ow it for this
sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no
longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason
or justice. Custom without this would pass for tyranny; but the
sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of
desire. They are principles natural to man.

It would therefore be right to obey laws and customs, because they are
laws; but we should know that there is neither truth nor justice to
introduce into them, that we know nothing of these, and so must follow
what is accepted. By this means we would never depart from them. But
people cannot accept this doctrine; and, as they believe that truth can
be found, and that it exists in law and custom, they believe them, and
take their antiquity as a proof of their truth, and not simply of their
authority apart from truth. Thus they obey laws, but they are liable to
revolt when these are proved to be valueless; and this can be shown of
all, looked at from a certain aspect.

326

_Injustice._--It is dangerous to tell the people that the laws are
unjust; for they obey them only because they think them just. Therefore
it is necessary to tell them at the same time that they must obey them
because they are laws, just as they must obey superiors, not because
they are just, but because they are superiors. In this way all sedition
is prevented, if this can be made intelligible, and it be understood
what is the proper definition of justice.

327

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance,
which is man's true state.[124] The sciences have two extremes which
meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find
themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great
intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they
know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they
set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.
Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not
been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain
knowledge, and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world, and are bad
judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world;
these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and
the world judges rightly of them.

328

_The reason of effects._--Continual alternation of pro and con.

We have then shown that