The common saying that the law is known by nature should not be understood … as though actual and distinct propositions concerning things to be done or to be avoided were inherent in men's minds at the hour of their birth. But it means in part … that at least the common and important provisions of the natural law are so plain and clear that they at once find assent, and grow up in our minds, so that they can never again be destroyed, no matter how the impious man, in order to still the twinges of conscience, may endeavor to blot out the consciousness of those precepts. For this reason … the law is said to be “written in the hearts” of men. Hence, since we are imbued from childhood with a consciousness of these maxims, in accordance with our social training, and cannot remember the time when we first imbibed them, we think of this knowledge exactly as if we had it already at birth. Everyone has the same experience with his mother tongue.