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 KKMVUKS ON THE PliEDICATES OK MORAL JUDGMENTS. 191 actual compulsion nor the right of inflicting punishment, in the ordinary sense of the word, upon the transgressor. It is a universal right to arrest the assassin's dagger, even if it be at the cost of his life, but it is not a universal right to compel a child to obey its parents. Among the ancient Teutons it was a universal right to kill an outlawed man ; but, as a general rule, the right to punish an offender was restricted to the injured man and his family, and in later times it was transferred to the State. When the transgression of a duty consists in the violation of somebody's right, the offended party, however, has retained a particularly important share in the universal right corresponding to the duty. It is true that there has been a general tendency, in the course of evolution, to restrict this share within more and more narrow limits. Self-revenge has been succeeded by State- punishment ; the paternal authority has lost its rigidity ; the right to hate an enemy has been theoretically transformed even into a duty to love him. Nevertheless, in spite of the commandment of an idealistic moral code, public opinion, even in the most civilised societies, gives to the sufferer a certain right of retaliation, especially if his honour has been attacked, and to injured nations the right of war. Besides the corresponding right every duty gives to all who are capable of possessing rights, it carries with it a special right, that of performing the duty in somewhat the same way as every right brings with it the duty of not tolerating its violation. It is almost superfluous to point out the inaccuracy of which certain writers are guilty, when speaking of " colliding duties," just as if, in a certain moment, a man could have a duty which he had no right to perform. The so-called " duties " only represent, in a rough way, modes of conduct which under ordinary circumstances are obligatory. The " duties " a man owes to his family, for instance, do not really imply that he, under all circum- stances, ought to look after its special interests, and can never collide, say, with the duty of patriotism. It is an odd way of putting it to say that a lower duty has to give way to a higher duty, since "the lower duty" in case of " collision "is no duty at all. An action which a man ought not to do, and which he has no right to do, never can be called his duty. In some way connected with the notion of " rights " is the notion of justice. It is thus defined in the Institutes of Justinian : " Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuendi " " Justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to each one his right ". In fact only