Wherever society forms and sustains itself, there must be adopted certain
rules and laws to maintain it.
These seemingly arbitrary laws represent the interests, the passions, and
opinions of those who establish them, and they differ widely, according
to the nature of the men and the climate which they inhabit.
The inhabitants of hot climes and the cold zones present strange contrasts
in their natural ideas of justice, as well as in instincts and appetites.
The Turk regards intemperance as a crime, and polygamy as a virtue. The
Englishman looks upon the one with complaisance, but regards the other
with horror. Thus reason yields to physical force, or to the differences
of climate; and what men call virtue in one clime, loses its force and
beauty in another. Yet there are natural laws older than the empires of
force or reason; more ancient than society itself; more powerful and
sublime than the passions and interests of men. These laws of kindness, of
mercy, of friendship, like elementary language, come from divination.
Nature has planted certain instincts in the bosoms of all the different
races of the globe alike; and these become developed according to
cultivation, or debased according to degrading influences. The good of
society may define the measure between good and evil, but it cannot
extinguish the principles, or obliterate the sharply defined distinctions.
The will of the Creator has manifested itself clearly in the workings of
the natural world, if it has not been revealed to us in those tablets
which fell from the skies.