MUST STAND OR FALL WITH THOSE OF MEN. 191

condemned as akin to the Eastern dogma, that women have no souls. It has been argued that the position at present held by the weaker sex is of necessity a wrong one, seeing that the same selfishness which vitiates our political institutions, must inevitably vitiate our domestic ones also. Subordination of females to males has been also repudiated, because it implies the use of command, and thereby reveals its descent from barbarism. Proof has been given that the attitudes of mastery on the one side, and submission on the other, are essentially at variance with that refined sentiment which should subsist between husband and wife. The argument that married life would be impracticable under any other arrangement, has been met by pointing out how the relationship of equality must become possible as fast as its justness is recognized. And lastly, it has been shown that the objections commonly raised against giving political power to women, are founded on notions and prejudices that will not bear examination.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.

§ 1. If we are once sure of our law-sure that it is

a Divine ordination-sure that it is rooted in the nature of things, then whithersoever it leads we may safely follow. As elsewhere pointed out (Lemma II.), a true rule has no exceptions. When therefore that first principle from which the rights of adults are derived, turns out to be a source from which we may derive the rights of children, and when the two processes of deduction prove to be identical, we have no choice but to abide by the result,

and to assume that the one inference is equally authoritative with the other.

That the law-Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man-applies as much to the young as to the mature, becomes manifest on referring back to its origin. God wills human happiness; that happiness is attainable only through the medium of faculties; for the production of happiness those faculties must be exercised; the exercise of them presupposes liberty of action; these are the steps by which we find our way from the Divine will to the law of equal freedom. But the demonstration is fully as complete when used on behalf of the child, as when used on behalf of the man. The child's happiness, too, is willed by the Deity; the child, too, has faculties to be exercised; the child, too, needs scope for the exercise of those faculties; the child therefore has claims to freedomrights as we call them-coextensive with those of the adult. We cannot avoid this conclusion, if we would. Either we must reject the law altogether, or we must include under it both sexes and all ages.

The candid thinker will find himself obliged to concede this, when he considers the many perplexities which follow in the train of any other theory. For, if it be asserted that the law of equal freedom applies only to adults; that is, if it be asserted that men have rights, but that children have none, we are immediately met by the question-When does the child become a man? at what period does the human being pass out of the condition of having no rights, into the condition of having rights? None will have the folly to quote the arbitrary dictum of the statute-book as an answer. The appeal is to an authority above that of legislative enactments-demands on what these are to be founded-on what attribute of manhood recognition by the law of equal freedom depends.

THE TESTS OF MANHOOD.

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Shall the youth be entitled to the rights of humanity when the pitch of his voice sinks an octave? or when he begins to shave? or when he ceases growing? or when he can lift a hundred weight? Are we to adopt the test of age, of stature, of weight, of strength, of virility, or of intelligence? Much may no doubt be said in favour of each of these; but who can select the true one? And who can answer the objection, that whichever qualification is chosen, will class many as men who are not at present considered such; whilst it will reject from the list, others who are now by universal consent included in it?

Nor is this all. For even supposing that, by some undiscovered species of logic, it has been determined on what particular day of his life the human being may equitably claim his freedom, it still remains to define the position he holds previously to this period. Has the minor absolutely no rights at all? If so, there is nothing wrong in infanticide. If so, robbery is justifiable, provided the party robbed be under age. If so, a child may equitably be enslaved. For, as already shown (pp. 130, 153), murder, theft, and the holding of others in bondage are wrong, simply because they are violations of human rights; and if children have no rights, they cannot become the subjects of these crimes. But if, on the other hand, it be held, as it is held, that children have some rights; if it be held that the youth has an equal claim to life with the adult; if it be held that he has something like the same title to liberty; and if it be held (though not by law, yet by public opinion) that he is similarly capable of owning property, then it becomes needful to show why these primary rights must be conceded, but no others. They who assert that children are wholly without rights, and that, like the inferior animals, they exist only by permission of grown men, take up a precise, unmistakable position. But they who suppose children to occupy a place morally above that of brutes, and yet maintain that whilst children have certain rights, their rights are not equal with those of men, are called upon to draw the line, to explain, to define. They must say what rights are common to children and adults, and why. They must say where the rights of adults exceed those of children, and why. And their answers to these queries must be drawn, not from considerations of expediency, but from the original constitution of things.

Should it be argued, that the relationship in which a parent stands to his child, as supplying it with the necessaries of life, is a different one from that subsisting between man and man, and that consequently the law of equal freedom does not apply, the answer is, that though by so maintaining it a parent establishes a certain claim upon his child-a claim which he may fairly expect to have discharged by a like kindness toward himself should he ever need it, yet he establishes no title to dominion. For if the conferring an obligation establishes a title to dominion in this case, then must it do so in others; whence it will follow that if one man becomes a benefactor to another, he thereby obtains the right to play the master over that other; a conclusion which we do not admit. Moreover, if in virtue of his position a parent may trench upon the liberties of his child, there necessarily arises the question-To what extent may he do this; may he destroy them entirely, as by committing murder? If not, it is required to ascertain the limit up to which he may go, but which he must not exceed; a problem equally insoluble with the similar one just noticed.

Unless, therefore, the reader can show that the train of reasoning by which the law of equal freedom is deduced from the Divine will, does not recognize children, which he cannot; unless he can show exactly at what time the child becomes a man, which he cannot; unless he

TO THE EXERCISE OF THEIR FACULTIES.

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can show why a certain share of liberty naturally attaches to both childhood and manhood, and another share to only one, which he cannot; he must admit that the rights of the youth and the adult are coextensive.

There is indeed one plausible-looking way of meeting these arguments. It may be urged that in the child many of the faculties of the future man are undeveloped, and that as rights are primarily dependent on faculties, the rights of children cannot be coextensive with those of adults, because their faculties are not so. A fatal objection this, did it touch the question; but it happens to be wholly beside it. The fullest endowment of rights that any being can possess, is perfect freedom to exercise all his faculties. And if each of two beings possesses perfect freedom to exercise all his faculties, each possesses complete rights; that is, the rights of the two are equal; no matter whether their faculties are equal or not. For, to say that the rights of the one are less than those of the other, because his faculties are fewer, is to say that he has no right to exercise the faculties he has not got!-a curious compound of truism and absurdity.

§ 2. Due warning was given (p. 65) that our first principle carried in it the germs of sundry unlooked-for conclusions. We have now met with one of these. We have just found ourselves committed to a proposition at war with the convictions of almost all. Truth, however, must of necessity be consistent. We have therefore no alternative but to reëxamine our preconceived opinions, in the expectation of finding them erroneous.

That we may enter upon this task in a philosophical spirit, it will be well, at the risk even of something like repetition, to glance at the influences by which our beliefs are in danger of being warped. We need constantly reminding of these. As an abstract truth, we all admit that