s the sole duty. But it assumes
special forms amid the diversity of human relations. He first considers
the relations wherein we stand to ourselves and the corresponding
duties. That there should be any such duties is at first sight strange,
seeing we belong to ourselves; but this is not the same as having
complete power over ourselves. Possessing liberty, we must not abdicate
it by yielding to passions, and treat ourselves as if there were
nothing in us that merits respect. We are to distinguish between what
is peculiar to each of us, and what we share with humanity. Individual
peculiarities are things indifferent, but the liberty and intelligence
that constitute us persons, rather than individuals, demand to be
respected even by ourselves. There is an obligation of self-respect
imposed upon us as moral persons that was not established, and is not
to be destroyed, by us. As special cases of this respect of the moral
person in us, he cites (1) the duty of _self-control_ against anger or
melancholy, not for their pernicious consequences, but as trenching
upon the moral dignity of liberty and intelligence; (2) the duty of
_prudence_, meaning providence in all things, which regulates courage,
enjoins temperance, is, as the ancients said, the mother of all the
virtues,--in short, the government of liberty by reason; (3)
_veracity_; (4) duty towards the _body_; (5) duty of _perfecting_ (and
not merely keeping intact) the intelligence, liberty, and sensibility
that constitute us moral beings.

But the same liberty and intelligence that constitute me a moral
person, and need thus to be respected even by myself, exist also in
others, conferring rights on them, and imposing new duties of respect
on me relatively to them. To their intelligence I owe _Truth_; their
liberty I am bound to respect, sometimes even to the extent of not
hindering them from making a wrong use of it. I must respect also their
affections (family, &c.) which form part of themselves; their bodies;
their goods, whether acquired by labour or heritage. All these duties
are summed up in the one great duty of _Justice_ or respect for the
rights of others; of which the greatest violation is slavery.

The whole of duty towards others is not however comprehended in
justice. Conscience complains, if we have only not done injustice to
one in suffering. There is a new class of duties--_consolation,
charity, sacrifice_--to which indeed correspond no rights, and which