166   HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.

THE QUANTITY OF A RIGHT.   167

man's nature are themselves the accepted laws of society, and where all parts of his nature are represented. By fulfilling the duties of such a life, by acting in concert with others, by loving and being loved, by these alone can any person secure the full measure of freedom. The laws of such a society cannot restrict any person's freedom, because they are true statements of those laws which are a part of the nature of each person. The acting forces are from within and not from without.

THE QUANTITY OF A RIGHT may depend upon

the degree to which its faculty is developed. A man with a small organ of reason would have a right to use it in learning science, for he needs this kind of knowledge though lie is only a plowman or a digger of ditches. But lie has no right to use his small organ of reason in trying to lead the scientific pursuits of others. For such leadership requires a full endowment of this faculty. A man with a moderate brain-organ of economy needs wealth to use as truly, and often as much, as the ablest financier. It takes as much food to nourish him, as much clothing to keep him warm. The beauties of art speak as strongly to his imagination and his heart.

GOVERNMENTS DERIVE their just powers from being in harmony with the nature and the wants of man.

This is a widely different statement from that of the American Declaration of Independence. In that famous document the "consent of the people" is declared to be the source of the just powers of government. This would appear to have some truth in it, if it were true that men only consent to things which

are right and just. But all through past history both men and nations have "consented" to bad laws, wrong social methods, and to the rule of selfish leaders. The people may have given this consent from their ignorance or from their lack of moral courage to ask or demand what was right. They consent to a multitude of laws which they afterward repeal and change. They often consent to a law or a measure as "being the lesser of two evils." They justify bad and defective laws and systems with the plea that "the world has never had anything better." "This government is the best in the world," they tell us, as though that were a sufficient reason why we should not wish for any changes in it !

When we accept the laws in the constitution of man as supreme authority in public or national life; when we measure present and past systems by this high and unchanging standard, then we perceive at once their vast defects, and we understand why they failed to establish the conditions of universal happiness. The great leaders were always "looking backward;" they were measuring everything in collective life or law and its results by past human experience. Their standard was itself imperfect.

If scientific men are fallible like other mortals, it is still true that scientific knowledge is always the most mature, the most certain and the most safe of all that human beings know. It is the most free from the warping influences of prejudice, passion and conserva

tive impulses. Its proofs are always open to exam

ination.

RIGHTS OF WEALTH. Man is normally a mem

ber of society and lie cannot acquire extensive wealth