VIII NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS 357 



commander. Yet, surely, no one but a lunatic 

 can maintain that, in case of invasion, or rebellion, 

 threatening the social person the polity with 

 destruction, that composite man has not as much 

 natural right to take any measure essential to 

 self-preservation, as an individual man has under 

 the law of nature. And from this extreme case, 

 to the petty question, as to whether the deposi- 

 tary of dominion in a polity has or has not the 

 right to infringe the " natural right " of a man to 

 leave the path in front of his- house unswept of 

 snow, there is an endless gradation in the import- 

 ance of the problems, all of which can be solved 

 only by the application of the same principles. Is 

 it, or is it not, for the welfare of society at that 

 time and under those circumstances looking at 

 the question all round and taking fully into 

 account the disadvantages of restraint of liberty 

 that its members should be compelled to do this, 

 or be restrained from doing that ? 



The political delusions which spring from the 

 ' natural rights ' doctrine are multitudinous ; but 

 I think there is only one more which is worth at- 

 tention at present. That is the extraordinary notion 

 that the logical consequence of the " natural right " 

 of all men to any given thing is the sharing of the 

 rights of property in that thing equally among all 

 the claimants. Let us suppose two boys, John and 

 Peter. I take an apple out of my pocket, and I 

 say, " This apple is entirely yours, John ; and, Peter, 



