Great ideas—“the ideas basic and indispensable to understanding ourselves, our society, and the world in which we live.”[1]
The Great Books of the Western World. Mortimer Adler prepared the Syntopicon: a collection of some 3,000 topics discussed in the great books, organics under each of 102 great ideas.
An alphabetical arrangement of anything is a cowardly retreat from an intelligible ordering of the material.[2]
Syntopicon
Outline of Law[1]
1. The definition of
law
1a. The end of law: peace, order and the common
good
1b. Law in relation to reason or will
1c. The authority and power needed for making law
1d. The promulgation of law: the need and the manner of its declaration
2. The major kinds of
law: comparison of human, natural, and
divine law; comparison of natural and positive, innate and acquire, private and
public, abstract and civil rights.
3. The divine law
3a. The eternal law in the divine government of
the universe; the law in nature of all creatures
(1) the
natural moral law as the eternal law in human nature
(2) the
distinction between the eternal law and the positive commandments of God
3b.
The positive law: the difference between the law revealed in the Old and
the New Testament
(1) Law
in the Old Testament: the moral, the
judicial, and the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law
(2) The
Law in the New Testament: the law of
love and grace; ceremonial precepts of the New Law
4. The natural law
4a. The law of reason or the moral law: the order and habit of its principles
4b. The law of men living in a state of nature
4c. The a priori of principles of innate or
abstract right: universal law in the
order of freedom; the objectification of the will
4d. The natural law as underlying the precept of
virtue: its relation to the moral
precepts of divine law
4e.
The relation of natural law to natural rights and natural justice
4f. The relation of natural law to civil or
municipal law: the state of nature and
the regulations of the civil state
4g. The relation of natural law to the law of
nations and to international law:
sovereign stated and the state of nature
4h. The precepts of the natural law and the
condition of the state of nature with respect to slavery and property
5. The human or
positive law: the sanction of coercive
force
5a. The difference between laws and decrees
5b. The kinds or divisions of positive law
5c. The justice of positive law: the standards of natural law and
constitutionality
5d. The origins of positive law in the
legislative process: the function of the
legislator
5e. The mutability or variability of positive
law: the maintenance or change of laws
5f. The relation of positive law to custom
5g. The application of positive law to
cases: the casuistry (the solving of
specific cases or right and wrong in conduct by applying general principles of
ethics) of the judicial process; the conduct of a trial; the administration of
justice
5h. The defect of positive law: its need for
correction or dispensation by equity
6. Law and the
individual
6a. Obedience to the authority and force of
law: the sanctions of conscience and
fear; the objective and subjective sanctions of law; law, duty, and right
6b. The exemption of the soverign person from the
coercive force of law
6c. The force of the tyrannical, unjust, or bad
laws: the right of rebellion or
disobedience
6d. The educative function of law in relation to
virtue and vice: the efficacy of law as
limited by virtue in the individual citizen
6e. The breach of law: crime and punishment
(1) the
nature and causes of crime
(2) the
prevention of crime
(3) the
punishment of crime
7.
Law and the state
7a. The distinction between government by men and government by laws: the nature of constitutional or political law
7b. The supremacy of law as the principle of
political freedom
7c. The priority of natural to civil law: the inviolability or inalienability of
natural rights
7d. Tyranny and treason or sedition as illegal
acts: the use of force without authority
7e. The need for administrative discretion in
matters undetermined by law: the royal
prerogative
7f. The juridical conception of the person: the legal personality of the state and other
corporations
8.
Historical observations on the development of law and on the diversity
of legal systems or institutions
9.
The legal profession and the study of law: praise and dispraise of lawyers and judges
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