The Political Text Book: Comprising a View of the Origin and Objects of Government, and an Examination of the Principal, Social, and Political Institutions of England (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Political d104 Book: Comprising a View of the Origin and Objects of Government, and an Examination of the Principal, Social, and Political Institutions of England

The rights of men, in a state of society, extend to the doing every thing which is not injurious to another. Anon.

Political society is founded in the principles of morality and justice. It is impossible for intellectual beings to be brought into coalition and intercourse without a certain mode of conduct, adapted to their nature and connection, immediately becoming a duty on the parties concerned. Men would never have associated, if they had not imagined that in consequence of that association they would mutu ally conduce to the advantage and happiness of each other. This is the real purpose, the genuine basis, of their inter course; and as far as this purpose is answered, so far does society answer the end of its institution - Godwin.

When, by virtue of the first laws, part of the society accumulated wealth and grew powerful, they enacted others more severe, and would protect their property at the ex pense of humanity. This was abusing their power, and commencing a tyranny. If a savage, before he entered into society, had been told, Your neighbour by this means may become owner of a hundred deer; but if your brother, or your son, or yourself, having no deer of your own, and being hungry, Should kill one, an infamous death must be the consequence, he would probably have preferred his liberty, and his common right of killing any deer, to all the advantages of society that might be proposed to him. Franklin.

In a state of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labours. In a state of artificial society, it is a law as constant and invariable, that those who labour most, enjoy the fewest things; and that those who labour not at all, have the greatest number of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and ridiculous beyond expression. We scarcely believe a thing when we are told it, which we actually see before our eyes every day without being the least surprised. Bur/re.

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