SECONDARY DERIVATION OF A FIRST

PRINCIPLE.

THIS first and all-essential law, declaratory of the liberty of each limited only by the like liberties of all, is that fundamental truth of which the moral sense gives an intuition, and which the intellect has to develop into a scientific morality.

Quite independently of any such analytical examination as that just concluded, men perpetually exhibit a tendency to assert the equality of human rights. In all ages, but more especially in later ones, has this tendency been visible. In our own history we may detect it as early as the time of Edward I., in whose writs of summons it was said to be "a most equitable rule, that what concerns all should be approved of by all." How our institutions have been influenced by it may be seen in the judicial principle that "all men are equal before the law." The doctrine that "all men are naturally equal" (of course not in their faculties, but only in their claims to make the best use of their faculties), has not only been asserted by philanthropists like Granville Sharpe, but, as Sir Robert Filmer, a once-renowned champion of absolute monarchy, tells us, "Heyward, Blackwood, Barclay, and others that have bravely vindicated the rights of kings,... with one consent admitted the natural liberty and equality of mankind." In his essay on Civil Government, Locke, too, expresses the opinion that there is "nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to the same advantages of

nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjec tion." Again, we find the declaration of American independence affirming that "all men have equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And those who wish for more authorities who have expressed the same conviction, may add the names of Judge Blackstone and "the judicious Hooker."

The sayings and doings of daily life continually imply some intuitive belief of this kind. We take for granted its universality when we appeal to men's sense of justice. It shows itself in such expressions as "How would you like it?" "I've as good a right as you," &c. Nay, indeed, so spontaneous is this faith in the equality of human rights, that our very language embodies it. Equity and equal are from the same root; and equity literally means equalness.

Not without meaning is the continued life and growth of this conviction. He must indeed have a strange way of interpreting social phenomena, who can believe that the reappearance of it, with increasing frequency, in laws, books, agitations, revolutions, means nothing. If we analyze them, we shall find all beliefs to be in some way dependent on mental conformation-temporary ones upon temporary characteristics of our nature-permanent ones on its permanent characteristics. And when we find that a belief like this in the equal freedom of all men, is not only permanent but daily gaining ground, we have good reason to conclude that it corresponds to some essential element of our moral constitution: more especially since we find that its existence is in harmony with that chief pre-requisite to greatest happiness lately dwelt upon; and that its growth is in harmony with that law of adaptation by which this greatest happiness is being wrought out.

Such, at least, is the hypothesis here adopted. From the above accumulation of evidence it is inferred that there exists in man what may be termed an instinct of personal rights-a

feeling that leads him to claim as great a share of natural privilege as is claimed by others--a feeling that leads him to repel anything like an encroachment upon what he thinks his sphere of original freedom. By virtue of this impulse, individuals, as units of the social mass, tend to assume like relationships with the atoms of matter; surrounded as these are by their respective atmospheres of repulsion as well as of attraction. And perhaps social stability may ultimately be seen to depend on the due balance of these forces.

But why, it may be asked, should there need any sentiment leading men to claim the liberty of action requisite for the due exercise of faculties, and prompting them to resist encroachments upon that liberty? Will not the several faculties themselves do this, by virtue of their desires for activity, which cannot otherwise be gratified? Surely there is no necessity for a special impulse to make a man do that which all his impulses conjointly tend to make him do.

This is not so serious an objection as it appears to be. For although, were there no such sentiment as this supposed one, each faculty in turn might impel its possessor to oppose a diminution of its own sphere of action, yet, during the dormancy of that faculty, there would be nothing to prevent the freedom requisite for its future exercise from being infringed upon. It may, perhaps, be rejoined, that the mere consciousness that there must again happen occasions for the use of such freedom will constitute a sufficient incentive to defend it. But plausible as this supposition looks, it does not tally with facts. We do not find on inquiry, that each faculty has a special foresight. We find, on the contrary, that to provide for the future gratification of the faculties at large, is the office of faculties existing solely for that purpose. Thus, referring once more by way of illustration to the acquisitive instinct, we see that, when this is wanting, the desires for food, for clothing, for shelter, together with those many other desires which property ministers to, do not of themselves prompt that accumulation of property on

which the continuance of their satisfactions depends. Each of them, when active, impels the individual to take means for its present fulfilment, but does not prompt him to lay by the means for its future fulfilment. Similarly, then, with liberty of action. It is argued that as each faculty does not look after its own particular fund of necessaries, so neither does it look after its own particular sphere of activity; and that as there is a special faculty to which the providing of a general fund of necessaries is consigned, so likewise is there a special faculty to which the maintenance of a general sphere of activity is consigned.

Seeing, however, that this instinct of personal rights is a purely selfish instinct, leading each man to assert and defend his own liberty of action, there remains the questionWhence comes our perception of the rights of others?

The way to a solution of this difficulty has been opened by Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. It is the aim of that work to show that the proper regulation of our conduct to one another, is secured by means of a faculty whose function it is to excite in each being the emotions. displayed by surrounding ones—a faculty which awakens a like state of sentiment, or, as he terms it, "a fellow-feeling with the passion of others "the faculty, in short, which we commonly call Sympathy. As illustrations of the mode in which the agent acts, he cites cases like these:

"Persons of delicate fibres, and weak constitution of body, complain that in looking on the sores and ulcers which are exposed by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an itching or uneasy sensation in the corresponding part of their own bodies." "Men of most robust make observe, that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own." "Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress, and our fellowfeeling for their misery, is not more real than that for their

happiness." "We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his behaviour."

To these facts cited by Adam Smith, may be added many others of like import; such as that people-women especially -start or shriek on seeing an accident occur to others; that unpractised assistants at surgical operations often faint; that out of the soldiers drawn up to witness a flogging, usually several drop down in the ranks; that a boy has been known to die on witnessing an execution. We have all experienced the uncomfortable feeling of shame produced in us by the blunders and confusion of a nervous speaker; and probably every one has, some time or other, been put into a horrible tremor on seeing a person at the edge of a precipice. The converse action of the faculty is equally observable. Thus, we find ourselves unable to avoid joining in the merriment of our friends, while unaware of its cause; and children, much to their annoyance, are often forced to laugh in the midst of their tears, by witnessing the laughter of those around them. These and many like evidences prove that, as Burke says, sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.”

In tracing our benevolent actions to the influence of such a faculty-in concluding that we are led to relieve the miseries of others from a desire to rid ourselves of the pain given by the sight of misery, and to make others happy because we participate in their happiness-Adam Smith puts forth what seems to be a quite satisfactory theory. But he has overlooked one of its most important applications. Not recognizing any such impulse as that which urges men to maintain their claims, he did not see that their respect for the claims of others, may be explained in the same way. He did not perceive that the sentiment of justice is nothing but a sympathetic affection of the instinct of personal rights—a sort of reflex function of it. Such, however, must be the case, if