Part of my hobby, or my passion is to understand the relation between the Law of a state or a nation and the people (of the state or the nation) for which the law is made. In this process of understanding I came across a wonderful passage by a leading European philosopher of the 17th Century. Comments are welcome.
The passage is as follows:
"The last end of the state is not to dominate men, nor to restrain them by fear; rather it is so to free each man from fear that he may live and act with full security and without injury to himself or to his neighbor. The end of the state, I repeat, is not to make rational beings into brute beasts and machines. It is to enable their bodies and their minds to function safely. It is to lead men to live by, and to exercise, a free reason; that they may not waste their strength in hatred, anger and guile, nor act unfairly toward one another. Thus the end of the state is really liberty."
- Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus Ch. 6
Again, comments are welcome!
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