Pufendorf: On the Duty of Man and Citizen according to Natural Law

1. It remains to discern the specific functions of sovereign power and their noteworthy features. Most important here are the civil laws, which are the decrees of the sovereign civil authority [summi imperantis civilis], which enjoin upon the Citizens what they should do or not do in civil life.

2. There are two particular senses in which the word ‘civil’ is applied to law: with respect to authority and with respect to origin. In the former sense, all laws are called civil which are the bases for the giving of justice in the civil courts, whatever their origin. In the latter sense, those laws are called civil which proceed from the will of the sovereign and deal with matters which are undefined by natural and divine law but deeply affect the private interests of individual Citizens.

3. Though nothing should be regulated by the authority of the civil laws unless it has a bearing on the public interest, it is of the highest importance for the dignity and peace of civil life that Citizens should properly observe the natural law; and therefore it is a duty of sovereigns to lend it the force and effectiveness of civil law. For there is so much wickedness in the greater part of mankind that neither the obvious benefits of natural law nor fear of divine power is adequate to check it. The sovereign, therefore, may ensure preservation of the moral integrity of civil life by lending to natural laws the force of the civil laws.

4. The force of the civil laws consists in the addition of a penal sanction to precepts to do or not to do, or in defining the penalty in the courts that awaits one who has done what he ought not or not done what he ought. Violations of natural law which have no penal sanctions attached are beyond the reach of human justice, though the divine tribunal still Stands ready to punish.

5. Since civil life is too fragile to allow each man to exact what he believes to be his due by violent self-help, civil laws come to the aid of natural law in providing actions for the obligations of natural law.