length to these sophistical
objections of Philus, if it were not, my Laelius, that all our friends
are no less anxious than myself to hear you take a leading part in the
present debate, especially as you promised yesterday that you would
plead at large on my side of the argument. If you cannot spare time for
this, at any rate do not desert us; we all ask it of you.

_Laelius._ This Carneades ought not to be even listened to by our young
men. I think all the while that I am hearing him that he must be a very
impure person; if he be not, as I would fain believe, his discourse is
not less pernicious.

XXII.[344] True law is right reason conformable to nature, universal,
unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose
prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the
good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with
indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is
not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor
the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal
law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our
own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome, and another at Athens; one
thing to-day, and another to-morrow; but in all times and nations this
universal law must forever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the
sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,
its promulgator, its enforcer. And he who does not obey it flies from
himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. And by so doing
he will endure the severest penalties even if he avoid the other evils
which are usually accounted punishments.

XXIII. I am aware that in the third book of Cicero's treatise
on the Commonwealth (unless I am mistaken) it is argued that
no war is ever undertaken by a well-regulated commonwealth
unless it be one either for the sake of keeping faith, or for
safety; and what he means by a war for safety, and what
safety he wishes us to understand, he points out in another
passage, where he says, "But private men often escape from
these penalties, which even the most stupid persons
feel--want, exile, imprisonment, and stripes--by embracing
the opportunity of a speedy death; but to states death itself
is a penalty, though it appears to deliver individuals from
punishment. For a state ought to be established so as to