Note 208 — SPEECH. (continued 2)
Reading edition
De Legibus, Lib. I. capp. 15, 16; Lib. II. capp. 5, 6. The conclusion appears in the dialogue between Cicero and his brother Quintus.
"Marc. Ergo est lex justorum injustorumque distinctio, ad illam antiquissimam et rerum omnium principem expressa naturam....
"Quint. Præclare intelligo; nec vero jam aliam esse ullam legem puto non modo habendam, sed ne appellandam quidem."
Among moderns, the Abbé de Mably, in an elaborate discussion, adopts the conclusion of Cicero, as well as his treatment of it by dialogue, making his interlocutor, Lord Stanhope, ask, "What other remedy can be applied to this evil than disobedience?" and representing him as "pulverizing without difficulty the miserable commonplaces in opposition."—Des Droits et des Devoirs du Citoyen, Lettre IV.: Œuvres (Paris, 1797), Tom. XI. pp. 249, 251.
Cicero was not alone among ancients in submission to an overruling law, nowhere pictured in greater sovereignty than by Sophocles, in a famous verse of the Œdipus Tyrannus:—
Μἐγαϛ ἐν τούτοις Θεὀς, ούδἑ γηρἀσκει.
Great in these laws is God, and grows not old.