17925 state of nature: 189 > 
cufsion of the actual exercise of the rights of man, im- 
ports necefsarily the contemplation of the socza/ civi/ man, 
and no other. . 
In the theoretical, or supposed transition of man, from 
the state of nature to the. state of society, such natural 
tights as the individual“actually retains, independently of 
the society of which he is a member, are said to be re-’ 
tained by him, as a part of those rights which he is suppo- 
sed to have pofsefsed in the state of nature. Such are the 
free and uncontrouled:power of directing all his animal . 
motions ; such the uninterrupted ‘communication and in- 
tercourse of the soul with its Creator; such the unre-. 
Strained freedom of his own thoughts ; for so long as an 
individual occasions no harm, and offers no offence to his 
neighbour, by the exercise of any of these rights, the so- 
ciety cannot controul nor check him in the exercise of - 
them, , 
But in this transition, thé satiendéved or exchanged * 
rights were so-irrevocably transferred fromthe individus 
al to the body at large, that it no longer remained at the. 
liberty or option of individuals'to reclaim, either in the 
whole or in part, those rights, which had so become unalie- - 
nably vested in the community. 
It is as singular, as it is unaccountable, that some of © 
the i/liminating philosophers of the present day fhould, even . 
under the Britifh constitution, claim and insist upon the 
actual exercise of these natural rights of marr; when it is . 
notorious, even to a demonstration, that the exercise of 
them would be efsentially destructiverto all political and 
‘civil liberty, could they really be brought into action. 
For it is self-evident, that the perfect equalization cf © 
mankind, such as is attributable to this imaginary and. . 
merely speculative state of natural freedom, would pre- 
vent every individual from acquiting an exclusive right 
ér property in. any portion of this terraqueous globe, oz in.” 
