em.
Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural
rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and
to show how the one originates from the other. Man did not enter into
society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights
than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His natural
rights are the foundation of all his civil rights. But in order to
pursue this distinction with more precision, it will be necessary to
mark the different qualities of natural and civil rights.
A few words will explain this. Natural rights are those which appertain
to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual
rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an
individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to
the natural rights of others. Civil rights are those which appertain to
man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for
its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but
to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases,
sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to
security and protection.
From this short review it will be easy to distinguish between that class
of natural rights which man retains after entering into society and
those which he throws into the common stock as a member of society.
The natural rights which he retains are all those in which the Power to
execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among
this class, as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual rights, or
rights of the mind; consequently religion is one of those rights. The
natural rights which are not retained, are all those in which, though
the right is perfect in the individual, the power to execute them is
defective. They answer not his purpose. A man, by natural right, has a
right to judge in his own cause; and so far as the right of the mind is
concerned, he never surrenders it. But what availeth it him to judge,
if he has not power to redress? He therefore deposits this right in the
common stock of society, and takes the ann of society, of which he is
a part, in preference and in addition to his own. Society grants him
nothing. Every man is a proprietor in society, and draws on the capital
as a matter of right.
From these premisses two or three certain conclusions will follow:
First, That every civil ri
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