Note 26 — XI THE LAW OF NATURE

There is a passage in a Constitution of the Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius (Cod. Theod. Bk. xvi, Tit. x. 12) in which the term ‘laws of Nature’ is used in a sense which seems to come near the modern one. Forbidding any one to sacrifice victims or consult the ‘spirantia exta,’ the Emperors, after threatening punishment as in the case of treason, proceed to say, ‘Sufficit ad criminis molem naturae ipsius leges velle rescindere, inlicita perscrutari, occulta recludere, interdicta temptare.’ The expression may however mean nothing more than that it is impious to tamper with the principles which keep the secrets of nature from men’s eyes. But in any case it is used in a sense different from that of the moral law which the ancients conceived to have been set by nature.