VIII NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS 340 



and visits with penalties those who disobey. 

 " Thou shalt not steal," the negative form of 

 the recognition of rights of property, is both a 

 moral and a civil law. It rests on the authority 

 either of a Deity, or on that of conscience, or on 

 that of some civil person whose dominion is re- 

 cognised ; and its sanction, or penalty, incurred 

 by disobedience, is hell, or remorse, or imprison- 

 ment, or all three. 



The proper object and effect of moral and civil 

 laws are to benefit all who are subjected to them 

 by bringing about a state of peace and mutual 

 confidence the laws restraining each individual 

 from acts which are hurtful and encouraging 

 those which are beneficial to the polity of which 

 he is a member. On the contrary, the " Law of 

 Nature " is not a command to do, or to refrain 

 from doing, anything. It contains, in reality, 

 nothing but a statement of that which a given 

 being tends to do under the circumstances of its 

 existence ; and which, in the case of a living and 

 sensitive being, it is necessitated to do, if it is 

 to escape certain kinds of disability, pain, and 

 ultimate dissolution. The natural right deduced 

 from such a law of nature is simply a way of stat- 

 ing the fact ; and there is, in the nature of things, 

 no reason why a being possessing such and such 

 tendencies to action should not carry them into 

 effect. Confused with moral and civil laws and 

 translated into the language of command, the 



