for bodily goods. Whence the laws that have health as their object—that is, preserving or restoring the salubriousness of the air and the purity of the water, the good quality of the other things that nourish the body, the choice of remedies, the competence of doctors and surgeons; the precautions taken against contagious diseases.
It is also a continuation of the same object to provide for what concerns living provisions—such as bread, wine, meat, and the other foods—whether related to the husbandry (for those who need it) or to their protection, transportation, sale, and preparation, even for what is used in the feeding of the animals that serve in the cultivation of the land or in the transport.
Distinguishing among costumes according to the status and condition of persons, and the task of repressing luxury, are likewise objects of public law in every state.6
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The laws also contain many rules relating to clothing, such as whatever concerns the quality that the materials are supposed to have, the distinction among costumes according to status, and what tends toward the repression of luxury.
It also provides that buildings be constructed in a solid manner, and that nothing be made that is contrary to the decor of the city; that the streets and public ways be made secure and convenient, and not obstructed. This has produced a multitude of particular regulations whose object is to prevent sundry accidents that might occur due to the imprudence of the workers or the drivers of horses or wagons, etc.
One of the greatest objects of the public law of every state is the administration of justice in general. But not everything related to this belongs equally to public law. In this regard, one must distinguish form and content, civil matters and criminal matters.
The form of the administration of justice belongs to public law, in civil matters as well as in criminal matters. This is why individuals are not allowed to deviate from it.
But in substance, the arrangement of the laws concerning what touches individuals in civil matters belongs to private law. Thus, individuals can deviate from it by agreement—unless there is some contrary law, in which case this law forms part of public law.
As for the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors, it is entirely in the jurisdiction of public law. One does not include in this category certain acts that interest only individuals, but solely those that disturb public order, directly or indirectly—such as heresy, blasphemy, sacrilege, and other impieties; the crime of lèse-majesté, rebellions against justice, illicit assemblies, bearing of arms, and assaults;7 duels, the crime of embezzlement, extortion, and other official malfeasance; the crime of counterfeiting, assassination, homicide, poisoning, parricide, and other attacks on the life of others or one’s own; the exposure of children, robbery and larceny, fraudulent bankruptcy, the crime of forgery, attacks against modesty, slander, and other acts injurious to the government, etc.
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It is clear from what has just been said that whatever concerns the functions of judicial officials and other public officials is likewise a matter of public law.
The public law of each state also has as its object everything belonging to the governing of finances, such as the assignment and levying of taxes, the proportion that is to be maintained in their distribution, and the abuses that might slip into these operations or in the collection.
Finally, this same law embraces everything related to the common utility, such as shipping and commerce, colonies, manufactures, the sciences, arts and trades, workers of every kind, the power of masters over their servants and domestics, and the submission that the latter owe their masters, and everything that concerns the public tranquility, such as regulations made for the relief of the poor, for obliging able-bodied mendicants to work, for the confinement of vagabonds and vagrants.8
It would be very curious to detail all these matters, but since this could not be done without repeating part of the subject matter of the articles CRIME, GOUVERNEMENT, PUISSANCE PUBLIQUE [Public Power], and other similar ones, it will be enough to refer to those articles. (A)
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NATURAL EQUALITY (Natural law) is that which is found among all men solely by the constitution of their nature. This equality is the principle and foundation of liberty. Natural or moral equality is therefore based on the constitution of human nature common to all men, who are born, grow, live, and die in the same way.
Since human nature is the same in all men, it is clear according to natural law that each person must value and treat other people as so many individuals who are naturally equal to himself, that is to say, as men like himself.
Several consequences ensue from this principle of the natural equality of men. I shall rapidly examine the principal ones.
(1) It follows from this principle that all men are naturally free and that the faculty of reason could only make them dependent for their own welfare.
(2) That in spite of all the inequalities produced in the political government by the differences in station, by nobility, power, riches, etc., those who have risen the most above others must treat their inferiors as being naturally equal to them by avoiding any insults, by demanding nothing beyond what is required, and by demanding with humanity only what is unquestionably due.
(3) That whoever has not acquired a particular right, by virtue of which he can demand preferential treatment, must not claim more than others
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but, on the contrary, allow them to enjoy equally the same rights that he assumes for himself.
(4) That anything which is a universal right must be either universally enjoyed or alternately possessed, or divided into equal portions among those who have the same right, or allotted with equitable and regulated compensation; or finally if this is possible, the decision should be made by lot: a quite suitable expedient that removes any suspicion of contempt and partiality without diminishing in any way the esteem of those people not immediately favored. Finally, to go even further, I base on the incontestable principle of natural equality, as did the judicious Hooker,1 all the duties of charity, of humanity, and of justice which all men are obliged to practice toward one another, and it would not be difficult to demonstrate this.
The reader will derive other consequences that arise from the principle of the natural equality of men. I shall observe only that it is the violation of this principle that has established political and civil slavery. The result is that in the countries subject to arbitrary power, the princes, the courtiers, the principal ministers, those who control the finances, possess all the riches of the nation, while the rest of the citizens have only the necessaries of life, and the great majority of people groan in poverty.
Nevertheless let no one do me the injustice of supposing that with a sense of fanaticism I approve in a state that chimera, absolute equality, which could hardly give birth to an ideal republic. I am only speaking here of the natural equality of men.
I know too well the necessity of different ranks, grades, honors, distinctions, prerogatives, subordinations that must prevail in all governments. And I would even state that natural or moral equality are not contrary to this. In the state of nature
