and urgent from the point of view of the class or person making the appeal?—a matter upon which a very great variety of evidences have a bearing, such as persistency in effort, willingness to suffer penalties, loss, suspicion, contempt or ridicule for the sake of a claim of right.[1] (2) Apart from the terms of the specific appeal in question, does the appellant give the ordinary evidences of rationality, temperateness of judgment and personal responsibility? (3) Is the demand consistent with any reasonable estimate of the other wants, acknowledged or imputed, of the class or person appealing? (4) Is the demand apparently made with an intelligent consideration for the rights and interests of those upon whom it is made, as members of the same society?[2]
It goes without saying, of course, that no criteria can be applied in human affairs with an automatic guarantee of certainty. It is not to be imagined that the criteria which are here suggested can be so applied. Only with the greatest likelihood of error, in many cases, can they take the measure of the matters to which they look. Certainly they must be far less easy of application than our substantive moral criteria are where and when these, happily, can be relied upon with full assurance. What is claimed for them, as a quality indispensable in the typical problems with
- ↑ "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."
- ↑ This represents the general principle that any specific claim of right must imply a general theory of social welfare in which the claimant and all others have a place. Cf. Green, Principles of Political Obligations, § 139.
No doubt a class or group of persons pressing for the recognition of a claim, makes its demand first of all, if not exclusively, in the name of justice, not sympathy. Scheler remarks in the study already referred to: "The only thing that makes sympathy (Mitleid) bearable is the love which it reveals" (op. cit., p. 44). But if we may believe the passionate expressions we sometimes hear, love itself is not desired by a class that feels itself oppressed. It should be observed, however, that we are not, in our present statement, looking at the matter from the point of view of the appellant, and are including, therefore, imputed appeals as well as those which may be expressed. The essential matter is the way in which the appeal is listened to, the conditions under which it will be given a more serious hearing by one whose existing conception of what is just, if applied forthwith, would dictate a prompt rejection. As the above criteria suggest, a claim in the name of justice may evoke more sympathy in one whose present conception of justice says No, than a plea frankly addressed to sympathy. But it is just as well, for practical effect in such a case, not to exclude the latter too austerely.
