s is not satisfactorily limited by the
corresponding right which his employee would enjoy if he were in a
position to impose the same terms on some one else. Generally, the right
to injure or take advantage of another is not sufficiently limited by
the right of that other if he should have the power to retaliate in
kind. There is no right to injure another; and if we ask what is injury
we are again thrown back on some general principle which will override
the individual claim to do what one will.

(_c_) The doctrine of popular sovereignty rests on two principles. (1)
It is said to reside in the nation. Law is the expression of the general
will. Here the "nation" is conceived as a collective whole, as a unit.
(2) Every citizen has the right to take part in making the law. Here the
question is one of individual right. Which is the real ground of
democratic representation--the unity of the national life, or the
inherent right of the individual to be consulted about that which
concerns himself?

Further, and this is a very serious question, which is the ultimate
authority--the will of the nation, or the rights of the individual?
Suppose the nation deliberately decides on laws which deny the rights of
the individual, ought such laws to be obeyed in the name of popular
sovereignty, or to be disobeyed in the name of natural rights? It is a
real issue, and on these lines it is unfortunately quite insoluble.

These difficulties were among the considerations which led to the
formation of the second type of Liberal theory, and what has to be said
about the harmony of the natural order may be taken in conjunction with
this second theory to which we may now pass, and which is famous as The
Greatest Happiness Principle.

Bentham, who spent the greater part of his life in elaborating the
greatest happiness principle as a basis of social reconstruction, was
fully alive to the difficulties which we have found in the theory of
natural rights. The alleged rights of man were for him so many
anarchical fallacies. They were founded on no clearly assignable
principle, and admitted of no demonstration. "I say I have a right." "I
say you have no such right." Between the disputants who or what is to
decide? What was the supposed law of nature? When was it written, and by
whose authority? On what ground do we maintain that men are free or
equal? On what principle and within what limits do we or can we maintain
the right of property? There wer