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Show 20 LID E R T Y AND SLAVERY. abridged by the laws of society, is, by identifying this natural fr·cedom, not with a power to act as God wills, but with a power in conformity with our own sovereign will and pleasure. The same thing is expressly done by Paley.* "To do what we will," says he, "is natural liberty." Starting from this definition, it is no wonder that he should have supposed that natural liberty is restrained by civil government. In like manner, Burke first says, "That the effect of liberty to individuals is, tl•at tl.ey may do wl,at they please;" and then concludes, that in order to "secure some liberty," we make "a surrender in trust of the whole of it."t Thus the natural rights of mankind are first caricatured, and then sacrificed. If there be no God, if there be no difference between right and wrong, if there be no moral law in the universe, then indeed would men possess a natural light to do mischief or to act as they please. Then indeed should we be fefr tered by no law in a state of nature, and liberty therein would be coe:>--tensive with power. Right would give place to might, and the least *Political Phil., chap. v. t Rcficctions on the Revolution in France. NATURE OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 21 restraint, even from the best laws, would im. pair our natural freedom. But we subscribe to no such philosophy. That learned authors, that distinguishedjurists, that celebrated philosophers, that pious divines, should thus deliberately include the enjoyment of our natural rights and the indulgence of our evil passions in one and the same definition of liberty, is, it seems to us, matter of the most profound astonishment and regret. It is to confound the source of all tyranny with the fountain of all freedom. It is to put darkness for light, and light for darkness. And it is to inflame the minds of men with the idea that they are struggling and contending for liberty, when, in reality, they may be only struggling and contending for the gratification of their malignant passions. Such an offence against all clear tl1inking, such an outrage against all sound political ethics, becomes the more amazing when we reflect on the greatness of the authors by whom it is committed, aud the stupendous magnitude of the interests involved in their discussions. Should we, then, exhibit the fundamental law of society, and the natural liberty of mankind, as antagonistic principles ? Is not this the way to J7epare the human mind, at all times so pas- |