We hold from God the gift which, as far as we are concerned, contains
all others, Life--physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot support itself. He who has bestowed it, has entrusted us
with the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting it.
To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful
faculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It
is by the application of our faculties to these elements, that the
phenomena of assimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues
the circle which has been assigned to it, are realized.
Existence, faculties, assimilation--in other words, personality,
liberty, property--this is man. It is of these three things that it may
be said, apart from all demagogue subtlety, that they are anterior and
superior to all human legislation.
It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and
property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and
property exist beforehand, that men make laws.
What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective
organization of the individual right to lawful defence.
Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to
defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the
three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of
which is rendered complete by the others, and cannot be understood
without them.
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