THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY. 213 We must therefore conclude that the rights, so protected, what- ever their exact nature, are not rights arising from contract or from special trust, but are rights as against the world ; and, as above stated, the principle which has been applied to protect these rights is in reality not the principle of private property, un- less that word be used in an extended and unusual sense. The principle which protects personal writings and any other produc- tions of the intellect or of the emotions, is the right to privacy, and the law has no new principle to formulate when it extends this protection to the personal appearance, sayings, acts, and to per- sonal relation, domestic or otherwise.^ If the invasion of privacy constitutes a legal injtiria^ the elements for demanding redress exist, since already the .value of mental suffering, caused by an act wrongful in itself, is recognized as a basis for compensation. The right of one who has remained a private individual, to pre- vent his public portraiture, presents the simplest case for such ex- tension ; the right to protect one's self from pen portraiture, from a discussion by the press of one's private affairs, would be a more important and far-reaching one. If casual and unimportant state- legal recognition as property apart from the personal covenants of the traders. See Allan on Goodwill, pp. 2, 3. ' The application of an existing principle to a new state of facts is riot judicial legis- lation. To call it such is to assert that the existing body of law consists practically of the statutes and decided cases, and to deny that the principles (of which these cases are ordinarily said to be evidence) exist at all. It is not the application of an existing principle to new cases, but the introduction of a new principle, which is properly termed judicial legislation. But even the fact that a certain decision would involve judicial legislation should not be taken as conclusive against the propriety of making it. This power has been constantly exercised by our judges, when applying to a new subject principles of private justice, moral fitness, and public convenience. Indeed, the elasticity of our law, its adaptability to new conditions, the capacity for growth, which has enabled it to meet the wants of an ever changing society and to apply immediate relief for every recognized wrong,have been its greatest boast. '• I cannot understand how any person who has considered the subject can suppose that society could possibly have gone on if judges had not legislated, or that there is any danger whatever in allowing them that power which they have in fact exercised, to make up for the negligence or the incapacity of the avowed legislator. That part of the law of every country which was made by judges has been far better made than that part which consists of statutes enacted by the legislature." i Austin's Jurisprudence, p. 224. The cases referred to above show that the common law has for a century and a half protected privacy in certain cases, and to grant the further protection now suggested would be merely another application of an existing rule.
