Nor is it enough the law be written and published,but also that there be manifest signs that it proceedeth from the will of the sovereign.For private men,when they have,or think they have,force enough to secure their unjust designs,and convoy them safely to their ambitious ends,may publish for laws what they please,without or against the legislative authority.There is therefore requisite,not only a declaration of the law,but also sufficient signs of the author and authority.The author or legislator is supposed in every Commonwealth to be evident,because he is the sovereign,who,having been constituted by the consent of every one,is supposed by every one to be sufficiently known.And though the ignorance and security of men be such,for the most part,as that when the memory of the first constitution of their Commonwealth is worn out,they do not consider by whose power they use to be defended against their enemies,and to have their industry protected,and to be righted when injury is done them;yet because no man that considers can make question of it,no excuse can be derived from the ignorance of where the sovereignty is placed.And it is a dictate of natural reason,and consequently an evident law of nature,that no man ought to weaken that power the protection whereof he hath himself demanded or wittingly received against others.Therefore of who is sovereign,no man,but by his own fault (whatsoever evil men suggest),can make any doubt.The difficulty cocsisteth in the evidence of the authority derived from him;the removing whereof dependeth on the knowledge of the public registers,public counsels,public ministers,and public seals;by which all laws are sufficiently verified;verified,I say,not authorized:for the verification is but the testimony and record;not the authority of the law,which consisteth in the command of the sovereign only.
If therefore a man have a question of injury,depending on the law of nature;that is to say,on common equity;the sentence of the judge,that by commission hath authority to take cognizance of such causes,is a sufficient verification of the law of nature in that individual case.For though the advice of one that professeth the study of the law be useful for the avoiding of contention,yet it is but advice:it is the judge must tell men what is law,upon the hearing of the controversy.
But when the question is of injury,or crime,upon a written law,every man by recourse to the registers by himself or others may,if he will,be sufficiently informed,before he do such injury,or commit the crime,whether it be an injury or not;nay,he ought to do so:for when a man doubts whether the act he goeth about be just or unjust,and may inform himself if he will,the doing is unlawful.In like manner,he that supposeth himself injured,in a case determined by the written law,which he may by himself or others see and consider;if he complain before he consults with the law,he does unjustly,and bewrayeth a disposition rather to vex other men than to demand his own right.
If the question be of obedience to a public officer,to have seen his commission with the public seal,and heard it read,or to have had the means to be informed of it,if a man would,is a sufficient verification of his authority.For every man is obliged to do his best endeavour to inform himself of all written laws that may concern his own future actions.
The legislator known,and the laws either by writing or by the light of nature sufficiently published,there wanteth yet another very material circumstance to make them obligatory.For it is not the letter,but the intendment,or meaning;that is to say,the authentic interpretation of the law (which is the sense of the legislator),in which the nature of the law consisteth;and therefore the interpretation of all laws dependeth on the authority sovereign;and the interpreters can be none but those which the sovereign,to whom only the subject oweth obedience,shall appoint.
For else,by the craft of an interpreter,the law may be made to bear a sense contrary to that of the sovereign,by which means the interpreter becomes the legislator.
All laws,written and unwritten,have need of interpretation.The unwritten law of nature,though it be easy to such as without partiality and passion make use of their natural reason,and therefore leaves the violators thereof without excuse;yet considering there be very few,perhaps none,that in some cases are not blinded by self-love,or some other passion,it is now become of all laws the most obscure,and has consequently the greatest need of able interpreters.The written laws,if laws,if they be short,are easily misinterpreted,for the diverse significations of a word or two;if long,they be more obscure by the diverse significations of many words:in so much as no written law,delivered in few or many words,can be well understood without a perfect understanding of the final causes for which the law was made;the knowledge of which final causes is in the legislator.To him therefore there cannot be any knot in the law insoluble,either by finding out the ends to undo it by,or else by making what ends he will (as Alexander did with his sword in the Gordian knot)by the legislative power;which no other interpreter can do.
