universally, and with one voice, testified their assent to the
proposals of the delegates: "Resume," said they, "your holy and sublime
labors, and bring them to perfection. Investigate the laws which nature,
for our guidance, has implanted in our breasts, and collect from them
an authentic and immutable code; nor let this code be any longer for one
family only, but for us all without exception. Be the legislators of the
whole human race, as you are the interpreters of nature herself. Show
us the line of partition between the world of chimeras and that of
realities; and teach us, after so many religions of error and delusion,
the religion of evidence and truth!"

Then the delegates, having resumed their enquiries into the physical and
constituent attributes of man, and examined the motives and affections
which govern him in his individual and social state, unfolded in these
words the laws on which nature herself has founded his happiness.

THE LAW OF NATURE.

CHAPTER 1.

OF THE LAW OF NATURE.

Q. What is the law of nature?

A. It is the constant and regular order of events, by which God governs
the universe; an order which his wisdom presents to the senses and
reason of men, as an equal and common rule for their actions, to guide
them, without distinction of country or sect, towards perfection and
happiness.

Q. Give a clear definition of the word law.

A. The word law, taken literary, signifies lecture,* because originally,
ordinances and regulations were the lectures, preferably to all others,
made to the people, in order that they might observe them, and not incur
the penalties attached to their infraction: whence follows the original
custom explaining the true idea.

The definition of law is, "An order or prohibition to act with the
express clause of a penalty attached to the infraction, or of a
recompense attached to the observance of that order."

* From the Latin word lex, lectio. Alcoran likewise
signifies lecture and is only a literal translation of the
word law.

Q. Do such orders exist in nature?

A. Yes.

Q. What does the word nature signify?

A. The word nature bears three different significations.

1. It signifies the universe, the material world: in this first sense
we say the beauties of nature, the riches of nature, that is to say, the
objects in the heavens and on the earth exposed to our sight;

2. It signifies the power that animates, that moves the univ