BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES, REDUCED TO QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. INTRODUCTION. SECTION II. OF THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GENERAL. 1. What is law in its most general and comprehensive sense?-38. It signifies a rule of action, dictated by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey. It is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. 2. What is law in its more confined sense?-39. It denotes the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct; that is, the precepts by which man, a creature endowed with both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behavior. 3. Why must man conform entirely to his Maker's will?—39. Because he is entirely dependent upon the will of his Maker. 4. What is this will of our Maker ?—39. 5. In what is the law of nature founded?-40. In those relations of justice that existed in the nature of things antecedent to any positive precept. 6. Is the Creator subject to this law of nature?-40. It is the eternal, immutable law of good and evil, to which the Creator himself in all his dispensations conforms. 7. How do we discover this law?-40. The Creator has enabled human reason to discover the law of nature, so far as it is necessary for the conduct of human actions. 8. What are the principles of that law?-40. That we should live honestly; should hurt nobody; should render to every one his due, are general precepts of the law of nature. 9. Does the discovery of these first principles of the law of nature depend only upon the due exercise of right reason?-40. No: The Creator has been pleased so to contrive the constitution and frame of humanity, that we should want no other prompter to enquire after and pursue the rule of right, but our own self-love, that universal principle of action. 10. What is the foundation of ethics or natural law?-41. The paternal precept, "that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness." 11. Is the law of nature of superior obligation ?-41. It is superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to it, and they derive all their force and authority from it. 12. What is revelation ?-42. Divine Providence hath been pleased, at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrine thus delivered we cal! the revealed or divine law, and it is to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. |