Putting aside the consideration of the relation of desire to duty, (the question whether duty is essentially coercive) until after we have taken up the Kantian idea of obligation, we may note the following objections to the theories just stated. Their great defect is that they do not give us any method of differentiating moral coercion (or obligation) from the action of mere superior physical force. Taking it (first) upon the side of the individual: Is there any reason _why_ the individual submits to the external authority of government except that he _has_ to do so? He may argue that, since others possess superior force, he will avoid certain pains by conforming to their demands, but such yielding, whether temporary or permanent, to superior force is very far from being a recognition that one _ought_ to act as the superior force dictates. The theories must logically commit us to the doctrine that 'might makes right' in its baldest form. Every one knows that, when the individual surrenders the natural gratifications of his desires to the command of others, if his sole reason is the superior force of the commanding party, he does not forego in the surrender his right to such gratification the moment he has the chance to get it. Actual slavery would be the model school of duties, if these theories were true. The facts adduced by Bain and Spencer--the growth of the recognition of duties in the child through the authority of the parents, and in the savage through the use of authority by the chief--are real enough, but what they prove is that obligation may be brought home to one by force, not that force creates obligation. The child and the man yield to force in such a way that their sense of duty is developed only in case they recognize, implicitly, the force or the authority as already _right_. Let it be recognized that _rightful_ force (as distinct from mere brute strength) resides in certain social authorities, and these social authorities may do much, beyond the shadow of doubt, to give effect to the special deeds and relations which are to be considered obligatory. These theories, in fine, take the fact of obligation for granted, and, at most, only show the historical process by which its fuller recognition is brought about. Force in the service of right is one thing; force as constituting and creating right is another.