Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/56

40 tain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in ome degree regulated and retrained, and gave him alo the faculty of reaon to dicover the purport of thoe laws.

the creator only as a being of infinite power, he was able unquetionably to have precribed whatever laws he pleaed to his creature, man, however unjut or evere. But as he is alo a being of infinite widom, he has laid down only uch laws as were founded in thoe relations of jutice, that exited in the nature of things antecedent to any poitive precept. Thee are the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the creator himelf in all his dipenations conforms; and which he has enabled human reaon to dicover, o far as they are neceary for the conduct of human actions. Such among others are thee principles: that we hould live honetly, hould hurt nobody, and hould render to every one his due; to which three general precepts Jutinian has reduced the whole doctrine of law.

if the dicovery of thee firt principles of the law of nature depended only upon the due exertion of right reaon, and could not otherwie be attained than by a chain of metaphyical diquiitions, mankind would have wanted ome inducement to have quickened their inquiries, and the greater part of the world would have reted content in mental indolence, and ignorance it’s ineparable companion. As therefore the creator is a being, not only of infinite power, and widom, but alo of infinite goodnes, he has been pleaed o to contrive the contitution and frame of humanity, that we hould want no other prompter to enquire after and purue the rule of right, but only our own elf-love, that univeral principle of action. For he has o intimately connected, o ineparably interwoven the laws of eternal jutice with the happines of each individual, that the latter cannot be attained but by oberving the former; and, if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In conequence of which mutual connection of jutice and human felicity, he has not per- plexed