Moral Principles and Medical Practice | Page 6

least, very imperfect, and therefore they cannot be the ultimate test or
fixed standard of right and wrong; yet the main argument advanced by
one of the advocates of craniotomy rests upon the denial of a higher
law, and the assertion of the authority of human tribunals as final in
such matters.
In the "Medical Record" for July 27, 1895, p. 141, this gentleman
writes in defence of craniotomy: "The question is a legal one per se
against which any conflicting view is untenable. The subdivisions
under which the common law takes consideration of craniotomy are
answers in themselves to the conclusions quoted above, under the
unfortunate necessity which demands the operation." Next he quotes
the Ohio statute law, which, he remarks, was enacted in protection of
physicians who are confronted with this dire necessity. He is answered
with much ability and sound learning by Dr. Thomas J. Kearney, of
New York, in the same "Medical Record" for August 31, 1895, p. 320,
who writes: "Dr. G. bases his argument for the lawfulness of
craniotomy in the teachings of common law, contending, at least
implicitly, that it is unnecessary to seek farther the desired justification.
However, the basis of common law, though broad, is certainly not
broad enough for the consideration of such a question as the present
one. His coolness rises to sublime heights, in thus assuming infallibility
for common law, ignoring the very important fact that behind it there is
another and higher law, whose imperative, to every one with a
conscience, is ultimate. It evidently never occurs to him that some time
could be profitably spent in research, with the view to discovering how
often common-law maxims, seen to be at variance with the principles
of morality, have been abrogated by statutory enactments. Now the
maxims of common law relating to craniotomy, the statutes in

conformity therewith, as well as Dr. G.'s arguments (some of them at
least), rest on a basis of pure unmitigated expediency; and this is
certainly in direct contravention of the teachings of all schools of moral
science, even the utilitarian."
Dr. Kearney's doctrine of the existence of a higher law, superior to all
human law, is the doctrine that has been universally accepted, in all
Christian lands at least, and is so to the present day. Froude explains it
correctly when he writes: "Our human laws are but the copies, more or
less imperfect, of the eternal laws so far as we can read them, and either
succeed and promote our welfare or fail and bring confusion and
disaster, according as the legislator's insight has detected the true
principle, or has been distorted by ignorance or selfishness" (Century
Dict., "Law").
Whoever calmly reflects on the manner in which laws are enacted by
legislative bodies, under the influence of human passions and
prejudices, often at the dictation of party leaders or of popular
sentiment, of office-seekers or wealthy corporations, etc., will not
maintain for a moment that human laws and human tribunals are to be
accepted as the supreme measure or norma of right and wrong. The
common law of England, which lies at the basis of our American
legislation, and is an integral portion of our civil government, is less
fluctuating than our statutory law, and is in the main sound and in
conformity with the principles of Jurisprudence. But no one will claim
infallibility for its enactments; the esteem we have for it is chiefly due
to its general accord with the requirements of the higher law.
7. There is, then, a higher law, which all men are bound to obey, even
lawgivers and rulers themselves as well as their humblest subjects, a
law from which no man nor class of men can claim exemption, a law
which the Creator cannot fail to impose upon His rational creatures:
although God was free to create or not to create as He chose, since He
did not need anything to complete His own happiness,--yet, if He did
create, He was bound by His own wisdom to put order into His work;
else it would not be worthy of His supreme wisdom. As the poet has so
tersely expressed it, "Order is Heaven's first law."

How admirably is this order displayed in the material universe! The
more we study the sciences--astronomy, biology, botany, physiology,
medicine, etc.--the more we are lost in admiration at the beautiful order
we see displayed in the tiniest as well as in the vastest portions of the
creation. And shall man alone, the masterpiece of God in this visible
universe, be allowed to be disorderly, to be a failure in the noblest part
of his being, to make himself like to the brute or to a demon of malice,
to waste his choicest gifts in the indulgence of debasing pleasure? The
Creator