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The article focuses on the legal treatment of infringement of rights. Such wrongs are divisible into two classes, namely, torts and breaches of obligation. A tort is disobedience to a command of the State, and is affirmative or negative, according as the command is negative or affirmative, the tort being in that respect the converse of the command. The State commands every person within its limits to do no act which will infringe an absolute right of any other person. It follows, therefore, that every infringement of an absolute right is an affirmative tort, and that every affirmative tort is an infringement of an absolute right.