Re: Cherchez l'intrus (facile)

resides in natural laws, common to every country. They would certainly
maintain it obstinately, if reckless chance which has distributed human laws
had encountered even one which was universal; but the farce is that the
caprice of men has so many vagaries that there is no such law.

Theft, incest, infanticide, parricide, have all had a place among virtuous
actions. Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the
right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and
because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

Doubtless there are natural laws; but good reason once corrupted has
corrupted all. Nihil amplius nostrum est; quod nostrum dicimus, artis est.40
Ex senatus--consultis et plebiscitis crimina exercentur.[41] Ut olim vitiis,
sic nunc legibus laboramus.[42]

The result of this confusion is that one affirms the essence of justice to
be the authority of the legislator; another, the interest of the sovereign;
another, present custom, and this is the most sure. Nothing, according to
reason alone, is just itself; all changes with time. Custom creates the
whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted. It is the
mystical foundation of its authority; whoever carries it back to first
principles destroys it. Nothing is so faulty as those laws