_Pretended Exceptions._--The duty of obedience to the laws must then be admitted as a principle; but is this duty absolute? is it not susceptible of some exceptions? A learned theologian of the XVI. century, a Jesuit, Suarez (_Traité des lois_, III., iv.), admits three exceptions to the obedience due to the law: 1, if a law is unjust--for an unjust law is no law--not only is one not obliged to accept, but even, when accepted, one is not obliged to obey it; 2, if it is too hard; for then one may reasonably presume that the law was not made by the prince with the absolute intention that it should be obeyed, but rather as an experiment; now, under this supposition one can always begin by not observing it;--3, if, in fact, the majority of the people have ceased to observe it, even though the first who had commenced should have sinned; the minority is not obliged to observe what the majority has abandoned: for one cannot suppose the prince to intend obliging such or such individuals to observe it, when the community at large have ceased observing it. These exceptions, proposed by Suarez, are inadmissible, at least the two first. To authorize disobedience to unjust laws is introducing into society an inward principle of destruction. All law is supposed to be just, otherwise it is arbitrariness and not law. Every man finds always the law that punishes him unjust. If there are unjust laws, which is possible, we must ask their abrogation; and, in these our days, the liberty of the press is ready to give satisfaction to the need of criticism; but, in the meantime, we must obey. The second exception is not tenable either. To say that it is permitted to disobey a law when it is too hard, in supposing that the prince only made it for an experiment, is to permit the eluding of all the laws: for every law is hard for somebody; and there is, besides, no determining the hardness of laws. Such an appreciation is, moreover, fictitious; a prince who makes a law is supposed _a priori_ to wish it executed: to say that he only meant to try us therewith is a wholly gratuitous invention. Certainly one may by such conduct succeed in wearing a law out when the prince is feeble; but it is not the less unjust, and no State could resist such a cause of dissolution. As to the third exception, it can be admitted that there are laws fallen into disuse, and which are no longer applied by any one because they stand in contradiction to the manners, and are no longer of any use; but, except in such case, it is nowise permitted to say that it is sufficient for the majority to disobey to entitle the minority to do the same. For instance, if it pleased the majority to engage in smuggling, or to make false declarations in the matter of taxes, it would nowise acquit the good citizens from continuing to fulfill their duty.