309 



And generally the social or non-political rights of the State includes 

 all rights implied by the general right of the State to a free and natural 

 development. 



The social rights of the State, like private rights of ownership, are fully 

 effectuated by their mere exercise or enjoyment, and, so far as respected, 

 do not call for or admit of the intervention of the political power : whose 

 sole function with regard to them is that of protection. Hence, were it 

 not for their liability to be violated, or, in other words, were mankind 

 uniformly just, and voluntarily disposed to observe them, private and 

 social rights would include all rights whatever. 



§ 55. Of the Political Bights of the State. 



Hence, the political rights of the State, as we have seen, spring from the 

 necessity of an organized force to protect private and social rights ; and 

 they may therefore all be summed up in the right to govern ; which, as 

 already observed, includes not only the right to use force directly for the 

 protection of private and social rights, but also to use it for the organiza- 

 tion, maintenance, protection and administration of the government ; all 

 of which are essential to the principal or final end ; and also, within cer- 

 tain limits, to promote the common good. 



The classification of the political rights of the State, or the rights of 

 government, has been sufficiently indicited by the classification of its 

 several functions. They consist first in the extr&or^Wn&vy right of political 

 organization, and {herights of the government ; the last of which are to be 

 divided into the judicial and the administrative rights ; the former of 

 which is again to be diVided into the right of legislation, and that of 

 ordinary jurisdiction ; and the latter, into that of the right of legislation, 

 and that of government (Imperium). 



The rights, as we have explained, are, however, necessarily more ex- 

 tensile than the corresponding functions,* and it will be necessary there- 

 fore to consider the limit to which they extend. 



§ 56. Of the Limit to the Political Rights of the State. 



This limit will vary under different circumstances. In a less advanced 

 stage of civilization, in which public opinion, and especially the sentiment 

 of rights is not highly developed, hardly any limit can be assigned to the 

 powers of government ; but in our modern civilization the powers of 

 government are much more limited. The general principle governing 

 the subject is, however, obvious, and is thus well expressed by Ruther- 

 ford :f 



" The civil power is in its own nature a limited power ; as it arose at 

 first from the social union, so it is limited by the needs and powers of such 

 union, whether it be exercised as it is in democracies, by the body of the 



* See Supra, p. 245. 



^Second Institutes of Natural Law, p. 393. 



PKOC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXIV. 148. 2 N. PRINTED NOV. 4, 1895. 



