herald, he says: "We fear God- we look with awe to kings- with
affection to Parliaments with duty to magistrates- with reverence to
priests, and with respect to nobility." Mr. Burke has forgotten to put
in "'chivalry." He has also forgotten to put in Peter.

  The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which
he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and
simple, and consists but of two points. His duty to God, which every
man must feel; and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would
be done by. If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will
be respected: if not, they will be despised; and with regard to
those to whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the rational
world can know nothing of them.

  Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural
rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and to
show how the one originates from the other. Man did not enter into
society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights
than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His
natural rights are the foundation of all his civil rights. But in
order to pursue this distinction with more precision, it will be
necessary to mark the different qualities of natural and civil rights.

  A few words will explain this. Natural rights are those which
appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the
intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those
rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness,
which are not injurious to the natural rights of others. Civil
rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member
of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural
right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which
his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent.
Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.

  From this short review it will be easy to distinguish between that
class of natural rights which man retains after entering into
society and those which he throws into the common stock as a member of
society.

  The natural rights which he retains are all those in which the Power
to execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself.
Among this class, as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual
rights, or rights of the mind; consequently religion is one of those
rights. The natural rights which are not retained, are all those in
which, though the right is perfect in the individual, the power to
execute them is defective. They answer not his purpose. A man, by
natural right, has a right to judge in his own cause; and so far as
the right of the mind is concerned, he never surrenders it. But what
availeth it him to judge, if he has not power to redress? He therefore
deposits this right in the common stock of society, and takes the
ann of society, of which he is a part, in preference and in addition
to his own. Society grants him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in
society, and draws on the capital as a matter of right.

  From these premisses two or three certain conclusions will follow:

  First, That every civil right grows out of a natural right; or, in
other words, is a natural right exchanged.

  Secondly, That civil power properly considered as such is made up of
the aggregate of that class of the natural rights of man, which
becomes defective in the individual in point of power, and answers not
his purpose, but when collected to a focus becomes competent to the
Purpose of every one.

  Thirdly, That the power produced from the aggregate of natural
rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to
invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in
which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.

  We have now, in a few words, traced man from a natural individual to
a member of society, and shown, or endeavoured to show, the quality of
the natural rights retained, and of those which are exchanged for
civil rights. Let us now apply these principles to governments.

  In casting our eyes over the world, it is extremely easy to
distinguish the governments which have arisen out of society, or out
of the social compact, from those which have not; but to place this in
a clearer light than what a single glance may afford, it will be
proper to take a review of the several sources from which
governments have arisen and on which they have been founded.

  They may be all comprehended under three heads.

  First, Superstition.

  Secondly, Power.

  Thirdly, The common interest of society and the common rights of
man.

  The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors,
and the third of reason.

  When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles,
to hold intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up
the back-stairs in European courts, the world was completely under the
government of superstition. The oracles were consulted, and whatever
they were made to say became the law; and this sort of government
lasted as long as this sort of superstition lasted.