affects these more than another can, and whether this peculiar and paramount interest does not give a direct and natural right of maintaining this circle of individuality sacred. If another breaks my arm by violence, this will not certainly give him additional health or strength; if he stuns me with a blow or inflicts torture on my limbs, it is I who feel the pain, and not he; nor does it do him any kind of good. It is hard then, if I, who have the greatest interest in my own sensations, have not the greatest right over them; and that another should pretend to deprive me of it, or pretend to judge for me, and set up his will against mine in what concerns this portion of my existence-where I have all at stake and he nothing-is not merely injustice, but impertinence. This circle of personal security and right then, is not an imaginary and arbitrary line fixed by law and the will of princes, but is real and inherent in the nature of things, and itself the foundation of law and justice. "Hands off is fair play"-according to the old saying. A, then, has not a right to lay violent hands on B, or to infringe on the sphere of his bodily sensations; he must not run foul of another, or he is liable to be repelled and punished for the invasion of the boundaries of that other's just rights and privileges. The

coming in contact, or personal assault, is then clearly prohibited, because each person's body is clearly defined but how if A use other means of annoyance against B, such as a sword or poison, or resort to what causes other painful sensations besides tangible ones? Or, if these are included as against personal rights, then how draw the line between them and the using certain offensive words or gestures, or uttering opinions which I disapprove? This is a puzzler for the dogmatic school; but they solve the whole difficulty by an assumption of utility, which is as much as to tell a person that the way to any place to which he asks a direction is "to follow his nose." We want to know what is best or useful, and they tell us very wisely, that it is infallibly and fully determined by what is best or useful. Let us try something else. If a person runs a sword through me, or administers poison, or procures it to be administered, the effect, the pain, disease or death, is the same, and I have the same right to prevent it, on the principle that I am the sufferer; that the injury is offered to me, and he is no gainer by it, except for mere malice or caprice, and I therefore remain master and judge of my own remedy, as in the former case; the principle and definition of right being to secure to each individual the determination

and protection of that portion of sensation, in which he has the greatest, if not a sole interest and as it were identity with it. Again, as to what are called nuisances, to wit offensive smells, sounds, &c. it is more difficult to determine, on the ground that one man's meat is another man's poison. I remember a case occurred in the neighbourhood where I was, and at the time I was trying my best at this question, which puzzled me a good deal. A rector of a little town in Shropshire, who was at variance with all his parishioners, had conceived a particular spite to a lawyer who lived next door to him, and as a means of annoying him, used to get together all sorts of rubbish, weeds, and unsavoury materials and set them on fire, so that the smoke should blow over into his neighbour's garden: whenever the wind set in that direction, he said as a signal to his gardener, "It's a fine Wicksteed wind to-day;" and the operation commenced. Was this an action of assault and battery, or not? I think it was, for this reason, that the offence was unequivocal, and that the only motive for the proceeding was the giving this offence. The assailant would not like to be served so himself. Mr Bentham would say the malice of the motive was a set-off to the injury. I shall leave that prima philosophia consideration out of the ques

tion. A man who knocks out another's brains with a bludgeon may say it pleases him to do so; but will it please him to have the compliment returned? If he still persists, in spite of this punishment, there is no preventing him; but if not, then it is a proof that he thinks the pleasure less than the pain to himself, and consequently to another in the scales of justice. The lex talionis is an excellent test. Suppose a third person (the physician of the place) had said, "It is a fine Egerton wind today," our rector would have been non-plused; for he would have felt that, as he suffered all the hardship, he had the right to complain of and to resist an action of another, the consequences of which affected principally himself. Now mark, if he had himself had any advantage to derive from the action, which he could not obtain in any other way, then he would feel that his neighbour also had the same plea and right to follow his own course, (still this might be a doubtful point); but in the other case it would be sheer malice and wanton interference; that is, not the exercise of a right, but the invasion of another's comfort and independence. Has a person, then, a right to play on the horn or on a flute, on the same staircase? I say yes; because it is for his own improvement and pleasure, and not to annoy

another; and because, accordingly, every one in his own case would wish to reserve this or a similar privilege to himself. I do not think a person has a right to beat a drum under one's window, because this is altogether disagreeable, and if there is an extraordinary motive for it, then it is fit that the person should be put to some little inconvenience in removing his sphere of liberty of action to a reasonable distance. A tallow-chandler's shop or a steam-engine is a nuisance in a town, and ought to be removed into the suburbs; but they are to be tolerated where they are least inconvenient, because they are necessary somewhere, and there is no remedying the inconvenience.. The right to protest against and to prohibit them rests with the suffering party; but because this point of the greatest. interest is less clear in some cases than in others it does not follow that there is no right or principle of justice in the case. 3. As to matters of contempt and the expression of opinion, I think these do not fall under the head of force, and are not, on that ground, subjects of coercion and law. For example, if a person inflicts a sensation upon me by material means, whether tangible or otherwise, I cannot help that sensation; I am so far the slave of that other, and have no means of resisting him but by force, which I

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