it better than the
people,--a fact of which I am not aware that they have ever
heretofore given any very satisfactory evidence. The same sources of
knowledge on the subject are open to the people that are open to the
legislators, and the people must be presumed to know it as well as
they.

The objections made to natural law, on the ground of obscurity, are
wholly unfounded. It is true, it must be learned, like any other
science; but it is equally true that it is very easily learned.
Although as illimitable in its applications as the infinite relations
of men to each other, it is, nevertheless, made up of simple
elementary principles, of the truth and justice of which every
ordinary mind has an almost intuitive perception. _It is the science
of justice_,--and almost all men have the same perceptions of what
constitutes justice, or of what justice requires, when they
understand alike the facts from which their inferences are to be
drawn. Men living in contact with each other, and having intercourse
together, _cannot avoid_ learning natural law, to a very great
extent, even if they would. The dealings of men with men, their
separate possessions, and their individual wants, are continually
forcing upon their minds the questions,--Is this act just? or is it
unjust? Is this thing mine? or is it his? And these are questions of
natural law; questions, which, in regard to the great mass of cases,
are answered alike by the human mind everywhere.

Children learn many principles of natural law at a very early age.
For example: they learn that when one child has picked up an apple or
a flower, it is his, and that his associates must not take it from
him against his will. They also learn that if he voluntarily exchange
his apple or flower with a playmate, for some other article of
desire, he has thereby surrendered his right to it, and must not
reclaim it. These are fundamental principles of natural law, which
govern most of the greatest interests of individuals and society; yet
children learn them earlier than they learn that three and three are
six, or five and five, ten. Talk of enacting natural law by statute,
that it may be known! It would hardly be extravagant to say, that, in
nine cases in ten, men learn it before they have learned the language
by which we describe it. Nevertheless, numerous treatises are written
on