alteration, the words of Sir John Fortescue, when first his royal pupil determines to engage in this ftudy: "It will not be neceffary for a gentleman, as fuch, to "examine with a clofe application the critical niceties "of the law. It will fully be fufficient, and he may "well enough be denominated a lawyer, if, under the ❝ inftruction of a master, he traces up the principles and "grounds of the law, even to their original elements. "Therefore, in a very fhort period, and with very little "labour, he may be fufficiently informed in the laws "of his country, if he will but apply his mind in good "earnest to receive and apprehend them. For, though "fuch knowledge as is neceffary for a judge is hardly "to be acquired by the lucubrations of twenty years, "yet, with a genius of tolerable perfpicacity, that "knowledge which is fit for a person of birth or con "dition may be learned in a fingle year, without neg❝lecting his other improvements."

To the few therefore (the very few I am perfuaded) that entertain fuch unworthy notions of an university, as to suppose it intended for mere diffipation of thought; to fuch as mean only to while away the awkward interval from childhood to twenty one, between the restraints of the school and the licentioufnefs of politer life, in a calm middle state of mental and of moral inactivity; to these Mr. Viner gives no invitation to an entertainment which they never can relifh. But to the long and illuftrious train of noble and ingenuous youth, who are not more distinguished among us by their birth and poffeffions, than by the regularity of their conduct and their thirst after ufeful knowledge; to these our benefactor has confecrated the fruits of a long and laborious life, worn out in the duties of his calling; and will joy. fully reflect (if fuch reflections can be now the employment of his thoughts) that he could not more effectually have benefited pofterity, or contributed to the fervice of the publick, than by founding an institution which may inftruct the rifing generation in the wildom of our civil polity, and inform them with a defire to be still better acquainted with the laws and conftitution of their country. SECTION

u De laud. Leg. c. 8.

SECTION the SGCDND.

THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GENERAL.

LAW, in its moft general and compre

henfive fenfe, fignifies a rule of action; and is applied indifcriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we fay, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of opticks, or mechanicks, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is preferibed by fome fuperior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.

Thus when the fupreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impreffed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would ceafe to be. When he put that matter into motion, he established certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies must conform. And, to defcend from the greatest operations to the smallest, when a workman forms a clock, or other piece of mechanism, he establishes at his own pleafure certain arbitrary laws for its direction; as that the hand fhall defcribe a given space in a given time; to which law, as long as the work conforms, fo long it continues in perfection, and answers the end of its form

ation.

If we farther advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we shall find them still gov erned by laws; more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progrefs of plants, from the feed to the root, and from thence to the feed again;—the method of animal nutrition, digeftion, fecretion, and all other branches of vital economy-are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itself, but are

performed

performed in a wonderous involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules laid down by the great Creator.

This then is the general fignification of law, a rule of action dictated by fome fuperior being: And, in those creatures that have neither the power to think, nor to will, fuch laws must be invariably obeyed, fo long as the creature itself subfifts, for its existence depends on that obedience. But laws, in their more confined sense, and in which it is our prefent business to confider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct; that is, the precepts by which man, the nobleft of all fublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour.

Man, confidered as a creature, muft neceffarily be fubject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to purfue, but fuch as he prescribes to himfelf; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him on whom he depends as the rule of his conduct; not indeed in every particular, but in all thofe points wherein his dependence confifts. This principle therefore has more or lefs extent and effect, in proportion as the fuperiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or less, abfolute or limited. And confequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for every thing, it is neceffary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will.

This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; fo, when he created man, and endued him with free will to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that free will is in fome degree regulated and restrained, and gave him alfo the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.

Confidering the Creator only as a being of infinite power, he was able unquestionably to have prescribed

whatever

INTROD whatever laws he pleased to his creature, man, howev er unjust or severe. But as he is also a being of infinite wisdom, he has laid down only fuch laws as were founded in those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things antecedent to any pofitive precept. These are the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the Creator himself in all his difpenfations conforms; and which he has enabled human reafon to discover, so far as they are neceffary for the conduct of human actions. Such, among others, are these principles; that we should live honeftly, fhould hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due; to which three general precepts Juftiniana has reduced the whole doctrine of law.

But, if the discovery of these first principles of the law of nature depended only upon the due exertion of right realon, and could not otherwise be obtained than by a chain of metaphysical difquifitions, mankind would have wanted fome inducement to have quickened their inquiries, and the greater part of the world would have refted content in mental indolence, and ignorance its infeparable companion. As therefore the Creator is a being, not only of infinite power and wifdom, but also of infinite goodness, he has been pleased fo to contrive the constitution and frame of humanity, that we should want no other prompter to inquire after and pursue the rule of right, but only our own felf love, that univerfal principle of action. For he has fo intimately connected, fo infeparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual, that the latter cannot be attained but by obferving the former; and, if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In confequence of which mutual connection of juftice and human felicity, he has not perplexed the law of nature with a multitude of abstracted rules and precepts, referring merely to the fitness or unfitness of things, as fome have vainly furmifed; but has graciously reduced the rule of obedience to this one paternal precept, "that man fhould purfue his own

"true

a Juris praecepta funt baec, bonefte vivere, alterum non laedere, fuum cuique tribuere. Inft. I. 1. 3.

"true and fubftantial happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethicks, or natural law. For the several articles into which it is branched in our fyftems, amount to no more than demonstrating, that this or that action tends to man's real happinefs, and therefore very juftly concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is deftructive of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.

This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of courfe fuperior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and fuch of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.

But, in order to apply this to the particular exigencies of each individual, it is ftill neceffary to have recourse to reason; whofe office it is to discover, as was before obferved, what the law of nature directs in every circumstance of life; by confidering what method will tend the most effectually to our own fubftantial happiness. And if our reafon were always, as in our first anceftor before his tranfgreffion, clear and perfect, unruffled by paffions, unclouded by prejudice, unimpaired by difeafe or intemperance, the talk would be pleasant and eafy; we should need no other guide but this. But every man now finds the contrary in his own experience, that his reafon is corrupt, and his understanding full of ignorance and error.

This has given manifold occafion for the benign interpofition of divine providence; which, in compaffion to the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, hath been pleased, at fundry times, and in divers manners, to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines thus delivered, we call "The Revealed or Divine Law," and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. Thefe precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparifon to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their confequences to man's felicity. But we are not from thence to conclude that the knowl

edge