Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/40



The welfare and happiness of Society, indeed, require, that every individual, from the highest to the lowest, should have some general idea of Law; but more particularly is this requisite in England, where the People enjoy (as the most valuable Heritage derived from their ancestors) the natural and most equitable Right of forming a part of the legislative Power,

Law is indeed a very comprehensive Term, which includes such a prodigious fund of abstruse learning, that a particular and accurate knowledge of it is scarcely to be acquired with the utmost assiduity and labour even of a man’s whole life; and yet a general idea of Law (I mean that which is immutable and eternal, and which forms the ground and basis of all other Laws) may nevertheless be very easily inculcated  and as easily retained: because the great out-lines, or rather the Elements and first Principles, of the Law consist of the most obvious and self evident conclusions of REASON, which are implanted in our very Nature; since we inherit from our first Parents the Knowledge