Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/519

493 KEENER ON QUASI-CONTRACTS. 493 This conception of law renders possible a simple and intelligible classification of legal rights upon the basis of the previously ascer- tained ethical rights. It is a strong confirmation of the classifica- tion which I shall now offer, that it conforms with great accuracy to the usually accepted classifications. In the first place comes the right of freedom. As has been seen, it is a negative right, requiring forbearance rather than active doing. It embraces within its scope, therefore, the whole class of torts. Assaults upon the person, property,^ or reputation are but instances of its violation. The conception of this right as a sub- ject of legal protection has greatly advanced within late years. The real need now is that all the various classes of torts, such as assault and battery, nuisance, libel, and the like, should be recog- nized as but separate instances of one unitary right. Much has been accomplished in this direction already,^ and the right of free- dom may justly be classed among the citizen's legal rights. The duty of co-operation follows after the right of freedom. It is positive in its nature, requiring active performance rather than forbearance. The citizen owes it to his fellow citizens to be gen- erous with his possessions and kindly and charitable in his speech. He owes it to the state to devote a proportionate share of his time to his civic relations, and a proportionate share of his property to the support of the civic institutions. Duties which are owed directly to the state are sometimes made the subject of the state's express command. They do not consti- tute direct legal relations between individuals, however, and are not therefore within the purview of this afticle, which is concerned only with the rights of individuals inter se. Duties of the latter kind, running to individuals directly, have very rarely received the enforcement of law. They involve too many considerations of re- state," because the command is the command of society as an organized whole, and not of any part of it. With these two exceptions, the substance of the definition is the same, although there is still some variance in phraseology. 1 I once ventured upon an analysis of the legal notion of property in an article entitled " Police Power and the Right to Compensation," 3 Harvard Law Review, 189. It is proper to add, that that article was written before I had arrived at the present theory of torts. Subsequent consideration only confirms me in the views then expressed. vard Law Review, 193. Also the case of Schuyler r. Curtis in its various stages : on motion for preliminary injunction, 27 Abb. N. C. 387 ; on appeal from injunction order, 64 Hun, 594 ; on the merits at the trial, 30 Abb. N. C. 376; on appeal from the final decree, 147 N. Y. 434.
 * See the able and conclusive article of Messrs. Warren and Brandeis in 4 Har-