In this excerpt from In the Defense of Raymond Sebond, famed French essayist Michel de" Montaigne questions the arbitrary, transient, and region-specific nature of law and religion

Moreover, if it is from ourselves that we draw the government of our loves, what confusion we are casting ourselves into For the most acceptable advice our reason can offer us is in general for each to obey the laws of his own country This is the opinion of Socrates, inspired, he declares, by divine counsel And what does our reason mean by this declaration except that the only principle governing duty is a fortuitous one The truth must be always and universally one If man knew any virtue and justice which had a real form and essence, he would not make them dependent upon the set of customs of this country or that it...