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 190 EDWARD WESTBRMABCK : duty of not preventing them from doing so. That there is no necessary connexion between the right to command obedience and the duty to obey, appears, for example, from the fact that a man undoubtedly has a right to compel his horse to submit to his will (unless, by doing so, he makes himself guilty of cruelty), whereas it is impossible to attribute to the horse the duty of obedience. The circum- stance that in many, though not in all. cases a right is a right to a mode of conduct which has reference to some particular person, or class of persons, has disguised the truth that, whilst rights may be individual, their corresponding duties are always universal. It has been maintained that rights and duties are really identical, it being always a duty to insist upon a right. 1 No doubt, if anybody prevents me from making use of my right, I ought to insist on it, inasmuch as it is a duty not to tolerate wrong. But this does not make rights and duties identical. In innumerable cases rights imply such duties, and the implication is more frequent according as the moral standard is more rigid. In proportion as the sphere of duties is extended, the sphere of what is permissible, without being obligatory, is restricted. But even the strictest judge does not in practice abolish the merely permissible. Those who maintain that there is nothing morally indifferent, and nothing that goes beyond duty, who, in other words, look upon all conduct of responsible beings as either wrong or obligatory, they of course are bound to draw the conclusion that a right in every case is a right to perform a duty. But their premise is psychologically in- correct, being contrary to the moral consciousness as it actually exists. Even though it be my duty to insist upon my right when it is infringed, it is not always my duty to exercise a right I possess. And if a man's right happens to coincide with his duty, we say that it is not only his right but also his duty, which shows that these notions are in no case identical. As there is a universal duty corresponding to each right the duty to respect it so there is a universal right corre- sponding to each duty the right to disapprove of its transgression. The universality of this right is not invalidated by the fact that the permissible means of expressing dis- approval vary indefinitely. Everybody has a right to try, within certain limits, to prevent the transgression of a duty, but everybody has not, except in extreme cases, the right of 1 Alexander, loc. cit., p. 146 sq.