Pufendorf: On the Duty of Man and Citizen according to Natural Law

1. We come now to the duties which a man must perform towards other men. Some result from the common Obligation by which the Creator has willed that all men be bound as men; others derive from a particular custom which has been introduced or accepted, or from a particular adventitious State. The former are to be shown by every man to every man, the latter only towards certain men on the basis of a particular condition or State. Hence you may call the former absolute, the latter hypothetical.

2. First among the absolute duties is the duty not to harm others. This is at once the most far-reaching of all duties, extending as it does to all men as men, and the easiest, since it consists of mere omission of action, except insofar as passions in conflict with reason must sometimes be restrained. It is also the most essential duty, since without it human social life would be utterly impossible. For I can live at peace with a man who does me no positive Service, and with a man who does not exchange even the commonest duties with me, provided he does me no harm. In fact, this is all we desire from mankind at large; it is only within a fairly small circle that we impart good things to each other. By contrast, there is no way that I can live at peace with one who does me harm. For nature has implanted in each man such a tender love of himself and of what is his, that he cannot but repel by every means one who offers to do harm to either.

3. This duty affords protection not only to what we have from nature, as life, body, limbs, chastity, liberty, but also to what we have acquired on the basis of some institution and human Convention. Hence this precept forbids that anything which is ours by legitimate title be taken, spoiled, damaged or removed from our use in whole or in part. By this precept all crimes are understood to be forbidden by which harm is inflicted on another, as, killing, wounding, beating, robbery, theft, fraud and other forms of violence, whether inflicted directly or indirectly, in person or through an agent.