The incompatibility of the idea of morality or tradition
with that of change by deliberate enactment, must also be
distinguished from the immunity conferred on certain laws in
some systems by the restrictive clauses of a constitution. Such
immunity is not a necessary element in the status of a law as
a law, for this immunity may be removed by constitutional
amendment. Unlike such legal immunity from legislative
change, the incapacity of morals or tradition for similar modes
of change is not something which varies from community to
community or from time to time. It is incorporated in the
meaning of these terms; the idea of a moral legislature with
competence to make and change morals, as legal enactments
make and change law, is repugnant to the whole notion of
morality. When we come to consider international law we
shall find it important to distinguish the mere de facto absence
of a legislature, which may be regarded as a defect of the
system, from the fundamental inconsistency which, as we have stressed here, is latent in the idea that moral rules or standards
could be made or repealed by legislation.