Page images
PDF
EPUB

although jus, properly so called, is really very different in its nature and has this for its special office,— to leave to another what is his, to give to him what we owe.

II. And what we have said would still have great weight, even if we were to grant what we cannot grant without wickedness, that there is no God, or that he bestows no regard on human affairs. But, inasmuch as we are assured of the contrary of this, partly by reason, partly by constant tradition, confirmed by many arguments and by miracles attested by all ages, it follows that God, as the Author of our being, to whom we owe ourselves and all that we have, is to be obeyed by us without exception, especially since he has, in many ways, shown himself both supremely good and supremely powerful. Wherefore he is able to bestow upon those who obey him the highest rewards, even eternal ones, as being himself eternal; and he must be supposed to be willing as well as able to do this, and the more so if he have promised such rewards in plain language, which we Christians believe, resting our belief on the indubitable faith of testimonies.

12. And here we are brought to another origin of jus, besides that natural source; namely, the free will of God, to which, as our reason irresistibly tells us, we are bound to submit ourselves. But even that natural law of which we have spoken, whether it be that which binds together communities or that looser kind [which enjoins duties], although it do proceed from the internal principles of man, may yet be rightly ascribed to God, because it was by his will that such principles came to exist in us. And, in this sense, Chrysippus and the Stoics said that the origin of jus, or natural law, was not to be sought in any other quarter than in Jove himself; and it may be probably conjectured that the Latins took the word jus from the name Jove.

13. To this we must add that these principles God has made more manifest by the laws which he has given, so that they may be understood by those whose minds have a feebler power of, drawing inferences; and he has prohibited the perverse aberrations of our affections, which draw us this way and that contrary to our own interest and the good of others, putting a bridle upon our more vehement passions, controlling and restraining them within due limits.

14. Further, the Sacred History, besides that part which consists in precepts, offers another view which, in no small

degree, excites the social affection of which we have spoken, in that it teaches us that all men are sprung from the same parents. And thus we may rightly say, in this sense also, what Florentinus says in another sense,- that there is a kindred established among us by nature, and, in virtue of this relation, it is wrong for man to intend mischief toward man.

Among men [all are not on the same footing towards us, as for instance] our parents are a sort of gods to us, to whom obedience is due, not infinite indeed, but an obedience of its own proper kind.

15. In the next place, since it is conformable to natural law to observe compacts (for some mode of obliging themselves was necessary among men, and no other natural mode could be imagined), civil rights were derived from this source, mutual compact. For those who had joined any community or put themselves in subjection to any man or men, those either expressly promised, or from the nature of the case must have been understood to promise tacitly, that they would conform to that which either the majority of the community or those to whom the power was assigned should determine.

16. And, therefore, what Carneades said (as above) and what others also have said, as Horace,

Utility, mother of just and right,

[ocr errors]

if we are to speak accurately, is not true. For the mother of right— that is, of natural law is human nature; for this would lead us to desire mutual society, even if it were not required for the supply of other wants. And the mother of civil laws is obligation by mutual compact; and, since mutual compact derives its force from natural law, nature may be said to be the grandmother of civil laws. [The genealogy is human nature, natural law, civil laws.] But natural law [which impels us to society] is re-enforced by utility. For the Author of nature ordained that we should, as individuals, be weak, and in need of many things to make life comfortable, in order that we might be the more impelled to cling to society. But utility is the occasion of civil laws; for the association or subjection by mutual compact, of which we have just spoken (15), was at the first instituted for the sake of some utility. And, accordingly, they who prescribe laws for others, in doing this, aim, or ought to aim, at some utility to be produced to them for whom they legislate.

17. Further, as the laws of each community regard the utility of that community, so also between different communities, all or most, laws might be established; and it appears that laws have been established which enjoined the utility, not of special communities, but of that great aggregate system of communities. And this is what is called the law of nations, or international law, when we distinguish it from natural law. And this part of law is omitted by Carneades, who divides all law into natural law and the civil laws of special peoples; while yet, inasmuch as he was about to treat of that law which obtains between one people and another (for then follows an oration concerning war and acquisitions by war), he was especially called upon to make mention of law of this kind.

18. And it is without any good reason that Carneades maintains, as we have said (5), that justice is folly. For since, by his own confession, that citizen is not foolish who, in a civil community, obeys the civil law, although, in consequence of such respect for the law, he may lose something which is useful to himself, so, too, that people is not foolish which does not so estimate its own utility as, on account of that, to neglect the common laws between people and people. The reason of the thing is the same in both cases. For, as a citizen who violates the civil law for the sake of present utility destroys that institution in which the perpetual utility of himself and his posterity is bound up, so, too, a people which violates the laws of nature and nations beats down the bulwark of its own tranquillity for future time. And, even if no utility were to arise from the observation of law, it would be a point, not of folly, but of wisdom, to which we feel ourselves drawn by nature.

19. And, therefore, neither is that other saying of Horace [1 Sat. iii.] universally true,—

'Twas fear of wrong that made us make our laws,—

an opinion which one of the interlocutors in Plato's Republic explains in this way,- that laws were introduced from the fear of receiving wrong, and that men are driven to practise justice by a certain compulsion. For that applies to those institutions and laws only which were devised for the more easy maintenance of rights, as when many, individually feeble, fearing to be oppressed by those, who were stronger, combined to establish judicial authorities and to uphold them by their

common strength, that those whom they could not resist singly they might, united, control. And we may accept in this sense, and in no other, what is also said in Plato,- that right is that which the stronger party likes; namely, that we are to understand that rights do not attain their external end except they have force to back them. Thus Solon did great things, as he himself boasted,—

By linking force in the same yoke with law.

20. But still rights, even unsupported by force, are not destitute of all effect; for justice, the observance of rights, brings security to the conscience, while injustice inflicts on it tortures and wounds such as Plato describes as assaulting the bosoms of tyrants. The conscience of honest men approves justice, condemns injustice. And, what is the greatest point, injustice has for its enemy, justice, has for its friend, God, who reserves his judgments for another life, yet in such a manner that he often exhibits their power in this life, of which we have many examples in history.

21. The reason why many persons, while they require justice as necessary in private citizens, commit the error of thinking it superfluous in a people or the ruler of a people, is this: in the first place, that in their regard to rights they look at nothing but the utility which arises from rights, which in the case of private citizens is evident, since they are separately too weak to protect themselves; while great States, which seem to embrace within them all that is requisite to support life in comfort, do not appear to have need of that virtue which regards extraneous parties, and is called justice.

22. But, not to repeat what I have already said, that rights are not established for the sake of utility alone, there is no State so strong that it may not, at some time, need the aid of others external to itself either in the way of commerce or in order to repel the force of many foreign nations combined against it. And hence we see that leagues of alliance are sought even by the most powerful peoples and kings, which can have no force according to the principles of those who confine rights within the boundary of the State alone. It is most true [as Cicero says] that everything loses its certainty at once if we give up the belief in rights.

23. If no society whatever can be preserved without the recognition of mutual rights, which Aristotle [rather Plato

Barbeyrac] proves by the strong instance of a society of robbers, assuredly that society which includes the whole human race, or at any rate the greater part of nations, has need of the recognition of rights, as Cicero saw when he said that some things are so bad that they are not to be done even for the sake of saving our country (Off. i. 45). Aristotle speaks with strong condemnation of those who, while they will allow no one to hold rule among themselves except him who has the right to do so, yet in their dealings with strangers have no care of rights or the violation of rights.

24. A little while ago we quoted Pompey for his expression on the other side; yet, on the other hand, when a certain Spartan king had said, "Happy that republic which has for its boundaries the spear and the sword," Pompey corrected him and said, “Happy rather that which has justice for its boundary." And to this effect he might have used the authority of another Spartan king, who gave justice the preference over military courage on this ground,— that courage is to be regulated by justice, but, if all men were just, they would have no need of courage. Courage itself was defined by the Stoics,—— virtue exercised in defence of justice. Themistius, in an oration to Valens, eloquently urges that kings, such as the rule of wisdom requires them to be, ought not to care for the single nation only which is committed to them, but for the whole human race. They should be, as he expresses it, not philoMacedonian only, or philo-Roman, but philanthropic. The name of Minos became hateful to posterity in no other way than this, that he terminated his equity at the boundaries of his own government.

25. It is so far from being proper to admit, what some choose to say, that in war all rights cease, that war is never to be undertaken except to assert rights, and, when undertaken, is never to be carried on except within the limits of rights and of good faith. Demosthenes well said that war was the mode of dealing with those who could not be kept in order by judicial proceedings. For judicial proceedings are of force against those who feel themselves to be the weaker party; but, against those who make themselves or think themselves equals, war is the proceeding, yet this, too, in order to be justifiable, to be carried on in a no less scrupulous manner than judicial proceedings are.

26. Be it so, then, that, in the conflict of arms, laws must be

« PreviousContinue »