The inequality of the Natural Rights of Men

Even in a state of pure nature, or of entire independence, men only enjoy their natural right to things of which they have need, by labour that is, by the exertion necessary to obtain them - thus, the right of all to all, reduces itself to that portion which each can procure, whether they live by the chase, or by fishing, or on the vegetables which nature spontaneously produces. But to make these exertions with success, they must have faculties of body and mind, and means, or proper instruments to act, and to obtain what is necessary to gratify their wants.

The enjoyment of this their natural right must be very limited in, that state of pure nature and independence, where we do not suppose among them, as yet, any combination to aid one another, and where the strong can use unjust violence toward the weak.

So soon as they shall enter into societies, and form conventions with one another for their reciprocal advantage, they will increase the enjoyment of their natural right, and secure it even to its full extent, if the constitution of the society be conformable to the order evidently most advantageous to man, relative to the fundamental laws of their natural right.

But in considering the bodily and intellectual faculties, and the other means of each particular individual, we will still find a great inequality relative to the enjoyment of the natural rights of men. This inequality does not admit the relations of just and unjust in its principles.

It results from the combination of the laws of nature and men cannot penetrate the designs of the Supreme Being in the construction of the universe; they cannot exalt their minds to comprehend the end of the immutable laws which he has instituted for the formation and preservation of his works.

But if one will examine these rules with attention, he will find that the physical causes of physical evil, are, themselves, causes of physical good: that the rain which incommodes the traveller, fertilizes the earth: and if one calculate without prejudice; he will perceive that these causes produce infinitely more good than evil, and that they, were instituted for good purposes only. That the incidental evil which they produce, necessarily results from the essence of those very properties by which they produce good. It is for this reason, that in the natural order relative to men, there are no laws obligatory but for our good - they impose upon us the duty of avoiding as far as we have the power, the evils which our prudence can foresee.

We must then by no means attribute to physical laws, the evils which are a just and inevitable punishment of the violation of the order of physical laws instituted to produce good. If a government violate the natural laws which ensure success to agriculture, would any one dare to arraign agriculture itself, because there was a want of bread, and, because at the same time the number of men was seen to diminish, and that of the miserable to increase?

Transgressions of the natural laws are the most frequent, and most extensive causes of the physical evils which afflict mankind. Even the rich who have more means of avoiding them, draw on themselves by their ambition, their passions, and even their pleasures, many evils, for which they have no excuse but their: own irregularities.

This would lead insensibly to another cause of physical and moral evil, very different from physical laws, which is the abuse of human liberty. Liberty, that essential attribute of man, which he would extend beyond its limits, never appears to him the cause of evil. If he injure himself, if he destroy his health, dissipate his fortune, and ruin his family by the abuse of his liberty, he complains of the author of liberty, because he would be more free. [13]

He does not perceive that it is himself in contradiction with himself. Let him then acknowledge his own extravagancies. Let him learn, then, how to employ this liberty, so dear to him, rightfully. Let him banish ignorance and irregularity, those sources of the evils he brings on himself by the abuse of his freedom. He is by nature a free and an intelligent being, though he is often neither one nor the other. [14] By the blind and imprudent use he makes of his liberty, he often makes, bad choices; by his intelligence he can make better, and conduct himself with prudence as far as-the order of the physical. laws which ‘constitute the universe will permit.

Physical, good and physical evil, moral good and moral evil, have evidently, then, their origin in natural laws. Every thing has its immutable essence and its properties inseparable from its essence. Other laws may have other essential properties; probably leas conformable to the Perfection which the author of nature, has given his works those which he has instituted are just and perfect in the general plan, since they are conformed to the order and the ends which he has proposed to himself. For he is the author of the laws and the rules, and consequently superior to both. But their end is to produce good, and every thing is subject to those which he has instituted. Man, gifted with intelligence, has the prerogative of being able to contemplate and understand them, to draw from them the greatest possible advantage without being rebellious against them.

From whence it follows, that everyone has a natural right to use with gratitude, all the faculties with which he has been endowed by nature, “in whatever circumstances he be placed under the condition of neither injuring himself nor another-without which condition, no one would be assured of preserving the use of his faculties, or the enjoyment of his natural right - which conducts us to the following chapter.