He leaves that aside, and considers what is his duty, or not his duty,
in the deficiency of his knowledge. Then he strikes upon the
principle, which is the root of Probabilism, _that a doubtful law has
no binding power_. It will be observed that this is a _reflex_
principle. For objectively nothing is doubtful, but everything is or
is not in point of fact. To a mind that had a full grasp of the
objective order of things, there would be no doubtful law: such a mind
would discern the law in every case as holding or not holding. But no
human mind is so perfect. Every man has to take account of his own
limitations of vision in judging of his duty. The question for me is,
not the law absolutely, but the law as far as I can make it out. Our
proposition, then, states that when an individual, using such moral
diligence of enquiry as the gravity of the matter calls for, still
remains in a state of honest doubt as to whether the law binds, in
that mental condition it does not bind _him_.
3. What the law does not forbid, it leaves open. Aristotle indeed
(_Eth_., V., xi., 1) says the contrary, that what the law does not
command (he instances suicide), it forbids.
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