THE PRINCIPLE
OF THE
DERIVATION OF RIGHTS
CHAPTER 3
The principle determining the harm done to rights
360. If the principle of the determination of rights is true, it must contain in itself the principle determining the harm done to rights themselves. But the principle of ownership which we have proposed offers us the possibility of showing the extent and the quantity of damage done to rights. In fact, when each human beings sphere of ownership is sufficiently known, `damage will be done every time that another individual departs from his own sphere and enters anothers. The amount of the damage will depend upon the extent to which one has entered the others sphere.
Only the formal right of personal freedom is exempt from this principle because this right receives its determination in a negative manner alone, through the exclusion of ownership exterior to the person. Hence, damage to this right consists solely in an attempt made to harm the pure freedom of the human person. But all this will receive greater light from what we propose to say in the treatise of derived Right, where we shall explain the more special characteristics of ownership, and outline its sphere.