w how society became so
entitled; when for the claim he puts forward on society's behalf he will
find it impossible to produce any plausible pretext, without crediting
society with possession of a right belonging to that same 'natural'
class, the existence of which he denies. For, as there can be no rights
without corresponding obligations or duties, if it be really the right
of society to deal at its discretion with the persons or effects of
individuals, it must be incumbent on individuals to permit themselves
and whatever is theirs to be so dealt with. Have, then, individuals
incurred any such obligation? No obligation, be it remembered, can
arise, except through some antecedent act of one or other or both of the
parties concerned. Either a pledge of some sort must have been given or
a benefit of some sort must have been received. Now undoubtedly there
are no limits to the extent to which society and its individual members
might have reciprocally pledged themselves. It might have been
stipulated by their articles of association that society at large should
do its utmost for the welfare of each of its members, and that each of
its members should do his utmost for the welfare of society at large.
But it is certain, either that no such compact ever was made, or that,
if made, it has always been systematically set at nought. Society has
never made much pretence of troubling itself about the welfare of
individuals, except in certain specified particulars; so that, even if
individuals had, on condition of being treated with reciprocal
solicitude, accepted the obligation of attending to the welfare of
society in other than the same particulars, that conditional obligation
would from the commencement have been null and void. The one thing which
society invariably pledges itself to do is to protect person and
property, and by implication to enforce performance of contracts; and
the two things which individual associates in turn pledge themselves to
do are to abstain from molesting each other's persons and property, and
to assist society in protecting both. In so abstaining and so assisting
consist all those 'many acts and the still greater number of
forbearances, the perpetual practice of which by all is,' as Mr. Mill
says, 'universally deemed to be so necessary to the general well-being,
that people must be held to it compulsorily, either by law or by social
pressure.'[7] Under one or other of these two heads may be ranged
eve