BOOK XIX. Of Laws in Relation to the Principles which form 7. Of the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, 8. Effects of a fociable temper, 9. Of the vanity and the pride of nations, 12. Of customs and manners in a defpotic ftate, ibid. AWS, in their moft general fignification, are the neceffary relations refulting from the nature of things. In this fenfe all beings have their laws, the Deity has his laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences fuperior to man have their laws, the beafts their laws, man his laws. * Those who affert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world, are guilty of a very great abfurdity; for can any thing be more abfurd, than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings? There is then a primitive reafon; and laws are the relations which fubfift between it and different beings, and the relations of thefe beings among themselves. God is related to the univerfe as creator and preferver; the laws by which he created all things, are thofe by which VOL. I. Α The law, fays Plutarch, is queen of the gods and men. intitled, The neceffity of a prince being a man of learning. he See his Treatife, he preferves them. He acts according to thefe rules, because he knows them; he knows them, because he made them ; and he made them, because they are relative to his wifdom and power. As we fee that the world, though formed by the motion of matter, and void of understanding, fubfifts through fo long a fucceffion of ages, its motions muft certainly be directed by invariable laws; and could we imagine another world, it must alfo have conftant rules, or must inevitably perish. Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, fuppofeth laws as invariable as the fatality of the Athiefts. It would be abfurd to fay, that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, fince without them it could not fubfift. Between Thefe rules are a fixed and invariable relation. two bodies moved, it is according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity, that all the motions are received, augmented, diminished, loft; each diversity is UNIFORMITY, each change is cONSTANCY. Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they have fome likewife which they never made. Before there were intelligent beings, they were poffible; they had therefore poffible relations, and confequently poffible laws. Before laws were made, there were relations of poffible juftice. To fay that there is nothing juft or unjuft but what is commanded or forbidden by poffitive laws, is the fame as faying, that before the defcribing of a circle, all the radii were not equal. We must therefore acknowledge relations of juftice, antecedent to the poffitive law by which they are established: As for inftance, that if human focieties exifted, it would be right to conform to their laws; if there were intelligent beings that had received a benefit of another being, they ought to be grateful; if one intelligent being had created another intelligent being, the latter ought to continue in its original ftate of dependence; if one intelligent being injures another, it deferves a retaliation of the injury, and fo on. But the intelligent world is far from being fo well governed as the phyfical. For though the former has alfo its laws, which of their own nature are invariable, yet it does not conform to them fo exactly as the phyfical world. This is is because, on the one hand, particular intelligent beings are of a finite nature, and confequently liable to error; and on the other, their nature requires them to be free agents. Hence they do not fteadily conform to their primitive laws; and even thofe of their own inftituting they frequently infringe. Whether brutes be governed by the general laws of motion, or by a particular movement, is what we cannot determine. Be that as it may, they have not a more intimate relation to God than the rest of the material world; and sensation is of no other use to them, than in the relation they have either to other particular beings, or to themfelves. By the allurement of pleasure, they preferve the being of the individual, and by the fame allurement they preferve their species. They have natural laws, because they are united by fenfations; pofitive laws they have none, because they are not connected by knowledge. And yet they do not conform invariably to their natural laws; these are better obferved by vegetables, that have neither intellectual nor fenfitive faculties. Brutes are deprived of the high advantages we enjoy ; but they have fome which we have not. They have not our hopes, but they are without our fears; they are fubject like us to death, but without knowing it; even moft of them are more attentive than we to felf prefervation, and do not make so bad a use of their paffions. Man, as a phyfical being, is like other bodies, governed by invariable laws. As an intelligent being, he inceffantly tranfgreffes the laws eftablished by God, and changes thofe which he himself has eftablished. He is left to his own direction, though he is a limited being, fubject, like all finite intelligences, to ignorance and error; even the imperfect knowledge he has, he lofes as a fenfible creature, and is hurried away by a thousand impetuous paffions. Such a being might every inftant forget his Creator God has therefore reminded him of his duty by the laws of religion. Such a being is liable every moment to forget himself philofophy has provided against this by the laws of morality. Formed to live in fociety, he might forget his fellow creatures; legiflators have therefore, by po litical and civil laws, confined him to his duty. 2 ; СНАР, CHA P. II. Of the Laws of Nature. PRIOR to all thefe laws are thofe of nature, so called, because they derive their force entirely from our frame and being. In order to have a perfect knowledge of these laws, we must confider man before the establishment of fociety; the laws received in fuch a state would be thofe of nature. The law which by imprinting on our minds the idea of a Creator, inclines us to him, is the firft in importance, though not in order, of natural laws. Man in a state of nature, would have the faculty of knowing, before he had any acquired knowledge. It is evident that his firft ideas would not be of a speculative nature; he would think of the preservation of his being, before he would inveftigate its original. Such a man would feel nothing in himself at first, but impotency and weakness; his fears and apprehenfions would be exceffive; as appears from inftances (were there any neceffity of proving it) of favages found in forefts, trembling at the motion of a leaf, and flying from every fhadow. In this ftate every man would fancy himself inferior; fcarcely would he think of his being equal. There would therefore be no danger of their attacking one another; peace would be the first law of nature. The natural impulfe or defire which Hobbes attributes to mankind of fubduing one another, is far from being well founded. The idea of empire and dominion is fo complex, and depends on fo many other notions, that it could never be the firft that would occur to human understandings. Hobbes inquires, For what reafon do men go armed, and have locks and keys to fasten their doors, if they be not naturally in a state of war? But is it not obvious, that he attributes to men before the establishment of fociety, what can happen but in confequence of this eftablifhment, which furnishes them with motives for hoftile attacks and felf defence? Next * Witness the favage found in the forefts of Hanover, who was carried over to England in the reign of George 1. |