LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

"CHAPTERS ON PRACTICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY."

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")

you allow me to correct a misunderstanding contained in the review which you were so kind as to make of the "Chapters on Practical Political Economy ?" The matter, as you truly imply, is one of grave importance.

I am charged with maintaining a principle which would "allow of society stamping out all liberty of thought and discussion," and farther, with "flatly contradicting myself" on this question. I submit that I have done neither the one thing nor the other, as a few words of explanation, I hope, will show..

I have said, as you quote, that "no man can say to the State

to which he belongs, 'I claim, on the ground of personal right given to me by the Creator to do this, and I forbid you to do that in respect of me.'" For a correct understanding of these words, it is necessary to take them in connection, first, with their Context, and then with the real nature of the demands made by the persons to whom they are addressed.

On page 170 the words cited by the Spectator are preceded by

the following remarks :—" Such a thing as an absolute, definite right, belonging to a man personally, which cannot be taken from him, even by the law of his nation, except by a deed of force and violence equivalent in nature to murder, does not exist. 'Man was born to live in society,' said Aristotle, and that fact is supreme over his whole being. He must live in combination with others. Against the supreme control in all things of that society of which he forms a part, a man can plead no absolute title or rigfit, whatever may be his opinion as to its reality or desirableness."

It is plain from these words that I spoke of a demand which rested on the pure assertion of the man who made it, who alleged in its support nothing but his own consciousness, who refused all discussion on its merits, be they good or bad, who required society to respect and grant it as a personal prerogative lying beyond all challenge or argument, and placed on the same ground as a man's title to his leg or his arm.

There are men, often in considerable numbers, who put forth such demands in Political Economy and elsewhere. Of this kind are such declarations as,—

Property is theft. If society puts me in prison for taking and eating any loaf of bread I find, it entirely exceeds its prerogative, and commits an act of violence.

No man is to be allowed to possess wealth which he has not himself made, or earned in exchange for what be has made.

I am a man, therefore I am entitled to have a portion of land in absolute possession. If I do not obtain it, I am robbed.

I am authorised to assassinate a despot or a ruler who suppresses liberty of speech or conduct, and I am not to. be punished for so doing.

I deny the existence of all such rights. There is no evidence

whatever of their existence except pure assertion. They are claimed outside of all argument on their reasonableness ; they are affirmed, and respect of them is demanded the instant they are uttered. For me, they are pure, empty absurdities, as so claimed, although I might adopt them on a discussion of their merits. Can they be anything else for the Spectator ? There are men who declare that to put criminals to death is beyond the legitimate authority of society. Is the hanging of any murderer by itself, as a mere fact, murder ? And be it observed, not a single argument in favour of the fitness of these demands must be pleaded, for they then Would instantly cease to be the absolute, indiscussible, peremptory requirements which they are represented to be. They would at once enter into a radically different category, that of rights claimed because they are reasonable and becoming.

But I am told that my denial of the existence of rights of

this class "stops tongues," and leads to the consequence that "no persecuted or even unpopular religion has any claim to existence ; the Apostles might of right have been silenced by the Jews." This deduction is guilty of illicit process ; it asserts more than is contained in the premises. Undoubtedly my denial implies that a religion cannot demand that it shall exist in any Country as an indisputable, inherent right, antecedent to all dis- cussion or opinion on its merits. But does the Spectator really hold that no religion, of whatever nature, can be suppressed in England, whether as to its words or deeds ? Would the Spectator for an instant allow a religionist to claim, irrespective of all ex- amination of moral or other qualities, to sacrifice infants for the propitiation of his god, or to preach unrestricted libertinage as a right inherent in every human, as in every other animal ? If it is pleaded that such a religion is wicked and immoral, then unchallengeable right is given up, and we are at once transferred to the ground of reason and fitness and moral quality ;and on that ground I am entirely at one with the Spectator, and would be as strenuous in advancing claims to the existence, or even the sup- port, of a particular religion, as it could itself be.

What is here said disposes of the charge of my having contradicted, myself. I have said, and I hold, consistently said, that "commu- nism is entitled to declare that property is a mischievous institution, and to call for its abolition." A communist is authorised to utter- that opinion, and to endeavour to make converts to it ; but this is something wholly different in kind from a declaration that, with- out any examination of its merits, the abolition of property is as inherent, undeniable, absolute a prerogative as the freedom to use one's own limbs. The appearance of contradiction arises from the two senses of the word "right,"—right, in the technical sense above described, as self-evident upon pure affirmation ; and right in the ordinary sense of common life, as prescribed by reason, good-sense, knowledge, and public policy, on the founda- tion of qualities distinctly stated and approved.—I am, Sir, &c., P.S.—I beg to add one remark. Nothing that I have said inter- feres with the conception of duty which every man individually may- form against the judgment of society. If his conscience calls upon him to disobey any command of the State which be judges to be wicked, the fact that society is ultimately supreme cannot prevent him from obeying his sense of duty, only he must take the con- sequences. The martyr has a moral right to refuse to renounce his religion. The individual conscience is as genuine a reality as the State, for the State is only a group of individuals, as fallible collectively as they are individually. The martyr must ultimately submit to the supreme decider of what shall and shall not be done,—society ; but his right to judge the acts of society, and on the command of his conscience to proclaim that judgment, facing the consequences, is indestructible.