Foundations Of Public Law Martin Loughlin by Martin Loughlin B009GHOZKE instant download after payment.

On what will man base the economy of the world he wants to rule? If left to each individual’s whim, what confusion! If on justice, he knows not what it is. Certainly, if he did know, he would not have laid down that most common of all men’s maxims, that a man must follow the customs of his own country. The glory of true equity would have held all nations in its sway. We should see it enacted by all the States of the world, in every age, instead of which we see nothing, just or unjust, which does not change in quality with a change in climate. Three degrees of latitude overthrow jurisprudence. A meridian determines the truth. Law has its periods …
From this confusion derives the fact that one man will say the essence of justice is the legislator’s authority, another the king’s convenience, and a third, present custom. This last is the safest. Following reason alone, nothing is intrinsically just; everything moves with the times. Custom is the whole of equity for the sole reason that it is accepted. That is the mystical basis of its authority. Whoever tries to trace this authority back to its origins, destroys it. … The art of criticizing and overthrowing States lies in unsettling established customs by delving to their core in order to demonstrate their lack of authority and justice. They say they have to go back to the fundamental and original laws of the State, which unjust custom has abolished. This is a sure way of losing everything; nothing will be just on those scales. … This is why the wisest of legislators used to say that the good of mankind requires them to be deceived … He must not be allowed to be aware of the truth about the usurpation. It was introduced once without reason and has since become reasonable. He must be made to regard it as genuine and eternal, and its origins must be disguised if it is not to come to a swift end.
Blaise Pascal, Pensées [1670], §94