Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/311

Rh got. As the government, in Bentham's view, is but an agent, the rights it confers are rights given to it in trust by the sovereign people. If so, such rights must be possessed en bloc by the sovereign people before the government, in fulfillment of its trust, confers them on individuals; and, if so, each individual has a millionth portion of these rights in his public capacity, while he has no rights in his private capacity. These he gets only when all the rest of the million join to endow him with them; while he joins to endow with them every other member of the million!

Thus, in whatever way we interpret it, Bentham's proposition leaves us in a plexus of absurdities.

Even though ignoring the opposite opinion of the German writers on jurisprudence, and even without an analysis which proves their own opinion to be untenable, Bentham's disciples might have been led to treat less cavalierly the doctrine of natural rights. For sundry groups of social phenomena unite to prove that this doctrine is well warranted, and the doctrine they set against it entirely unwarranted.

Tribes in various parts of the world show us that before definite government arises, conduct is regulated by customs. The Bechuanas are controlled by "long-acknowledged customs." Among the Koranna Hottentots, who only "tolerate their chiefs rather than obey them," "when ancient usages are not in the way, every man seems to act as is right in his own eyes." The Araucanians are guided by "nothing more than primordial usages or tacit conventions." Among the Kirghizes the judgments of the elders are based on "universally-recognized customs." So, too, of the Dyaks, Rajah Brooke tells us that "custom seems simply to have become the law; and breaking custom leads to a fine." So sacred are immemorial customs with the primitive man, that he never dreams of questioning their authority; and when government arises, its power is limited by them. In Madagascar the king's word suffices only "where there is no law, custom, or precedent." Raffles tells us that in Java "the customs of the country" restrain the will of the ruler. In Sumatra, too, the people do not allow their chiefs to "alter their ancient usages." Nay, occasionally, as in Ashantee, "the atttempt to change some customs" has caused a king's dethronement. Now, among the customs which we