ups. These lead us quite naturally to the
second category of general notions of rights.

=Conventional Rights.=--To speak correctly, conventional rights are
not rights. They are simply a dogmatic sanction applied to all kinds
of customs and abuses that men have appropriated, according to local
circumstances and their fortuitous conquests or acquisitions. Here,
the consequences of the natural rights of the stronger, religious
mysticisms and all sorts of human passions, the sexual appetite
especially, play a very varied and complex role.

The absurdity and injustice of conventional rights is shown by the
difference, often even the absolute contrast, of the corresponding
conception of rights among different peoples. In one, polygamy is a
right and even a divine institution; in another, it is a crime.
Individual murder is generally considered as criminal, but in warfare
the slaughter of masses becomes a duty and even a virtue. Theft and
rapine are regarded in times of peace as crimes, but in time of war,
under the form of annexation and plunder they are the uncontested
rights of the victor. In a kingdom, the monarch is looked upon as a
holy person and offense to his majesty as a crime; in a democracy, it
is individual domination which is regarded as criminal.

Falsehood and mental restriction are, in certain cases at least, the
rights or even the duty of the Catholic, who is only forbidden to
swear falsely in the name of God and religion, while others consider
all falsehood more or less unjustifiable; others again regard every
oath as sinful.

The contradictions, inconsistencies, unnatural prescripts and
tyrannies of what is called conventional rights in different peoples
are innumerable, and the notions of our rights which we have inherited
from the Romans are not much better.

=Retaliation.=--In historical epochs, we see the rights of the
stronger succeeded by certain notions of rights which may still be
considered as primordial; such is the law of retaliation or lynch law,
based on the natural sentiment of vengeance, which is itself derived
from anger, jealousy and pride, and says "An eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth." The law of retaliation is very natural and very
human. Although of savage origin, it has at least the merit of
recognizing in men an equal right in retaliation for injury caused in
a brutal fashion, without considering inner motives.

=Expiation.=--We also find in the old law another notion de