Natural Ordermage

LI

A people cannot survive in chaos, nor can a land. For this reason, the first duty of any who would rule is to maintain order. Too much order, and a land becomes a prison where nothing is accomplished, save keeping order. Before long in such a land, there will be neither food nor clothing, and order itself will vanish as each person struggles to find nourishment and shelter for himself and those he holds dear. Too little order, and no one respects anyone else, neither his neighbor nor his ruler, and that land, too, will fall into ruin and anarchy.

The lessons of history have illustrated all too clearly that, despite what people say about the need to do good and to respect the persons and property of others, most beings will only do good and respect others either when it costs them nothing or when they fear a greater power will cause them suffering should they not respect others. Using power to instill order and respect, without turning a land into a prison, that is the task of a ruler.

Power is not respected or feared when it is never exercised. Yet, if it is exercised excessively and in an arbitrary fashion, people will become unhappy and unproductive, and that will cause the order of a land to decline. People also become unhappy when power is always used harshly and disproportionately to an offense against order. Likewise, they become confused when the laws governing the use of power are complex and difficult to explain or understand.

Thus, the laws of a land must be both fair and simple. Sometimes, this is not possible, and if it is not, a ruler should err on the side of simplicity, because, no matter how hard administrators, mage-guards, and rulers attempt to assure fairness, absolute fairness is by nature impossible, and attempts to create it always lead to a wider and more complex set of rules and laws, which seem unfair because of their very complexity. In the end, attempting to create absolute fairness will create a greater impression of unfairness than maintaining a firmer and simpler set of rules.

The last precept about laws is this: Create no law that is not absolutely necessary to maintain simple order. Beyond the minimum for maintaining order, laws are like fleas or leeches. The more of them that exist, the more they vex a land and bleed it into chaos and anarchy…

Manual of the Mage-Guards

Cigoerne, Hamor

1551 A.F.