On Crimes and Punishments

-it; that of Religious Virtue is always one and constant, because it is revealed immediately by God and preserved by Him.

It would therefore be an error to attribute to those who speak of social conventions and their consequences principles contrary either to natural law or to Revelation, because they are not speaking of these. It would be an error for someone, speaking of a state of war before the state of society, to take it in the Hobbesian referring to Thomas Hobbes's philosophy of universal conflict sense—that is, as having no prior duty or obligation—instead of taking it as a fact born from the corruption of human nature and the lack of an express sanction. It would be an error to impute as a crime to a writer who considers the emanations-