feelings implanted by God and nature in the heart of every to the common sense or the universal opinion of mankind, was the very essence of his teaching. In Greek philosophy

the emphasis had been placed upon the metaphysical and moral aspects of the idea of nature. In Roman thought, as represented by Cicero, the notion was brought into more intimate relationship with law in the sense of rules of human conduct. Cicero's law of nature came from God; 13it was inborn in men, it was older than the ages, 15ws was everywhere the same, and was permanent and immutable. In a passage in De republica,

16

preserved by Lactantius, Cicero is quoted as having said:

14

True law is, indeed, right, reason, conformable to nature, pervading all things, constant, eternal; it incites to duty by commanding, and deters from crime by forbidding; it does not by its behest command or deter good men, nor appeal to bad men, in vain. It is not lawful to alter this law, to derogate from it, or to repeal it. Nor can we possibly be absolved from this law, either by the senate or the people; nor is any other explanation or interpretation of it to be found; nor will it be one law for Rome and another for Athens; one thing to-day and another tomorrow; but it is a law eternal and unchangeable for all people and in every age; and it becomes as it were, the one common god, master and governor of all. Reason is the author, publisher, and proposer of this law; he who does not share this sentiment flies from himself and nature as a man despised;

13 De legibus, I,7.

14 Ibid., I,10.

15 Ibid., I, 6.

16 Ibid., I,12.

and deserves the severest punishments, even if he 17
escape the penalty of death which may be deserved.

Here is the first distinct formulation of the idea of natural
law in the very form in which it survived in mediaeval thought.
For Cicero it furnished the basis of all morality and the
ideal for positive law. It was an ethereal principle, be-
yond all the actual laws and customs of men, a supreme and
permanent law to which all human order should strive to
conform.

ITI

THE LAW OF NATURE IN THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF ROME

This idea of the law of nature as the source of morality and the true ideal for all civil laws came to pervade the minds of thinking men, whatever their philosophy might be. Similar doctrines were taught by Seneca at the beginning of the Christian era. It was his opinion that

18

no good can be without reason; and reason always follows
nature. What then is reason? The imitation of nature.
And what is the summan bonum, or chief good of man?
The behaging himself agreeably to the dictates of

nature.

It was chiefly through Cicero's graceful Latin and the teaching of Seneca that the conception of the law of nature passed

17 De republica, III,22 (Hardingham's transl.).

18 De beneficiis, IIT,18; IV,7-8; Ad Lucilium epistularum moralium, Epist. 25, 48, 50, 72, 120.

19 Epist. 66 (Morell's transl.).