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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 upon the due balance of these forces.

3. There exists, however, a dominant sect of socalled philosophical politicians who treat with contempt. this belief that men have any claims antecedent to those endorsed by governments. As disciples of Bentham, consistency requires them to do this. Accordingly, although it does violence to their secret perceptions, they boldly deny the existence of "rights" entirely. They nevertheless perpetually betray a belief in the doctrines which they professedly reject. They inadvertently talk about justice, especially when it concerns themselves, in much the same style as their opponents. They draw the same distinction between law and equity that other people do. They applaud fairness, and honour, quite as if they thought them something more than mere words. And when robbed, or assaulted, or wrongly imprisoned, they exhibit the same indignation, the same determination to oppose the aggressor, utter the same denunciations of tyranny, and the same loud demands for redress, as the sternest assertors of the rights of man. By way of ex plaining such inconsistencies, it is indeed alleged, that the feeling thus manifested is nothing but the result of a grad ually-acquired conviction that benefits flow from some kinds of action, and evils from other kinds; and it is said that the sympathies and antipathies respectively contracted toward these, exhibit themselves, as a love of justice, and a hatred of injustice. To which supposition it was by implication elsewhere replied, that it would be equally wise to conclude that hunger springs from a con

viction of the benefit of eating; or that love of offspring is the result of a wish to maintain the species!

But it is amusing when, after all, it turns out that the ground on which these philosophers have taken their stand, and from which with such self-complacency they shower their sarcasms, is nothing but an adversary's mine, destined to blow the vast fabric of conclusions they have based on it into nonentity. This so solid-looking princi ple of "the greatest happiness to the greatest number," needs but to have a light brought near it, and lo! it explodes into the astounding assertion, that all men have equal rights to happiness (p. 34)-an assertion far more sweeping and revolutionary than any of those which are assailed with so much scorn.*

When we see, then, that an instinct of personal rights manifests itself unceasingly in opinions and institutions; when further we find that the attempt to trace the monitions of this instinct to experience, betrays us into an ab surdity; and when, lastly, the dogma of those who most sturdily deny that there is such an instinct, proves to be only another emanation from it-we find ourselves in pos session of the strongest possible evidence of its existencethe testimony of all parties. We are therefore justified in considering that existence as sufficiently proved.

§ 4. But why, it may be asked, should there need be 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

* We do not here debate the claims of this maxim. It is sufficient for present purposes to remark, that were it true it would be utterly useless as a first principle; both from the impossibility of determining specifically what happiness is, and from the want of a measure by which equitably to mete it out, could we define it.

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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 occur 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 foresighttakes thought for its gratifications to come: we find, on the contrary, that to provide for the future gratification of the faculties at large, is the office of faculties appointed 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 satisfaction 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. To so prompt him there needs a certain amount of this acquisitive instinct, which, in pursu ing its own gratification, incidentally secures to other instincts the means of their gratification. Similarly, then, with liberty of action. It is argued, that as each faculty does not look after its own particular fund of neces saries, 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. Or perhaps we may most clearly express the relationship in which these two faculties stand to the rest, by saying, that whilst it is the function of the one to accumulate the matter on which the faculties at large are to be exercised, it is the function of the other to preserve the freedom of motion by which that matter is both ob tained and made use of

5. 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 question, Whence 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 passions of others "--the faculty, in short, which we commonly call Sympathy. As illustra tions of the mode in which this agent acts, he quotes 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 uncasy 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

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deliverence of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress,` and our fellow-feeling 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 be haviour."

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 most likely every one has some time or other been put into a horrible tremor on seeing another 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, whilst 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