The Law

not be understood without one another. For what are our Faculties, if not an extension of our Personality, and what is Property if not an extension of our Faculties?

If every man has the right to defend—even by force—his Person, his Liberty, and his Property, then several men have the Right to act in concert, to come to an agreement, and to organize a common Force to provide regularly for this defense.

Collective Right thus finds its principle, its reason for being, and its legitimacy in individual Right, and the common Force original: "Force commune." This refers to the police or military power of a state. cannot rationally have any other purpose or mission than the individual forces for which it is a substitute.

Thus, just as the Force of an individual cannot legitimately attack the Person, Liberty, or Property of another individual, for the same reason, common Force cannot legitimately be applied to destroy the Person, Liberty, or Property of individuals or classes.

For this perversion of Force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction with our premises. Who will dare to say that Force was given to us not to defend our Rights, but to annihilate the equal Rights of our brothers? And if this is not true of each individual force acting in isolation, how could it be true of

The list below defines Bastiat's core philosophical