conveying water through spouts or gutters into another's yard; of jutting or shooting out, of extending buildings fo as that they fhall hang over another man's ground; of building houses to a certain height; of making windows into another perfon's yard or garden; of profpect, by which a man is intituled to look into another's eftate; of carrying water-pipes and finks through a neighbour's house; of enjoying pathway, drift-way, and road. There are, befides, other limitations in refpect to difpofal.

In the next chapter our author difcuffes our common right to things; fuch as the ocean, large banks of fand, and the air, which cannot be divided by boundaries, wild beasts, birds and fifhes; though the right to these may be reftrained as to its exercife: then he explains the right of extream neceffity, where a man, in order to fave his life, takes victuals which belong to another perfon; when he pulls down his neighbour's house, in case of fire, to preferve his own, or cuts another man's cables with which his own boat is entangled, and in danger of finking the right on fhipboard of compelling an individual to bring out his stock of provifion in a scarcity; or, in a ftorm, of obliging each perfon to throw a certain proportion of his goods into the fea, for the prefervation of the veffel; and, lastly, the right which a nation at war has to seize upon, and garrifon a place of ftrength in a neutral country, when it is morally certain that the enemy would otherwise get poffeffion of it, and by that means be enabled to do them irreparable damage. Then he confiders the right of harmless profit, namely that of paffing over land or rivers in fearch of a new fettlement, or for the convenience of commerce. This, he obferves, is a right of the imperfect fort, and they upon whom it is exercifed, are at liberty to judge for themselves, how far it is convenient for them to allow it to take effect.

The 6th chapter turns on derivative acquifitions, which are made either by the act of man or by the act of the law. Mutual and notified confent of parties, are neceffary in deri̟vative acquifitions by the act of man. Alienation may be reyoked before acceptance; and acceptance may go before

alienation,

afienation. He obferves that property may be continued af-> ter death by a will, which is nothing more than a conditional alienation to take place on the event of the teftator's> death, without affecting his property in the thing disposed of till this event happens; that the right of making a will is incidental to property, and confequently co-eval with it; yet' fuch property in goods, as enables à man to give them away by will, must be full property, at least, it must not be limited: in respect of disposal.

Chapter 7 treats of derivative acquifitions by the act of law." Property transferred is done either by the law of nature, or fome pofitive law. Property is acquired by the law of nature, ei- ́ ther to fatisfy fome claim of ftrict juftice, or to fupply an heir to a perfon who dies inteftate. He obferves, that in- i teftate fucceffions need fome other fupport befide the law of nature, which though it obliges a man to maintain his chil-> dren, will not counsel him to leave his effects among them; and as they have no direct claim upon his goods, even during his life-time, their claim of maintenance can give them no right to his goods after his death. Nor does inheritance arife from the general consent of all mankind; but, it is the effect of civil laws eftablished in different nations. Yet in the introduction of inteftate fucceffions, regard is had to a man's personal duty, and his children stand firft in the fucceffion. Where he leaves no children, his parents are entirely left out, on the presumption that he has no parents in being.

He fhews that Philo is miftaken in his interpretation of the Mofaic law, when he fays, that the father is not excluded from the fucceffion. He demonftrates, that the order of fucceffion may be varied by civil laws; that the fucceffion of children may be cut off by disherifon; that uncertainty of birth hinders a child from fucceeding to an inteftate parent; that infants, ideots, and madmen are naturally incapable of property; contrary to the affertion of Grotius, who imagines thefe are made capable of accepting and retaining property by the common confent of mankind, which confiders them as part of the human fpecies. That, therefore, which is called the estate of an ideot, infant, or madman, would be common

to the first person who should seize it, were not such a seizure expressly prohibited by law, and the property taken into cuftody by the law, and guarded for the benefit of him who would be the owner of it, if he was capable of property.

Prescription is the subject of the eighth chapter, being a right to a thing acquired by long, honest, and uninterrupted fucceffion; a right founded upon the prefumed dereliction of the former proprietor. He obferves, that prescription, extends. to incorporeal things, such as jurisdiction and fovereignty. He mentions fome reasons for believing that prescription has been established by an universal law; obferves, that the time must be long enough for prefuming that the former owner was not hindered from putting in his claim by ignorance or by fear; but must have had frequent opportunities of knowing both what his right is, and who was in poffeffion of it, and frequent opportunities likewife of releafing himself from any restraints which might have forced him to be filent as to his claim; and he proves that prefcription holds against perfons unborn.

The next chapter explains the obligations arifing from pro-. perty, and the nature of reftitution. In the subsequent chapter, he treats of the right which a man has in his own person, including an independent power of acting as he thinks proper. He fays, the law of nature is the only original restraint upon a man's power of acting; that liberty is not unalienable; that reftraints upon liberty by the law of nature are of three forts, arifing from our duty towards God, our duty towards mankind, and our duty towards ourselves, with the particulars of which, it will not be amifs to prefent the inconfiderate reader.

But it is proper to confider, how far we have a right to • difpofe of our perfon, or to manage it in any manner, that we please; whether our liberty, or the power of acting as we think fit, is, in refpect of ourselves, under no restraint from the law of nature.

It seems to be self-evidently true, that no man can have a right to manage his own perfon, or to difpofe of it in fuch a manner, as will render him incapable of doing his duty. • For

For his duty is a restraint, which arifes from the law of nature : ❝ he cannot therefore have any right to free himself from that, ♦ unless he has a right to free himself from all reftaints, which the law of nature has laid him under. The consequence of this is, that a man's right to his life or his limbs is a limit⚫ed right; they are his to use, but not his to dispose of. As they were given him to use, whoever deprives him of them does him an injury. But then, as they are not his to abuse or dispose of, it follows, that he breaks through the law of nature, whenever he renders himself incapable of 'complying in any inftance with that law, which the author and giver of his life and limbs, has required him to ob• ferve.

• Upon this account we have no right to maim ourselves; if by fuch an act we fhall become unable to discharge any of the duties of juftice or benevolence. And much lefs have we any right to kill ourselves; fince by this means we ⚫ become unable to discharge any duty at all. A duty, which we can release ourselves from at pleasure, is unintelligible; 'it is in effect no duty: the law of nature could not in any refpect be binding upon a man, if we fuppofe him to have. 'fuch a right in his own perfon, that he may at any time, by his own voluntary act, lawfully releafe himself from the • whole obligation of it, or in any respect render himself incap❝able of performing it.

< Upon the fame principles we may easily understand, that 'all fuch luxury or intemperance, in eating or drinking, as ' either fills up too much of a man's time, and takes him off from his duty, or by difordering his understanding, clouding ⚫his judgment and impairing his health, incapacitates him for ⚫ the performance of fuch duty, are not within the bounds of his liberty; his power of acting, as he thinks fit, is re• ftrained in these instances by the law of nature.

• Some duties of chastity are plainly fuch as refpect not only ourfelves, but likewise other men; because a breach of thofe duties is an injury to others. Of this fort are adultery, and rapes: to which we may add the debauching vir

'tuous

tuous women; because those women are thus deprived of their credit and reputation, and the peace and quiet of their family and relations are broken in upon. The confent of the woman, who is debauched, can no more excuse the in- ' jury, than the confent of a perfon, who is cheated out of his property, can excufe the fraud. To raise and enflame her paffions, till it is not in the power of her reason to con• trol them, and then to take the advantage of that weakness, which he, who debauches her, has been the occafion of, is the fame thing in effect, as to mislead a person's underftanding, and then take the advantage of his ignorance to cheat him out of his property.

There are other breaches of chastity, which the law of ⚫ nature forbids; because they fruftrate that end, for which the defire of the fexes towards each other was implanted by nature. Amongst these breaches of chastity, befides thofe of the groffer fort, we may fairly reckon common prostitution, and the debaucheries of fuch, as indulge their lufts ⚫ with common prostitutes.'

In the 11th chapter Dr. Rutherforth confiders parental authority. He proves that this authority is not founded on the act of generation in the father, as Grotius affirms, but upon the duty of the parents, who are bound by nature to maintain their children. He obferves, that the authority of the father is fuperior to that of the mother. He explains the three divifions of childhood; the nature of parental authority, which ceases in the second part of childhood, that is, when the child has attained maturity of judgment; the honour due to parents in the third part of childhood, after the child has joined itself to another family, for he takes the word childhood not in the common acceptation, but as a term implying the relation between parents and children. Then he takes notice that the variations in parental authority fhew the origin of it. He fixes the bounds of natural minority, expatiates upon the right that parents have to punish and correct their children, and points out fome cafes in which the parents have a right to fell their children, namely, When they can no otherwife provide for their fubfiftence.

Laftly,