ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the meaning of the word 'ought,' or to explain the origin of the feeling of obligation; whatever its origin, the members of every society which is far enough advanced to have a Law have acquired it. The Law is so closely concatenated that it is hard to determine where to approach it; an attack upon any part, to be successful, seems to call for a previous knowledge of other parts. Public opinion is no more an essential element of rights than it is of morality itself. The rights correlative to those duties which the society will enforce on the motion of an individual are that individual's legal rights. The Law includes the rules which the courts apply for the determination of the circumstances under which they will refuse to enforce legal rights which would otherwise exist; or, in other words, the circumstances under which they will recognize in the defendant a legal right to a defence.
