Rights_" means simply "_Woman's Claims_."

For the moment--for we shall presently be coming back to the question
of the enforcement of rights--our task is to examine the arguments
which the suffragist brings forward in support of her claims.

First and chief among these is the argument that the _Principle of
Justice_ prescribes that women should be enfranchised.

When we inquire what the suffragist understands under the Principle of
Justice, one receives by way of answer only the _petitio principii
[question begging]_ that Justice is a moral principle which includes
woman suffrage among its implications.

In reality it is only very few who clearly apprehend the nature of
Justice. For under this appellation two quite different principles are
confounded.

The primary and correct signification of the term Justice will perhaps
be best arrived at by pursuing the following train of considerations:--

When man, long impatient at arbitrary and quite incalculable
autocratic judgments, proceeded to build up a legal system to take the
place of these, he built it upon the following series of
axioms:--(_a_) All actions of which the courts are to take cognisance
shall be classified. (_b_) The legal consequences of each class of
action shall be definitely fixed. (_c_) The courts shall adjudicate
only on questions of fact, and on the issue as to how the particular
deed which is the cause of action should be classified. And (_d_) such
decisions shall carry with them in an automatic manner the appointed