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[Chapter 13- Classifications of Rights and Duties] 124. A system of rights and duties is the organization by which members of the social organism reciprocally stimulate and control each other's actions. It is impossible in this to separate the idea and the mechanism side. One individual can't stimulate another directly.53 There must be some medium of interaction . Things and objects are those media. The object represents simply the meeting point or means of adjustment between individuals. The question, then, of the system of law, the positive structure in which society is organized, involves the consideration of the relationship between the individual and the thing or object. There is always no direct relation between the individual and the thing. [The] thing is the basis for the relation between different individuals. It is recognized as the thing because it stands for the tension. 125. [1. Rights ofpersons and rights ofthings] [First,] shall [we] use, then, as a basis for classification of rights and duties, this distinction between individual and thing? (See also Holland's Jurisprudence.)54 The rights ofperson means status . The rights of things means sphere for exercise ofactivity. Status is a definite system of objects, control over which is assured to the individual by society. See also the different status of child and adult. The rights of things simply means the status in operation. That is, instead of facts which society puts at his disposal , it is his disposal of these things. The fallacy which arises here is the separation of the two. The further question is: Why has the basis of classification lost caste? It is not that status is no longer important, but it is because the status has changed from physical to organic. In older forms, status was predetermined by conditions which we could now call physical: birth, blood, etc. 126. [2. Rights in rem and in personam] Now the quality ofstatus has changed. In mobile society, the individual, in working out his experience, finds what objects he can control, and so through himself determines his status. In the distinction , as a working legal basis, there are very few things which can be pre-determined , and so that basis has tended to disappear. The basis of class now is right in rem and in personam. The first is right which holds one thing as against every other claim. The second holds good only against some special person's rights. Family [rights] are rights in personam. The first are general, the second specific. The first can be stated only in negative terms, the second in positive. As regards philosophical significance ofthese classes the rights in rem represent the formed habits, that is, we can count on them for the most part without con161 162 Lectures on Political Ethics sideration. The right in personam is the right which relates to future rather than that fixed by past, which involves the development to some end. That is, it is bringing the rights in rem to a head. Because of the correlativity between the two, there is constant interaction. The real problem of social organization is to keep these [the correlativity between the two?] in both.55 127. {J. Antecedent and remedial rightsJThe third point of view from which rights have been classified are as antecedent and remedial. As technically used, antecedent is right as such and remedial is the right to have the right enforced. [An] axiom oflaw is: "Right which has not its mode of execution defined is not a right." In regard to this distinction, in every progressive society conflict of rights must arise. In stationary society there need be no conflict theoretically. But in progressive society, exercise of right extends the situations. Then between these two situations there is a sphere where individuals may come into conflict. It is a phase of tension in growth. The legislative function is the attempt to define conditions of exercise of rights for the minimum conflict. But in progressive society it must always be either behind or ahead. Hence judicial function comes in, which is day-by-day re-definition of right. l28. The legislative and judicial functions represent the two phases: the first to avoid conflict by anticipation, and the latter to reconstruct where conflict occurs . The decision of the conflict defines the rights. The conflict arises because of the very indefiniteness of the right. It is not simply in the interest of the individual that the remedial right has place, but equally in interest of society...

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