Victor Cousin, a very competent authority on the subject, has said that the history of philosophy is the torch of philosophy itself. The remarkable works which have enriched it in this direction are well known. History, on its side, is enlightened by philosophy. Thus, it teaches us not to despise facts, but at the same time not to be slaves to precedent. It does equal justice to the incredulous and to the fanatic, to too supple practitioners and to intractable theorizers. We may doubtless say with Henri Klimrath, who, in connection with a few others, had undertaken the work of the restoration of historical study in its application to French law, that there is an absolute, true, beautiful, good and just, the _ratio recta summi Jovis_,(7) the supreme reason founded in the nature of things.(8) The eternal truths taught by philosophy constitute the higher law, a law which dates not from the day on which it was reduced to writing, but from the day of its birth; and it was born with the divine intelligence itself. “_Qui non tum denique incipit lex esse, cum scripta est, sed tum cum orta est. Orta autem simul est cum mente divina._”(9) And Troplong rightly adds: “There are rules anterior to all positive laws. I cannot grant that the action of conscience and the idea of right are the work of the legislator. It is not law that made the family, property, liberty, equality, the idea of good and evil. It may, indeed, give organization to all these things, but in doing so, it is only working on the foundation which nature has laid, and it is perfect in proportion as it comes nearer to the eternal, immutable laws which the Creator has engraved on our hearts. What changes is not the eternal law, the revelation of which comes to man incessantly and by a necessary action, but the form in which humanity clothes it, the institutions which man builds on its immutable foundation.”(10)