crimes are the same, and treated in the same | If one man has "a right" to an estate, others

manner, though the particular consequence be very different. The crime and fate of the house-breaker is the same, whether his booty be five pounds or fifty. And the reason is, that the general consequence is the same.

The want of this distinction between particular and general consequences, or rather, the not sufficiently attending to the latter, is the cause of that perplexity which we meet with in ancient moralists. On the one hand, they were sensible of the absurdity of pronouncing actions good or evil, without regard to the good or evil they produced. On the other hand, they were startled at the conclusions to which a steady adherence to consequences seemed sometimes to conduct them. To relieve this difficulty, they contrived the rò go, or the honestum, by which terms they meant to constitute a measure of right, distinct from utility. Whilst the utile served them, that is, whilst it corresponded with their habitual notions of the rectitude of actions, they went by it. When they fell in with such cases as those mentioned in the sixth chapter, they took leave of their guide, and resorted to the honestum. The only account they could give of the matter was, that these actions might be useful; but, because they were not at the same time honesta, they were by no means to be deemed just or right.

Now, because moral obligation depends, as we have seen, upon the will of God; right, which is correlative to it, must depend upon the same. Right therefore signifies, consistency with the will of God.

But if the Divine will determine the distinction of right and wrong, what else is it but an identical proposition, to say of God, that he acts right? or how is it possible to conceive even that he should act wrong? Yet these assertions are intelligible and significant. The case is this: By virtue of the two principles, that God wills the happiness of his creatures, and that the will of God is the measure of right and wrong, we arrive at certain conclusions; which conclusions become rules; and we soon learn to pronounce actions right or wrong, according as they agree or disagree with our rules, without looking any further: and when the habit is once established of stopping at the rules, we can go back and compare with these rules even the Divine conduct itself; and yet it may be true (only not observed by us at the time) that the rules themselves are deduced from the Divine will.

Right is a quality of persons or of actions.
Of persons; as when we say, such a one hasa

to reverence from their children; the king to allegiance from his subjects; masters have "right" to their servants' labour; a man has not a "right" over his own life.

From the principles delivered in this and the two preceding chapters, a maxim may be ex-"right" to this estate; parents have a “right” plained, which is in every man's mouth, and in most men's without meaning, viz. "not to do evil, that good may come:" that is, let us -not violate a general rule, for the sake of any particular good consequence we may expect. Of actions; as in such expressions as the Which is for the most part a salutary caution, following: it is "right" to punish murder the advantage seldom compensating for the with death; his behaviour on that occasion violation of the rule. Strictly speaking, that was "right;" it is not "right" to send an cannot be "evil," from which "good comes;" unfortunate debtor to jail; he did or acted but in this way, and with a view to the dis-" right," who gave up his place, rather than tinction between particular and general consequences, it may.

vote against his judgment.

In this latter set of expressions, you may We will conclude this subject of consequences substitute the definition of right above given, with the following reflection. A man may ima- for the term itself: e. g. it is "consistent with gine, that any action of his, with respect to the will of God to punish murder with death; the public, must be inconsiderable: so also is his behaviour on that occasion was "consistthe agent. If his crime produce but a small ent with the will of God;"-it is not coneffect upon the universal interest, his punish-sistent with the will of God" to send an unforment or destruction bears a small proportion tunate debtor to gaol;—he did, or acted, “conto the sum of happiness and misery in the sistently with the will of God," who gave up his place, rather than vote against his judgment.

creation.

CHAPTER IX.

66

In the former set, you must vary the construction a little, when you introduce the definition instead of the term. Such a one has a "right" to this estate, that is, it is "consistent with the will of God" that such a one should have it ;-parents have a right" to reverence from their children, that is, it is RIGHT and obligation are reciprocal; that" consistent with the will of God" that chilis, wherever there is a right in one person, dren should reverence their parents;—and the there is a corresponding obligation upon others. same of the rest.

OF RIGHT.

66

CHAPTER X.

THE DIVISION OF RIGHTS.

RIGHTS, when applied to persons, are

Natural or adventitious:
Alienable or unalienable :
Perfect or imperfect.

I. Rights are natural or adventitious. Natural rights are such as would belong to a man, although there subsisted in the world no civil government whatever.

or violence, as if it had been assigned to him,
like the partition of the country amongst the
twelvetribes, by the immediate designation and
appointment of Heaven.

II. Rights are alienable or unalienable.
Which terms explain themselves.

The right we have to most of those things which we call property, as houses, lands, money, &c. is alienable.

The right of a prince over his people, of a husband over his wife, of a master over his servant, is generally and naturally unalienable.

The distinction depends upon the mode of acquiring the right. If the right originate from Adventitious rights are such as would not. a contract, and be limited to the person by the Natural rights are, a man's right to his life, express terms of the contract, or by the comlimbs, and liberty; his right to the produce of mon interpretation of such contracts (which is his personal labour; to the use, in common equivalent to an express stipulation), or by a with others, of air, light, water. If a thou-personal condition annexed to the right; then sand different persons, from a thousand differ. it is unalienable. In all other cases it is alienent corners of the world, were cast together upon a desert island, they would from the first be every one entitled to these rights.

Adventitious rights are, the right of a king over his subjects; of a general over his soldiers; of a judge over the life and liberty of a prisoner; a right to elect or appoint magistrates, to impose taxes, decide disputes, direct the descent or disposition of property; a right, in a word, in any one man, or particular body of men, to make laws and regulations for the rest. For none of these rights would exist in the newly-inhabited island.

able.

The right to civil liberty is alienable; though in the vehemence of men's zeal for it, and the language of some political remonstrances, it has often been pronounced to be an unalienable right. The true reason why mankind hold in detestation the memory of those who have sold their liberty to a tyrant, is, that, together with their own, they sold commonly, or endangered, the liberty of others; which certainly they had no right to dispose of.

III. Rights are perfect or imperfect.

Perfect rights may be asserted by force, or, what in civil society comes into the place of private force, by course of law.

Imperfect rights may not.

Examples of perfect rights. A man's right to his life, person, house; for, if these be attacked, he may repel the attack by instant violence, or punish the aggressor by law: a man's right to his estate, furniture, clothes, money, and to all ordinary articles of property; for, if they be injuriously taken from him, he may compel the author of the injury to make restitution or satisfaction.

And here it will be asked, how adventitious rights are created; or, which is the same thing, how any new rights can accrue from the establishment of civil society; as rights of all kinds, we remember, depend upon the will of God, and civil society is but the ordinance and institution of man? For the solution of this difficulty, we must return to our first principles. God wills the happiness of mankind; and the existence of civil society, as conducive to that happiness. Consequently, many things, which are useful for the support of civil society in general, or for the conduct and conversation Examples of imperfect rights.-In elections of particular societies already established, are, or appointments to offices, where the qualififor that reason, 66 consistent with the will of cations are prescribed, the best qualified canGod," or 66 right," which, without that rea- didate has a right to success; yet, if he be reson, i. e. without the establishment of civil so-jected, he has no remedy. He can neither ciety, would not have been so. seize the office by force, nor obtain redress at From whence also it appears, that adventi- law; his right therefore is imperfect. A poor tious rights, though immediately derived from neighbour has a right to relief; yet, if it be human appointment, are not, for that reason, refused him, he must not extort it. A beneless sacred than natural rights, nor the obliga-factor has a right to returns of gratitude from tion to respect them less cogent. They both the person he has obliged; yet, if he meet ultimately rely upon the same authority, the with none, he must acquiesce. Children have will of God. Such a man claims a right to a particular estate. He can show, it is true, nothing for his right, but a rule of the civil community to which he belongs; and this rule may be arbitrary, capricious, and absurd. Notwithstanding all this, there would be the same sin in dispossessing the man of his estate by craft

a right to affection and education from their parents; and parents, on their part, to duty and reverence from their children; yet, if these rights be on either side withholden, there is no compulsion by which they can be enforced.

It may be at first view difficult to apprehend how a person should have a right to a thing,

and yet have no right to use the means neces-nothing else. The degree of guilt incurred by sary to obtain it. This difficulty, like most violating the obligation, is a different thing, others in morality, is resolvable into the ne- and is determined by circumstances altogether cessity of general rules. The reader recollects, independent of this distinction. A man who that a person is said to have a "right" to a by a partial, prejudiced, or corrupt vote, disthing, when it is "consistent with the will appoints a worthy candidate of a station in of God" that he should possess it. So that life, upon which his hopes, possibly, or livelithe question is reduced to this: How it comes hood, depended, and who thereby grievously to pass that it should be consistent with the discourages merit and emulation in others, will of God that a person should possess a thing, commits, I am persuaded, a much greater and yet not be consistent with the same will crime, than if he filched a book out of a library, that he should use force to obtain it? The an- or picked a pocket of a handkerchief; thongh swer is, that by reason of the indeterminate- in the one case he violates only an imperfect ness, either of the object, or of the circum-right, in the other a perfect one. stances of the right, the permission of force in As positive precepts are often indeterminate this case would, in its consequence, lead to the in their extent, and as the indeterminateness permission of force in other cases, where there of an obligation is that which makes it imperexisted no right at all. The candidate above fect; it comes to pass, that positive precepts described has, no doubt, a right to success; commonly produce an imperfect obligation. but his right depends upon his qualifications, for instance, upon his comparative virtue, learning, &c. there must be somebody therefore to compare them. The existence, degree, The fifth commandment is positive, and the and respective importance, of these qualifica- duty which results from it is imperfect. tions, are all indeterminate: there must be The sixth commandment is negative, and somebody therefore to determine them. To imposes a perfect obligation.

Negative precepts or prohibitions, being ge nerally precise, constitute accordingly perfect obligations.

allow the candidate to demand success by force, Religion and virtue find their principal exis to make him the judge of his own qualifi-ercise among the imperfect obligations; the cations. You cannot do this, but you must laws of civil society taking pretty good care of make all other candidates the same; which the rest.

would open a door to demands without number, reason, or right. In like manner, a poor man has a right to relief from the rich; but the mode, season, and quantum of that relief, who shall contribute to it, or how much, are not ascertained. Yet these points must be ascertained, before a claim to relief can be prosecuted by force. For, to allow the poor to ascertain them for themselves, would be to expose property to so many of these claims, that it would lose its value, or rather its nature, that is, cease indeed to be property. The same observation holds of all other cases of imperfect rights; not to mention, that in the instances of gratitude, affection, reverence, and the like, force is excluded by the very idea of the duty, which must be voluntary, or cannot exist at all.

CHAPTER XI.

THE GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND.

By the General rights of Mankind, I mean the rights which belong to the species collec tively; the original stock, as I may say, which they have since distributed among themselves. These are,

1. A right to the fruits or vegetable produce of the earth.

The insensible parts of the creation are incapable of injury; and it is nugatory to inquire into the right, where the use can be attended with no injury. But it may be worth observWherever the right is imperfect, the cor-ing, for the sake of an inference which will responding obligation is so too. I am obliged appear below, that, as God had created us with to prefer the best candidate, to relieve the poor, a want and desire of food, and provided things be grateful to my benefactors, take care of my suited by their nature to sustain and satisfy children, and reverence my parents; but in all us, we may fairly presume, that he intended these cases, my obligation, like their right, is we should apply these things to that purpose. imperfect. 2. A right to the flesh of animals. I call these obligations "imperfect," in con- This is a very different claim from the forformity to the established language of writers mer. Some excuse seems necessary for the pain upon the subject. The term, however, seems and loss which we occasion to brutes, by reill chosen on this account, that it leads many straining them of their liberty, mutilating their to imagine, that there is less guilt in the vio- bodies, and, at last, putting an end to their lation of an imperfect obligation, than of a per- lives (which we suppose to be the whole of fect one: which is a groundless notion. For their existence), for our pleasure or convenian obligation being perfect or imperfect, de-ency.

termines only whether violence may or may The reasons alleged in vindication of this not be employed to enforce it; and determines practice, are the following: that the several

species of brutes being created to prey upon one another, affords a kind of analogy to prove that the human species were intended to feed upon them; that, if let alone, they would over-run the earth, and exclude mankind from the occupation of it; that they are requited for what they suffer at our hands, by our care and protection.

Upon which reasons I would observe, that the analogy contended for is extremely lame; since brutes have no power to support life by any other means, and since we have; for the whole human species might subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse, herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindoos actually do. The two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as they go; for, no doubt, if man had been supported entirely by vegetable food, a great part of those animals which die to furnish his table, would never have lived: but they by no means justify our right over the lives of brutes to the extent in which we exercise it. What danger is there, for instance, of fish interfering with us, in the occupation of their element? or what do we contribute to their support or preservation?

From reason then, or revelation, or from both together, it appears to be God Almighty's intention, that the productions of the earth should be applied to the sustentation of human life. Consequently all waste and misapplication of these productions, is contrary to the Divine intention and will; and therefore wrong, for the same reason that any other crime is so. Such as, what is related of William the Conqueror, the converting of twenty manors into a forest for hunting; or, which is not much better, suffering them to continue in that state; or the letting of large tracts of land lie barren, because the owner cannot cultivate them, nor will part with them to those who can; or destroying, or suffering to perish, great part of an article of human provision, in order to enhance the price of the remainder, (which is said to have been, till lately, the case with fish caught upon the English coast;) or diminishing the breed of animals, by a wanton, or improvident, consumption of the young, as of the spawn of shell-fish, or the fry of salmon, by the use of unlawful nets, or at improper seasons: to this head may also be referred, what is the same evil in a smaller way, the expending of human food on superfluous dogs or horses; and, lastly, the reducing of the quantity, in order to alter the quality, and to alter it generally for the worse; as the distillation of spirits from bread-corn, the boiling down of solid meat for sauces, essences, &c.

It seems to me, that it would be difficult to defend this right by any arguments which the light and order of nature afford; and that we are beholden for it to the permission recorded in Scripture, Gen. ix. 1, 2, 3: "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the This seems to be the lesson which our Saviearth: and the fear of you, and the dread of our, after his manner, inculcates, when he bids you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, his disciples "gather up the fragments, that and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all nothing be lost." And it opens indeed a new that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the field of duty. Schemes of wealth or profit, fishes of the sea; into your hand are they de- prompt the active part of mankind to cast livered; every moving thing shall be meat for about, how they may convert their property to you; even as the green herb, have I given you the most advantage; and their own advantage, all things." To Adam and his posterity had and that of the public, commonly concur. But been granted, at the creation, "every green it has not as yet entered into the minds of manherb for meat," and nothing more. In the last kind, to reflect that it is a duty, to add what clause of the passage now produced, the old we can to the common stock of provision, by grant is recited, and extended to the flesh of extracting out of our estates the most they will animals; "even as the green herb, have I yield; or that it is any sin to neglect this. given you all things." But this was not till From the same intention of God Almighty, after the flood; the inhabitants of the an. we also deduce another conclusion, namely, tediluvian world had therefore no such per-"that nothing ought to be made exclusive promission, that we know of. Whether they ac-perty, which can be conveniently enjoyed in tually refrained from the flesh of animals, is common."

another question. Abel, we read, was a keeper It is the general intention of God Almighty, of sheep; and for what purpose he kept them, that the produce of the earth be applied to the except for food, is difficult to say (unless it were sacrifices): might not, however, some of the stricter sects among the antediluvians be scrupulous as to this point? and might not Noah and his family be of this description? for it is not probable that God would publish a permission, to authorise a practice which had never been disputed.

Wanton, and, what is worse, studied cruelty to brutes, is certainly wrong, as coming within one of these reasons.

use of man. This appears from the constitu-
tion of nature; or, if you will, from his ex¬
press declaration; and this is all that appears
at first. Under this general donation, one man
has the same right as another.
You pluck an
apple from a tree, or take a lamb from a flock,
for your immediate use and nourishment, and
I do the same; and we both plead for what
we do, the general intention of the Supreme
Proprietor. So far all is right: but you can-
not claim the whole tree, or the whole flock,
and exclude me from any share of them, and

plead this general intention for what you do. limits of its own territories, they erect a claim The plea will not serve you; you must show which interferes with the benevolent designs of something more. You must show, by proba- Providence, and which no human authority can ble arguments at least, that it is God's inten- justify.

tion, that these things should be parcelled out 3. Another right, which may be called a geto individuals; and that the established dis-neral right, as it is incidental to every man who tribution, under which you claim, should be is in a situation to claim it, is the right of exupholden. Show me this, and I am satisfied. treme necessity; by which is meant, a right to But until this be shown, the general inten- use or destroy another's property when it is tion, which has been made appear, and which necessary for our own preservation to do so; is all that does appear, must prevail; and, un- as a right to take, without or against the ownder that, my title is as good as yours. Now er's leave, the first food, clothes, or shelter, we there is no argument to induce such a presump-meet with, when we are in danger of perishing tion, but one; that the thing cannot be en- through want of them; a right to throw goods joyed at all, or enjoyed with the same, or with overboard to save the ship; or to pull down a nearly the same advantage, while it continues house, in order to stop the progress of a fire; in common, as when appropriated. This is and a few other instances of the same kind. Of true, where there is not enough for all, or which right the foundation seems to be this : where the article in question requires care or that when property was first instituted, the inlabour in the production or preservation: but stitution was not intended to operate to the dewhere no such reason obtains, and the thing struction of any; therefore when such conse is in its nature capable of being enjoyed by as quences would follow, all regard to it is supermany as will, it seems an arbitrary usurpation seded. Or rather, perhaps, these are the few upon the rights of mankind, to confine the cases, where the particular consequence exceeds use of it to any. the general consequence; where the remote mischief resulting from the violation of the general rule, is overbalanced by the immediate advantage.

If a medicinal spring were discovered in a piece of ground which was private property, copious enough for every purpose to which it could be applied, I would award a compensation to the owner of the field, and a liberal profit to the author of the discovery, especially if he had bestowed pains or expense upon the search: but I question whether any human laws would be justified, or would justify the owner, in prohibiting mankind from the use of the water, or setting such a price upon it as would almost amount to a prohibition.

Restitution, however, is due, when in our power: because the laws of property are to be adhered to, so far as consists with safety; and because restitution, which is one of those laws, supposes the danger to be over. But what is to be restored? Not the full value of the property destroyed, but what it was worth at the time of destroying it; which, considering the danger it was in of perishing, might be very

If there be fisheries, which are inexhausti-little. ble, as the cod-fishery upon the Banks of Newfoundland, and the herring-fishery in the British seas, are said to be; then all those conventions, by which one or two nations claim to themselves, and guaranty to each other, the exclusive enjoyment of these fisheries, are so many encroachments upon the general rights of mankind.

BOOK III.

RELATIVE DUTIES.

PART I.

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH ARE
DETERMINATE.

Upon the same principle may be determined a question, which makes a great figure in books of natural law, utrum mare sit liberum ? that is, as I understand it, whether the exclusive | right of navigating particular seas, or a control over the navigation of these seas, can be claimed, consistently with the law of nature, by any nation? What is necessary for each nation's safety, we allow as their own bays, creeks, and harbours, the sea contiguous to, that is, within cannon-shot, or three leagues of their coast and upon this principle of safety (if upon any principle,) must be defended the claim of the Venetian State to the Adriatic, of Denmark to the Baltic Sea, and of Great Britain IF you should see a flock of pigeons in a field to the seas which invest the island. But, when of corn: and if (instead of each picking where Spain asserts a right to the Pacific Ocean, or and what it liked, taking just as much as it Portugal to the Indian Seas, or when any na- wanted, and no more) you should see ninetytion extends its pretensions much beyond the nine of them gathering all they got, into a

CHAPTER I.

OF PROPERTY.