THE CITIZEN

331. Having now given my Advice to the YOUTH, the grown-up MAN, the
LOVER, the HUSBAND and the FATHER, I shall, in this concluding Number,
tender my Advice to the CITIZEN, in which capacity every man has rights
to enjoy and duties to perform, and these too of importance not inferior
to those which belong to him, or are imposed upon him, as son, parent,
husband or father. The word _citizen_ is not, in its application,
confined to the mere inhabitants of cities: it means, a _member of a
civil society, or community_; and, in order to have a clear
comprehension of man's rights and duties in this capacity, we must take
a look at the _origin of civil communities_.

332. Time was when the inhabitants of this island, for instance, laid
claim to all things in it, without the words _owner_ or _property_ being
known. God had given to _all_ the people all the land and all the trees,
and every thing else, just as he has given the burrows and the grass to
the rabbits, and the bushes and the berries to the birds; and each man
had the good things of this world in a greater or less degree in
proportion to his skill, his strength and his valour. This is what is
called living under the LAW OF NATURE; that is to say, the law of
self-preservation and self-enjoyment, without any restraint imposed by a
regard for the good of our neighbours.

333. In process of time, no matter from what cause, men made amongst
themselves a compact, or an agreement, to divide the land and its
products in such manner that each should have a share to his own
exclusive use, and that each man should be protected in the exclusive
enjoyment of his share by the _united power of the rest_; and, in order
to ensure the due and certain application of this united power, the
whole of the people agreed to be bound by regulations, called LAWS. Thus
arose civil society; thus arose _property_; thus arose the words _mine_
and _thine_. One man became possessed of more good things than another,
because he was more industrious, more skilful, more careful, or more
frugal: so that LABOUR, of one sort or another, was the BASIS of all
property.

334. In what manner civil societies proceeded in providing for the
making of laws and for the enforcing of them; the various ways in which
they took measures to protect the weak against the strong; how they have
gone to work to secure wealth against the attacks of poverty; these are
subjects that it would require volumes to det