perfectly printed impression of the document, one that rendered the
stencil exactly. The Natural Law must be viewed in like manner, as it
would exist in a mind perfectly enlightened concerning the whole duty
of man, and exactly reproducing in itself that portion of the Eternal
Law which ordains such duty. Were such a mind to discern a natural
obligation to lie differently at two different times, all the relevant
circumstances being alike in both cases, and the moral solution
different, then only could the Natural Law be held to have changed.

2. But this is clearly impossible. The conclusion of a geometrical
theorem is a truth for all time. There is no difference here between a
complicated theorem, having many conditions, and a simpler theorem
with fewer. It is indeed easier for a few than for many conditions to
be all present together: but the enunciation of the conclusion
supposes _all_ the conditions, whatever their number. The same in a
practical manner, as in the stability of a bridge. The bridge that
would stand in England, would stand in Ceylon. If it would not, there
must have occurred some change in the conditions, as the heat of the
tropical sun upon the girders. A point of casuistry also, however
knotty, once determined, is determined for ever and aye, for the
circumstances under which it was determined. The Natural Law in this
sense is absolutely immutable, no less in each particular application
than in the most general principles. We must uniformly pass the same
judgment on the same case. What is once right and reasonable, is
always right and reasonable, in the same matter. Where to-day there is
only one right course, there cannot to-morrow be two, unless
circumstances have altered. The Natural Law is thus far immutable,
every jot and tittle.

3. No power in heaven above nor on earth beneath can dispense from any