Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/85

 RIGBY

55

RIGHT

Jahres", Mainz, 1839-40, 3rd ed., 1854; "Christ- liche Kirchengeschichte der neuesten Zeit", Mainz, 1841-46; "Die Aufhebung des Jesuitenordens", 3rd ed., Mainz, 1855.

GoYAU, L'Allemagne religieuse: le Catholicisme, II (Paris, 1905), 313.

N. A. Weber.

Rigby, John, Venerable, English martyr; b. about 1570 at Harrocks Hall, Eccleston, Lancashire; executed at St. Thomas Waterings, 21 June, 1600. He was the fifth or sixth son of Nicholas Rigby, by Mary, daughter of Oliver Breres of Preston. In the service of Sir Edmund Huddleston, at a time when his daughter, Mrs. Fortescue, being then ill, was cited to the Old Bailey for recusancy, Rigby appeared on her behalf; compelled to confess himself a Catholic, he was sent to Newgate. The next day, 14 February, 1599 or 1600, he signed a confession, that, since he had been reconciled by the martyr, John Jones the Franciscan, in the Clink some two or three years previously, he had declined to go to church. He was then chained and remitted to Newgate, till, on 19 February, he was transferred to the White Lion. On the first Wednesday in March (which was the 4th and not, as the martyr himself supposes, the 3rd) he was brought to the bar, and in the afternoon given a private opportunity to conform. The next day he was sentenced for having been reconciled; but was reprieved till the next sessions. On 19 June he was again brought to the bar, and as he again refused to conform, he was told that his sentence must be car- ried out. On his way to execution the hurdle was stopped by a Captain Whitlock, who wished him to conform and asked him if he were married, to which the martyr replied, "1 am a bachelor; and more than that I am a maid", and the captain thereupon de- sired his prayers. The priest, who reconciled him, had suffered on the same spot 12 July, 1598.

Challoner, Missionary Priests, II (London, 1878), n. 117; Gii.i,ow, BiW. Dirt.Eno.Calh., V, 420; Chatham Socieli/s Pub- lications. LXXXI (1870), 74.

John B. Wainewright.

Rigby, Nicholas, b. 1800 at Walton near Preston, Lancashire; d. at Ugthorpe, 7 September, 1SS6. At twelve years he went to I'shaw College, where he was for a time professor of elocution. Ordained priest in September, 1826, he was sent to St. Mary's, Wycliffe, for six months, and was then given the united missions of Egton Bridge and Ugthorpe. After seven years the two missions were again separated, and he took up his residence at Ugthorpe. There he built a church (opened in 1855), started a new ceme- tery, and founded a middle-class college. About 1884 he resigned the mission work to his curate, the Rev. E. J. Hickey. His obituary notice, in the "Catholic Times" of 17 September, 1886, gives a sketch of his life. He wrote: "The Real Doctrine of the Church on Scripture", to which is added an account of the conversion of the Duke of Brunswick (Anton Ulrich, 1710), and of "Father Ignatius" Spencer (1830), (York, 1834), dedicated to the Rev. Benedict Rayment. Other works, chiefly treatises on primary truths, or sermons of a controversial character, are described in Gillow, "Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath."

Patrick Ryan.

Right, as a substantive (my right, his right), desig- nates the object of justice. When a person declares he has a right to a thing, he means he has .a kind of dominion over such thing, which others are obliged to recognize. Right may therefore be defined as a moral or legal authority to possess, claim, and use a thing as one's own. It is thus essentially distinct from obligation; in virtue of an obligation we should, in virtue of a right, we may do or omit something. Again,

right is a moral or legal authoritj', and, as such, is distinct from merely physical superiority or pre-emi- nence; the thief who steals something without being detected enjoys the physical control of the object, but no right to it; on the contrary, his act is an in- justice, a violation of right, and he is bound to return the stolen object to its owner. Right is called a moral or legal authority, because it emanates from a law which assigns to one the dominion over the thing and imposes on others the obligation to respect this dominion. To the right of one person corresponds an obligation on the part of others, so that right and obligation condition each other. If I have the right to demand one hundred dollars from a person, he is under the obligation to give them to me; without this obligation, right would be illusory. One may even say that the right of one person consists in the fact that, on his account, others are bound to perform or omit something.

The clause, "to possess, claim, and use, anything as one's own", defines more closely the object of right. Justice assigns to each person his own {suum cuique). When anyone asserts that a thing is his own, is his private property, or belongs to him, he means that this object stands in a spcrial n^lation to him, that it is in the first place destined for his use, and that he can dispose of it according to his will, regardless of others. By a thing is here meant not merely a material object, but everj'thing that can be useful to man, including actions, omissions, etc. The connexion of a certain thing with a certain person, in virtue of which the person may declare the thing his own, can orig- inate only on the basis of concrete facts. It is an evident demand of human reason in general that one may give or leave one's own to anyone; but what constitutes one's own is determined by facts. Many things are physically connected with the human per- son by conception or birth — his hmbs, bodily and mental qualities, health, etc. From the order imposed by the Creator of Nature, we recognize that, from the first moment of his being, his faculties and members are granted a person primarily for his own use, and so that they may enable him to supjiort himself and develop and fulfil the tasks appointed by the Creator for this life. These things (i. e.,his qualities, etc.) are his own from the first moment of his existence, and whoever injures them or deprives him of them vio- lates his right. However, many other things are con- nected with the human person, not physically, but only morally. In other words, in virtue of a certain fact, everyone recognizes that certain things are specially destined for the use of one person, and must be recognized as such by all. Persons who build a house for themselves, make an implement, catch game in the unreserved forest, or fish in the open sea, be- come the owners of these things in virtue of occupation of their labour; they can claim these things as their own, and no one can forcibly appropriate or injure these things without a violation of their rights. Who- ever ha.s lawfully purchased a thing, or been presented with it by another, may regard such thing as his own, since by the purchase or presentation he succeeds to the place of the other person and possesses his rights. As a right gives rise to a certain connexion between person and person with respect to a thing, we may distingui-sh in right four elements: the holder, the object, the title, and the terminus of the right. The holder of the right is the person who possesses the right, the terminus is the person who has the obliga- tion corresponding to the right, the object is the thing to which the right refers, and the title is the fact on the ground of which a person may regard and claim the thing as his own. Strictly speaking, this fact alone is not the title of the right, which originates, indeed, in the fact, but taken in connexion with the principle that one must assign to each his own property; how- ever, since this principle may be presupposed as self-