to enjoy what the law confirms in the possession of each person*.' The ideas of meum and tuum, founded on the natural law of appropriation by labour, are as old as the union of any two or three human beings in society.

It is true that there have been, and yet are, many infractions of this rule. Brute force or cunning has frequently prevailed over this as over other rights; sometimes contenting themselves with abstracting a portion of the produce of labour, sometimes taking possession of the labourer himself, and compelling his exertions by the dread of personal torture. But even in this extreme state of degradation, a sentiment of their outraged rights seems rarely to have been extinguished among the slaves themselves; nor could one slave take from another what he had created or appropriated by his exertions, without committing an acknowledged injustice.

The right in the labourer to the produce of his toil, so universally acknowledged, may well be supposed an intuitive perception common to all sound minds, like the right to freedom of person and action, of which it is a natural corollary. And this is the opinion of Mr. Locke, as given in his view of the origin and foundation of a right to property. Every man,' he says, 'has a property in his own person, that nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, are his property. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined

*The Natural and Artificial Right of Property contrasted, p. 37.

NATURAL RIGHT TO PROPERTY.

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something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature has placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For the labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is joined to at least, where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others*.' 'And amongst those who are accounted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied laws to determine property, this original law of nature for the beginning of property in what before was common, still takes place; and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean-that great and still remaining common of mankind- -or what ambergris any one takes up on its coasts, is, by the labour that removes it out of the common state nature has left it in, made his property who takes that pains about it.'

In this view, the right to property acquired by labour is derived from the right to personal free dom, which itself rests on the evident intention of the Creator. But if this were disputed, none at least can dispute that it is immediately and immoveably based on the true foundation of all right, expediency for the general welfare. If not an intuitive perception, its justice and necessity must have been suggested by the very earliest lessons of experience. It must have been recognized from the first, in every society, to be for the common advantage that such a rule should be laid down and adhered to, taught by the sages, sanc

* Of Civil Government, book ii. chap. v. sec. 28.

tioned by public opinion, and, if need were, enforced by the common strength-in order to prevent the unhappiness which continual conflicts for the possession of the produce of each other's labour must otherwise unavoidably occasion to all. It could not but have been felt that the absence of such a rule would go far to check all productive labour whatever, and reduce mankind to live, as the phrase is, from hand to mouth, in a state of endless strife, snatching for their daily sustenance whatever was within their reach; fighting among each other for the chance-got fragments of their repasts; and exposed, like the beasts of prey-to which, in this condition, they would bear the closest analogy-to frequent famine from the failure of food. Therefore it is that, even where force or fraud has triumphed over the principles of natural justice, and the weak have been compelled, against their will, to labour for the strong-there has yet been an understanding on all sides, and a general sense of the necessity, that the masters should at least protect the properties as well as the persons of their slaves from the attacks of each other. Tyrants even have seen the protection of property to be for their interest, as an essential condition to the productiveness of their subjects; and their sway, though founded on usurpation, has been usually submitted to more or less willingly by the patient multitude, so long as they observed a decent show of respect for the rights of property founded on industrious acquisition.

The details of the right of property it is for the law of each society to determine, and for its moral code to sanction. We do not here mean

RIGHT TO GOOD GOVERNMENT.

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to advert to any of the branches of this great subject. It is sufficient to state that, to be consonant to natural justice, these definitions must, in all their details, tend to the promotion of the general good.

IV. Of the Natural Right to Good Government.

Another important right is, the Right to Good Government, as the only security for the enjoyment of any right whatever.

It has been shown that every society requires laws to be laid down and enforced for prescribing the boundaries of personal freedom and individual appropriation. The power which lays down and enforces these laws is called the governing power, or Government, of the society.

Much has been written, and much spoken of late, on the political rights of individuals; and especially has the right been loudly and frequently asserted of every individual to self-government: that is, to an equal share in the governing power. We can recognize no abstract right of any kind, but such as may flow from the one great principle of expediency for the general welfare of mankind. That, on this principle, government of some kind is indispensable to every society is easily proved, if it have not been sufficiently proved already.

If men were beings of angelic dispositions and perfect wisdom, so that they could act no otherwise than in exact accordance with natural justice, no government would be necessary, either to frame rules of conduct, or to constrain their observance; and

we might save all their trouble and cost. But we are fallible creatures, and, moreover, when aware of the right, are often led, by passion or caprice, to take the wrong path. There can be, therefore, no security to individuals for the enjoyment of any of their rights, no chance of maintaining the order and tranquillity essential to the general welfare, but through the compulsory interference of the collective power of society in controlling the actions of those who would otherwise infringe the rights of others and disturb the general happiness. Laws, as we have seen, are necessary for this purpose-defining the rights of individuals; and authority must be placed somewhere to frame, to interpret, and to enforce obedience to these laws.

For since the circumstances of societies are undergoing continual alteration, their laws will need corresponding changes, to adapt them to the new relations of individuals to each other and to the external world. But such alterations must require the exercise of profound sagacity, extensive experience, and mature deliberation; which cannot be obtained in general assemblies of the entire body of any society. The task, therefore, of framing the laws for the regulation of a society must be entrusted to a select body of limited number. In the same manner it is evident that the collective power of a society cannot be usefully employed in a mass on every occasion which may require the enforcement of its laws. A similar selection, therefore, must take place, of some party in whose hands authority must be lodged, to employ any portion of this power which may be necessary for the purpose.