to them as a voice from heaven, that their enterprise would make no
progress unless Agamemnon's daughter were sacrificed to Diana. In order
to place the details of the story in a light as little favourable as
possible to my argument, we will deviate somewhat from the accepted
version, and will suppose that the arrested enterprise was one of even
greater pith and moment than tradition ascribes to it. We will suppose
that upon its successful prosecution depended the national existence of
Greece; that its failure would have involved the extermination of
one-half of the people, and the slavery of the other half. We will
suppose, too, that of all this Iphigenia was as firmly persuaded as
every one else. In these circumstances, had her countrymen a right to
insist on her immolation? If so, on what was that right founded? Is it
sufficient to say in reply that her death was essential to the national
happiness, to the extent even of being indispensable to prevent that
happiness from being converted into national woe? Manifestly, according
to the hypothesis, it was expedient for all concerned, with the single
exception of herself, that she should die; but were the others thereby
entitled to take her life? Did the fact of its being for their advantage
to do this warrant their doing it? Simply because it was their interest,
was it also their right? Right, we must recollect, invariably implies
corresponding duty. Right, it is clear, can never be rightfully
resisted. If it be the right of certain persons to do a certain thing,
it must be the duty of all other persons to let that thing be done.
Where there is no such duty, there can be no such right. Wherefore, if
the 'stern, black-bearded kings, with wolfish eyes,' who sate 'waiting
to see her die,' had a right to kill Iphigenia, it must have been
Iphigenia's duty to let herself be killed. Was this then her duty?
'Duty,' as I have elsewhere observed,[3] 'signifies something due, a
debt, indebtedness, and a debt cannot have been incurred for nothing, or
without some antecedent step on the part either of debtor or creditor.'
But it is not pretended that in any way whatever, by any antecedent act
of hers or theirs, Iphigenia had incurred or had been subjected to a
debt to her countrymen which could be paid off only with her life. It
could not, then, be incumbent on her to let her life be taken in
payment. If it had been in her power to burst her bonds, and break
through the wolves in huma