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Untitled Article
that which is thought so by the individual , and which has the sanction of his will as such , —1 st , Because the determining what is good in itself , is an endless question ; 2 dly , Because one person ' s having a right to any good and another being made the judge of it , leaves him without any security for its being exercised to his advantage , whereas self-love is a natural guarantee for self-interest 5 3 dly , A thing being willed is the
highest moral reason for its existence ; that a thing is good in itself is no reason whatever why it should exist , till the will clothes it with a power to act as a motive ; and there is certainly nothing to prevent this will from taking effect ( no law above it ) but another will opposed to it , and which forms a right on the same principle . A good is only a Tig ht * because it generally determines the will ; for a right is that which contains within itself , and as respects the bosom in which it is lodged , a
cogent and unanswerable reason why it should exist . Suppose I have a violent aversion to one thing and as strong an attachment to another , and that there is no other being in the world but myself , shall I not have a self-evident right , title , liberty , to pursue the one and avoid the other?—that is to say , in other words , there can be nothing to interpose between the strong natural tendency of the will and its desired effect , but the will of another . Right therefore has a personal or selfish reference , as it is founded on the law which determines a man ' s actions in
regard to his own being and well-being ; and political justice is that which assigns the limits of these individual rights , or their compatibility or incompatibility , with each other in society . Right , in a word , is the duty which each man owes to himself ; or , it is that portion of the general good of which ( as being principally interested ) he is made the special judge , and which is put under his immediate keeping .
* The next question I asked myself was " what is law , and the real and necessary ground of civil government ? " Law is something to abridge the original right and to coerce the will of individuals in the community . Whence , then , has the community this right ? It can only arise in self-defence , or from the necessity of maintaining the equal rights of every one , and of opposing force to force in case of any violent infringement of them . Society consists of any given number of individuals , and the aggregate right of government is only the consequence of these inherent rights balancing and neutralizing one another , * &c .
It will be readily admitted that the above extract contains thoughts of no juvenile character , though they were conceived at so early a period . The greater portion of this short treatise , however , judging by the precision of the style , was no dpubl written some years afterwards ; but some passages and expressions occur which bear the stamp of the period in which they originated . The third corollary is very amusing and characteristic as a specimen of naivete in expression and the early formation of strong and lasting opinions .
' Cor . 3 . If I was out at sea in a boat with a jure divino monarch , and he wanted to throw me overboard , I would not let him . No gentleman would ask such a compliance ; no freeman would submit to it-Hag he then a right to ditpose of the lives of thirty millions of men ? or , have they no right to re * Uf his demands 1 They have thirty ftuiHont of
Untitled Article
684 DisquUltion on the Genius , frrilingft ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1835, page 634, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2650/page/6/
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