These are fundamental principles of natural
law, which govern most of the greatest interests of individuals
and society; yet children learn them earlier than they learn that
three and three are six, or five and five, ten. Talk of enacting
natural law by statute, that it may be known! It would hardly be
extravagant to say, that, in nine cases in ten, men learn it
before they have learned the language by which we describe it.
Nevertheless, numerous treatises are written on it, as on other
sciences. The decisions of courts, containing their opinions upon
the almost endless variety of cases that have come before them,
are reported; and these reports are condensed, codified, and
digested, so as to give, in a small compass, the facts, and the
opinions of the courts as to the law resulting from them. And
these treatises, codes, and digests are open to be read of all
men. And a man has the same excuse for being ignorant of
arithmetic, or any other science, that he has for being ignorant
of natural law.
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