Our duties with regard to brute animals depend upon no mutual Rights; but upon the Duty of Self-culture; to which our treatment of them, like our other actions, must be made subservient. Animals offer to us images of some of the lower parts of our nature; but except so far as these elements are directed and governed by the higher elements, they are not subjects of moral consideration. As far as the limits of humanity extend, however, there are mutual ties of Duty which bind together all men; and as the basis of all others, a Duty of Mutual Kindness; which, as we see, is acknowledged by the Jurists, as well as by the Moralists, of Rome, in spite of the originally narrow basis of their Jurisprudence.

513.

The progress of the Conception of Humanity, as a universal bond which knits together the whole human race, and makes kindness to every member of it a Duty, was immeasurably promoted by the teaching and influence of Christianity. In the course of time, domestic slavery was abolished; and marriage received the sanction of the Church, and was alike honourable in all. The antipathies of nations, the jealousies of classes, the selfishness, fierceness, and coldness of men's hearts; the narrowness and dimness of their understandings, have prevented their receiving cordially and fully, the comprehensive precepts of benevolence which Christianity delivers; but as these obstacles have been more and more overcome, the doctrine has been more and more assented to, and felt to be true, by all persons of moral culture; that there is a Duty of Universal Benevolence which we are to bear to all men as men; and which we are to fulfil, by dealing with them as men; as beings having the like affections and reason, rights and claims, which we ourselves have.

514. This conception of Humanity, as a Principle within us, requiring us to recognize in others the same Rights which we claim for ourselves, may be further illus

trated. Such a principle of Humanity, requiring us to recognize men as men, requires us more especially to recognize them as such, in their capacity of moral agents. They" have not only like desires and affections with ourselves; but also, like faculties of Reason and Self-guidance; by which they discern the difference of right and wrong, and feel the duty of doing the right, and abstaining from the wrong. This view of their condition, as Moral Agents, is that by which we must entirely sympathize with them; as it is the view of our own condition in which we are fully conscious of ourselves. Humanity requires that we should feel satisfaction in the desires and means of enjoyment of our fellowmen; but Humanity requires, still more clearly, that we should feel a satisfaction in their having the desires and the means of doing their Duty. Now the fundamental Rights of which we have so often spoken, the Rights of the Person, of Property, and the like, are means, and necessary conditions, of Duty. It is necessary to moral action, that the agent should be free, not liable to unlimited and unregulated constraint and violence; that is, that he should have Rights of the Person. It is necessary to moral action, that the agent should have some command over external things; for this is implied in action; that is, it is necessary that he should have Rights of Property. And in like manner, in order that any class of persons may exist permanently in a community, as moral agents, it is requisite that they should possess the Right of Marriage; for without that Right, some of the strongest of man's desires cannot be under moral control; nor can the sentiment of Rights be transmitted from one generation to another. The Right of Contract is a necessary accompaniment of the Right of Property; for if the person can possess, he may buy and sell. And thus, these Rights are means, and necessary conditions, of men's being moral agents; and the Humanity which makes us desire that all men should be able to regu

late themselves by a Love of Duty, requires that all should be invested with these Rights.

515. These Rights, which Humanity requires that all men should possess, may be called Natural Rights; and in this sense, we may say that Man has Natural Rights of Personal Security from Violence, of Sustenance and Property so far as is implied in moral agency, and of Marriage. But we must distinguish these Natural Rights, which men ought to have, from the Rights of which we have hitherto spoken, which men really have in Civil Society, and which may be called Civil Rights.

516. As the Natural Rights, of which we speak, are those which are implied in Moral Agency; so, on the other hand, they imply Moral Agency, and consequently imply Duties, or Moral Obligations. As there is a Natural Right of Security against violence, there is a Natural Obligation to abstain from violence. As there is a Natural Right of Property for every man, to some extent or other; so there is a Natural Obligation to abstain from the Property of others, and to fulfil our Contracts. As there is a Natural Right of Marriage, so there is a Natural Obligation of Forethought, which directs men to make provision for the Sustenance of a Family, before they add to the existing numbers of the Community.

517. Humanity requires us to insist upon these Rights, and upon the corresponding Obligations, with equal force. We may declare such Rights to be natural, universal, necessary; but we must declare the Obligations to be equally natural, universal, necessary. Humanity requires that men should have the means of doing their Duty; she requires also no less that they should do it. She is solicitous about their welfare; in the first place, about their welfare in the subordinate sense, the means of enjoyment and of action; in the next place, about their welfare in the superior sense, the pursuit of right ends by right means.

To insist upon man's Natural Rights, and to lose sight of the corresponding Obligations, is not the tendency of the Humanity of a moral man.

518. Such Natural Rights as we have mentioned, are sometimes spoken of as indefeasible, and inalienable. When, by such expressions, it is meant that no act, either of a man's own or of other men, can make it cease to be an object of Humanity that he should possess such Rights, the expressions are just. No constraint and violence, actually exercised upon men, can prevent the humane man from desiring that they should have Rights which may protect them from such inflictions; and even if a man, for himself, renounce the Rights which are requisite to his being a moral agent, the humane man must still desire that they should be restored to him. If these Rights are taken away, or given away, it is right that they should be given back to every man; and in this sense, they are indefeasible and inalienable.

But if it be meant, that when the Law takes away, or the act of the individual gives away, these Rights, the Law and the Act are not to be regarded, this application of the words is not admissible. The Laws of every State have their validity; and if these Laws are contrary to Humanity or to Justice, such vices of the Laws are to be remedied, not by the Moralist declaring such Laws null and void of themselves; but by the Legislator annulling them, or substituting better Laws in their room. And although it may be humane and right, that the Laws should not sanction Contracts by which a citizen renounces the fundamental Rights of man; yet if such a Contract is made according to Law, the Law enforces it, and the Moralist, as before, may say that the Law ought to be changed; but he may not say that, till changed, it ought not to be executed.

519. Thus, those which we have called the Natural

Rights of man, may be, for a time at least, superseded by their not being Civil Rights. They may be Rights in the eye of Humanity; that is, such as ought to be the Rights of all members of every community; but not Rights in the eye of Law, that is, such as are the Rights of all members of a given community. Natural Rights are the Ideal conditions of moral society; they may be suspended in Fact; the Idea being imperfectly realized. When this is so, it is the business of all good men constantly to make the Fact approach to the Idea; to make Law agree with Humanity to make Civil Rights coincide with Natural Rights.

In many communities, this task may at the present, or at any given time, be imperfectly fulfilled; and in such cases, there exist Classes of the Society which possess, in an imperfect degree, or in no degree, the Natural Rights of Man. It will be proper to examine more particularly some of these States of Society, with their characteristic Classes: and to consider the manner in which they exemplify the doctrine which we have been propounding.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SLAVERY.

520. In ancient nations, we find the existence of Slaves everywhere familiar. Bondmen and Bondwomen, and the buying and selling of men, occur frequently in the Books of Moses. In Homer, and the Greek tragedians, domestic slavery is contemplated as the general lot of those conquered in war, their wives and children. The slaves, thus obtained, were employed, both in the business of the house, in the labours of agriculture, and as workmen in various handicrafts. They were so universally thus employed, that they