Search -
Select Extracts from Blackstone's Commentaries, with Questions, Notes and Intr. by S. Warren
Select Extracts from Blackstone's Commentaries with Questions Notes and Intr by S Warren Author:William Blackstone General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1837 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: LAWS IN GENERAL -- THE LAW OF NATURE- REVEALED LAW -- THE LAW OF NATIONS. " Law," in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey. Thus when the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be. When he put that matter into motion, he established certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies must conform. And, to descenil from the greatest operations to the smallest, when a workman forms a clock, or other piece of mechanism, he establishes, at his own pleasure, certain arbitrary laws for its direction, as -- that the hand shall describe a given space in a given time: to which law, as long as the work conforms, so Icng it continues in perfection, and answers the end of its formation. If we further advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we shall find them still governed by laics, more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progress of plants, from the seed to the root, and from thence to the seed again ; the method of animal nutrition, digestion, secretion, and all other branches of vital economy, are not left to chance, or the will of the creature ...« less