the assembled fathers that rendered the soul immortal. The French Convention decreed their belief in a Supreme Being, but this was only recognising a belief which previously existed. Right being natural, that condition of society must be most accordant with nature, in which human rights are most fully developed, and best protected. This principle immediately leads to the exposure of the fallacy, that the barbarian possesses more liberty than the civilized man. Absolute liberty-a total freedom from all restraints save those imposed by the conscience and understanding-can only exist in the exceptional cases of individuals totally isolated from society. Of such liberty no estimate can be formed-a standard of comparison is wanting: one thing, however, is clear; that such a state can neither be very desirable, nor very valuable; because the few who have been found in such a condition, differ little, if at all, from beasts in their lair. Wherever there is society, there must of necessity be law; there must be restraint. Political liberty-the liberty belonging to man in his natural, that is to say, in the social state-has been justly defined, by Lord Plunket, to be protection in doing every thing not prohibited by law. Obedience to law is, consequently, a necessary element of freedom; for law being instituted to protect the exercise of individual rights, a violation of law is not so much an exercise of individual freedom as an intrusion on the rights of others. Let us take fiscal regulations as an example: the smuggler evades the payment of duties on certain articles of consumption, and argues his right to purchase what he requires as cheap as he F can; but nothing is more clear, than that his exercise of this right violates the rights of others. It sounds harsh, but it is nevertheless true, that the smuggler robs his neighbours; for they must be taxed to make good the deficiency which he causes in the revenue: a right is not destroyed when its exercise is modified; on the contrary, it may be thus rendered more valuable and perfect. We are not prevented from eating and drinking because disease is attendant on gluttony and intoxication: the rules for regulating riding and driving on the public road do not prevent travelling; on the contrary, they enable all to travel with ease and safety. The misconceptions which prevail on this subject arise from the primary error, of a natural state of man and a natural liberty having no reference to society. Civil liberty is falsely judged by an imaginary and negative standard. It is believed that the less you are required to give up of your supposed original liberty, the greater will be the amount of civil liberty. Such a notion is radically wrong. It assumes society to be a human institution, a conventional contrivance; whereas we have shewn that it is not only natural, but absolutely necessary to the existence of man, since, without it, he would be a naked rover of the forests, a miserable fugitive before its other savage tenants, and the most helpless of all living things. Liberty, then, is not to be measured by the greater or less absence of restraint; unless, indeed, we take the account of it said to have been given by a heated partisan of faction. "I wish I were free, I wish I were free!" exclaimed this worthy gentleman. "And are you not free?" asked a friend. "Can you not do as you please?" "Ay," he replied, "but I cannot make you do as I please!" Is this what is meant by original liberty? Restraint is not inconsistent with liberty, because there is no giving up of any thing which we formerly possessed. We are forbidden to bear false witness against our neighbour. But as Lieber justly asks, “had we ever the right to speak against our neighbour?" In the supposed state of original liberty, man had no neighbours. He might, of course, mutter to himself what he chose, and we may say against our neighbour any thing we like, provided we take care that no one overhears the calumny. Designing and intending the death of the sovereign or the overthrow of the government is highly penal in every civilized society; but in the imaginary original condition, the natural man is his own sovereign and his own government; if he be guilty of designing and intending against himself, he will assuredly have to pay the penalty. Liberty, then, exists in the degree in which a man's action and activity in all just and right things are unfettered by the action and activity of others. Hence the absence of law and government, in so far as these restraints are really wanting in the savage state, is not favourable to liberty, or the source of happiness, but is the great curse and blight of a barbarous condition. In truth, it is only of the protecting power of the laws that the people are deprived,—of their controlling and oppressive efficacy they feel more than enough. Whatever of independence exists, belongs to the chiefs alone, and they are generally subject to the caprice of a more powerful head, the only constitutional check on whose tyranny, is the dread of assassination. The character of a barbarous sovereign-the only kind of monarch found in the savage state-is forcibly drawn by the prophet Samuel: "This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out on that day because of your king which ye have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day."-1 Sam. viii. 11-18. Nor is the state of society better when the royal authority is either weak or wanting. The condition of Palestine under its worst tyrant was not so bad as when "there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes." As there is nothing fixed and nothing defined, every savage is almost constantly interfering with his neighbour. The sower is not sure that he will be the reaper; the hunter having run down the chase, is not sure that another man will not start fresh from the bush, and intercept his prey. Ere Latium became civilized, the same word, hostis, signified both an enemy and a stranger. Kidnapping and slavery, in their worst forms, are invariably found in savage life. There is, unfortunately, no doubt that slavery has existed in countries claiming a high degree of civilization; but this remnant of barbarism has always been restricted, both by positive law and by the force of public opinion. Even in the slave-states of America, a tyrannical and cruel master is an object of general odium. There are times, indeed, when the cowardice of fear prompts the whites to measures of sanguinary precaution, as, indeed, must always be the case, wherever there is a legalised ascendency; but except when influenced by such a passion, civilized society resents the infliction of wanton cruelty. But in barbarous nations, slavery is unrestricted; there are no limits to the power of the master-and there is no definition of his relations to the slave. A New Zealand chief puts a cookee to death with as little compunction as a European brushes away a fly. Captain Cruise informs us that when a son of one of the chiefs died in Mr. Marsden's house in New South Wales, it required the interposition of that gentleman's authority to prevent some of the boy's countrymen who were with him from killing a few of their slaves in honour of their deceased friend. - That civilization is more favourable to personal liberty than barbarism, appears evident from the fact, |