1.] POOR MAN'S FRIEND. 11 



away, or to injure, the property of another man. It 

 was, you will observe, even in this state of nature, 

 always a crime to do certain things against our neigh- 

 bour. To kill him, to wound him, to slander him, 

 to expose him to suffer from the want of food or rai- 

 ment, or shelter. These, and many others, were 

 crimes in the eye of the law of nature ; but, to take 

 share of a man's victuals or clothing ; to go and in- 

 sist upon sharing a part of any of the good things 

 that he happened to have in his possession, could be 

 no crime, because there was -no property in anything, 

 except in man's body itself. Now, civil society was 

 formed for the benefit of the whole. The whole 

 gave up their natural rights, in order that every one 

 might, for the future, enjoy his life in greater security. 

 This civil society was intended to change the state of 

 man^br the better. Before this state of civil society, 

 the starving, the hungry, the naked man, had a right 

 to go and provide himself with necessaries wherever 

 he could find them. There would be sure to be 

 some such necessitous persons in a state of civil so- 

 ciety. Therefore, when civil society was established, 

 it is impossible to believe that it had not in view 

 some provision for these destitute persons. It would 

 be monstrous to suppose the contrary. The contrary 

 supposition would argue, that fraud was committed 

 upon the mass of the people in forming this civil so- 

 ciety ; for, as the sparks fly upwards, so will there al- 

 ways be destitute persons to some extent or other, in 

 every community, and such there are to now a consider- 

 able extent, even in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; 

 therefore, the formation of the civil society must have 

 been fraudulent or tyrannical upon any other suppo- 

 sition than that it made provision, in some way or 

 other, for destitute persons ; that is to say, for persons 

 unable, from some cause or other, to provide for them- 

 selves the food and raiment sufficient to preserve them 

 from perishing. Indeed, a provision for the destitute 

 seems essential to the lawfulness of civil society ; and 

 this appears to have been the opinion of BLACKSTONE, 

 when, in the first Book and first Chapter of his Com- 

 15 



