properly concerned, they, it is obvious, can only belong to a man in society. Amongst others of these absurdities, Blackstone instances, as an absolute right, the right of private property—a right which, it is quite obvious, cannot exist out of a state of society” (44).

Mr. Austin, criticising Lord Hale, says: "The only gross mistakes that I have found in his masterly outline are his glaring and strange mistranslation of 'jus personarum et rerum,' and his placing under the department assigned to the status of persons, certain rights of persons which he styles their absolute rights" (45).

Lord Hale is not subject to the latter criticism, and his expression does does not furnish the ground, although undoubtedly it did contribute to Blackstone's error. Hale does say of persons that they are persons natural, or persons civil, i. e., bodies politic. "Persons natural are considered two ways: absolutely, and simply in themselves, or under some degree or respect of relation. In persons natural, simply and absolutely considered, we have these several considerations, namely: 1. The interest which every person has in himself. 2. Their capaacities or abilities, etc;" but at the same time, in section 2 and section 13, he treats the rights and liberties to be enjoyed by the people in relation to their lives, their liberties, their estates-treating them there as relative rights. Another confirmation of this is that, when speaking of rights of things in section 23, he says here they (rights of things) are considered absolutely and

44 Austin's Jur., lect. 43.

45 Austin's Jur. (3d ed.). 1869, p. 71.

simply themselves. Blackstone might as well have said absolute rights of things.

§ 90. Possible explanation of Blackstone's meaning. The peculiar notions at that time obtaining in reference to natural rights, together with the idea that we must not lose sight of, namely, the form of government being monarchical, the attribute of sovereignty inhering in the sense of a divine, or at least hereditary, right in the person of the king, and not remaining or being, as with us, in the people, may have seemed to Blackstone to require a treatment as distinct, independent, i. e., absolute, even against government, of those rights possessed by individuals in their particular persons and defined in such constitutional documents as we have mentioned. The idea was peculiar, and rested upon a seeming antagonism between the "people" and the government.

§ 91. Law relates to personal relations, things, actions. It seems obvious that in our scheme of government such enactments and regulations as are treated by Blackstone as protecting absolute rights of persons must be embraced within those rules governing the relations of the people, either in political affairs or in private conduct, as Hale classes them, or falling within the system that has grown up with ns under the name of Constitutional Law.

Every rule of law creates or affects rights, so that every rule relates to a right. Every rule is addressed to a person, so that all law is the law of persons, and a thing can have no rights; nor can the law address things; so that, properly speaking, there are no such distinctions

as rights of persons and rights of things. But some rules relate to the relations of persons in society, having no reference to external, tangible, alienable things. Other rules relate to the dominion of persons over things, or, briefly expressed, to property (46). Still another set of rules relate to those things without which rights in law would be valueless, namely: the means of redressing or punishing injuries to them; which latter branch may be classed under the head of actions, which a learned writer on jurisprudence says "includes civil actions or legal demands of a right by an individual in which the end is compensation, and a state of prosecution in which the end is punishment” (47).

We have endeavored to disentangle the substance embraced within the body of the law from the obscurity which has enveloped it on account of forms of expression borrowed from another system, and, if we have succeeded, it is now plain to us, from a comparison of the Institutes of Gaius and Justinian, and the analyses of Hale and Blackstone, and the logical reason of things that the rules of municipal law may be classified as follows:

First. The rules which designate what are persons and regulate their relations in society, i. e., the law of persons or personal relations.

Second. The rules which regulate the nature of and manner of holding things, i. e., the law of property.

, Wynehammer v. People, 13 N. Y. 378; Rigney v. Chicago, 102 Ill. 64.

47 Heron on Jurisprudence, 67.

Third. The rules providing remedies, both public and private, i. e., actions; and this is the sense in which we say the law relates to persons, to things, and to actions.

Fourth. The law relating to matters prohibited under penalty and prosecuted by the state or nation, i. e., criminal law.

CHAPTER VII.

MAGISTRATE AND PEOPLE.

§ 92. The public relations of men in society. Sufficient has been said to indicate that our treatment is of subjects as they are affected by positive municipal law, excluding the laws of nature and divine law, except in so far as they receive recognition by the civil law. The point has now been reached where the different relations men may bear toward each other and toward society must be pointed out and the rights and duties which flow from such relations.

The idea of absolute power or absolute rights has been shown to be but a mere figure of speech, and the assertion has been ventured that Lord Hale's treatment gives no warrant for such a designation of rights.

While Blackstone occasionally speaks of absolute rights and absolute power, as though such might exist within a constitutional monarchy, wherever he treats these subjects he shows clearly that these figures of speech have no practical application.

Magistracy defined. Notwithstanding this tendency, no better definition of magistracy than that of Blackstone has been given, and it is to be regretted that it occurs in a part of the book remote from that where the authority of magistrates is treated. His statement is as follows: