but not without necessary law as we have just defined it.

(2.) (10) I have stated that these laws depend on human decree because it is
well to define and explain things by their proximate causes. (11) The
general consideration of fate and the concatenation of causes would aid us
very little in forming and arranging our ideas concerning particular
questions. (12) Let us add that as to the actual coordination and
concatenation of things, that is how things are ordained and linked
together, we are obviously ignorant; therefore, it is more profitable for
right living, nay, it is necessary for us to consider things as contingent.
(13) So much about law in the abstract.

(14) Now the word law seems to be only applied to natural phenomena by
analogy, and is commonly taken to signify a command which men can either
obey or neglect, inasmuch as it restrains human nature within certain
originally exceeded limits, and therefore lays down no rule beyond human
strength. (15) Thus it is expedient to define law more particularly as a
plan of life laid down by man for himself or others with a certain object.

(16) However, as the true object of legislation is only perceived by a few,
and most men are almost incapable of grasping it, though they live under its
conditions, legislators, with a view to exacting general obedience, have
wisely put forward another object, very different from that which
necessarily follows from the nature of law: they promise to the observers of
the law that which the masses chiefly desire, and threaten its violators
with that which they chiefly fear: thus endeavouring to restrain the masses,
as far as may be, like a horse with a curb; whence it follows that the word
law is chiefly applied to the modes of life enjoined on men by the sway of
others; hence those who obey the law are said to live under it and to be
under compulsion. (17) In truth, a man who renders everyone their due