A.General Division of the Duties of Right.
(Juridical Duties).
In this division we may very conveniently follow Ulpian, if his three formulae are taken in a general sense, which may not have been quite clearly in his mind, but which they are capable of being developed into or of receiving.They are the following:
1.Honeste vive."Live rightly." juridical rectitude, or honour (honestas juridica), consists in maintaining one's own worth as a man in relation to others.This duty may be rendered by the proposition: "Do not make thyself a mere means for the use of others, but be to them likewise an end." This duty will be explained in the next formula as an obligation arising out of the right of humanity in our own person (lex justi).
2.Neminem laede."Do wrong to no one." This formula may be rendered so as to mean: "Do no wrong to any one, even if thou shouldst be under the necessity, in observing this duty, to cease from all connection with others and to avoid all society" (lex juridica).
3.Suum cuique tribue."Assign to every one what is his own." This may be rendered, "Enter, if wrong cannot be avoided, into a society with others in which every one may have secured to him what is his own." If this formula were to be simply translated, "Give every one his own," it would express an absurdity, for we cannot give any one what he already has.If it is to have a definite meaning, it must therefore run thus: "Enter into a state in which every one can have what is his own secured against the action of every other" (lex justitiae).
These three classical formulae, at the same time, represent principles which suggest a division of the system of juridical duties into internal duties, external duties, and those connecting duties which contain the latter as deduced from the principle of the former by subsumption.
B.Universal Division of Rights.
I.Natural Right and Positive Right.The system of rights, viewed as a scientific system of doctrines, is divided into natural right and positive right.Natural right rests upon pure rational principles a priori; positive or statutory right is what proceeds from the will of a legislator.
II.Innate Right and Acquired Right.The system of rights may again be regarded in reference to the implied powers of dealing morally with others as bound by obligations, that is, as furnishing a legal title of action in relation to them.Thus viewed, the system is divided into innate right and acquired right.Innate right is that right which belongs to every one by nature, independent of all juridical acts of experience.Acquired right is that right which is founded upon such juridical acts.
Innate right may also be called the "internal mine and thine"(meum vel tuum internum) for external right must always be acquired.
There is only one Innate Right, the Birthright of Freedom.
