In spite of its vagueness this explanation of Hobbes's shows that what he really means by natural Law is Morality, and in this respect his views on the relation of natural Law to civil Law, that is, of Morality to Law, practically coincide with mine. Nevertheless, he ignobly denies the moral decency of his doctrine of Law when later on he coldly and dryly remarks: All that the state commands is just, all that it forbids is unjust. Saying this he stupidly and obsequiously makes the civil code the source of Law, whereas by his own definition Law (he says "Natural Law") is the source of the civil code. It is more pardonable for Pusendorf, a formal jurist, to say: "Law is the decree (_decretum_) with which a superior binds his subject (_sibi subjectum_)." That interpretation of Law is possible if it is considered from outside; it is a means of coercion in the hands of the mighty to subjugate the dependant; this point of view ignores the essential; but Pusendorf has no concern with this, for he makes no claim to be a philosopher, he keeps within the bounds of juridical practice.
The Bishop of Seville, Saint Isidor, the most respected theologian of the time between the last patristic writers and St. Thomas Aquinas, gives the following definition of Law: "Law is an institution (_constitutio_) made by the people, by which the nobles (_majores natu_), together with the common folk, have given a sanction to some ordinance." This says little about the essence of Law, but it leads to the question of the origin of laws. On this subject, too, whole libraries full of books have been written since the time of Plato and Aristotle; luckily, for the most part, they now only serve as food for moths and worms.
From this tangle of hair-splitting and sophistry, from this muddle of syllogisms, dogmatism and deep-sounding phrases which mean nothing at all, one thought emerges pretty clearly, to wit, that only the highest authority in the State has the right to make laws. On this point there is perfect unanimity; and that is natural, for it is so obvious that it has no need to be circumstantially investigated and proved in the fifty thousand books that have been written on the subject. It is perfectly clear that one cannot possibly force all the members of a state to obey certain commands and prohibitions which the Law contains, unless one is stronger than each one of them, and therefore the Law must necessarily emanate from the highest power in the state. It is beside the point to obscure this simplest and most transparent fact by questions as to the right of the law-giver. He needs no theoretical right since he has the might. To use Kant's expression, positive Law is not a creation of the mind ([Greek: noumenon]), it is a phenomenon; its existence is a matter of empiricism, not of reason; it is a matter of fact and is under no obligation to justify itself intellectually to the intellect. No law-giver has ever troubled to tack on a preamble or an addition to the law he promulgates proving that he has the right to enact it.