- "Illa se jactet in aula Aeolus, et clauso
ventorum carcere regnet".- But let them not break prison to burst like
a Levanter to sweep the earth with their hurricane and to break up the
fountains of the great deep to overwhelm us.
Far am I from denying in theory, full as far is my heart from
withholding in practice (if I were of power to give or to withhold)
the real rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do
not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their
pretended rights would totally destroy. If civil society be made for
the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become
his right. It is an institution of beneficence; and law itself is only
beneficence acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule;
they have a right to do justice, as between their fellows, whether
their fellows are in public function or in ordinary occupation. They
have a right to the fruits of their industry and to the means of
making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the
acquisitions of their parents, to the nourishment and improvement of
their offspring, to instruction in life, and to consolation in
death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon
others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair
portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and
force, can do in his favor.
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