of
person, property, &c., which one human being has, as against other human
beings?

I shall define it to be simply _the rule, principle, obligation or
requirement of natural justice_.

This rule, principle, obligation or requirement of natural justice, has
its origin in the natural rights of individuals, results necessarily
from them, keeps them ever in view as its end and purpose, secures their
enjoyment, and forbids their violation. It also secures all those
acquisitions of property, privilege and claim, which men have a
_natural_ right to make by labor and contract.

Such is the true meaning of the term law, as applied to the civil rights
of men. And I doubt if any other definition of law can be given, that
will prove correct in every, or necessarily in any possible case. The
very idea of law originates in men's natural rights. There is no other
standard, than natural rights, by which civil law can be measured. Law
has always been the name of that rule or principle of justice, which
protects those rights. Thus we speak of _natural law_. Natural law, in
fact, constitutes the great body of the law that is _professedly_
administered by judicial tribunals: and it always necessarily must
be--for it is impossible to anticipate a thousandth part of the cases
that arise, so as to enact a special law for them. Wherever the cases
have not been thus anticipated, the natural law prevails. We thus
politically and judicially _recognize_ the principle of law as
originating in the nature and rights of men. By recognizing it as
originating in the nature of men, we recognize it as a principle, that
is necessarily as immutable, and as indestructible as the nature of man.
We also, in the same way, recognize the impartiality and universality of
its application.

If, then, law be a natural principle--one necessarily resulting from the
very nature of man, and capable of being destroyed or changed only by
destroying or changing the nature of man--it necessarily follows that it
must be of higher and more inflexible obligation than any other rule of
conduct, which the arbitrary will of any man, or combination of men, may
attempt to establish. Certainly no rule can be of such high, universal
and inflexible obligation, as that, which, if observed, secures the
rights, the safety and liberty of all.

Natural law, then, is the paramount law. And, being the paramount law,
it is necessarily the only law: for, being applicable to every possib