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himself the law. There can be no priesthood, because each man becomes priest to himself. Religiously, socially, civilly, politically, every one has right over the law, and he only wants the power to trample on it. This right of each over the law would seem at first sight to give a general equality, but an equality without a recognition of the Absolute is an impossibility, for there is no possibility of harmony when every man is absolute, when each has unlimited rights, and none have duties. That equality which has not the Absolute as its principle and end, but only personal caprice,is borne down instantly before force. Each man having an equal right over the law, becomes the law destroying opposing laws. Consequently every personal interest, caprice, or passion becomes a law; personalities being absolute, personalities club together as their interests and passions urge them, and all little associations of interests are at blows, and the strongest gains the day. Thus the equality of an hour is destroyed; it is without duration, because without solid base.

Personal autocracy has made many wars, religious, social, and political. By the religious and philosophic struggle, it has striven to affirm and prove itself to be absolute. By the social war it has endeavoured to unite in one the powers temporal and spiritual. By the political war it has erected the will of one man into the Law.

Personal autocracy being the confusion of relative with absolute truth, conciliation of truths becomes an impossibility, and antagonism of ideas is proclaimed as the law of the universe, an antagonism which ends in internecine

war.

I have pointed out the dangers of exclusive personal judgment. I have now to show what is the proper function of private judgment.

As I have said in the first chapter of this volume, in every man is the criterium of truth. He can only know the just, the good and the beautiful by the faculties of his own soul. One man cannot know or believe for another; knowledge and belief are individual acts. What is true, just, beautiful, good for each man, is what he feels, conceives and judges to be such in his own mind. It cannot be otherwise. What he feels is part of himself, what he knows is his own; his ideas are determined by his thoughts and beliefs. Therefore, every man's own judgment is the criterium, and the only criterium of what is good, beautiful and true to himself, and this is acknowledged by every one who argues with another. I may change my opinions, pass from one creed to another, my convictions may undergo reversal, but the principle of private judgment by virtue of which the good and the true consist to me, will not be disturbed, but remains invariable. To every objection and criticism, I reply, How otherwise can I judge except according to my conscience, my feelings and my knowledge? And this reply is unanswerable.

But if it be urged that I ought not to believe in my private judgment, I ask, by virtue of what do you forbid me its use? Is it not precisely because you judge its inadvisability. Therefore you repose on your own judgment when you deny the right to do so.

In vain is it argued that we are to give up our private judgment to a revelation; we can only admit the authority of the revelation by an act of our individual judgment. Consequently, in every one the base of all thoughts, beliefs and acts, is personal judgment.

Referring to an inspired medium of revelation, S. Augustine says:-"If he were to speak in the Hebrew tongue, it would strike my senses in vain, nor would any of his

discourse reach my understanding; but if he spoke in Latin, I should know what he said. But how should I know whether he spoke the truth? And even if I knew this, should I know it from him? Surely within, inwardly in the home of my thoughts, truth (which is neither Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin, nor barbarian) without the organs of mouth or tongue, without the sound of syllables, would say, He speaks the truth; and I, rendered certain immediately, should say confidently to that man, Thou speakest truth."1

But a principle is only true if it be universal. If I believe in my own judgment, I am bound to believe in the judgments of every one else. If I hold my own spirit to have in it the criteria of truth, I must allow that the same criteria exist in every other spirit of the present times, of the past and of the future. Either conscience is the expression of truth or it is not. If not, we can no more trust to reason or primary beliefs, we cannot affirm anything or know anything. But if it is, then it is so for every one, and I have no more right to contradict its expression in other men than I have to contradict it in myself.

Consequently, private judgment being true for all, we arrive at the necessity of admitting at once and everywhere, as equally legitimate, all the decisions of every man's sense, of admitting them simultaneously, with the Ideal as their conciliation.

But if every positive sentiment is good and true, by the sole fact of its existence, it follows that a sentiment which contradicts another may be a good and a relative truth, inasmuch as it is the veritable expression of an individual conscience, but that it is also an evil and an error, inasmuch as it contradicts another sentiment, thought or will, which 1 August. Confess. xi.

emanates, with the same titles, from another individual conscience.

If every idea is just and true, because it is, it follows that an idea which excludes another is an evil and an error, inasmuch as it is a denial of another idea equally just.

It also follows, that every exclusion and negation in relative ideas is more or less a denial of the Absolute Truth, the universal Conciliator, and is more or less autotheism.

And also, that evil, error and injustice are that by which sentiments, thoughts, wills and acts contradict one another, exclude and deny one another, either in each man, or in the many; and that goodness, truth, and justice are that by which sentiments, thoughts, wills and acts unite and harmonize.

And lastly, to arrive at the complete, universal, absolute verity, we must admit, without any exclusion, every determination of private judgment; not to eliminate one by the other, but, on the contrary, to conciliate all; and that conciliation is impossible, without the admission of an Ideal.

CHAPTER IV

THE BASIS OF RIGHT

"Omnia quæ sunt de jure naturæ sunt a Deo ut auctore naturæ.”—Suarez.

Right and its relation to Liberty—difficulty in defining Right—Is right a rational or a sentimental verity ?-Difficulty of establishing it on a rational basis-attempt of Hobbes-of Spinoza-of Grotius-of Kantof Krause-confusion between right and will or force-Right based on duty-a sentimental verity-Liberty alienable and inalienable-Right the faculty of realizing our nature-Possibility of alienating our right— Consequences which flow from the admission of the dogmatic basis of right-1. All rights are equal-2. All infringement of rights is immoral-3. All primitive rights are inalienable-4. Primary rights are not mutually antagonistic—The primary rights of Man-1. The right of personal freedom-2. of good reputation-3. of liberty of conscience4. of expressing his convictions-5. of appropriation-All these rights dogmatic.

T

HE idea of Right requires that of Liberty to complete it. Liberty, if not the synonym of right, is, at least, the faculty of exercising it.

If I am able to lift my arm, I have an inherent right to lift it; if I have a right to live, I demand liberty to enable me to acquire the food necessary to sustain life.

If there be an axiom evident to all, it is this, that liberty is a first necessity of existence. It is the privilege of all organized beings. It extends even to the plants, whose locomotion is purely vegetative. Because I feel that I can

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