eature, must necessarily be subject to the laws
of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being,
independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he
prescribes to himself; but a state of dependance will inevitably
oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as
the rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but in all
those points wherein his dependance consists. This principle therefore
has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority
of the one and the dependance of the other is greater or less,
absolute or limited. And consequently as man depends absolutely upon
his maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should in all
points conform to his maker's will.

THIS will of his maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when
he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility,
established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion;
so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct
himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of
human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and
restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the
purport of those laws.

CONSIDERING the creator only as a being of infinite _power_, he was
able unquestionably to have prescribed whatever laws he pleased to his
creature, man, however unjust or severe. But as he is also a being of
infinite _wisdom_, he has laid down only such laws as were founded in
those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things
antecedent to any positive precept. These are the eternal, immutable
laws of good and evil, to which the creator himself in all his
dispensations conforms; and which he has enabled human reason to
discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human
actions. Such among others are these principles: that we should live
honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one it's due;
to which three general precepts Justinian[a] has reduced the whole
doctrine of law.

[Footnote a: _Juris praecepta sunt haec, honeste vivere, alterum non
laedere, suum cuique tribuere._ _Inst._ 1. 1. 3.]

BUT if the discovery of these first principles of the law of nature
depended only upon the due exertion of right reason, and could not
otherwise be attained than by a chain of metaphysical disquisitions,
mankind would have wanted some inducement to have quickene