ail; but these truths are
written on the heart of man: that all men are, by nature, _equal_; that
civil society can never have arisen from any motive other than that of
the _benefit of the whole_; that, whenever civil society makes the
greater part of the people _worse off_ than they were under the Law of
Nature, the civil compact is, in conscience, dissolved, and all the
rights of nature return; that, in civil society, the _rights and the
duties go hand in hand_, and that, when the former are taken away, the
latter cease to exist.

335. Now, then, in order to act well our part, as citizens, or members
of the community, we ought clearly to understand _what our rights are_;
for, on our enjoyment of these depend our duties, rights going before
duties, as value received goes before payment. I know well, that just
the contrary of this is taught in our political schools, where we are
told, that our _first duty_ is to _obey the laws_; and it is not many
years ago, that HORSLEY, Bishop of Rochester, told us, that the _people_
had _nothing_ to do with the laws but to _obey_ them. The truth is,
however, that the citizen's _first duty_ is to maintain his rights, as
it is the purchaser's first duty to receive the thing for which he has
contracted.

336. Our rights in society are numerous; the right of enjoying life and
property; the right of exerting our physical and mental powers in an
innocent manner; but, the great right of all, and without which there
is, in fact, _no right_, is, the right of _taking a part in the making
of the laws by which we are governed_. This right is founded in that law
of Nature spoken of above; it springs out of the very principle of civil
society; for what _compact_, what _agreement_, what _common assent_, can
possibly be imagined by which men would give up all the rights of
nature, all the free enjoyment of their bodies and their minds, in order
to subject themselves to rules and laws, in the making of which they
should have nothing to say, and which should be enforced upon them
without their assent? The great right, therefore, of _every man_, the
right of rights, is the right of having a share in the making of the
laws, to which the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit.

337. With regard to the means of enabling every man to enjoy this share,
they have been different, in different countries, and, in the same
countries, at different times. Generally it has been, and in great
communities i