But the same liberty and intelligence that constitute me a moral person, and need thus to be respected even by myself, exist also in others, conferring rights on them, and imposing new duties of respect on me relatively to them.  To their intelligence I owe Truth; their liberty I am bound to respect, sometimes even to the extent of not hindering them from making a wrong use of it.  I must respect also their affections (family, &c.) which form part of themselves; their bodies; their goods, whether acquired by labour or heritage.  All these duties are summed up in the one great duty of Justice or respect for the rights of others; of which the greatest violation is slavery.

The whole of duty towards others is not however comprehended in justice.  Conscience complains, if we have only not done injustice to one in suffering.  There is a new class of duties—­consolation, charity, sacrifice—­to which indeed correspond no rights, and which therefore are not so obligatory as justice, but which cannot be said not to be obligatory.  From their nature, they cannot be reduced to an exact formula; their beauty lies in liberty.  But in charity, he adds, there is also a danger, from its effacing, to a certain extent, the moral personality of the object of it.  In acting upon others, we risk interfering with their natural rights; charity is therefore to be proportioned to the liberty and reason of the person benefited, and is never to be made the means of usurping power over another.

Justice and Charity are the two elements composing social morality.  But what is social? and on what is Society founded, existing as it does everywhere, and making man to be what he is?  Into the hopeless question of its origin he refuses to enter; its present state is to be studied by the light of the knowledge of human nature.  Its invariable foundations are (1) the need we have of each other, and our social instincts, (2) the lasting and indestructible idea and sentiment of right and justice.  The need and instinct, of which he finds many proofs, begin society; justice crowns the work.  The least consideration of the relations of man to man, suggest the essential principles of Society—­justice, liberty, equality, government, punishment.  Into each of these he enters.  Liberty is made out to be assured and developed in society, instead of diminished.  Equality is established upon the character of moral personality, which admits of no degree.  The need of some repression upon liberty, where the liberty of others is trenched upon, conducts to the idea of Government—­a disinterested third party armed with the necessary power to assure and defend the liberty of all.  To government is to be ascribed, first its inseparable function of protecting the common liberty (without unnecessary repression), and next, beneficent action, corresponding to the duty of charity.  It requires, for its guidance, a rule superior to itself, i.e., law, the expression of universal