Positive
duties he is excused from.
8. Some have taught that all human rights are consequences of duties;
a man having first a duty to perform, and then a right to the means
necessary to its performance. But this doctrine appears more pious
than probable. For, first, the type and example of sovereign right,
God, has no duties. (_Ethics_, c. vi., s. ii., n. 4, p. 130.) Then
again, a man may have a right conjoined with a duty--not of justice,
of course, but of some other virtue, as of religion--not to use that
right. But if rights were consequent upon duties, the right would
cease in such a case; and to pretend to exercise it would be a sin
against justice, which it is not.
SECTION II.--_Of the so-called Rights of Animals_.
1. Brute beasts, not having understanding and therefore not being
persons, cannot have any rights. The conclusion is clear. They are not
autocentric. They are of the number of _things_, which are another's:
they are chattels, or cattle. We have no duties to them,--not of
justice, as is shown; not of religion, unless we are to worship them,
like the Egyptians of old; not of fidelity, for they are incapable of
accepting a promise.
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