can be: and
as the only and common end of all those laws, considered relatively to
mankind, is to preserve, and render them happy, it has been agreed
upon to reduce the idea to one simple expression, and to call them
collectively the law of nature.

CHAPTER II.

CHARACTERS OF THE LAW OF NATURE.

Q. What are the characters of the law of nature?

A. There can be assigned ten principal ones.

Q. Which is the first?

A. To be inherent to the existence of things, and, consequently,
primitive and anterior to every other law: so that all those which
man has received, are only imitations of it, and their perfection is
ascertained by the resemblance they bear to this primordial model.

Q. Which is the second?

A. To be derived immediately from God, and presented by him to each man,
whereas all other laws are presented to us by men, who may be either
deceived or deceivers.

Q. Which is the third?

A. To be common to all times, and to all countries, that is to say, one
and universal.

Q. Is no other law universal?

A. No: for no other is agreeable or applicable to all the people of the
earth; they are all local and accidental, originating from circumstances
of places and of persons; so that if such a man had not existed, or such
an event happened, such a law would never have been enacted.

Q. Which is the fourth character?

A. To be uniform and invariable.

Q. Is no other law uniform and invariable?

A. No: for what is good and virtue according to one, is evil and vice
according to another; and what one and the same law approves of at one
time, it often condemns at another.

Q. Which is the fifth character?

A. To be evident and palpable, because it consists entirely of facts
incessantly present to the senses, and to demonstration.

Q. Are not other laws evident?

A. No: for they are founded on past and doubtful facts, on equivocal and
suspicious testimonies, and on proofs inaccessible to the senses.

Q. Which is the sixth character?

A. To be reasonable, because its precepts and entire doctrine are
conformable to reason, and to the human understanding.

Q. Is no other law reasonable?

A. No: for all are in contradiction to the reason and the understanding
of men, and tyrannically impose on him a blind and impracticable belief.

Q. Which is the seventh character?

A. To be just, because in that law, the penalties are proportionate to
the infractions.

Q. Are not other laws just?

A. No