There are … laws of nature, which we cannot change, which we cannot even infringe with impunity; for we are not the authors of our own being, nor of any thing that surrounds us. Thus if we leave a heavy body without support we are subject to be crushed by its fall. So if we do not make provision for the accomplishment of our wishes, or, what will amount to the same, if we cherish desires that are unattainable, we become unhappy; this is beyond doubt, the supreme power, the infallible tribunal, the force irresistible, the inevitable punition, that follows, in which every consequence arises as if it had been so predetermined.
Now society makes what we call positive laws, that is laws which are artificial and conventional, by means of an authority purposely constituted, and with tribunals and an executive power to inforce them. These laws should be conformable to the laws of nature, originating in the same source, consequent of the natural laws, and no wise repugnant thereto; without which consonance, it is certain that nature will overcome them, that their object will not be accomplished, and that society must be unhappy. Whence originate the good or bad qualities of our positive laws, their justice or injustice? The just law is that which produces good, the unjust that which produces evil.
Justice and injustice therefore had an existence before any positive law; although it is only to laws of our own creation we can apply the epithets of just or unjust; since the laws of nature being simply necessary in the nature of things, it belongs not to us to question them any more than to act contrary to them. Unquestionably justice and injustice existed before any of our laws, and had it not been so we should not have any, because we create nothing. It does not appertain to us to constitute things conformable or contrary to our nature. We can ascertain and explain what is right or wrong, only according to our right or wrong comprehension of it; when we declare that to be just which is not so, we do not thereby render it just; this is beyond our power; we only declare an error, and occasion a certain quantity of evil, by maintaining that error with the power of which we have the disposal: but the law, the eternal truth, which is opposed thereto, remains unchanged and the same.
But it must be understood, that what is here said by no means implies, that it is at all times just to resist an unjust law, or always reasonable to oppose with violence what is unreasonable. This must depend upon a previous consideration, whether the violent resistance would not cause more evil than passive compliance: this however is but a secondary question, always dependent on circumstances, the nature of which will be discussed in the sequel.… we are yet a great way in the rear of that subject.
It is sufficient that the laws of nature exist anterior and superior to human laws; that fundamental justice is that only which is conformable to the laws of nature; and that radical injustice is that which is contrary to the laws of nature; and consequently that our posterior and consequent laws should be in unison with those more ancient and inevitable laws. This is the true spirit, or genuine sense, in which all positive laws ought to be established. But this foundation of the laws is not very easily explained or understood: the space between the first principles and the ultimate result is immense.