Date: 1594

"And the Law of Reason or human Nature is that which men by discourse of natural Reason have rightly found out themselves to be all for ever bound unto in their actions."

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1594

"And to conclude, the general principles thereof are such, as it is not easy to find men ignorant of them, Law rational therefore, which men commonly use to call the Law of Nature, meaning thereby the Law which human Nature knoweth itself in reason universally bound unto, which also for that caus...

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1672, 1727

"The Obligation arises no otherwise from the Love of our Happiness, than the Truth of Propositions concerning the Existence of Things natural, and of their First Cause, which is thence discover'd, arises from the Credit given to the Testimony of our Senses."

— Cumberland, Richard (1632-1718)

Date: 1681

"Also the ignorance of what is Equity in their own causes, which Equity not one Man in a thousand ever Studied, and the Lawyers themselves seek not for their Judgments in their own Breasts, but in the precedents of former Judges, as the Antient Judges sought the same, not in their own Reason, but...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1741

A charmer may gain "a mental Empire" "And still a Queen thro' every bosom reign"

— Ogle, George (1704-1746)

Date: 1748, 1750

"l'interêt est le plus grande monarque de la Terre" [Self-interest is the strongest monarch in the world]

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1755

"Who has a breast so pure,/ But some uncleanly apprehensions/ Keep leets and law days, and in sessions sit,/ With meditations lawful"

— Shakespeare [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]