CHAPTER X.
We now come to accompany man throughout all the complex and manifold relations which his life in society presents, and shall begin with considering the simplest of these, or that in which (although in union with others) man remains strictly within the limits of what pertains to himself, and engages in nothing that refers immediately to the rights of others. It is to this aspect of the civil relations that the greater number of our so-called police, or preventive, laws are directed; since, however indefinite this expression may be, it still conveys to us the general and important idea, that such laws relate to the means of averting violations of the rights of others, while they have nothing to do with the violations of such right which are actually committed. Now they either operate to restrict actions whose immediate consequences are calculated to endanger the rights of others; or they impose limitations on those which usually end in transgressions of law; or, lastly, they may design to determine what is necessary for the preservation or efficient exercise of the political power itself. I must here overlook the fact that those regulations which do not relate to security, but are directed to the positive welfare of the citizen, are most commonly classed under this head; since it does not fall in with the system of division I have adopted. Now, according to the principles we have already determined, the State ought not to interfere with this, the simplest of human
