166 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I believe, on the contrary, that this effort, taken as a whole, and set- 

 ting aside certain mistaken measures, is not only in strict accordance 

 with the spirit of Christianity, but is also in conformity with the true 

 principles of politics and of political economy. 



Let us first consider a preliminary question, on which I accept Mr. 

 Spencer's views, but for different reasons from his : On what are indi- 

 vidual rights founded, and what are the limits of State power ? Mr. 

 Spencer refutes with pitiless logic the opinions of those who, with 

 Bentham, maintain that individual rights are State concessions, or 

 who, like Matthew Arnold, deny the existence of natural rights. The 

 absurdity of Bentham's system is palpably evident. Who creates the 

 government ? The people, says he. So the government, thus created, 

 creates rights, and then, having created rights, it confers them on the 

 separate members of the sovereign people, by which it was itself 

 created. The real truth is, that government defines and sanctions 

 rights, and employs the public strength to enforce their being re- 

 spected, but the rights themselves existed before. 



Referring to the history of all primitive civilization, Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer proves to Mr. Matthew Arnold that in familial and tribal 

 communities there existed certain customs, which conferred recognised 

 and respected rights, before ever any superior authority which could 

 be designated by the name of State had been formed. Only, I think 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer is wrong in making use of the term " natural 

 rights." This expression was an invention of the French philosophers 

 of the eighteenth century, and it is still employed in Germany by a 

 certain school of philosophers as Naturrecht. Sir Henry Maine's 

 clever and just criticism of this expression in his book "Ancient Law" 

 should warn us all of the vague and equivocal meaning it conceals. 

 The jurists and philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cent- 

 uries attached two very different significations to the term " natural 

 rights." They sometimes applied it to the condition of primitive so- 

 cieties, in which their optimism led them to dream of a reign of jus- 

 tice, liberty, and equality, and at other times they made use of it when 

 speaking of the totality of rights which should be possessed by every 

 individual, by reason of his manhood. These two conceptions are 

 equally erroneous. In primitive societies, in spite of certain customs 

 which are the embryo of rights, might reigns supreme, as among ani- 

 mals, and the best armed annihilate their weaker neighbours. Cer- 

 tainly, one would look in vain there for a model of a political constitu- 

 tion or code suitable to a civilized people. Neither can it be main- 

 tained that the " Rights of man," as proclaimed by the American and 

 French Revolutions, belong to each individual, only because he forms 

 part of the human species. The limit of rights which may be claimed 

 by any one individual must depend upon his aptitudes for making 

 good use of them. The same civil code and the same political institu- 

 tions will not equally suit a savage tribe and a civilized nation. If 



