Produced by David Widger
By Charles Dudley Warner
The Declaration of Independence opens with the statement of a great andfruitful political truth. But if it had said:—"We hold these truths tobe self-evident: that all men are created unequal; that they are endowedby their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these arelife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," it would also have statedthe truth; and if it had added, "All men are born in society with certainduties which cannot be disregarded without danger to the social state,"it would have laid down a necessary corollary to the first declaration.No doubt those who signed the document understood that the second clauselimited the first, and that men are created equal only in respect tocertain rights. But the first part of the clause has been taken alone asthe statement of a self-evident truth, and the attempt to make thisunlimited phrase a reality has caused a great deal of misery. Inconnection with the neglect of the idea that the recognition of certainduties is as important as the recognition of rights in the political andsocial state—that is, in connection with the doctrine of laissez faire—this popular notion of equality is one of the most disastrous forces inmodern society.
Doubtless men might have been created equal to each other in everyrespect, with the same mental capacity, the same physical ability, withlike inheritances of good or bad qualities, and born into exactly similarconditions, and not dependent on each other. But men never were socreated and born, so far as we have any record of them, and by analogy wehave no reason to suppose that they ever will be. Inequality is the moststriking fact in life. Absolute equality might be better, but so far aswe can see, the law of the universe is infinite diversity in unity; andvariety in condition is the essential of what we call progress—it is, infact, life. The great doctrine of the Christian era—the brotherhood ofman and the duty of the strong to the weak—is in sharp contrast withthis doctrinarian notion of equality. The Christian religion neverproposed to remove the inequalities of life or its suffering, but by theincoming of charity and contentment and a high mind to give individualmen a power to be superior to their conditions.
It cannot, however, be denied that the spirit of Christianity hasameliorated the condition of civilized peoples, cooperating in this withbeneficent inventions. Never were the mass of the people so well fed, sowell clad, so well housed, as today in the United States. Their ordinarydaily comforts and privileges were the luxuries of a former age, oftenindeed unknown and unattainable to the most fortunate and privilegedclasses. Nowhere else is it or was it so easy for a man to change hiscondition, to satisfy his wants, nowhere else has he or had he suchadvantages of education, such facilities of travel, such an opportunityto find an environment to suit himself. As a rule the mass of mankindhave been spot where they were born. A mighty change has taken place inregard to liberty, freedom of personal action, the possibility of cominginto contact with varied life and an enlarged participation in thebounties of nature and the inventions of genius. The whole world is inmotion, and at liberty to be so. Everywhere that civilization has gonethere is an immense improvement in material conditions during the lastone hundred years.
And yet men were never so discontented, nor did they ever find so manyways of expressing their discontent. In view of the general ameliorationof the conditions of life this seems unreasonable and illogical, but itmay seem less so when we reflect that huma