A modicum of penetration, however, would show them that the great need none of this patronage at their hands. Real supe- riority will assert itself without factitious aid. Do away with disturbing arrangements, and, just in proportion to the force resident in each, will be the influence each exercises upon the rest. Allow things to take their natural course, and if a man have in him that which transcends the common, it must event- ually draw to itself respect and obedience.
But even were it admitted that, to ensure supremacy of the best, Hberty of action should he apportioned out to men in the ratio of their merits, the maintainers of unequal rights would be none the forwarder; for there remains the question — how are relative merits to be determined? Where are the standards by which we may test tlie respective values of different kinds and degrees of abihty? We cannot appeal to pubhc opinion, for it is not uniform. And were it uniform, there is no reason to think that it would be correct. On the contrary, if anything is to be gathered from surrounding facts, very erroneous estimates would be formed by it. Can confidence be placed in the judgments of men who subscribe Hudson- testimonials, and yet leave the original projector of railways to die in poverty? Are those fit to decide upon comparative greatness who orna- ment their drawing-room tables with a copy of Burke's Peerage; who read through the lists of court presentations, and gossip about tlie movements of the haut ton — people who would trace back their lineage to some bandit baron — some Pront-de- hoeuf, rather than to a Watt or an Arkwright? Is any depend- ence to Tdc placed on the decision of an authority which has erected half-a-dozen pubUc monuments to its Wellington, and none to its Shakspeare, its Newton, or its Bacon? — an authority that awards to the door-keeper of its House of Commons i£74 a year more than to its astronomer royal? According to Johnson,, " the chief glory of every people arises from its 103 FIRST PRINCIPLE.
authors: " yet our literary men are less honoured than people of title; the writers of our leading journals are unknown; and we see much more respect shown to a Eothschild or a Baring than to our Faradays and our Owens.
If, then, pubUc opinion is so fallible a test of relative merits, where shall a trustworthy test he found? Manifestly, if the freedom to which each is entitled varies with his worth, some satisfactory mode of estimating worth must be discovered before any settlement of men's right relationships can become possible. Who now will point out such a mode?
Even were a still further admission made — even were we to assume that men's respective claims could be fairly rated — it would still be impossible to reduce the theory of unequal rights to practice. We' should yet have to find a rule by which to allot these different shares of privilege. Where is the scale that would enable us to mark off the portion proper for each individual? What unit of measure must be used for this kind of division? Supposing a shopkeeper's rights to be sym- bolized by ten and a fraction, what number will represent those of a doctor? What multiple are the hberties of a banker of those of a seamstress? Given two artists, one half as clever again as the other, it is required to find the Umits within which each may exercise his faculties. As the greatness of a prime minister is to that of a ploughboy, so is full freedom of action to — the desired answer. Here are a few out of numberless like questions. When a method for their solution has been found, it will be time enough to reconsider the theory of un- equal rights.
■ Thus to the several positive reasons for aflirming that every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infi'inges FIRST PRINCIPLE. 109 not the equal freedom of any other man, we must now add the foregoing negative ones. Neither of the alternatives, to which the rejection of this first principle leaves us, is acceptable. The doctrine that men have naturally no rights leads to the awkward inferences, that might makes right, and that the Deity is a malevolent being. Whilst to say that men have unequal rights is to assume two impossibilities; namely, that we are able to determine the ratios of men's merits; and having done this, to assign to each his due proportion of privilege.
CHAPTER VII.
APPLICATION OF THIS FIRST PRINCIPLE.
The process by -which we may develop this first principle into a system of equity, is sufficiently obvious. We have just to distinguish the actions that are included under its pennit, from those which are excluded by it — to find what lies inside the sphere appointed for each individual, and what outside. Our aim must be to discover how far the territory of may extends, and where it borders upon that of may not. We shall have to consider of every deed, whether, in committing it, a man does, or does not, trespass upon the ordained freedom of his neighbour — whether, when placed side by side, the shares of liberty the two parties respectively assume are equal. And by thus separating that which can be done by each without trench- ing on the privileges of others, from that which cannot be so done, we may classify actions into lawful and unlawful.
Difficulties may now and then occur in the performance of this process. We shall, perhaps, occasionally find ourselves unable to decide whether a given action does or does not trespass against the law of equal freedom. But such an admission by no means implies any defect in that law. It merely impUes human incapacity — an incapacity which puts a limit to our discovery of physical as well as of moral truth. It is for instance, quite beyond the power of any mathematician to state in degrees and minutes, the angle at which a man may lean without falling. Not being able to find accurately the APPLICATION OF THIS FIEST PRINCIPLE. Ill centre of gravity of a man's body, he cannot say with certainty whether, at a given inclination, the line of direction will or will not fall outside the base. But we do not, therefore, take exception to the first principles of mechanics. We know that, in spite of our inability to follow out those first principles to all their consequences, the stability or instability of a man's attitude might still be accurately determined by them, were our perceptions competent to take in all the conditions of such a problem. Similarly, it is argued that, although there may possibly arise out of the more complex social relationships, questions that are apparently not soluble by comparing the respective amounts of freedom the concerned parties assume, it must nevertheless be granted that, whether we see it or not, their claims are either equal or unequal, and the dependent actions right or wrong accordingly.
For those who have faith in the abstract, and who dare to foUow wherever an acknowledged doctrine may lead, it will be sufiicient to point out the several conclusions which may be drawn from this first principle, and to leave those conclusions to stand or fall by the logicalness of their deduction. It is to be feared, however, that results arrived at by so purely philo- sophical a process, will weigh but little with the majority. People who " cannot understand a principle until its light falls upon a fact," are not to be swayed by inferences so deduced. Wedded as they are to the guidance of a superficial experience, they are deaf to the enunciation of those laws, of which the complex phenomena they draw their experience fi-om are the workings out. We have, nevertheless, to deal with such as best we may; and, to meet their case, evidence of a so-called "practical" nature must be adduced. Whenever, therefore, we arrive at inferences conflicting with the general opinion, it is intended to follow up the argument by showing that " ex- perience," rightly interpreted, enforces these inferences.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RIGHTS OF LIFE AND PERSONAL LIBERTY.
These are such self-evident corollaries from our first principle as scarcely to need a separate statement. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, it is manifest that he has a claim to his life: for without it he can do nothing that he has willed; and to his personal liberty: for the withdrawal of it partially, if not wholly, restrains him from the ftilfilment of his will. It is just as clear, too, that each man is forbidden to deprive his fellow of Kfe or Uberty: inasmuch as he cannot do this without breaking the law, which, in asserting his freedom, declares that he shall not infringe " the equal freedom of any other." For he who is killed or enslaved is obviously no longer equally free with his killer or enslaver.
It is unnecessary to commend these conclusions by any exposition of advantages. All spontaneously assent to them. There are a few simple truths of which the moral sense gives a sufficiently clear perception without the aid of logic; and these are of the number. The time was, indeed, when the law of adaptation having as yet produced but little effect, the feelings that respond to these truths were comparatively un- developed, and consequently produced no spontaneous recog- nition of them. And did we live in the old Assyrian days when a subject was the property of his king — were it our THE RIGHTS OF LIFE AND PEESONAL LIBERTY. 1 1 3 custom to chain a porter to his cell on one side of the door, opposite to the kennel of the house-dog on the other, as in Athens and Rome — did we sacrifice men to the gods, or send our prisoners of war to he torn to pieces in an amphitheatre, it might be needfal to enforce the doctrines here enunciated, by showing the expediency of acting upon them. But happily we live in better times; and may congratulate ourselves on having reached a phase of civilization, in which the rights of life and personal liberty no longer require inculcating.
Into such questions as the punishment of death, the per- petual imprisonment of criminals^ and the like, we cannot here enter. These implying, as they do, antecedent infractions of the law, and being, as they are, remedial measures for a diseased moral state, belong to what has been elsewhere termed Thera- peutical Etliics, with which we have now nothing to do.
CHAPTER IX.
THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH.
Given a race of beings having like claims to pursue the objects of their desires — given a world adapted to the gratifi- cation of those desires— a world into which such beings are similarly bom, and it unavoidably follows that they have equal rio-hts to the use of this world. For if each of them " has freedom to do all that he wills provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other," then each of them is free to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants, provided he allows all others the same Uherty. And conversely, it is manifest that no one, or part of them, may use the earth in such a way as to prevent the rest from similarly using it; seeing that to do this is to assume greater freedom than the rest, and consequently to break the law.
Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land. For if one portion of the earth's surface may justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a tiling to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth's surface may be so held; and eventually the whole of the earth's surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the -entire habitable globe to be so enclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid right to its surface, all who are not landowners, have no right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by sufferance only. They are all THE EIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH. 115 trespassers. Save by the permission of the lords of the soil, they can have no room for the soles of their feet. Nay, should the others think fit to deny them a resting-place, these landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth altogether. If, then, the assumption that land can be held as property, involves that the whole globe may become the private domain of a part of its inhabitants; and if, by consequence, the rest of its inhabitants can then exercise their faculties — can then exist even — only by consent of the landowners; it is manifest, that an exclusive possession of the soil necessitates an infiingement of the law of equal freedom. For, men who cannot " live and move and have their being" without the leave of others, cannot he equally free with those others.
Passing from the consideration of the possible, to that of the actual, we find yet further reason to deny the rectitude of property in land. It can never be pretended that the existing titles to such property are legitimate. Should any one think so, let him look in the chronicles. Violence, fraud, the prero- gative of force, the claims of superior cunning — these are the sources to which those titles may be traced. The original deeds were written with the sword, rather than with the pen: not lawyers, but soldiers, were the conveyancers: blows were the current coin given in payment; and for seals, blood was used in preference to wax. Could vahd claims be thus consti- tuted? Hardly. And if not, what becomes of the pretensions of all subsequent holders of estates so obtained? I>oes sale or bequest generate a right where it did not previously exist? Would the original claimants be nonsuited at the bar of reason, because the thing stolen from them had changed hands? Certainly not. And if one act of transfer can give no title, can many? No: though nothing be multiplied for ever, it wiU not produce one. Even the law recognises this principle. An existing holder must, if called upon, substantiate the claims of 116 THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH.
those from whom he purchased or inherited hjs property; and any flaw in the original parchment, even though the property should have had a score intermediate owners, quashes his right.
" But Time," say some, " is a great legaliser. Immemorial possession must be taken to constitute a legitimate claim. That which has been held from age to age as private property, and has been bought and sold as such, must now be considered as irrevocably belonging to individuals." To which proposition a willing assent shall be given when its propounders can assign it a definite meaning. To do this, however, they must find satisfactoi-y answers to such questions as — How long does it take for what was originally a wrong to grow into a rigid? At what rate per annum do invaUd claims become valid? If a title gets perfect in a thousand years, how much more than perfect will it be in two thousand years? — and so forth. For the solution of which they ■will require a new calculus.
Whether it may be expedient to admit claims of a certain standing, is not the point. We have here nothing to do with considerations of conventional privilege or legislative conve- nience. We have simply to inquire what is the verdict given by pureequity in the matter. And this verdict enjoins a protest against every existing pretension to the individual possession of the soU; and dictates the assertion, that the right of man- kind at large to the earth's surface is still valid; all deeds, customs, and laws, notwithstanding.
Not only have present land tenures an indefensible origin, but it is impossible to discover any mode in which land can become private property. Cultivation is commonly considered to give a legitimate title. He who has reclaimed a tract of ground from its primitive wildness, is supposed to have thereby made it his own. But if his right is disputed, by what system of logic can he vindicate it? Let us hsten a moment to his pleadings.
THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EAKTH. 117 " Hallo, you Sir," cries the cosmopolite to some backwoods- man, smoking at the door of his shanty, " by what autliority do you take possession of these acres that you have cleared; round which you have put up a snake-fence, and on which you liave buUt this log-house? " "By what authority? I squatted here because there was no one to say nay — because I was as much at Uberty to do so as any other man. Besides, now that I have cut down the wood, and ploughed and cropped the ground, this farm is more mine than yours, or anybody's; and I mean to keep it."
" Ay, so you all say. But I do not A'et see how you have substantiated your claim. When you came here you found the land producing trees— sugar-maples, perhaps; or may be it was covered with prairie-grass end wild strawberries. Well, instead of these, you made it yield wheat, or maize, or tobacco. Now I want to understand how, by exterminating one set of plants, and making the soil bear another set in their place, you have constituted yourself lord of this soil for all succeeding time."
" Oh, those natural products which I destroyed were of little or no use; whereas I caused the earth to bring forth things good for food — things that help to give Ufe and happiness."
" Still you have not shown why such a process makes the portion of earth you have so modified yours. What is it that you have done? You have turned over the soil to a few inches in depth with a spade or a plough; you have scattered over this prepared surface a few seeds; and you have gathered the fruits which the sun, rain, and air, helped the soil to produce. Just teU me, if you please, by what magic have these acts made you sole owner of that vast mass of matter, having for its base the 6m"face of your estate, and for its apex the centre of the globe? all of which it appears you would monopohse to yourself and your descendants for ever."
" Wen, if it isn't mine, whose is it? I have dispossessed no- body. When I crossed the Mississippi yonder, I found nothing 118 THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH.
but the silent woods. If some one else had settled here, aad made this clearing, he would have had as good a right to the location as I have. I have done nothing but what any other person was at liberty to do had he come before me. Whilst they were unreclaimed, these lands belonged to all men — as much to one as to another — and they are now mine simply because I was the first to discover and improve them."
" You say truly, when you say that ' whilst they were un- reclaimed these lands belonged to all men.' And it is my duty to tell you that they belong to all men still; and that your ' improvements' as you call them, cannot vitiate the claim of all men. You may plough and harrow, and sow and reap; you may turn over the soil as often as you like; but all your ma- nipulations will fail to make* that soil yours, which was not yours to begin with. Let me put a case. Suppose now that in the course of your wanderings you come upon an empty house, wliich in spite of its dilapidated state takes your fancy; suppose that with the intention of making it your abode you expend much time and trouble in repairing it — that you paint and paper, and whitewash, and at considerable cost bring it into a habitable state. Suppose further, that on some fatal day a stranger is announced, who turns out to be the heir to whom this house has been bequeathed; and that this professed heir is prepared with all the necessary proofs of his identity: what becomes of your improvements? Do they give you a valid title to the house? Do they quash the title of the ori- ginal claimant? " "Neither then do your pioneering operations give you a valid title to this land. Neither do they quash the title of its original claimants — the human race. The world is God's be- quest to, mankind. All tnen are joint heirs to it; you amongst the number. And because you have taken up your residence on a certain part of it, and have subdued, cultivated, beautified that part — improved it as you say, you are not therefore war- THE EIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH. 119 ranted in appropriating it as entirely private property. At least if you do so, you may at any moment be justly expelled by the lawful owner — Society."
" " Well, but surely you would not eject me without making some recompense for the great additional value I have given to this tract, by reducing what was a wilderness into fertile fields. You would not turn me adrift and deprive me of all the benefit of those years of toil it has cost me to bring this spot into its present state."
" Of course not: just as in the case of the house, you would have an ec[uitable title to compensation from the proprietor for repairs and new fittings, so the community cannot justly take possession of this estate, without paying for all that you have done to it. This extra worth which your labour has imparted to it is fairly yours; and although you have, without leave, busied yourself in bettering what belongs to the community, yet no doubt the community wiU duly discharge your claim. But admitting this, is quite a different thing from recognising your right to the land itself. It may be true that you are en- titled to compensation for the improvements this enclosure has received at your hands; and at the same time it may be equally true that no act, form, proceeding, or ceremony, can make this enclosure your private property."
It does indeed at first sight seem possible for the earth to become the exclusive possession of individuals by some process of equitable distribution. " Why," it may be asked, " should not men agree to a fair subdivision? If all are co-heirs, why may not the estate be equally apportioned, and each be after- wards perfect master of his own share? " To this question it may iu the first place be replied, that such a division is vetoed by the difficulty of fixing the values of respective tracts of land. Variations in productiveness, dif- ferent degrees of accessibihty, advantages of climate, proximity 120 THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH.
to the centres of civilisation — these, and other such considera- tions, remove the prohlem out of the sphere of mere mensura- tion into the region "of impossibihty.
But, waiving this, let us inquire who are to be the allottees. Shall adult males, and all who have reached twenty-one on a specified day, be the fortunate individuals? If so, what is to be done with those who come of age on the morrow? Is it proposed that each man, woman, and child, shall have a sec- tion? If so, what becomes of all who are to be bom next year? And what wiU be the fate of those whose fathers sell their estates and squander the proceeds? These portionless ones must constitute a class already described as having no right to a resting-place on earth^as living by the sufferance of their fellow men — as being practically serfs. And the existence of such a class is wholly at variance with the law of equal freedom.
Until therefore, we can produce a valid coromission authoriz- ing us to make this distribution — until it can be proved that God has given one charter of privileges to one generation, and another to the next — until we can demonstrate that men born after a certain date aCre doomed to slavery, we must consider that no such allotment is permissible.
Probably some will regard the difficulties inseparable from individual ownership of the soil, as caused by pushing to ex- cess a doctrine applicable only witliin rational limits. This is a veiy favourite style of thinking with some. There are people who hate anything in the shape of exact conclusions; and these are of them. According to such, the right is never in either extreme, but always half way between the extremes. They are continually trying to reconcile Yes and No. Ifs, and huts, and excepts, are their delight. They have so great a faith in "the judicious mean" that they would scarcely believe an oracle, if it uttered a full-length principle. Were you to inquire of them whether the earth turns on its axis from East to West, THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH. 121 or from West to East, you might almost expect the reply — " A little of hoth," or " Not exactly either." It is doubtful whether they ■would assent to the axiom that the whole is greater than its part, ■without making some qualification. They have a passion for compromises. To meet their taste, Truth must always be spiced with a little Error. They cannot conceive of a pure, definite, entire, and unlimited law. And hence, in dis- cussions like the present, they are constantly petitioning for limitations — always ■ssishing to abate, and modify, and moderate — ever protesting against doctrines being pui"sued to their ulti- mate consequences.
But it behoves such to recollect, that ethical truth is as exact and as peremptory as physical truth; and that in this matter of land-tenure, the verdict of morahty must be distinctly yea or nay. Either men have a right to make the soil private property, or they have not. There is no medium. We must choose one of the two positions. There can be no half-and- half opinion. In the nature of things the fact must be either one way or the other.
If men have not such a right, ■we are at once delivered from the several predicaments alrea,dy pointed out. If they luive such a right, then is that right absolute, sacred, not on any pretence to be ■violated. If they have such a right, then is bis Grace of Leeds justified in -waming-off tomists from Ben Mac Dhui, the Duke of Atholl in closing Glen Tilt, the Duke of Buccleugh in denying sites to the Free Church, and the Duke of Sutherland in banishing the Highlanders to make room for sTieep-walks. If they have such a right, then it would be pro- per for the sole proprietor of any kingdom — a Jersey or Guern- sey, for example — to impose just -what regulations he might choose on its inhabitants — to teU them that they should not live on his property, unless they professed a certain religion, spoke a particular language, paid him a specified reverence, adopted an authorized dress, and conformed to all other conditions he might see fit to make. If they have such a right, then is there truth in diat tenet of the ultra-Tory school, that the landowners 122 THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH.
are the only legitimate rulers of a country — that the people at large remain in it only hy the landowners' permission, and ought consequently to submit to the landowners' rule, and re- spect whatever institutions the landowners set up. There is no escape from these inferences. They are necessary corollaries to the theory that the earth can become individual property. And they can only he repudiated by denying that theory.
After all, nobody does impHcitly believe in landlordism. We hear of estates being held under the king, that is, the State; or of their being kept in trust for the public benefit; and not that they are the inalienable possessions of their nominal owners. Moreover, we daily deny landlordism by our legislation. Is a canal, a railway, or a turnpike road to be made? we do not scruple to seize just as many acres as may be requisite; allowing the holders compensation for the capital invested. We do not wait for consent. An Act of Parhament supersedes the authority of title deeds, and serves proprietors with notices to quit, whether they will or not. Either this is equitable, or it is not. Either the public are free to resume as much of the earth's surface as they think fit, or the titles of the landowners must be considered absolute, and all national works must be postponed until lords and squires please to part with the re- quisite slices of their estates. If we decide that the claims of individual ownership must give way, then we imply that the right of the nation at large to the soil is supreme — that the right of private possession only exists by general consent — that general consent being withdrawn it ceases — or, ia other words, that it is no right at all.