Page images
PDF
EPUB

in the Stages of Society in which men's habits of thought are much developed; but which may be omitted in our primary system of Rights. The Desire of Superiority, as we have said (53), requires that men, in a Society, shall have their Rights assigned by equal Rules; and thus strengthens such Rights when they exist. The Reflex Sentiments have also, in some Stages of Society, their corresponding Rights. Thus, men have a Right to their Reputation allowed them in the Laws of many Societies.

But the primary and universal Rights of men are those five which we first enumerated: the Right of Personal Security; the Right of Property; the Right of Contract; Family Rights; and the Rights of Government.

81. The opposite of Rights are Wrongs. A man's Rights may be infringed, transgressed, violated, by the actions of other men. Thus, a man infringes my Right to Personal Safety by striking me; my Right to my Property, by stealing it; my Right to a Contracted Debt, by not paying me. He who thus violates a man's Rights, does him a Wrong.

The word Injury is also especially used to designate the infraction of a Right. This is sometimes used merely to express harm; but in correct language harm is distinguished from wrong, damnum from injuria.

82. It has been said that Rights must be Realities in human Society. Rights are made Realities in human Society by its conduct as a Society. The conceptions of personal security, property, contract, marriage, and the like, are realized among men by their actions. Men, existing in the condition of a Society, regulate their conduct by these conceptions: they appropriate to each his Rights: for the most part they respect each other's Rights; and they constrain, expel, or otherwise punish, those who by their actions contradict these realities, or disturb the appropriation of them. The appropriation of Rights is established and de

clared by the Law; or by Custom, which is Law expressed in actions instead of words; and the Law also gives Rights validity or reality, by assigning Punishment to those who violate them.

83. Punishment is itself a Reality, and thus gives reality to the Rights which Laws establish. The various forms of Punishment, constraint, bodily pain, loss of possessions, exile, death, are among the most common and palpable of the real things from which the human affections and desires recoil. And by the existence of Law, supported, when necessary, by Punishment, Personal Safety, Property, Contracts, Marriage, become things no less real than the most palpable objects of bodily desire. Through the reality of such things, human Society, instead of being a mere struggle of appetites, desires, and affections, tending to and from different quarters, is a balanced system, governed by a coherent body of Rules. And all these Rules spring, not from Desire or Affection, which know nothing of Rules, or of the terms in which they are expressed; but from Reason, which, apprehending Rules, directs us to right actions, as those which are conformable to the Supreme Rules; and to Rights, as the Terms in which Subordinate Rules must be expressed.

84. From what has been said, it will be seen that the adjective right has a much wider signification than the substantive Right. Every thing is right which is conformable to the Supreme Rule of human action; but that only is a Right which, being conformable to the Supreme Rule, is realized in Society, and vested in a particular person. Hence the two words may often be properly opposed. We may ṣay that a poor man has no Right to relief, but it is right he should have it. A rich man has a Right to destroy the harvest of his fields, but to do so would not be right.

85. To a Right, on one side, corresponds an Obliga

tion on the other. If a man has a Right to my horse, I have an Obligation to let him have it. If a man has a Right to the fruit of a certain tree, all other persons are under an Obligation to abstain from appropriating it. Men are obliged to respect each other's Rights.

86. My Obligation is to give another man his Right; my Duty is to do what is right (74). Hence Duty is a wider term than Obligation; just as right, the adjective, is wider than Right, the substantive.

We have here fixed the term Obligation to a narrower sense than is sometimes given to it; but it will be found most convenient to use the word in the way just defined, according to which it is a correlative to Right. We shall also use the participle obliged, with the same limitation.

87. Hence there is a difference between obliged and ought. I ought to do my Duty; I am obliged to give a man his Right. I am not obliged to relieve a distressed man, but I ought to do so. There are other phrases which are employed on such subjects.

We speak of a man being truth, and bound in law to But when the word bound is used simply,

bound in conscience to tell the pay his debts.

it more generally refers to Duty, than to Obligation.

88. Duty has no correlative, as Obligation has the correlative Right. What it is our Duty to do, we must do because it is right, not because any one can demand it of us. We may, however, speak of those who are particularly benefited by our discharge of our Duties, as having a Moral Claim upon us. A distressed man has a Moral Claim to be relieved, in cases in which it is our Duty to relieve him.

89. The distinctions just explained are sometimes expressed by using the terms Perfect Obligation and Imperfect Obligation for Obligation and Duty respectively and

:

the terms Perfect Right and Imperfect Right, for Right and Moral Claim respectively. But these phrases have the inconvenience of making it seem as if our Duties arose from the Rights of others; and as if Duties were only legal Obligations, with an inferior degree of binding force.

We must treat of Rights before we treat of Duties; for as we have said (78), the terms which express Rights are necessarily employed in laying down Moral Rules. We must establish the Rights, and the Laws of Property, before we can lay down the Moral Rules, Do not steal, or Do not covet another man's Property.

90. Hence before we treat of the Doctrine of Duties, which is Morality, we must treat of the Doctrine of Rights and Obligations.

There is no term in the English language which denotes the Doctrine of Rights and Obligations. In Latin, French, and German, the same term which denotes a Right denotes also the Doctrine of Rights. Thus we say Jus meum, and Studium Juris: mon Droit and l'étude du Droit: mein Recht, and die Kentniss des Rechts. In English, we say my Right, their Rights, but we do not use the term in the other sense. Instead of this, we employ various phrases:

thus Jus Naturæ has sometimes been translated The Law of Nature; sometimes, The Rights of Nature, Natural Rights, Natural Justice. But no one of these phrases fully expresses the Doctrine of Rights: for Rights are not Law only, nor Justice only; (meaning by Law the Law of Society, and by Justice, that which is right) they are both Law and Justice; Law because Justice; Justice expressed in Law.

Hence, when we have occasion to speak of the Doctrine of Rights and Obligations in a single word, we shall borrow the Latin term Jus: and by the adjective jural, we shall denote that which has reference to the Doctrine of Rights and Obligations; as by the adjective moral we denote that

which has reference to the Doctrince of Duties. We have already in the English language several derivatives from the term Jus, in the technical sense which we adopt as Jurist, Jurisprudence, Jurisdiction; so that the word need not sound strange in our ears. Jus is the study of the Jurist. The term Jurisprudence has sometimes been applied by English writers to describe the Doctrine of Rights and Obligations in general: but the corresponding Latin term is often written in separate words Juris Prudentia, a knowledge of Jus. It seems unreasonable and inconvenient to make the English name of this Doctrine so much more complex than its names in other languages. The word Jus is also implied in the word Injury. The words just and Justice are connected with the same root; but by these, we express moral, not merely jural, notions.

91. Rights, and the difference of right and wrong, being once brought into view, there are many terms both moral and jural, which can be explained by reference to those fundamental notions. Duties, are Actions, or Courses of Action, considered as being right. Virtues are the Habits of Mind by which we perform Duties. And Virtue, used generally, includes all special Virtues; as Duty includes all special Duties. Virtue and Duty are the objects of our Moral Sentiments (55). We approve Duty, but we esteem and admire and love Virtue. Virtue is the natural object of Love, and is in this view called Goodness.

Actions which are opposite to right are Violations of Duties, Transgressions, Offenses. As transgressions of Law, they are Crimes. They are of various degrees of Guilt. Some are atrocious or heinous Crimes: others are slighter Offenses, more excusable and pardonable.

The transgression of a Duty, considered as a Habit, is a Vice: and Vice in general includes all special Vices.

The sentiment of disapproval of Offenses or Vices admits

« PreviousContinue »