346 NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS vm 



wrong, are, like the tigers, products of that order, 

 whence comes our competence to deny the exercise 

 of their natural rights to those beings who stand 

 upon the same foundation of natural right as our- 

 selves ? To say that a thing exists in nature and 

 to say that it has a natural right to existence are, 

 in fact, merely two ways of stating the same 

 truth ; which is that, in nature, fact and justifica- 

 tion of the fact, or, in other words, might and right, 

 are coextensive. To be and to have a natural 

 right to be, to possess a faculty and to have the 

 natural right to exert it, are all one. Thus, it 

 really must be admitted that the hymnologist of 

 my childish days has reason on his side. Whether 

 children's little hands " were made to tear each 

 other's eyes " or not, it does not lie with us to 

 object to tigers, any more than to dogs, or bears. . >r 

 lions, growling and fighting as their natures dictate. 

 Beyond a doubt, by the " Law of Nature," which is 

 the foundation of " natural right," the cats and 

 their carnivorous allies are justified. 



Having thus established the "rights of timers'' 

 to the exercise and enjoyment of the faculties 

 with which nature has endowed them, it will be 

 interesting to follow out the logical development 



of the doctrine, such as i night lie expected from a 

 thoroughgoing advocate of those rights. It is 

 admitted that a tiger has a natural right to eat a 

 man ; but if he may eat one man he may eat 

 another, so that a tiger has a right of property in 



