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 right grows out of a natural right; or, in other
words, is a natural right exchanged.

Secondly, That civil power properly considered as such is made up of
the aggregate of that class of the natural rights of man, which becomes
defective in the individual in point of power, and answers not his
purpose, but when collected to a focus becomes competent to the Purpose
of every one.

Thirdly, That the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights,
imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the
natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the
power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.

We have now, in a few words, traced man from a natural individual to a
member of society, and shown, or endeavoured to show, the quality of
the natural rights retained, and of those which are exchanged for civil
rights. Let us now apply these principles to governments.

In casting our eyes over the world, it is extremely easy to distinguish
the governments which have arisen out of society, or out of the social
compact, from those which have not; but to place this in a clearer light
than what a single glance may afford, it will be proper to take a review
of the several sources from which governments have arisen and on which
they have been founded.

They may be all comprehended under three heads.

First, Superstition.

Secondly, Power.

Thirdly, The common interest of society and the common rights of man.

The first was a