[1] I do not know that I can compel my parents to be maintained by me, and therefore it is not my legal right to maintain them; but at least the obligation, if I claim it, ceases to depend on force. An East-End Londoner will say, “He had a right to maintain his father,” meaning that he was bound to do so; and Jeannie Deans says, “I have no right to have stories told about my family without my consent,” representing her own claim as an obligation on herself as well as on others. She represents the thought, “I have a right that you should not tell stories, etc.,” in a form which puts it as a case of the thought, “You have no right to tell stories,” disregarding the distinction between herself and others as accidental.
[2] The law used to interfere with bad sanitation only as a “nuisance,” _i.e._ as an annoyance to “others.” It now interferes with any state of things dangerous to life as such, which probably means that a change of theory has unconsciously set in. Legislation for dangerous trades almost proves the point, though here it is possible to urge that the employer is put under obligation for the sake of his workers, and not the workers for their own sake. But the distinction is hardly real.
_(c)_ It is commonly said that every right implies a duty. This has two meanings, which should be distinguished.
In the one case, (i.) for “duty” should be read “obligation,” _i.e._ a demand enforceable by law. This simply means that every “position” may be regarded as involving either powers secured or conditions enforced, which are one and the same thing differently looked at. Roughly speaking, they are the same thing as differently looked at by one person, and by other persons. My right { 209} to walk along the high road involves an obligation upon all other persons not to obstruct me, and in the last resort the State will send horse, foot and artillery rather than let me be causelessly obstructed in walking along the high road.
It is also true that every position which can be the source of obligations enforceable in favour of my rights is likewise a link with obligations enforceable on me in favour of the rights of others. By claiming a right in virtue of my position I recognise and testify to the general system of law according to which I am reciprocally under obligation to respect the rights, or rather the function and position, of others. My rights then imply obligations both in others, and perhaps in myself, correlative to these rights, and in me correlative to the rights of others. But it cannot strictly be said that the obligations are the source of the rights, or the rights of the obligations. Both are the varied external conditions of “positions” as regarded from different points of view.