a society in which the material means of life and happiness are in large part already appropriated. But the facts need not blind us to the ideal, which, indeed, is gradually conquering the facts.
When we come to Mr. Spencer's deduction of material rights from Justice conceived as the law of equal freedom, we are forcibly reminded of the philosophizing of Hegel. The notion, according to Hegel, conceives, without being impregnated by experience, and bears a prolific offspring. Mr. Spencer's "law of equal freedom" unfolds into "several particular freedoms" or "rights." It is the Gang der Sache selbst! The categories, according to Hegel, must be just so many, neither more nor fewer. Mr. Spencer assures us that his table of Natural Rights is complete (p. 176). Hegel's Political Philosophy was an a priori vindication of the Prussian state; Mr. Spencer's is derived from — I suppose I should say is deduced with an eye upon — the ideals and practices of English legislators of the last generation. Of course, with these various points of agreement, there is a radical difference in standpoint. For Hegel the state, as compared with the citizen, was the more real, being as it were the substance of his spiritual life. Mr. Spencer holds that the individual has rights apart from the state, and that the state involves "deductions from the lives of each and all" (pp. 46, 63).
Of the various Natural Rights specified by Mr. Spencer, I think it must be said that not one of them is, or can be, deduced from the law of equal freedom. They are the conditions which have been found, in some cases, necessary, in others, expedient, for the maintenance of human society. They have been gradually evolved and formulated by mankind, as Mr. Spencer admirably illustrates. They are authenticated, not as Mr. Spencer supposes by reason, but solely by their conduciveness to the public welfare. We learn them from history, not from deduction; and we see at the same time that they are not universally applicable. The "right of free speech and publication" may at times be properly withheld, and I have not observed any censure of the Indian government for its recent withdrawal of the right from certain native writers. "The right of free exchange" exists nowhere in the world outside of Great Britain; and certainly American citizens are peculiarly sensitive to their rights. If we believed that "freedom of worship" imperilled the public welfare, no assertion of individual rights would prevent its abolition (cf. the great Mormon case, Reynolds v. United States). "The right to property" is one of the most sacred of rights; yet it may be modified or set aside for the good of the community, as is illustrated by recent land-legislation in England. Even "the right to life" is qualified by the state's need of soldiers. Instead, then, of acquiescing in the doctrine that the individual in virtue of his humanity, and without any regard to the state or society in which he
