than his own. The "Rights" he demands for others he claims because he demands them also for himself. He demands them, for himself not in pride, but in that proper humility which compels him to recognise that he too is but a Man, and one with his fellows in all essential characteristics and consequent needs. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" is not a mere sentimental expression, which we are to admire for its ardour, and which our modern zeal and superior ethic should ever attempt to exceed; it is on the contrary a distinct accurate statement of the whole facts of the case, and is the epitome of the epistemological philosophy of all true legislation. For all sound law, in view of its nature and methods, and in view of the nature of Personality, must consist in the emphasising of Rights, and not in their so-called "sacrifice"; and if a Person through vanity or insensibility ceases to believe in the essential character of his own Rights, he will certainly cease to believe that those Rights are essential to his neighbour, and will inevitably become an extremely bad citizen. What we are morally bound or entitled to claim for ourselves is the measure of what we are morally bound to claim for our neighbour; and the greater the demands we make for our own Personality, the greater will be the demands we shall be in a position to make for that of others. The Person then claims liberty for himself, and the grounds on which he claims it compel him, owing to his moral responsibility for character in general, to demand it equally for all other persons. He is morally compelled to claim his own Rights, because he is responsible for Rights in general. He does not claim them in his own name, but in the name of Right. He may indeed for the purpose of advancing the cause of Right in general, forego the fruition of his rights—that is another matter altogether. But if he is compulsorily deprived of his Rights, he must not through apathy, idleness, timidity, or spiritual egotism, or all combined, "patiently" and without protest acquiesce, and affect to make a christian virtue out of his treachery to his fellow men, and to the Religion which gave the eternal foundation to the dignity of the Man and to his inviolable sanctity. So then while the power of the State to make legal obligations which shall be morally binding on the individual, arises from the quality in the individual called Personality, yet that same Personality, in its claim to liberty equal and universal, provides a moral limitation to the extent to which such obligations can be morally created and enforced. There remains then the second moral limitation to the scope and direction of the activities of the State. This arises from the nature of law itself and the methods it adopts-taken of course in conjunction with the meaning and nature of Personality. First as to the nature of law. It is of the essence of sound law that it should approach in idea the socalled "laws" of Nature as regards uniformity and universality. It cannot and should not contemplate modifications in favour of individuals or groups of individuals, unless such modifications are themselves defined and prescribed by law. It is essential that there be not incessant and arbitrary variations in its application, but that on the contrary it be wholly calculable in its operation, as are the "laws" of Nature. But Natural laws are only the physical background of morality, and taken per se and apart from moral Beings, they have no moral content, that is they are only constructively moral. Moreover, they are not commands at all, but merely statements of observed relations and sequences to which our faith in the intelligibility of the universe ascribes uniformity and universality. Civic laws on the other hand are distinct commands; and as they are commands to moral agents they must be moral commands. Therefore, while natural laws may apparently sacrifice the individual in the cause of uniformity and universality, and the general thinkableness of the universe, civic law cannot thus sacrifice the individual. But then neither can it sacrifice its uniformity and universality. So there is nothing left for the State, but to refrain from making any law which would involve the infringement of the moral rights of any group of individuals, however tempting such an act might appear as affording a "short cut" to the solution of a social problem-because such a law in so far as it violates the rights of even a small class of Persons is immoral, the outcome of a non-moral utilitarianism. It is impossible for those who believe in the Personality of Man, who believe that Man is more than a citizen, more that is than "a part of a whole," and that he has correspondence with and immediate responsibility to a Power above and beyond the State and the Society, not to perceive in the physical sanction of law, a limit to the application of law. If free-will exists in Man, as is involved in the idea of his Personality, it is a divine gift-the very essence of the Man-and must find unobstructed expression in every possible direction. The law, coercive, impersonal, mechanical as it undoubtedly is, if devoting itself to securing the equal Freedom of all the Persons who are subject to it, will contain no menace to the Manhood of any citizen. Force will not then be opposed to Freedom, and law will be at one with liberty. It is then to the pursuit and enhancement of liberty that law is limited, owing to its power to resort to physical force, and to its qualities of uniformity and universality. To conclude then this prefatory chapter :-I have so far attempted to make a brief introduction to a philosophy of Political Society and of Social Reform, a philosophy which I have provisionally ventured to style "Personalism." The term is invented for the purpose of differentiating the various schools of "Individualism," and so of setting on one side, for the purposes of our consideration, the school which is on the side of Personal Liberty on a priori moral grounds, and of opposing this to the school or schools which encourage Liberty on grounds of personal convenience or of public Utility. The term "Individualist" is therefore here limited to the designation of the latter school or schools. |