1.1. 1. Of the Relation of Laws to
different Beings.
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary
relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings
have their laws: the Deity
[1]
His laws, the material world its laws, the
intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his
laws.
They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects
we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more
unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive
of intelligent beings?
There is, then, a prime reason; and laws are the relations
subsisting between it and different beings, and the relations of these
to one another.
God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws
by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them. He
acts according to these rules, because He knows them; He knows them,
because He made them; and He made them, because they are in relation to
His wisdom and power.
Since we observe that the world, though formed by the motion of
matter, and void of understanding, subsists through so long a succession
of ages, its motions must certainly be directed by invariable laws; and
could we imagine another world, it must also have constant rules, or it
would inevitably perish.
Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as
invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd
to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules,
since without them it could not subsist.
These rules are a fixed and invariable relation. In bodies moved,
the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the
relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is
uniformity, each change is constancy.
Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but
they have some likewise which they never made. Before there were
intelligent beings, they were possible; they had therefore possible
relations, and consequently possible laws. Before laws were made, there
were relations of possible justice. To say that there is nothing just or
unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive laws, is the same
as saying that before the describing of a circle all the radii were not
equal.
We must therefore acknowledge relations of justice antecedent to the
positive law by which they are established: as, for instance, if human
societies existed, 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 show their gratitude; if one intelligent being had created
another intelligent being, the latter ought to continue in its original
state of dependence; if one intelligent being injures another, it
deserves a retaliation; and so on.
But the intelligent world is far from being so well governed as the
physical. For though the former has also its laws, which of their own
nature are invariable, it does not conform to them so exactly as the
physical world. This is because, on the one hand, particular intelligent
beings are of a finite nature, and consequently liable to error; and on
the other, their nature requires them to be free agents. Hence they do
not steadily conform to their primitive laws; and even those of their
own instituting they frequently infringe.
Whether brutes be governed by the general laws of motion, or by a
particular movement, 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 themselves.
By the allurement of pleasure they preserve the individual, and by
the same allurement they preserve their species. They have natural laws,
because they are united by sensation; positive laws they have none,
because they are not connected by knowledge. And yet they do not
invariably conform to their natural laws; these are better observed by
vegetables, that have neither understanding nor sense.
Brutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they
have some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but they are
without our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without
knowing it; even most of them are more attentive than we to
self-preservation, and do not make so bad a use of their passions.
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by
invariable laws. As an intelligent being, he incessantly transgresses
the laws established by God, and changes those of his own instituting.
He is left to his private direction, though a limited being, and
subject, like all finite intelligences, to ignorance and error: even his
imperfect knowledge he loses; and as a sensible creature, he is hurried
away by a thousand impetuous passions. Such a being might every instant
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;
philosophy has provided against this by the laws of morality. Formed to
live in society, he might forget his fellow-creatures; legislators have
therefore by political and civil laws confined him to his duty.
Footnotes
[1]
"Law," says Plutarch, "is the king of mortal and immortal
beings." See his treatise,"A Discourse to an Unlearned Prince."
