WEBVTT NOTE What Others Have Said About Liberty 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:20.000 What others have said about liberty. Those of us who call ourselves libertarian, and who are interested in human freedom, often make our analysis and argument sound as though we had invented it, and that is not true. 2 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:36.000 Down through the ages, many men have had various things to say about liberty which have a direct bearing and undoubtedly occupy a causation position in respect to the modern libertarian mind. 3 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:43.200 I thought that it would be of great assistance to bring to your attention some of the things 4 00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:49.160 that others have had to say in this area, so that you would know the thing to the position 5 00:00:49.160 --> 00:00:53.600 relating to the idea of human liberty. 6 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:57.640 Actually there are two basic areas which concern us here. 7 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:03.480 One is the area of government and the other is the area of the economy. 8 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:09.760 In both of these areas, human beings in general are broadly uninformed. 9 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:16.240 They simply do not know how the economy would work if it were a free economy, one that was 10 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:22.320 a natural economy based upon the laws of nature and operated without intervention. 11 00:01:22.320 --> 00:01:28.080 And therefore, there tend to be fears about a free economy, and it causes people, as a 12 00:01:28.080 --> 00:01:32.200 result of their fears, to call for some type of intervention. 13 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:38.120 Even in the area of government, the same general ignorance and lack of information is apparent 14 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:44.880 because government has set itself up as an all-purpose mechanism to create perfection 15 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:46.240 for human beings. 16 00:01:46.240 --> 00:01:48.400 And this is something that it cannot do. 17 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:53.860 As a matter of fact, perfection is probably impossible for human beings no matter how 18 00:01:53.860 --> 00:02:00.400 you try to arrange it, but government proposes to solve problems. 19 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:05.720 It does not solve problems, but it creates the illusion that everything is being taken 20 00:02:05.720 --> 00:02:09.760 care of correctly, and of course it is not. 21 00:02:09.760 --> 00:02:17.420 Now I've selected in general two types of quotations to offer you. 22 00:02:17.420 --> 00:02:22.960 One relates to the economy itself, to show the general attitude that people have had 23 00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:29.480 and possibly still have in respect to economic matters, and the other set of quotations relate 24 00:02:29.480 --> 00:02:35.280 primarily to government and what government is and what government does according to very 25 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:39.440 wise men who have lived prior to our time. 26 00:02:39.440 --> 00:02:44.920 Let me begin by offering the world's oldest specification for steelmaking. 27 00:02:44.920 --> 00:02:49.760 I am indebted to William J. Colson for this contribution. 28 00:02:49.760 --> 00:02:57.560 In 1895, someone digging in the ruins of an armorer's workshop in Tyre, Syria, found 29 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:04.160 and sword blades in several stages of manufacture. He also discovered rolled up in a copper tube 30 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:10.840 a parchment containing the following instructions in ancient Syrian characters. And this gives 31 00:03:10.840 --> 00:03:19.440 us a bit of an idea of the ancient view of how to get things done in a marketplace. 32 00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:25.480 Let the high dignitary furnish an Ethiope a fair frame and let him be bound down shoulders 33 00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:32.480 Let the master workman, having cold-hammered the blade to a smooth and thin edge, thrust it into the fire of the cedarwood coals, in and out, the while reciting the prayer to the god Baal-Hal. 34 00:03:55.480 --> 00:04:01.480 Until the steel be of the color of the red of the rising sun, when he comes up over the desert toward the east. 35 00:04:01.480 --> 00:04:15.480 And then with a quick motion, pass the same from the heel thereof to the point, six times through the most fleshly portion of the slave's back and thighs, when it shall have become the color of the purple of the king. 36 00:04:15.480 --> 00:04:45.480 Then if with one swing and one stroke of the right arm of the master workman, it severs the head of the slave from his body, and display not nick nor crack along the edge, and the blade may be bent round about the body of the man, and break not, it shall be accepted as a perfect weapon, sacred to the service of the god Baal-Hal, and the owner thereof may thrust it into a scabbard of asseskin, brazen with brass, and hung to a girdle of camel's wool, dyed in the royal purple. 37 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:47.240 End of the quotation. 38 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:52.900 Now if you can consider this procedure strictly from the steelmaking standpoint, you'll notice 39 00:04:52.900 --> 00:04:57.280 that it covers the complete manufacture of a steel product, including cold working to 40 00:04:57.280 --> 00:05:04.160 given tolerances, heat treatment for a specified time, a delayed quench to a specific color, 41 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.720 quality control and even packaging. 42 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:12.840 Yet we have learned that that is not the best way to operate an economy. 43 00:05:12.840 --> 00:05:19.520 Actually it would work, but anyone who cares to argue that an economic system should function 44 00:05:19.520 --> 00:05:27.560 on the basis of force is going to have to accept this proposition because what it does 45 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:33.600 is to completely disregard the rights of some in order to attain an objective that others 46 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:36.480 find satisfactory. 47 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:43.580 Surely with the understanding that is now available to us, we understand and we indeed 48 00:05:43.580 --> 00:05:51.040 believe profoundly that human beings will not adopt that method when they are free. 49 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:56.200 It is the man who is not free who is operating under the command of a king or under the command 50 00:05:56.200 --> 00:06:02.620 of some economic czar that might endeavor to take the shortcut envisioned by this ancient 51 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:04.740 Syrian workman. 52 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:07.340 Here is a quotation from Tom Paine. 53 00:06:07.340 --> 00:06:13.620 Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. 54 00:06:13.620 --> 00:06:19.120 It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of men. 55 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:25.060 It existed prior to government and would exist if the formality of government were abolished. 56 00:06:25.060 --> 00:06:30.660 The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man and all the parts of 57 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:35.140 of Civilized Community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds 58 00:06:35.140 --> 00:06:40.800 it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchants, the tradesmen, 59 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:46.100 and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other and from 60 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:52.380 the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns and forms their law, and the laws 61 00:06:52.380 --> 00:06:59.800 which common usage ordain have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society 62 00:06:59.800 --> 00:07:05.640 performs for itself, almost everything which is ascribed to government. 63 00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:12.440 To give you a little bit of an insight as to the political point of view relating to 64 00:07:12.440 --> 00:07:19.600 economics, I have here an extract from a joint congressional committee investigation that 65 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:26.840 occurred back in 1875 in respect to the development of the horseless carriage. This was nearly 66 00:07:26.840 --> 00:07:45.920 A new source of power which burns a distillate of kerosene, called gasoline, has been produced 67 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:51.320 by a Boston engineer. Instead of burning the fuel under a boiler, it is exploded inside 68 00:07:51.320 --> 00:08:03.320 This so-called internal combustion engine may be used under certain conditions to supplement steam engines. Experiments are underway to use such an engine to propel a vehicle. 69 00:08:03.320 --> 00:08:16.320 This discovery begins a new era in the history of civilization. It may someday prove to be more revolutionary in the development of human society than the invention of the wheel, the use of metals, or the steam engine. 70 00:08:16.320 --> 00:08:21.520 Engine. Never in history has society been confronted with a power so full of potential 71 00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:26.480 danger and at the same time so full of promise for the future of man and for the peace of 72 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:32.680 the world. The dangers are obvious. Stores of gasoline in the hands of the people interested 73 00:08:32.680 --> 00:08:38.920 primarily in profit would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. Horseless 74 00:08:38.920 --> 00:08:45.220 Most carriages propelled by gasoline engines might attain speeds of 15 or even 20 miles 75 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:50.160 per hour. The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets 76 00:08:50.160 --> 00:08:55.880 and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would call for prompt legislative action even 77 00:08:55.880 --> 00:09:01.160 if the military and economic implications were not so overwhelming. The Secretary of 78 00:09:01.160 --> 00:09:05.420 War has testified before us and has pointed out the destructive effects of the use of 79 00:09:05.420 --> 00:09:19.420 of such vehicles in battle, a few of them with a small cannon mounted behind a steel shield could destroy infantry, break up a cavalry charge, and even seriously threaten field artillery by lightning-like flank attacks. 80 00:09:19.420 --> 00:09:30.420 Furthermore, our supplies of petroleum, from which gasoline can be extracted only in limited quantities, make it imperative that the defense forces should have first call on the limited supply. 81 00:09:30.420 --> 00:09:35.860 Furthermore, the cost of producing it is far beyond the financial capacity of private industry, 82 00:09:35.860 --> 00:09:40.580 yet the safety of the nation demands that an adequate supply should be produced. 83 00:09:40.580 --> 00:09:45.320 In addition, the development of this new power may displace the use of horses, which would 84 00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:47.440 wreck our agriculture. 85 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:51.860 We therefore earnestly recommend that Congress set up a horseless carriage commission, which 86 00:09:51.860 --> 00:09:57.140 shall have complete control of all sources of gasoline and similar explosive elements 87 00:09:57.140 --> 00:10:02.380 and all activities connected with their development and use in the United States. These measures 88 00:10:02.380 --> 00:10:07.060 may seem drastic and far-reaching, but the discovery with which we are dealing involves 89 00:10:07.060 --> 00:10:13.380 forces of a nature too dangerous to fit into any of our usual concepts. There we see the 90 00:10:13.380 --> 00:10:19.920 typical political point of view as it relates to the operations of a free market. Note particularly 91 00:10:19.920 --> 00:10:25.940 the assumption that stores of gasoline in the hands of people interested primarily in 92 00:10:25.940 --> 00:10:31.300 and profit would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. 93 00:10:31.300 --> 00:10:36.700 In actual fact, if a bit of analysis were provided, one would discover that people interested 94 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:41.780 primarily in profit would be the first to protect their stores of gasoline from fire 95 00:10:41.780 --> 00:10:46.260 and explosion, because if they did so, they would lose and not make profits. 96 00:10:46.260 --> 00:10:51.100 But the assumption is so typically political that anybody who is seeking profit is going 97 00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:52.260 to be careless. 98 00:10:52.260 --> 00:10:53.620 The reverse is true. 99 00:10:53.620 --> 00:10:57.780 The person seeking profit cannot afford to be careless. 100 00:10:57.780 --> 00:11:06.280 Also, you will have noted the assumption that only the government could provide the necessary 101 00:11:06.280 --> 00:11:10.220 funds to make gasoline available. 102 00:11:10.220 --> 00:11:12.340 That is a typical political view. 103 00:11:12.340 --> 00:11:13.340 Very well. 104 00:11:13.340 --> 00:11:16.180 Who did provide the funds to make gasoline readily available? 105 00:11:16.180 --> 00:11:17.380 It wasn't government. 106 00:11:17.380 --> 00:11:19.300 It was the free market. 107 00:11:19.300 --> 00:11:23.540 And of course, the assumption that change would wreck an existing industry. 108 00:11:23.540 --> 00:11:31.020 the assumption that if horses are replaced by gasoline engines, this would wreck agriculture. 109 00:11:31.020 --> 00:11:36.060 As a matter of fact, it has not wrecked it. It has made it a far more practicable and 110 00:11:36.060 --> 00:11:42.780 a far more profitable and efficient type of industry. But these are the typical political 111 00:11:42.780 --> 00:11:48.540 views and they are the kind of views that many unthinking people accept, of course, 112 00:11:48.540 --> 00:11:51.740 adopted in part by politicians. 113 00:11:51.740 --> 00:11:57.360 Here's a quotation from a very well-known and often not too thoroughly respected British 114 00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:03.080 philosopher, and yet I find many of the things that he said very much worthwhile. 115 00:12:03.080 --> 00:12:08.140 I'm speaking of Herbert Spencer, and here is something taken from his work, Man versus 116 00:12:08.140 --> 00:12:10.380 the State. 117 00:12:10.380 --> 00:12:15.500 There seems no getting people to accept the truth, which nevertheless is conspicuous enough, 118 00:12:15.500 --> 00:12:20.940 that the welfare of a society and the justice of its arrangements are at bottom dependent 119 00:12:20.940 --> 00:12:25.980 on the characters of its members, and that improvement in neither can take place without 120 00:12:25.980 --> 00:12:30.940 that improvement in character which results from carrying on peaceful industry under the 121 00:12:30.940 --> 00:12:34.380 restraints imposed by an orderly social life. 122 00:12:34.380 --> 00:12:39.900 The belief, not only of the socialists, but also of those so-called liberals who are diligently 123 00:12:39.900 --> 00:13:08.860 One of my favorite authors is a man who is little 124 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:34.140 Heng Feng was a Chinese philosopher of well-nigh a hundred years old. The emperor once said 125 00:13:34.140 --> 00:13:43.140 said to him, Hung, ninety years of study and observation must have made you wise. Tell me, what is the great danger of government? 126 00:13:43.140 --> 00:13:47.140 Well, quoth Hung, it's the rat in the statue. 127 00:13:47.140 --> 00:13:51.140 The rat in the statue, repeated the emperor, what do you mean? 128 00:13:51.140 --> 00:13:59.140 Why, retorted Hung, you know we build statues to the memory of our ancestors. They are made of wood and are hollow and painted. 129 00:13:59.140 --> 00:14:04.700 Now, if a rat gets into one, you can't smoke it out, it's the image of your father. 130 00:14:04.700 --> 00:14:08.420 You can't plunge it into the water, that would wash off the paint. 131 00:14:08.420 --> 00:14:13.720 So the rat is safe because the image is sacred. 132 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:16.180 Perhaps that's a little subtle. 133 00:14:16.180 --> 00:14:21.600 There's another quotation that I'm reminded of that comes from the well-thumbed copy of 134 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:28.300 Epictetus, which I have, Epictetus being one of the great stoics who, when challenged by 135 00:14:28.300 --> 00:14:35.620 by one of his followers had this to say, the follower in a discussion with Epictetus concerning 136 00:14:35.620 --> 00:14:41.860 the necessity of government and the relative merit of it, finally in exasperation said, 137 00:14:41.860 --> 00:14:48.300 but Epictetus, you know that you have to respect government. Remember in the final analysis, 138 00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:56.460 it can kill you. And Epictetus replied, then yes, that is true. So let us build a statue 139 00:14:56.460 --> 00:15:04.960 to Diphtheria. Here is a quotation taken from Ludwig von Mises, the great intellectual and 140 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:10.940 the great economist of the Austrian School. Here is what he has had to say about the current 141 00:15:10.940 --> 00:15:12.420 situation. 142 00:15:12.420 --> 00:15:19.580 The intellectuals, not the populace, are molding public opinion. It is a lame excuse of the 143 00:15:19.580 --> 00:15:23.460 intellectuals that they must yield to the masses. They themselves have generated the 144 00:15:23.460 --> 00:15:27.720 and the socialist ideas, and indoctrinated the masses with them. 145 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:33.100 No proletarian or son of a proletarian has contributed to the elaboration of the interventionist 146 00:15:33.100 --> 00:15:35.140 and socialist programs. 147 00:15:35.140 --> 00:15:40.820 The esoteric writings of dialectical materialism, of Hegel, the father both of Marxism and of 148 00:15:40.820 --> 00:15:46.380 German aggressive nationalism, the books of Georges Sorel, of Gentile and of Spengler, 149 00:15:46.380 --> 00:15:48.360 were not read by the average man. 150 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:50.780 They did not move the masses directly. 151 00:15:50.780 --> 00:15:55.500 It was the intellectuals who polarized them. The intellectual leaders of the peoples have 152 00:15:55.500 --> 00:16:00.800 produced and propagated the fallacies which are on the point of destroying liberty and 153 00:16:00.800 --> 00:16:06.120 Western civilization. The intellectuals alone are responsible for the mass slaughters which 154 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:11.400 are the characteristic mark of our century. They alone can reverse the trend and pave 155 00:16:11.400 --> 00:16:15.420 the way for a resurrection of freedom. 156 00:16:15.420 --> 00:16:22.380 One of my students, a doctor named Badeker, came up with an excellent summation of the 157 00:16:22.380 --> 00:16:28.200 difference between a socialist and a libertarian. He put it this way, a socialist is one who 158 00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:34.820 seeks to avoid the retributions of nature by promoting the retributions of men. A libertarian 159 00:16:34.820 --> 00:16:40.440 is one who seeks to avoid the retributions of both men and nature by observing natural 160 00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:48.040 Law and Acting in Accordance with It. Here's a quotation that is a pet of mine. It was 161 00:16:48.040 --> 00:16:52.440 written by William Lloyd Garrison just prior to the Civil War. 162 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:58.680 I believe in the spirit of peace and in soul and absolute reliance on the truth and the 163 00:16:58.680 --> 00:17:03.600 application of it to the hearts and consciences of the people. I do not believe that the weapons 164 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:09.040 of liberty have ever been or ever can be the weapons of despotism. I know that those of 165 00:17:09.040 --> 00:17:21.040 The weapons of despotism are the sword, the revolver, the cannon, the bombshell, and therefore the weapons to which tyrants cling, and upon which they depend, are not the weapons for me, as a friend of liberty. 166 00:17:21.040 --> 00:17:37.040 Perhaps blood will flow. God knows I do not. But it shall not flow through any counsel of mine. Much as I detest the oppression exercised by the slaveholder, he is also a man, sacred before me. 167 00:17:37.040 --> 00:17:56.040 He is a man not to be harmed by my hand nor with my consent. He is a man who is grievously and wickedly trampling upon the rights of his fellow man. But all I have to do with him is to rebuke his sin, to call him to repentance, and to leave him without excuse for his tyranny. 168 00:17:56.040 --> 00:18:05.040 Stephen Pearl Andrews was a very brilliant writer, dating back to about the same time as Wendell Phillips. 169 00:18:05.040 --> 00:18:13.040 Mr. Andrews was an atheist, and he looked at things in his own particular light. 170 00:18:13.040 --> 00:18:20.040 He was definitely an individualist, and here is one of his very perceptive observations. 171 00:18:20.040 --> 00:18:26.360 The doctrine of the sovereignty of the individual, in one sense itself a principle, grows out 172 00:18:26.360 --> 00:18:32.680 of the still more fundamental principle of individuality that pervades universal nature. 173 00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:37.160 Individuality is positively the most fundamental and universal principle which the finite mind 174 00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:41.600 seems capable of discovering, and the best image of the infinite. 175 00:18:41.600 --> 00:18:46.140 There are no two objects in the universe which are precisely alike. 176 00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:51.540 Each has its own constitution and peculiarities which distinguish it from every other. Infinite 177 00:18:51.540 --> 00:18:57.260 diversity is the universal law. In the multitude of human countenances, for example, there 178 00:18:57.260 --> 00:19:02.140 are no two alike, and in the multitude of human characters there is the same variety. 179 00:19:02.140 --> 00:19:07.660 It applies equally to persons, to things, and to events. There have been no two occurrences 180 00:19:07.660 --> 00:19:14.140 which were precisely alike during all the cycling periods of time. No action, transaction, 181 00:19:14.140 --> 00:19:20.460 or set of circumstances whatsoever ever correspond precisely to any other action, transaction 182 00:19:20.460 --> 00:19:26.260 or set of circumstances. Had I a precise knowledge of all the occurrences which have ever taken 183 00:19:26.260 --> 00:19:30.840 place up to this hour, it would not suffice to enable me to make a law which would be 184 00:19:30.840 --> 00:19:35.620 applicable in all respects to the very next occurrence which shall take place, nor to 185 00:19:35.620 --> 00:19:41.220 any one of the infinite millions of events which shall occur hereafter. This diversity 186 00:19:41.220 --> 00:19:46.900 reigns throughout every kingdom of nature, and mocks at all human attempts to make laws 187 00:19:46.900 --> 00:19:52.280 or constitutions or regulations or governmental institutions of any sort, which shall work 188 00:19:52.280 --> 00:19:58.820 justly and harmoniously amidst the unforeseen contingencies of the future. 189 00:19:58.820 --> 00:20:04.940 H. L. Mencken, known as the Sage of Baltimore, and for a long time the editorial writer for 190 00:20:04.940 --> 00:20:11.340 for the Old Baltimore Sun was a somewhat acerbic gentleman who, so far as I know, wrote and 191 00:20:11.340 --> 00:20:16.020 published a single book entitled Minority Report. 192 00:20:16.020 --> 00:20:20.180 Here are a few quotations taken from it. 193 00:20:20.180 --> 00:20:23.720 Is a young man bound to serve his country in war? 194 00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:29.500 In addition to his legal duty, there is perhaps also a moral duty, but it is very obscure. 195 00:20:29.500 --> 00:20:34.300 What is called his country is only its government, and that government consists merely of professional 196 00:20:34.300 --> 00:21:04.300 Here is another quotation from Mr. Menken. 197 00:21:04.300 --> 00:21:11.300 If you were against the New Deal and its wholesale buying of pauper votes, then you were against Christian charity. 198 00:21:11.300 --> 00:21:17.300 If you were against the gross injustices and dishonesties of the Wagner Labor Act, then you were against labor. 199 00:21:17.300 --> 00:21:21.300 If you were against packing the Supreme Court, then you were in favor of letting Wall Street do it. 200 00:21:21.300 --> 00:21:27.300 If you were against using Dr. Quack's cancer salve, then you were in favor of letting Uncle Julius die. 201 00:21:27.300 --> 00:21:31.300 If you were against Holy Church or Christian science, then you were against God. 202 00:21:31.300 --> 00:21:35.020 And it is an old, old argument. 203 00:21:35.020 --> 00:21:39.660 And again Mencken, the effect of every sort of New Deal is to increase and prosper the 204 00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:41.220 criminal class. 205 00:21:41.220 --> 00:21:45.740 It teaches precisely what all professional criminals believe, to wit, that it is neither 206 00:21:45.740 --> 00:21:49.500 virtuous nor necessary to suffer and do without. 207 00:21:49.500 --> 00:21:54.460 All the old American virtues thus become ignominious, and if the thing goes on, Benjamin Franklin 208 00:21:54.460 --> 00:21:58.300 will turn into a comic and even a sinister character. 209 00:21:58.300 --> 00:22:02.820 The criminal believes, like the demagogue's client, that the world owes him a living, 210 00:22:02.820 --> 00:22:07.580 and that it is not immoral for a have-not to seize the property of a have. Neither the 211 00:22:07.580 --> 00:22:12.060 criminal nor the demagogue makes any distinction between haves who acquired their property 212 00:22:12.060 --> 00:22:17.620 honestly, and those who obtained it by fraud. It is sufficient that they have it, and can 213 00:22:17.620 --> 00:22:20.340 be made to disgorge it. 214 00:22:20.340 --> 00:22:27.020 And here is Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator. That is the real issue that will continue 215 00:22:27.020 --> 00:22:38.020 It is the eternal struggle between these two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. 216 00:22:38.020 --> 00:22:42.020 These are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time. 217 00:22:42.020 --> 00:22:47.020 The one is the common right of humanity, the other the divine right of kings. 218 00:22:47.020 --> 00:22:51.020 It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. 219 00:22:51.020 --> 00:22:56.020 It is the same spirit that says, you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it. 220 00:22:56.020 --> 00:22:58.180 and I'll eat it. 221 00:22:58.180 --> 00:23:05.620 Robert Ardrey, the sensational author of several new works, including his latest, The Social 222 00:23:05.620 --> 00:23:11.100 Contract, wrote something called African Genesis a short while ago that plummeted him into 223 00:23:11.100 --> 00:23:17.420 national prominence. Here is a quotation taken from it that applies precisely to our time. 224 00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:22.620 It is the superb paradox of our time that in a single century we have proceeded from 225 00:23:22.620 --> 00:23:27.380 From the first ironclad warship to the first hydrogen bomb and from the first telegraphic 226 00:23:27.380 --> 00:23:32.460 communication to the beginnings of the conquest of space. Yet in the understanding of our 227 00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:39.040 own natures, we have proceeded almost nowhere. It is an ignorance that has become institutionalized 228 00:23:39.040 --> 00:23:45.320 and sanctified. It is an ignorance that transcends national or racial boundaries and leaps happily 229 00:23:45.320 --> 00:23:50.720 over iron curtains as if they did not exist. Were a brotherhood of man to be formed today, 230 00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:56.640 and its only possible common bond would be ignorance of what man is. 231 00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:02.760 Any number of devout Christians have also sensed the importance of human liberty. 232 00:24:02.760 --> 00:24:10.600 Among the most imposing is Count Leo Tolstoy, who was profoundly Christian in his doctrine 233 00:24:10.600 --> 00:24:16.400 and has come up with, I think, one of the most moving and meaningful descriptions of 234 00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:22.160 The processes that will have to be followed if man is ever to be free. 235 00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:28.400 Men in their present condition are like a swarm of bees hanging in a cluster to a branch. 236 00:24:28.400 --> 00:24:33.400 The position of the bees on the branch is temporary and must inevitably be changed. 237 00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.640 They must start off and find themselves a habitation. 238 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:41.600 Each of the bees knows this and desires to change her own and the other's position, but 239 00:24:41.600 --> 00:24:44.400 no one of them can do it till the rest of them do it. 240 00:24:44.400 --> 00:24:48.620 They cannot all start off at once because one hangs on to another and hinders her from 241 00:24:48.620 --> 00:24:52.980 separating from the swarm, and therefore they all continue to hang there. 242 00:24:52.980 --> 00:24:57.500 It would seem that the bees could never escape from their position, just as it seems that 243 00:24:57.500 --> 00:25:02.840 worldly men, caught in the toils of the state conception of life, can never escape. 244 00:25:02.840 --> 00:25:07.060 And there would be no escape for the bees if each of them were not a living, separate 245 00:25:07.060 --> 00:25:10.220 creature endowed with wings of its own. 246 00:25:10.220 --> 00:25:15.340 Similarly, there would be no escape for men if each were not a living being endowed with 247 00:25:15.340 --> 00:25:19.900 the faculty of entering into the Christian conception of life. 248 00:25:19.900 --> 00:25:25.140 If every bee who could fly did not try to fly, the others too would never be stirred, 249 00:25:25.140 --> 00:25:27.660 and the swarm would never change its position. 250 00:25:27.660 --> 00:25:31.620 And if the man who has mastered the Christian conception of life would not, without waiting 251 00:25:31.620 --> 00:25:36.460 for other people, begin to live in accordance with its conception, mankind would never change 252 00:25:36.460 --> 00:25:38.020 its position. 253 00:25:38.020 --> 00:25:43.440 But only let one bee spread her wings, start off and fly away, and after her another, and 254 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:49.320 another, and the clinging, inert cluster would become a freely flying swarm of bees. 255 00:25:49.320 --> 00:25:54.220 Just in the same way, only let one man look at life as Christianity teaches him to look 256 00:25:54.220 --> 00:26:00.300 at it, and after him let another, and another do the same, and the enchanted circle of existence 257 00:26:00.300 --> 00:26:06.840 in the state conception of life, from which there seem no escape, will be broken through. 258 00:26:06.840 --> 00:26:13.160 Here is Henry C. Wright, another man who took a strong Christian position. 259 00:26:13.160 --> 00:26:18.800 The powers assumed by all human governments to be essential to their existence and execution 260 00:26:18.800 --> 00:26:24.200 have been proved to be wrong, and the practices of such governments, without which they cannot 261 00:26:24.200 --> 00:26:30.960 exist, have been proved to be hostile to the spirit and positive commands of Christianity. 262 00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:36.480 Therefore, human government is a wrong in itself. 263 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:39.480 Let me conclude with a statement from Thomas Jefferson. 264 00:26:39.480 --> 00:26:45.440 I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in 265 00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:49.400 the political world as storms are in the physical. 266 00:26:49.400 --> 00:26:53.680 Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of people 267 00:26:53.680 --> 00:26:55.240 which have produced them. 268 00:26:55.240 --> 00:26:59.920 An observation of this truth should render honest Republican governors so mild in their 269 00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:03.740 punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. 270 00:27:03.740 --> 00:27:08.500 is a medicine necessary for the sound health of governments.