“This, O ye people of the earth! is the object proposed by a great nation freed from her fetters and her prejudices; this is the work which, under her eye and by her orders, we had undertaken, when your kings and your priests came to interrupt it.  O kings and priests! you may suspend, yet for a while, the solemn publication of the laws of nature; but it is no longer in your power to annihilate or to subvert them.”

A general shout then arose from every part of the assembly; and the nations 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;