10 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



XLV 



The population question is the real riddle of the 

 sphinx, to which no political CEdipus has as yet 

 found the answer. In view of the ravages of the 

 terrible monster, over-multiplication, all other riddles 

 sink into insignificance. 



XLV I 



The "Law of Nature" is not a command to do, 

 or to refrain from doing, anything. It contains, in 

 reality, nothing but a statement of that which a 

 given being tends to do under the circumstances of 

 its existence ; and which, in the case of a living 

 and sensitive being, it is necessitated to do, if it is 

 to escape certain kinds of disability, pain, and 

 ultimate dissolution. 



XLVII 



Probably none of the political delusions which 

 have sprung from the " natural rights " doctrine has 

 been more mischievous than the assertion that all 

 men have a natural right to freedom, and that those 

 who willingly submit to any restriction of this 

 freedom, beyond the point determined by the deduc- 

 tions of a priori philosophers, deserve the title of 

 slave. But to my mind, this delusion is incomprehen- 

 sible except as the result of the error of confounding 

 natural with moral rights. 



XLVIII 



The very existence of society depends on the 

 fact that every member of it tacitly admits that 

 he is not the exclusive possessor of himself, and 

 that he admits the claim of the polity of which 

 he forms a part, to act, to some extent, as his 

 master. 



