Bonus Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on April 8, 2019
… is from pages 202-203 of the 1978 collection, edited by Eric Mack, of the great Auberon Herbert’s essays, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State; specifically, it’s from Herbert’s brilliant May 1894 Contemporary Review essay, “The Ethics of Dynamite”:
And what sort of a philosophical doctrine is this – that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others?…. Is it possible to suppose, without absurdity, that a man should have no rights over his own body and mind, and yet have a 1/10000000th share in unlimited rights over all other bodies and minds? If he does not begin by possessing rights over himself, by what wonderful flying leap can he arrive at rights over others? yet, if he once possess these rights over himself, how can he ever be deprived of them, and become the statutable property of others? and again, where can a crowd of individuals get rights from, unless it be from the individuals themselves, who make up the crowd? and yet, if the individuals possess these rights over themselves, as individuals, what place is left for rights belonging to the crowd, as a crowd?
Comments
