this must be dated the impoffible existence of the state of pure nature. Mr. Locke establifhes this commencement from the formation and co-existence of our first parents, Adam and Eve; and he draws the neceffity of it from the intrinfic nature and exigencies of man, as he has been actually formed and conftituted by his Creator. "God having made man fuch a creature, that, in his own judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under ftrong obligations of neceffity, convenience, and inclination, to drive him into fociety, as well as fitted him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. The first fociety was between man and wife; which gave beginning to that between parents and children; to which, in time, that between master and fervant came to be added." This fact then is uncontrovertible, that the only individual, who can be said, in any fenfe, to have existed in the state of nature, was Adam, before the formation of his wife. But how these rights could be exercised by him in that forlorn state of folitude, I know as little, as I do of the period of its duration. When, therefore, we fpeak generally of the Rights of Man, we ought to be understood to * Locke of Civil Government, c. vii. p. 188. C 2 speak Man phyfically framed by God for fociety. The exercife of rights imports the neceffity of fociety. fpeak of those rights, which are attributable to man in the civilized ftate of fociety. Thus every difcuffion of the actual exercife of the Rights of Man imports neceffarily the * contemplation of the focial civil man, and no other. And accordingly, Mr. Payne, having derided the futile and inept attempt to deduce the Rights of Man from any given period of antiquity, fays, "The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving every thing, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of the Rights of Man at the creation. Here our enquiries find a refting place, and our reason finds a home. If a difpute about the Rights of Man had arofe at the distance of an hundred years from the creation, it is to this fource of authority they must have referred, and it is to the fame fource of authority, that we must now refer." Having thus diftinctly marked the line of difference between the ftate of nature and the state of civil fociety, I fhall proceed to state fully and clearly what rights are attributable to, or inherent in man in this state of nature. When writers talk of the tranfition of man * Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 87. + Payne's Rights of Man, p. 45. from from one of these states to the other, they do not mean to allude to any given time or occafion, in which mankind actually paffed from the one to the other; but they do it by way of methodizing their ideas, upon the subject; as philofophers, in difcuffing the nature of man, or any other created being, first confider the existence, before they enter upon the peculiar properties or attributes of the exifting being, upon this axiom, that prius eft effe, quam effe talis; although it be known to every one, that the physical existence and specific modification of every created being are in reality fimultaneous, In the like manner do they mention, in this fuppofed transition, the retention of some of their rights, and the furrender of others. *«From this fhort review, it will be easy to distinguish between that clafs of natural rights, which man retains after entering into society, and those, which he throws into common stock, as a member of fociety. Of the distinction of these two farts of rights I fhall hereafter have occafion to take notice." In this theoretic state of pure nature, the most perfect equality of mankind must neceffarily exift; because it represents man in a general abstract point of view, that effentially pre * Payne's Rights of Man, p. 49. cludes Men viewed in the abftract as equal, are to be fentially in the confidered-ef ftate of nature. cludes all thofe circumstances, which, in the civilized state of fociety, form the various grounds of distinction, fuperiority, and preeminence, amongst individuals. *The fundamental idea of man, in this ftate of nature, must have been that of equality with his fellow creatures; and, as a rational being, he must have been impreffed with a conscious idea of his fuperiority over all irrational objects; and, by inference, he must have inclined rather to a fimilar precedency over his fellow creatures, than to a fubmiffion to them; for the effects of weakness, apprehenfion, and fear, which fome philofophers have attributed to man in the ftate of nature, must have arifen from the internal fenfe of, and reflection upon mortality, and the principle of felf prefervation; not from an original or innate tendency to fubjection to any created object. The idea of fuperiority was prior in man to that of dependence. The latter could never have occurred to him, till he had found out his wants, till he had felt his Independence infufficiency to fupply them, Independence ftate of nature. then was effential to the state of nature; and hence is deduced the original right of option, effential to the *Letter to Sir George Savile upon the Allegiance of a British Subject, by the Author. Printed in 1778. to to whom each one fhall chufe to furrender his independence by a voluntary submission and fubjection. In this theoretical, or fuppofed transition of man from the state of nature to the state of fociety, fuch natural rights, as the individual actually retains independently of the fociety, of which he is a member, are faid to be retained by him, as a part of thofe rights, which he is fuppofed to have poffeffed in the state of nature. Such are the free and uncontrouled power of directing all his animal motions; fuch the uninterrupted communication and intercourse of the foul with its Creator; fuch the unreftrained freedom of his own thoughts: for fo long as an individual occafions no harm, and offers no offence to his neighbour, by the exercise of any of these rights, the fociety cannot controul nor check him in the free exercise of them. *«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; confequently, religion is one of those rights. The natural rights, which are not retained, are all those, • Payne's Rights of Man, p. 49. |