Mankind Will Not Be Reasoned

There Is Nothing Which So Generally Strikes The Imagination, And Engages The Affections Of Mankind, As The Right Of Property; Or That Sole And Despotic Dominion Which One Man Claims And Exercises Over The External Things Of The World, In Total Exclusion Of The Right Of Any Other Individual In The Universe. And Yet There Are Very Few, That Will Give Themselves The Trouble To Consider The Original And Foundation Of This Right.

Until The Content Of A Belief Is Made Clear, The Appeal To Accept The Belief On Faith Is Beside The Point, For One Would Not Know What One Has Accepted. The Request For The Meaning Of A Religious Belief Is Logically Prior To The Question Of Accepting That Belief On Faith Or To The Question Of Whether That Belief Constitutes Knowledge.

Herein Indeed Consists The Excellence Of The English Government, That All Parts Of It Form A Mutual Check Upon Each Other.

Of Crimes Injurious To The Persons Of Private Subjects, The Most Principal And Important Is The Offense Of Taking Away That Life, Which Is The Immediate Gift Of The Great Creator; And Which Therefore No Man Can Be Entitled To Deprive Himself Or Another Of, But In Some Manner Either Expressly Commanded In, Or Evidently Deducible From, Those Laws Which The Creator Has Given Us; The Divine Laws, I Mean, Of Either Nature Or Revelation.

There Is Nothing Which So Generally Strikes The Imagination And Engages The Affections Of Mankind, As The Right Of Property.