-minded monk; neither being sufficiently impressed with this: that, while obedience is the law of the kingdom, it is of considerable importance that that which is obeyed should ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... communities in which we live, and if the former be perverted to destroy the latter, it is patriotism to disregard them. Entertaining these views, I cannot sanction, and will not condemn, the step you have taken." This is an early instance of the appeal to the "higher law" in the pro-slavery controversy. The higher law was invoked against the freedom of the press. The New York postmaster sought to dissuade the Anti-slavery Society from the attempt to send its publications through the mails into Southern States. In reply to a request for authorization ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... to Christopher it appeared unjust and cruel. For the moment it was in him to remonstrate fiercely, but the words died away, for such a protest must of necessity be based on an acceptance of this divided code, and to that he would not stoop. It was some poor consolation to pay the penalty of a higher law than he was supposed to understand. He turned again to the door and got away before a storm of tears swamped his ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... sin of these Congressmen is a national sin, because the nation hath not said to them in the Constitution, the supreme rule for our public servants, 'We charge you to serve us in accordance with the higher law of God.' These Sabbath-breaking railroads, moreover, are corporations created by the State, and amenable to it. The State is responsible to God for the conduct of these creatures which it calls into being. ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... decided to let the subject drop. He had, in fact, gone as far as his present judgment would carry him, and anything farther might lead to a false step. In a situation alive with claims and counter-claims, with yearnings of the heart and promptings of the higher law, he could preserve his rights only by a walk as wary as the treading ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... cases by the increased use or disuse of parts, being affected by the direct action of the external conditions of life, and subjected in all cases to the several laws of growth and variation. Hence, in fact, the law of the Conditions of Existence is the higher law; as it includes, through the inheritance of former variations and adaptations, that of Unity of Type" (Origin, 6th ed., Pop. Impression, pp. 260-1). It is clear that Darwin took the phrase "Conditions of Existence" ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... February 5, 1850, says: "The States being separated, I would as soon return my own brother or sister into bondage, as I would return a fugitive slave. Before God, and Christ, and all Christian men, they are my brothers and sisters." What a condition! From the lips, too, of a champion of the Higher Law! Whether the States be separate or united, neither my brother nor any other man's brother shall, with my consent, go back to bondage! So speaks the heart—Mr. Mann's version is that ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the land say so, and I—I said so at last—persuaded because I desired to be persuaded. . . . It was a lie. My wife, shamed or unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true to her marriage vows or false to them, now legally the wife of another, has never ceased to be my wife. And it is a higher law that corroborates me—higher than you can understand—a law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is absolutely dependent for its existence intact. But"—with a contemptuous shrug—"you ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... unrepentant heretics be put to death? No, taught St. Augustine, and most of the early Fathers, who invoked in favor of the guilty ones the higher law of "charity and Christian gentleness." Their doctrine certainly accorded perfectly with our Saviour's teaching, in the parable of the cockle and the good grain. As Wazo, Bishop of Liege said: "May not those who are to-day cockle become wheat to-morrow?"[1] But in ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... tendencies detrimental to the interests of society, aside from any question of its sinfulness. The only men who are thoroughly consistent in their arguments in favor of occasional lying, are those who start with the false premise that there is no higher law of ethics than that of such a love for one's neighbor as will make one ready to do whatever seems likely to advantage him in the ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... there is a higher law than the statutes of the States or of England either, and that is the moral law. In aiding you, he made the greatest sale of lead ever effected at once in England; the profit on that was his share of the smuggling. But you are only drawing me out to see what I am made of. You are an awful man ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... if faithfully done in a true spirit of service, is of as much value and real importance as the writing of a deathless poem, or dying for one's country. We can never truthfully say that one act of service is of greater value, or is more important than another. All that the higher law looks at is the motive. Therefore, if your motive is right, you can be engaged in the humblest and, apparently, most useless occupation, and yet be happy because you satisfy the law ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... blood of revolution. As a national institution, following the prescribed rules of the Academy, it has, of course, met with frequent assaults at the hands of men for whom prescribed academic law was as naught in comparison with the higher law of genius. In 1819 such a man appeared, with a picture which violated the unwritten law formulated by David: "Look in ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... or the side of abuse, and oppression and chaos? ... He did as immoral men usually do,—made very low bows to the Christian Church and went through all the Sunday decorums, but when allusion was made to the question of duty and the sanctions of morality, he very frankly said, at Albany, 'Some higher law, something existing somewhere between here and the heaven—I do not know where.' And if the reporters say true, this wretched atheism found ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... refuses to hear the Bible quoted. He believes in a higher law, no doubt, Frederic Douglas being editorial expounder; a sort of Moses of this century, a little less meek, though, than the one who instructed the Israelites. George won't hear the Bible; he prefers, he says, appealing to the Almighty himself. This makes me fear his Abolitionist friends ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... and of the several States," were required to take an oath (or affirmation) to support the Constitution containing these provisions. It is easy to understand how those who considered them in conflict with the "higher law" of religion or morality might refuse to take such an oath or hold such an office—as the members of some religious sects refuse to take any oath at all or to bear arms in the service of their country—but it is impossible to reconcile with the obligations of honor or honesty ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... he would like to question my Latin. No, sir, I said,—you need not trouble yourself. There is a higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and Stoddard. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... why it's so damned important to tell Jess, anyhow! Why, sir, the fellow may not be dead, at all! And you mustn't lose sight of the fact, sir, that Dale is my guest, entitled by a higher law to my protection!" ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... prove that it was not a miracle. To prove it to be a miracle would require not a vast range of knowledge, but absolutely universal knowledge, which it is entirely beyond our faculties to attain. To say that any event was a miracle would be to say that we knew that there was no higher law that could explain it, and this we could not say unless we knew all laws: to say that it was not a miracle would be ex hypothesi to assert what was false. In fact, to assert the occurrence of a miracle is simply to go back to the beginning of science, and to say: Here ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... after employing every possible means to live a full, harmonious life, united, and it is found an impossibility, the two continue to live together despite the decree of God, made manifest in their nature, that it is sinful for them to do so. This all is within the province of that 'higher law' which many profess to contemn, but to which all ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams |
