567. Many civil laws are commonly regarded nowadays as disjunctively preceptive or penal; and, since the custom of the prudent affords a good norm of interpretation (see above, 484 sqq., 506 sqq.), this common view is a safe guide, Example: Even conscientious persons do not feel that they have committed a sin if now and then they run a car without a license, or fish in a government reservation without the permit required by law, when there is no danger or damage to anyone. 568. Whether most modern legislatures intend practically all or the great majority of their laws that are not declarations of natural law or provisions essential to public welfare to be purely penal or only disjunctively preceptive, is a disputed question. For the affirmative view it is argued: (a) Moral obligation is not necessary, since the enforcement of the law is well taken care of by the judiciary and the police; (b) Moral obligation would be harmful, for the laws that are put on the statute books every year, along with those already there, are so numerous that, if all these obliged in conscience, an intolerable burden would be placed on the people; (c) Moral obligation is not intended, for legislatures as bodies either despise or disregard religious motives when framing laws; and so many jurists today believe that the danger of incurring the penalty prescribed by the law is the only obligation the lawgiver intends to impose, or that moral obligation must come from conscience (i.e., be self-imposed); (d) Moral obligation is not admitted by custom, the best interpreter of law, for most citizens today regard civil legislation as not binding under sin. 569. Opponents of the view just explained answer: (a) The prevalence of crime and the ineffectiveness of the courts in so many places prove the need of moral obligation of civil laws; and, even if the laws are well enforced, this will scarcely continue, if respect for them is lowered; (b) Though there is an excess of legislation, it is not generally true that the individual citizen is burdened in his daily life by a multitude of laws; (c) Lawmakers today are not more irreligious than the pagan rulers to whom the scriptures commanded obedience; and, even though they do not themselves believe in religion or the obligation of conscience, they do intend to give their laws every sanction that the common good requires, and thus implicitly they impose a moral obligation wherever the contrary is not manifest; (d) The statement that the majority of the people in modern states regard the civil legislation as a whole as not obligatory in conscience may be passed over, as there is no proof for it. Moreover, the customary interpretation of the citizens does not make penal the laws which the elected representatives intended as preceptive, without the consent of the latter (see 394). 570. Signs that a law is merely penal are the following: