more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall.
Gist of Idea
The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall
Source
Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B044), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.2
Book Ref
'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.27
A Reaction
This may be the first recorded assertion of the rule of law, and hence of the separation of powers. We still have plenty of people who reject this principle.
| 22824 | Magna Carta forbids prison without trial, and insists on neutral and correct process [-, by Charvet] |
| 422 | The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall [Heraclitus] |
| 7810 | The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus shows blood feuds replaced by law [Aeschylus, by Grayling] |
| 22551 | Correct law should be in control, with rulers only deciding uncertain issues [Aristotle] |
| 22554 | It is said that we should not stick strictly to written law, as it is too vague [Aristotle] |
| 2827 | It is preferable that law should rule rather than any single citizen [Aristotle] |
| 19891 | Rule of law is superior to autonomy, because citizens can see what is expected [Hooker,R] |
| 22823 | The rule of law is mainly to restrict governments [Charvet] |
| 22825 | The 1689 Bill of Rights denied the monarch new courts, or the right to sit as judge [Charvet] |
| 22826 | From 1701 only parliament could remove judges, whose decisions could not be discussed [Charvet] |
| 22827 | Justice superior to the rule of law is claimed on behalf of the workers, or the will of the nation [Charvet] |
| 22828 | The rule of law mainly benefits those with property and liberties [Charvet] |