Natural Law Quotations

A Collection from the Classical Tradition

The welfare of the people is the ultimate law (Cicero)

Aristotle

Now it appears to be an impossible thing that the state which is governed not by the best citizens but by the worst should be well-governed, and equally impossible that the state which is ill-governed should be governed by the best. But we must remember that good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government. Hence there are two parts of good government; one is the actual obedience of citizens to the laws, the other part is the goodness of the laws which they obey; they may obey bad laws as well as good. And there may be a further subdivision; they may obey either the best laws which are attainable to them, or the best absolutely. (Aristotle Politics 1294a 3-8)

Now he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e., reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy. (Nicomachean Ethics X 8 29)

He that acts by intelligence and cultivates understanding, is likely to be best disposed and dearest to God. For if, as is thought, there is any care of human things on the part of the heavenly powers, we may reasonably expect them to delight in that which is best and most akin to themselves, that is, in intelligence, and to make a return of good to such as supremely love and honour intelligence, as cultivating the thing dearest to Heaven, and so behaving rightly and well. Such. plainly, is the behaviour of the wise. The wise man therefore is the dearest to God. (Aristotle)

Plato

For in everything that grows the initial sprouting, if nobly directed, has a sovereign influence in bringing about the perfection in virtue that befits the thing's own nature. This holds for the other growing things, and for animals-tame, wild, and human. The human being, we assert, is tame; nevertheless, though when it happens (766a) upon a correct education and lucky nature, it is wont to become the most divine and tamest animal, still, when its upbringing is inadequate or ignoble, it is the most savage of the things that the earth makes grow. This is why the lawgiver must not allow the upbringing of children to become something secondary or incidental, and since the one who is going to supervise them should begin by being chosen in a fine way, the lawgiver should do all he possibly can to insure that he provides them with a supervisor to direct them who is the best person in the city, in every respect. (Laws 765-766)

Cicero

"There exists one true law, one right reason - comfortable to nature, universal, immutable, eternal - whose commands enjoin virtue, and whose prohibitions banish evil. Whatever she orders, whatever she forbids, her words are neither impotent among good men, nor are they potent among the wicked. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law properly so called, nor be violated in any part, nor be abrogated altogether. Neither the senate nor the people can deliver from obedience to this law. She has no need of interpreters, or new instruments. She is not one thing at Rome, another at Athens - she is not one thing today, and another tomorrow; but in all nations, and in all times, this law must reign always self-consistent, immortal, and imperishable. The Sovereign of the Universe, the King of all creatures, God himself, has given birth, sanction, and publicity to this illimitable law, which man cannot transgress without being a fugitive from himself and rebelling against his own nature; and by this alone, without subjecting himself to the severest expiations, can always avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life." (Cicero, Republic, Book 3)

"Now if nature hath given us law, she has also given us justice - for as she has bestowed reason on all, she has equally bestowed the sense of justice on all. And therefore did Socrates deservedly execrate the man who first drew a distinction between the law of nature and the law of morals, for he justly conceived that this error is the source of most human vices.

Law (lex) is the highest reason implanted in nature, which commands what is to be done and forbids the opposite. When this same reason has been strengthened and brought to completion in the human mind, it is law (lex), and so they suppose that law is intelligence whose force (vis) it is to command right action and forbid wrongdoing … It is a force of nature; it is the mind and reason of the wise man; it is the rule (regula) for justice and injustice. (Cicero Leg. 1.18-19)

[27] The person who is accustomed neither to think nor to name as ''goods'' lands and buildings and cattle and huge weights of silver and gold, because the enjoyment of them seems to him slight, the use minimal, and the ownership uncertain, and because the vilest men often have unlimited possessions - how fortunate should we think such a man! He alone can truly claim all things as his own, not under the law of the Roman people but under the law of the philosophers; not by civil ownership but by the common law of nature, which forbids anything to belong to anyone except someone who knows how to employ and use it. (Cicero. On the Commonwealth, Book 1, 27 trans. James E G Zetzel (CUP)

There is nothing so consonant with the justice and structure of nature - and when I say that, I want you to understand that I am speaking of the law - as the power of command, without which no home or state or nation or the whole race of mankind can survive, nor can nature or the world itself. The world obeys god, and land and sea obey the world, and human life follows the commands of the supreme law. And to come to things closer and more familiar to us: all early peoples once obeyed kings. This type of power was first offered to the most just and wise men (and that was true of our own commonwealth, so long as monarchic power was in charge), and then it was handed on in turn to their descendants, a custom which remains true among contemporary monarchies. (Cicero Laws iii. 3-4 trans. James E G Zetzel (CUP)

The better and more noble, therefore, the character with which a man is endowed, the more does he prefer the life of service to the life of pleasure. Whence it follows that man, if he is obedient to nature, cannot do harm to his fellow-man. (On Duties Book III: 25. Gutenberg version)

And further, if nature ordains that one man shall desire to promote the interests of a fellow-man, whoever he may be, just because he is a fellow-man, then it follows, in accordance with that same nature, that there are interests that all men have in common. And if this is true, we are all subject to one and the same law of nature; and if this also is true, we are certainly forbidden by nature's law to wrong our neighbour. Now the first assumption is true; therefore the conclusion is likewise true. On Duties Book II: 27)

But it seems we must trace back to their ultimate sources the principles of fellowship and society that nature has established among men. The first principle is that which is found in the connection subsisting between all the members of the human race; and [55] that bond of connection is reason and speech, which by the processes of teaching and learning, of communicating, discussing, and reasoning associate men together and unite them in a sort of natural fraternity. In no other particular are we farther removed from the nature of beasts; for we admit that they may have courage (horses and lions, for example); but we do not admit that they have justice, equity, and goodness; for they are not endowed with reason or speech. (On Duties Book 1: 50-51)

Clement of Alexandria

Again, God has created us naturally social and just; whence justice must not be said to take its rise from implantation alone. But the good imparted by creation is to be conceived of as excited by the commandment; the soul being trained to be willing to select what is noblest.

We now therefore understand that we are instructed in piety, and in liberality, and in justice, and in humanity by the law. For does it not command the land to be left fallow in the seventh year, and bids the poor fearlessly use the fruits that grow by divine agency, nature cultivating the ground for behoof of all and sundry? How, then, can it be maintained that the law is not humane, and the teacher of righteousness?

And now the wisdom which we possess announces the four virtues in such a way as to show that the sources of them were communicated by the Hebrews to the Greeks. This may be learned from the following: “And if one loves justice, its toils are virtues. For temperance and prudence teach justice and fortitude; and than these there is nothing more useful in life to men.”

Above all, this ought to be known, that by nature we are adapted for virtue; not so as to be possessed of it from our birth, but so as to be adapted for acquiring it. ( Stromata Quotations)

Origen

Now there are two kinds of law for our consideration. The one is the ultimate law of nature, which is probably derived from God, and the other the written code of cities. Where the written law does not contradict the law of God it is good that the citizens should not be troubled by the introduction of strange laws. But where the law of nature, that is of God, enjoins precepts contradictory to the written laws, consider whether reason does not compel a man to dismiss the written code and the intention of the lawgivers far from his mind, and to devote himself to the divine Lawgiver and to choose to live according to His word, even if in doing this he must endure dangers and countless troubles and deaths and shame. Moreover, if the actions which please God are different from those demanded by some of the laws in cities, and if it is impossible to please both God and those who enforce laws of this kind, it is unreasonable to despise actions by means of which one may find favour with the Creator of the universe, and to choose those as a result of which one would be displeasing to God, though one may find favour with the laws that are not laws, and with those who like them. (Contra Celsum Book V Chapter 37)

Tertullian

These testimonies of the soul are as true as they are straightforward, as straightforward as they are widespread, as widespread as they are universal, as universal as they are natural, and as natural as they are divine. I do not believe anyone would find it frivolous, if he reflects on the majesty of nature (naturae maiestatem), which is regarded as the wellspring of the soul. As much as you attribute to the teacher, so much you will concede to the pupil. The teacher is nature and the pupil is the soul (Magistra natura, anima discipula). Whatever the teacher has conveyed or the pupil has learned has been communicated by God, who is the teacher of nature. Whatever the soul can surmise about its original teacher, this power resides in you that you may reflect upon that which is in you. Be aware of that which has given you awareness. (Quoted in Quincy Howe, Tertullian of Africa: The Rhetoric of a New Age. iUnivere, Bloomington, 2011)

Thomas Aquinas

I answer that: It is proper to justice, as compared with the other virtues, to direct man in his relations with others: because it denotes a kind of equality, as its very name implies; indeed we are wont to say that things are adjusted when they are made equal, for equality is in reference of one thing to some other. On the other hand the other virtues perfect man in those matters only which befit him in relation to himself. Accordingly that which is right in the works of the other virtues, and to which the intention of the virtue tends as to its proper object, depends on its relation to the agent only, whereas the right in a work of justice, besides its relation to the agent, is set up by its relation to others. Because a man's work is said to be just when it is related to some other by way of some kind of equality, for instance the payment of the wage due for a service rendered. And so a thing is said to be just, as having the rectitude of justice, when it is the term of an act of justice, without taking into account the way in which it is done by the agent: whereas in the other virtues nothing is declared to be right unless it is done in a certain way by the agent. For this reason justice has its own special proper object over and above the other virtues, and this object is called the just, which is the same as "right." Hence it is evident that right is the object of justice.

Reply to Objection 1. It is usual for words to be distorted from their original signification so as to mean something else: thus the word "medicine" was first employed to signify a remedy used for curing a sick person, and then it was drawn to signify the art by which this is done. On like manner the word "jus" [right] was first of all used to denote the just thing itself, but afterwards it was transferred to designate the art whereby it is known what is just, and further to denote the place where justice is administered, thus a man is said to appear "in jure" [In English we speak of a court of law, a barrister at law, etc.], and yet further, we say even that a man, who has the office of exercising justice, administers the jus even if his sentence be unjust. (ST II-II: 57)

I answer that: As stated above (I-II:90:1 ad 1), law, being a rule and measure, can be in a person in two ways: in one way, as in him that rules and measures; in another way, as in that which is ruled and measured, since a thing is ruled and measured, in so far as it partakes of the rule or measure. Wherefore, since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law, as was stated above (Article 1); it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. Hence the Psalmist after saying (Psalm 4:6): "Offer up the sacrifice of justice," as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: "Many say, Who showeth us good things?" in answer to which question he says: "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us": thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's participation of the eternal law. (ST II-II. q. 91)

Bacon
The second part of metaphysics, is the inquiry of final causes, which we note not as wanting, but as ill-placed; these causes being usually sought in physics, not in metaphysics, to the great prejudice of philosophy; for the treating of final causes in physics has driven out the inquiry of physical ones, and made men rest in specious and shadowy causes, without ever searching in earnest after such as are real and truly physical. And this was not only done by Plato, who constantly anchors upon this shore; but by Aristotle, Galen, and others, who frequently introduce such causes as these: "The hairs of the eyelids are for a fence to the sight.26 The bones for pillars whereon to build the bodies of animals. The leaves of trees are to defend the fruit from the sun and wind. The clouds are designed for watering the earth," etc. All which are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in physics are impertinent, and as remoras to the ship, that hinder the sciences from holding on their course of improvement, and introducing a neglect of searching after physical causes. And therefore the natural philosophies of Democritus and others, who allow no God or mind in the frame of things, but attribute the structure of the universe to infinite essays and trials of nature, or what they call fate or fortune, and assigned the causes of particular things to the necessity of matter without [166] any intermixture of final causes, seem, so far as we can judge from the remains of their philosophy, much more solid, and to have gone deeper into nature, with regard to physical causes, than the philosophy of Aristotle or Plato; and this only because they never meddled with final causes, which the others were perpetually inculcating. Though in this respect Aristotle is more culpable than Plato, as banishing God,27 the fountain of final causes, and substituting [167] nature in his stead; and, at the same time, receiving final causes through his affection to logic, not theology. (Bacon Advancement of Learning, Book II, Chapter IV)