The Will to Battle (Terra Ignota, #3)

by Ada Palmer

“‘Collected Laws of the Universal Free Alliance,’” he read aloud. “‘Section One: the Universal Human Law Code. No Law or Right may be justly called Universal which is in any way relative, debatable, dispensable, or based on any belief or custom whose universality is not proved by those guides of Reason and Necessity which are truly unchanging in all generations of the human race. “‘Authorities, which have many names, among them Government, State, and Hive, are created by a compact of members desiring to be governed by common law and defended by common force. Each such Authority has just scope to restrict, define, and defend those who have voluntarily submitted themselves to its governance, yet it does not lie within the scope of such an Authority to create Universal Laws, nor to force its governance upon any unwilling person, nor to prevent any person from voluntarily dissolving ties with it, unless the motives for that dissolution be criminal and unjust.