with a
succession of barriers, or sort of turnpike gates, through which he has
to pass. I will quote Mr. Burke's catalogue of barriers that he has
set up between man and his Maker. Putting himself in the character of a
herald, he says: "We fear God--we look with awe to kings--with affection
to Parliaments with duty to magistrates--with reverence to priests,
and with respect to nobility." Mr. Burke has forgotten to put in
"'chivalry." He has also forgotten to put in Peter.

The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he
is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and
consists but of two points. His duty to God, which every man must feel;
and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by. If those
to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected: if not,
they will be despised; and with regard to those to whom no power is
delegated, but who assume it, the rational world can know nothing of
them.

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