Custom and Convention

Justice belongs to nature, not convention; the Sophists who reduce right to custom are wrong about the soul.

Natural justice is real but not rigid; it must be completed by the conventions of particular communities.

Human customs are local and shifting, but divine law is eternal; custom becomes sinful when it contradicts God's order.

Custom is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress; the diversity of human practices reveals the limits of reason.

There is no justice or injustice in the state of nature; all social order is conventional, established by covenant and enforced by power.

Custom is the great guide of human life; habit, not reason, governs both belief and moral practice.

Social conventions corrupt natural man; inequality and dependence are the inventions of civilization, not the gifts of nature.

The despotism of custom is the standing hindrance to human advancement; individuality must resist the pressure of collective habit.

Civilization rests on the renunciation of instinct; custom is the price we pay for social life, and the source of our discontent.