342 NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS via 



He who has said that natural right is a general and sov 

 law, which regulates the rights of all men, has spoken truly. 



He who has said that the natural right of men is the unlimited 

 right of all to everything has spoken truly. 



He who has said that the natural right of men is a right 

 limited by a tacit or explicit convention has spoken truly. 



He who has said that natural right has nothing to do with 

 either justice or injustice has spoken truly. l 



He who has said that natural right is a just, decisive, and 

 fundamental right, has spoken truly. 



But none has spoken truly in relation to all cases. 



What is one to make of this litany of anti- 

 nomies ? Quesnay himself seems to have been 

 content to leave the riddle unanswered while his 

 successors do not appear to have understood that 

 there was a riddle to answer. Each proposition 

 may certainly be plausibly justified, and yet 

 contradicts, or is hard to reconcile with, some 

 other. Now, when this is the case, we may be 

 pretty sure that the difficulty arises from some 

 ambiguity of language. If " Natural Right " is 

 susceptible of these opposing predicates, it must In- 

 that it stands for two or more widely different, 

 ideas. I propose to endeavour to show that this 

 solution of the difficulty is correct. 



Some time ago I fell in with an Indian tiger 

 story of a peculiarly gruesome sort, and I repeat 

 the substance of it, not from any especial love t'..r 



: In a note Oiiesnay observes that this is the case of a man 

 alone in a desert island, whose natural right to the prod;, 

 tin- island involves neither justin- nor injustice, inasmuch as 

 these terms express the relations of two or mot 



