tain object.

However, as the true object of legislation is only perceived by a few,
and most men are almost incapable of grasping it, though they live under
its conditions, legislators, with a view to exacting general obedience,
have wisely put forward another object, very different from that which
necessarily follows from the nature of law: they promise to the
observers of the law that which the masses chiefly desire, and threaten
its violators with that which they chiefly fear: thus endeavoring to
restrain the masses, as far as may be, like a horse with a curb; whence
it follows that the word law is chiefly applied to the modes of life
enjoined on men by the sway of others; hence those who obey the law are
said to live under it and to be under compulsion. In truth, a man who
renders every one their due because he fears the gallows, acts under the
sway and compulsion of others, and cannot be called just. But a man who
does the same from a knowledge of the true reason for laws and their
necessity, acts from a firm purpose and of his own accord, and is
therefore properly called just. This, I take it, is Paul's meaning when
he says, that those who live under the law cannot be justified through
the law, for justice, as commonly defined, is the constant and perpetual
will to render every man his due. Thus Solomon says (Prov. xxi. 15),
"It is a joy to the just to do judgment," but the wicked fear.

Law, then, being a plan of living which men have for a certain object
laid down for themselves or others, may, as it seems, be divided into
human law and Divine law.

By human law I mean a plan of living which serves only to render life
and the state secure.

By Divine law I mean that which only regards the highest good, in other
words, the true knowledge of God and love.

I call this law Divine because of the nature of the highest good, which
I will here shortly explain as clearly as I can.

Inasmuch as the intellect is the best part of our being, it is evident
that we should make every effort to perfect it as far as possible if we
desire to search for what is really profitable to us. For in
intellectual perfection the highest good should consist. Now, since all
our knowledge, and the certainty which removes every doubt, depend
solely on the knowledge of God;--firstly, because without God nothing
can exist or be conceived; secondly, because so long as we have no clear
and distinct idea of God we may remain in universal dou