Pol. Just., Book V, chap. xxt

A1. Book IL, chap. 11 (Of the Social Contract), chap. 111 (of Promises), 2e éd., vol. I, pp. 190 sqq.

42. D'où un des principaux paradoxes de la morale de Godwin : la critique du contrat, de la loi, de l'institution du mariage. « The institution of marriage is a system of fraud... Marriage is a law, and the worst of all laws. Whatever our understandings may tell us of the person, from whose connexion we should derive the greatest improvement, of the worth of one woman and the demerits of another, we are obliged to consider what is law, and not what is justice. »

43. Pour ariver à cette conclusion, il suffisait à Godwin de transformer en objection cette observation de Hume (Treatise, Book IIT, part. IT, sect. IL) sur l’idée de justice : « A single act of justice is frequently contrary to public interest; and were it to stand alone, without being followed by other acts, may, in itself, be very prejudicial to society, When à man of merit, of a beneficent disposition, restores a great fortune to a miser, or a seditious bigot, he has acted justly and laudably; but the public is the real sufferer ».

44. Il convient de noter que, sur un point important, Godwin rompt avec la tradition de Hobbes, que Bentham avait suivie; au lieu d'affirmer, par haine de nominaliste contre les universaux, que la justice est un produit de la loi positive, il affirme que la justice est une vérité, antérieure aux lois, et que les lois ne font qu’énoncer, que constater. — Book V, chap. r : Legislation has already appeared to be a term not applicable to human society. Men cannot do more than declare and interprete law; nor can there be an authority so paramount, as to have the prerogative of making that to be law, which abstract and immutable justice had not made to be law previously to that interposition. — Book LI, chap. v (2° éd.) : Legislation. is not an affair of human competence, Immutable reason is the true legis-

lator, and her decrees it behoves us to investigate. The functions of society extend, not to the making, but the interpreting of law ; it cannot decree, it can only declare that which the nature of things has already decreed, and the propriety of which irresistibly flows from the cireumstances of the case. All government is strictly speaking executive.