Les lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel
Civil laws in their natural order

Summary/Abstract: The author brings into attention an overview of natural and positive, rational law perspective, generated by the rules of social coexistence. From this point of view, Jean Domat had one goal: to present all French laws as one coherent and comprehensible whole.Surely the immutable laws relate, according to two fundamental laws of nature, to the love of God and the love for the other, human duties towards God, self and others, while arbitrary laws are concerning social order, the relations between people and also their reglementation.But religion can also have arbitrary laws, for example establishing religious ceremonies in the Church, and their manifestation. Here it is essential that they do not fall, on one hand in the spiritual, and on the other hand, in the temporal point of view, but they are realized one through the other in the society, by spiritual unity and time unity.The originality of Domat’s ideas is to urge the cautiously completion of natural obligations with arbitrary rules that specify, or set limits. Therefore no law can be unjust, since civil laws are just following and respecting natural order.

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