Although I’m not a lawyer yet, or even a Law Student, but a part of me will always aspire of being one. Having finished my AB Political Science, I would assert that my undergraduate bachelor’s degree warrants me with enough credibility and credence to write this piece. A Bachelor of Arts majoring in Political Science is undeniably a fitting precursor to Law, even though many Law students would not recommend this course as pre-law preparation because of the issue of redundancy (many of the lessons in AB Pol. Sci. will be repeated in the first year of Law School).
Having sufficient knowledge, experience and training in multiple areas of discipline such as Languages, Social Science, Philosophy, the Education Profession, and extensive experience and training social science research, I would make a truth claim to the certainty of this article.
Laws, every law, legitimate laws to be exact, have two parts—1. the letter, that is, the exact wordings and language, the exact details, including the numeric particulars; and 2. essence or spirit behind the letter, the thought, the point, the reason, the intent, the expected outcome, of why said letter come into existence, the purpose of being of the letter.
To give an illustration, let’s go the ten (10) commandments, to be specific the 6th commandment—Thou Shall not Kill. What we have right there on the very surface, are the words Don’t Kill, or in original Hebrew, do not commit Murder (לֹא תִּרְצָח ; lo tirṣaḥ)*. That is the letter.
So, what then is the essence of said law? Well…what is the intent? Why do you think particular law at hand is given? Most people would agree that the essence, or the spirit of this specifically mentioned law, is the defense, the preservation, of life, and of its sanctity.
In essence, we can violate the law without violating its literal phrasing. We can murder, essentially speaking, although not literally. If a deranged person comes to me to borrow a knife so he can kill someone, and if I lent him/her mine, I am part of the murder process, not in the letter, but in the spirit. I directly and undeniably involved myself in the process of destroying life and maligned its sanctity.
Today, we need to know the letter of the law, for our own preservation and protection of rights. Most especially when we are lawyers. Lawyers, by virtue of their profession, need to be literalists (particular and being aware of the letter of the law). But everyone, any sane person seeking to preserve civil societies’ sanity, insight, and sensibility, by virtue of his/her humanity, need to be essentialist.
*Exodus 20:1–21, Deuteronomy 5:1–23, Ten Commandments, New Bible Dictionary, Second Edition, Tyndale House, 1982 pp. 1174–1175
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