| Title: | Natural liberty |
| Original Title: | Liberté naturelle |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 9 (1765), pp. 471–472 |
| Author: | Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt (biography) |
| Translator: | Thomas Zemanek [University of Michigan] |
| Subject terms: |
Natural law
|
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.246 |
| Citation (MLA): | Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. "Natural liberty." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Thomas Zemanek. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2009. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.246>. Trans. of "Liberté naturelle," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 9. Paris, 1765. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. "Natural liberty." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Thomas Zemanek. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.246 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Liberté naturelle," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 9:471–472 (Paris, 1765). |
Natural Liberty, right that nature bestows upon all men to dispose of their persons and their goods in the manner they judge most conducive to their happiness, on the condition that they do so according to the terms of natural law, and that they do not abuse it to the detriment of other men. Natural laws are therefore the rule and measure of this liberty , because even though men in the primitive state of nature may be independent of one another, they are all dependent upon natural law, by which they must guide their actions.
The first state that man acquires through nature, and that we esteem the most precious of all things, is the state of liberty ; he can neither be traded for another, nor sold, nor lose his person; because naturally all men are born free, that is to say, they are not subject to the power of a master, and no one else has a proprietary right over them.
In virtue of this state, all men take from nature itself the power to do what seems to them to be good, and to use their efforts and goods as they see fit, provided that they do not violate the laws of the government to which they are subject.
Under the Romans a man lost his natural liberty when he was apprehended by the enemy in a declared war, or simply to punish him for some crime, he was reduced to the condition of slavery. But the Christians abolished servitude in peace and war, to the extent that even the prisoners taken in war on the infidels were understood to be free men; such that he who would kill one of these prisoners would be regarded and punished as a murderer.
Moreover, all of the Christian powers deemed that a servitude that would give to the master a right of life and death over his slaves was incompatible with the perfection to which the Christian religion calls men. But how is it that the Christian powers have not judged that this same religion, independent of natural law, could solicit the slavery of negroes? It is because they needed them for their colonies, their plantations, and their mines. Auri sacra fames! [1]
1. Here Jaucourt is quoting Virgil, “Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames!” This translates to English as, “Cursed avarice, on what desperate wickedness thy influence drives the minds of men!” Virgil, The Works of Virgil , trans. Malcom Campbell (New York, 1803), 305.