would not otherwise have been done or forborne, he is physically and pecuniarily in no wise better nor worse for such opinion. It cannot affect his person nor his property. In the ordinary course of events, some indirect effect does always result from the publication of language. The probability or improbability of any indirect effect resulting depends sometimes on the kind of language published, sometimes on the circumstances of the publication, and sometimes on both the kind of language published and the circumstances of the publication. § 33. We conclude, therefore, that there may be an injury to the reputation without, and independently of, an injury to the person or property, and that an injury to the reputation does not necessarily imply in every instance an injury to the person or the property.1 1 Domat Civil Law, Public Law, Book III, enumerates "defamatory libels" among private offenses, and in the same book, title 1, "of crimes and offenses," enumerates three kinds of "goods," "the third is that good which is called honor, and which men value above all other goods." The author then proceeds to inquire what is signified by the term honor, and concludes, "lastly, it signifies reputation." Further on it is laid down that honor may be wounded, either by injurious treatment of the honor or by assaulting the reputation, for one may offend another's honor by actions or by opprobrious language without lessening his reputation, and we may blemish his honor by words, by writing, and other attempts against his reputation, or one may attack by one and the same way both the reputation and person of another. (Post, § 57.) A passage in Wycliff's "De Civili Dominio" is thus translated, Notes & Queries, 7th S. 1: 65: "It is untrue then that men, when they speak falsely, blacken the fame of a consistently good man, for that fame is written in the book of life, and the good man is 'a mirror unspotted."" CHAPTER III.1 RIGHTS; DUTIES; WRONGS; REMEDIES. Description of Rights and Duties-Wrongs, Rights, and Duties undefinable-What determines of any act if it be a wrong-Remedies-Injunction-Original writs. § 34. Having in a preceding chapter [Ch. I] described slander and libel as wrongs, it is proper to explain what is meant by a wrong, and to that end we must briefly consider the nature of rights and duties. For the opposite to a right is not a wrong, but a duty. $35. Rights and duties are neither persons nor things, but powers and obligations. A right is a power to do or forbear or require another to do or forbear. A duty is an obligation, a necessity to do or forbear, or to submit to some act of another. We hear of " moral and social duties. of imperfect obligation," but there is no such thing as a duty of imperfect obligation; what is so denominated is really a right-a right which should be exercised—which, as in the case of all rights, the person in whom it is vested, may or may not exercise at his option. “Rights are universal and unexceptive, or, if not so, then they are none at all." 8 $ 36. The object of a right or duty is a transaction. By transaction is meant an act, its occasion and its effect. $37. Rights and duties are reciprocal. The act which one has the right, the power, to do or forbear, that act no other can or should hinder or compel the doing or forbearing; but to such doing or forbearing it is the duty, the necessity, of every other to submit; and what one has the right, the power, to command another to do or forbear, that it is the duty, the necessity, of that other to do or forbear; what it is the duty of one to do or forbear, that it is the right of some other to have done or forborne ; what it is the duty of one to do, to that it is the duty of every other to submit. 38. Rights and duties pertain solely to persons. A thing cannot have any rights and cannot owe any duties. And as a thing has no rights, a person cannot owe a duty to a thing. $39. The exercise of a right is always optional; the performance of a duty is always compulsory. One may forego the exercise of a right, or exercise it, at his option, for either way no right of any other suffers; but one cannot, as his option, forego the performance of a duty; because to omit the performance of a duty is to take away a right somewhere, either in society or an individual—the right to have such duty performed. Therefore, every act done in exercise of a right is a voluntary [optional] act, and every act done in the performance of a duty is an involuntary [not optional] act. One may in fact perform his duties willingly, but as the performance or non-performance is not optional, and may be enforced, performance is properly regarded as involuntary. § 40. Rights must be exercised and duties must be performed strictly and in good faith.1 (§ 88.) An act which exceeds the prescribed limits of a right is not the "A person may exercise a right in such a way that it becomes a wrong." (Lord Sidmouth quoted Popular Progress in England, 332. exercise of that right, and an act which falls short of the prescribed limits of a duty is not the performance of that duty. § 41. Rights and duties cannot exist, nor have any certainty of existence, in the absence of a supreme power somewhere, which protects the exercise of the one and enforces the performance of the other; that supreme power is called law, and that branch of it which relates to the rights and duties of individuals in their social relations constitutes the municipal law. In some sense, therefore, it is proper to say that rights and duties are the results of law, and if this be granted, it must follow that all rights and duties of which the municipal law takes cognizance are legal rights and legal duties. There can be no such right recognized by law as a natural right. A right anterior to or independent of the law can be a right only of superior physical power. 42. Every act must be done either, in the exercise of a right or in the performance of a duty, or neither in the exercise of a right nor in the performance of a duty; and every act must be either such as the law permits and does not punish, or such as the law does not permit and will punish. Every act done in the exercise of a right or in the performance of a duty is a permitted act. Every act done neither in the exercise of a right nor the performance of a duty is an unpermitted act. Every act which the law. permits is lawful, and every act which the law does not permit is unlawful.1 $43. A lawful act cannot amount to a wrong, but every unlawful act is a wrong; and as every act must be either lawful or unlawful, every act must be either a wrong or not a wrong. An act may be such as not to be obnox By an unlawful act is meant tion or excuse. (Hoar, J., Com'th v. intentional violence, without justifica- Presby, 14 Gray [80 Mass.], 65.) ious to every remedy, but if it is obnoxious to any remedy it is a wrong.1 The rule that for every wrong the law provides a remedy, holds true only by postulating that only that act is a wrong for which the law provides a punishment or a remedy. The rule that for every wrong the law provides a remedy does not imply that for every wrong the subject of the wrong the wronged can obtain redress, because sometimes although a wrong has been committed, the subject of the wrong is for some reason estopped from claiming redress. The formula by which this exception to the general rule is expressed is, that one cannot take advantage of his own wrong. § 44. Different laws prescribe different rules of right and duty, and where there are courts of different jurisdictions, that may be a wrong in one jurisdiction which is not a wrong in another; as where there are civil and criminal courts, and as in England when there were common-law courts and ecclesiastical courts. We may sometimes determine of any act whether or not it is a wrong, by inquiring whether or not the law provides for it any remedy or punishment. There can be no civil right where there is no remedy." "It is a mockery to talk of existing rights without applying corresponding remedies." If there is no remedy we conclude there is no wrong-meaning, of course, legal wrong. This, it must be conceded, is an illogical and inverse method of arriving at the desired conclusion, but we find it oftentimes resorted to, as the |