SECTION THE SECOND.

OF THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GEneral.

LAW, in its most general and comprehenfive sense, fignifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we fay, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action which is prescribed by some fuperior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.

THUS, when the Supreme 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 greateft operations to the fmallest, when a workman forms a clock, or other piece of mechanism, he establishes, at his own pleasure, certain arbitrary laws for its direction; as that the hand fhall describe 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 formation.

If we farther advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we shall find them ftill governed by laws; more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progress of plants, from the feed to the root, and from thence to the feed again ;—the method of [39] animal nutrition, digestion, secretion, and all other branches of vital œconomy ;-are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itself, but are performed in a wondrous involuntary

manner,

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, so long as the creature itself fubfifts, for it's existence depends on that obedience. But laws, in their more confined sense (1), and in which it is our

(1) This perhaps is the only fenfe in which the word law can be strictly used; for in all cafes where it is not applied to human conduct, it may be confidered as a metaphor, and in every inftance a more appropriate term may be found. When it is used to express the operations of the Deity or Creator, it comprehends ideas very different from those which are included in it's fignification when it is applied to man, or his other creatures. The volitions of the Almighty are his laws, he had only to will γενεσθω φως και εYIVITO. When we apply the word law to motion, matter, or the works of nature or of art, we shall find in every cafe, that with equal or greater propriety and perfpicuity, we might have used the words quality, property, or peculiarity.-We fay that it is a law of motion, that a body put in motion in vacuo must for ever go forward in a straight line with the fame velocity; that it is a law of nature, that particles of matter fhall attract each other with a force that varies inversely as the square of the distance from each other ; and mathematicians say, that a series of numbers observes a certain law, when each subsequent term bears a certain relation or proportion to the preceding term; but in all these instances we might as well have used the word property or quality, it being as much the property of all matter to move in a straight line, or to gravitate, as it is to be folid or extended; and when we say that it is the law of a feries that each term is the fquare or fquare-root of the preceding term, we mean nothing more than that fuch is it's property or peculiarity. And the word law is used in this fenfe in those cafes only which are fanctioned by usage; as it would be thought a harsh expreffion to fay, that it is a law that fnow fhould be white, or that fire fhould burn. When a mechanic forms a clock, he establishes a model of it either in fact or in his mind, according to his plea

fure;

present 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 reafon and free-will, is commanded to make use of thofe faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour.

MAN, confidered as a creature, must neceffarily be subject 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 himself; 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 those points wherein his dependence confifts. This principle therefore has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the fuperiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or lefs, abfolute or limited. And confequently, as man depends abfolutely upon his Maker for every thing, it is neceffary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will.

For

THIS will of his Maker is called the law of nature. as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual

fure; but if he should refolve that the wheels of his clock fhould move contrary to the usual rotation of fimilar pieces of mechanism, we could hardly with any propriety established by ufage apply the term law to his scheme. When law is applied to any other object than man, it ceases to contain two of it's effential ingredient ideas, viz. disobedience and punishment.

Hooker, in the beginning of his Ecclefiaftical Polity, like the learned judge, has with incomparable eloquence interpreted law in its moft general and comprehenfive fense. And most writers who treat law as a science, begin with such an explanation. But the Editor, though it may feem prefumptuous to question fuch authority, has thought it his duty to suggest these few observations upon the fignification of the word law.

direction

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, [ 40 ] whereby that free-will is in fome degree regulated and restrained, and gave him alfo the faculty of reafon to discover the purport of those laws.

CONSIDERING the Creator only as a being of infinite power, he was able unquestionably to have prescribed whatever laws he pleased to his creature, man, however 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 juftice, 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 reason to discover, fo far as they are neceffary for the conduct of human actions. Such among others are these principles: that we should live honeftly (2), fhould hurt nobody, and fhould render to every one his due; to which three general precepts Juftinian a has reduced the whole doctrine of law.

a

• Juris praecepta funt haec, honeftè vivere, alterum non laedere, fuum cuique tribuere. Inft. I. 1. 3.

(2) It is rather remarkable that both Harris, in his translation of Juftinian's Institutes, and the learned Commentator, whose profound learning and elegant tafte in the claffics no one will question, should render in English, honeftè vivere, to live honestly.The language of the Institutes is far too pure to admit of that interpretation; and befides, our idea of honesty is fully conveyed by the words fuum cuique tribuere. I should prefume to think that boneftè vivere fignifies to live honourably, or with decorum, or bienféance; and that this precept was intended to comprize that clafs of duties, of which the violations are ruinous to fociety, not by immediate but remote confequences, as drunkenness, debauchery, profanenefs, extravagance, gaming, &c.

BUT

BUT if the discovery of these first principles of the law of nature depended only upon the due exertion of right reafon, and could not otherwise be obtained than by a chain of metaphyfical 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, it's infeparable companion. As therefore the Creator is a being, not only of infinite power and wifdem, 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 purfue 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 connexion of justice and hu[41] man 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 pursue his own "true and substantial happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law. For the several articles into which it is branched in our fyftems amount to no more than demonftrating, that this or that action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore very justly 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 course fuperior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries,

and