John Sherwin Crosby quotes

The Orthocratic State

1

' Principles of conduct as between man and man are merely general rules of action which it is the duty of human beings to observe toward one another. A duty always implies something due or owed from or by one person to another, but it is evident that if one owes anything to another it is because the latter may demand it as a right, and that there can be no duty without a correlative right. It necessarily follows that principles of duty as between man and man, the natural laws of human conduct, depend upon certain no less natural rights of man.

The natural rights of man, which are indeed his only rights, are not, as they are sometimes slightingly characterised, mere metaphysical conceptions, visionary conceits of the imagination, but actual, necessary physical conditions of normal human existence, as easily perceptible to the bodily senses as any most palpable entities. We take cognisance of them whenever we say of any man, as we often instinctively do, that he is "all right," meaning thereby that the conditions in mind have not been impaired. To doubt the reality of such natural conditions, or to question the propriety of calling them rights, is the hypermetaphysical illusion against which to guard, for they constitute the only demonstrable basis for a standard of right and wrong as between man and man. Without rights, men could not wrong one another.

Natural, human rights consist in the essential relations of man to the earth and to his fellow men, and have their sanction in the universal instinct of self-preservation. They are to a science of conduct, and hence to a science of government, what the axioms of mathematics are to a science of quantity. If man had no natural rights he could not have any rights whatever, for he would have no right to acquire or possess any. If he had no natural rights, he would have no right to establish the State, and whatever government he might maintain, being without natural, human right, would of necessity be either by supernatural, divine right, or without any right whatever.

A right, as commonly understood and defined, is that, whatever it may be, to which one is justly entitled, and if it exists in the nature of things it may well be termed a natural right. The natural condition or physical relation of being alive would surely seem to be one which every human being is entitled to maintain as against the effort or intent of any other to deprive him of it. Certain it is that if the validity of any man's title to life is to be contested the burden devolves upon those who dispute it and who in order to prevail must show better title than his. But what title to the life of another shall they assert who, by denying the existence of natural rights, virtually disclaim any right or title to their own? The right to life is not only natural but inherent and inalienable, it being impossible to conceive of its transfer, or of any man's becoming possessed of or entitled to the life of another.

Moreover, since that would be a right in name only which did not involve and carry with it the right of enjoyment, it follows that if man has a right to life he must also have the right to enjoy whatever nature has established or provided for the support or happiness of life, that is, freedom from interference by any other man or men with his enjoyment of whatever has been so established or provided. Man's right to maintain his natural relation to the earth and to his fellow men, as against the effort of any other to deprive him of such freedom, is called the right to liberty, which being essential to the inalienable right to life is therefore itself inalienable.

As the right to life involves the right to liberty, so does the latter right include among others certain relations of such importance as to be themselves also denominated rights although included in the right to liberty. The relation of ownership which naturally obtains between every human being and the direct or indirect product of his labour is called the right of property, that is, the right of proprietorship and control over such product, which is itself termed his property, or wealth. The relation which one naturally sustains to his fellow men with respect to the exchange of labour or property is called the right of contract, which includes the natural freedom of every human being to exchange his labour or property for the labour or labour-products of any and every other willing to make the exchange, in the natural market, a market consisting in the unrestricted competition of unprivileged natural persons only.

It is of course understood that the right to life includes security from bodily harm, and that the right to liberty embraces not only freedom from physical restraint, from manacles, fetters and prison walls, but freedom of location and of locomotion, that is, the freedom of every human being to be and to go wherever he will, as well as freedom to embrace and enjoy whatever opportunities nature affords for the support and happiness of life, and to make whatever use of them seems to him best, provided always that he does not interfere with the equal freedom of any other human being; also freedom of thought, speech and action, from verbal abuse and from injury to reputation.

Clearer conception of what is meant by a natural right may perhaps be had by conceiving of a man alone upon the earth. He would depend for existence upon his ability to utilise natural opportunities for the support of life, but his natural freedom of action would hardly occur to him as a right, for there would be no one to question it or against whom to assert it. Upon the coming of never so many other men there would be no change in the first man's relation to the earth and no less necessity for freedom of action on his part, nor would their relation to the earth or their dependence upon individual freedom of action be different from his. And even then not until some one or more of them interfered with the freedom of some other would it be conceived of as a right. '