cause.

in propriâ causâ ; "A man is not to be judge in his own All these maxims may be looked upon as indications and fragments of a supposed Natural Law; which can never be expressed except by indications and fragments; since, as we have said, no Rules can express Equity, so as not to require exceptions.

508. Other Indications of the assumed existence of a Natural Law, the necessary result of Justice and Equity, may be traced in expressions, which are often used in moral and political discussions. Thus, we hear of the Natural Rights of man; and as examples of these, of the Right to Subsistence, the Right to Freedom, and the like. In speaking of these Rights as Natural, it is not meant that they are universally recognized by the Laws of States. In truth, Rights of the citizens to Subsistence and to Freedom, are so far limited and modified by the Laws of most States, that they can hardly be said to exist as general Rights. By speaking of such Rights, and describing them as the dictates of Natural Justice, as is often done, it is meant that the Laws ought to recognize and establish them. But something more than this seems to be meant, by speaking of the Natural Right to Subsistence, and the like; for to say that such a Right is what the Law ought to establish, is merely to class the recognition of this Right with all the other prudential improvements, of which the Laws of any State are susceptible. The Laws ought to aim at securing the Purity and Rationality, as well as the Subsistence, of the people. By speaking of the Claim of men to Subsistence as a Right, it appears to be meant that it is not only conformable to the Duty of States, in the general sense in which it is their Duty to make their laws constantly better; but that it is conformable to Justice in some more special sense, in which Justice is expressed by definite and universal Principles.

509. Yet the Principles of Justice which have been propounded as the basis of the Natural Rights of Men, are such as it is difficult to establish, in a definite and universal form. It has, for instance, been said, that All men are born equal. But it is evident that this is not true as a fact. For not only are children, for a long time after birth, necessarily in the power of parents and others; but the external conditions of the society in which a man is born, as the laws of property and the like, determine his relation to other men, during life. If it be said that these are extraneous and accidental circumstances, not born with the man; we answer, that if we reject from our consideration, as extraneous and accidental, all such conditions, there remains nothing which we can call intrinsic and necessary, but the material conditions of man's existence; and if we were to adopt this view, the principle might more properly be stated, All men are equally born. The relations of Family, Property, and the like, are as essential to man's moral being, as Language, without which his mind cannot be unfolded to the apprehension of Rules, and the distinction of right and wrong. If therefore our assumed equality rejects the former circumstances, it must reject the latter.

510. But though in Fact men are not born equal, they are all born with a capacity for being moral agents: and this Idea is the basis of all Morality. And we may lay it down as a universal Principle, from which we may hereafter reason, that All men are moral beings.

This Principle may be perhaps considered as rather a Principle of Humanity, than a Principle of Justice. For this, and any other Principle from which we derive the claims of men to Subsistence, Freedom, &c., must involve a recognition of that Common Human Nature, by which all mankind are bound together. We shall therefore treat of such Rights in treating of the Conception of Humanity.

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CHAPTER XXIII.

HUMANITY.

511. Ir has already been stated, that a universal Benevolence towards all men, as partakers of the same Common Human Nature with ourselves, is a part of the Supreme Law of human being. But the lapse of time, the growth of institutions, and the development of man's moral nature, are requisite to bring this affection into its due prominence. The affections of men, in a rude condition, are confined within narrower limits; and have, for their main or sole objects, the persons who are bound to them by especial ties. The family affections which connect parent and child, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, have their force in every form of human society. The sympathies which bind together a kindred in a wider sense, the feelings of clanship, are powerful, in communities in which a more comprehensive kind of benevolence is unfelt. In rude and half-savage tribes, in which clansmen assist each other with unbounded zeal, the stranger is looked upon as naturally an object of enmity. The historians of Greece and Rome notice indications of this having been the early condition of man's feelings in those countries. But the progress of the culture of

those nations led to a more moral state of the affections. The Greeks had a name for the Love of man as man. This affection they termed piλav@pwría, and reckoned it a virtue. Aristotle expresses this* by saying that all men have a feeling of kindred and good-will to all. And the Stoics called this tie of general good-will by a name borrowed from the word which Aristotle here uses (oikéiwois), as kindness is connected with the word kin. The Romans in

* Anth. Eth. Nich. VIII. 1. ως οἰκεῖον ἅπας ἄνθρωπος ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ φίλον.

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like manner, though at first they had but one word to designate a stranger and an enemy (hostis), came to be sensible of the universal bond of good-will which unites man to man. They received with applause the verse of Terence : Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.

A man am I, and feel for all mankind.

And their philosophers followed the Greeks, in assuming the common social feeling of mankind as one of the foundations of their morality. Thus Cicero adopts, what he calls the Formula of the Stoics*: "Detrahere aliquid alicui, et hominem hominis incommodo suum augere commodum, magis est contra naturam quam mors, quam paupertas, quam cætera quæ possunt aut corpori accidere, aut rebus externis; nam principio tollit convictum humanum et societatem." In the same strain Seneca says†, "Societatem tolle, et unitatem generis humani quâ vita continetur, scindes."

512. The Roman conception, of a Law, identical with Natural Law, and yet the benefits of which were the peculiar privilege of Roman citizens, for a time impeded the application of such maxims; for men who had no right to justice, could have little claim to kindness. The current conception of a true marriage, as being limited to the union of Roman citizens, and of domestic slavery as being a part of the order of society, were circumstances unfavourable to the development of a benevolence equally embracing all men. But these circumstances gradually lost their hold on men's minds. The distinction of Roman and Provincial marriages faded away; and there grew up a feeling of horrour towards the cruelty which slavery

* Off. 111. 5. For a man to abstract anything from another man, and to increase his own comfort by the discomfort of another, is more against Nature, than death, than poverty, than any other thing which can happen, either to his body or to his external havings. For in the first place it takes away human society and community of life.

+ De Benef. iv. 18. Take away society, and you rend asunder the unity of the human race in which our life is bound up.

involved. We find a recognition of this view in the Roman Lawyers. Thus Ulpian says, " Manumissio a jure gentium originem sumsit, utpote quum jure naturali omnes liberi nascerentur, nec esset nota manumissio, quum servitus esset incognita. Sed posteaquam jure gentium servitus invasit, secutum est beneficium manumissionis; ut quum uno naturali nomine homines appellarentur, jure gentium tria genera esse cœperunt, liberi, et his contrarium servi, et tertium genus, liberti, id est, qui desierant esse servi." And with regard to marriage, the Roman lawyers sometimes appear to incline to extend the notion of it even to brute animals+. “Jus naturale est quod natura omnia animalia docuit: nam jus istud non humani generis proprium, sed omnium animalium quæ in terra, quæ in mari nascuntur, avium quoque, commune est. Hinc descendit maris et fœminæ conjunctio, quam nos matrimonium appellamus, hinc liberorum procreatio, hinc educatio: videmus enim cætera quoque animalia, feras etiam, istius juris peritiâ censeri." Attempts such as this, to extend the meaning of Jus, in any sense, to brute animals, can only perplex the subject. The word Rights has no meaning, as applied to animals, which cannot understand the word. Our Rights and our Obligations are necessarily limited by the limits of human nature. They all spring out of the recognition of our common Humanity.

*

Dig. 1. i. 4. Manumission of Slaves had its origin not in natural but in positive Law. For by the Law of nature all are born free, and when there was no slavery there could be no manumission. But when by the positive Law of nations, slavery was introduced; the relief from this infliction by manumission was also introduced. And thus men, who by nature were all alike men, were divided into three kinds, freemen, slaves, and freed men, who had been slaves.

† Dig. 1. i. 1. Natural Law is that which nature teaches all animals: such Law is not peculiar to the human race, but common also to beasts, fishes, and birds. Hence arises the union of male and female which we call marriage, hence the procreation and nurture of children; for we see that brutes, and even wild beasts, are acquainted with the Natural Law which regulates such matters.