Men are never in a state of _total_ independence
of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it
conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action
without its having some effect upon others, or, of course, without
producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct. The
_situations_ in which men relatively stand produce the rules and
principles of that responsibility, and afford directions to prudence in
exacting it.
Distance of place does not extinguish the duties or the rights of men;
but it often renders their exercise impracticable. The same circumstance
of distance renders the noxious effects of an evil system in any
community less pernicious. But there are situations where this
difficulty does not occur, and in which, therefore, those duties are
obligatory and these rights are to be asserted. It has ever been the
method of public jurists to draw a great part of the analogies on which
they form the law of nations from the principles of law which prevail in
civil community. Civil laws are not all of them merely positive. Those
which are rather conclusions of legal reason than matters of statutable
provision belong to universal equity, and are universally applicable.
Almost the whole praetorian law is such. There is a _law of neighborhood_
which does not leave a man perfect master on his own ground. When a
neighbor sees a _new erection_, in the nature of a nuisance, set up at
his door, he has a right to represent it to the judge, who, on his part,
has a right to order the work to be stayed, or, if established, to be
removed.
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