Fundamental Human Rights and Duties

a) Meaning of Terms

Here we are to define the terms right and duty, to set forth a summary classification of rights and duties, and to indicate the nature of the virtues of justice, charity, and equity, upon which rights and duties are founded.

1. A right, in general, is that which is just. As we employ the term, it means a just moral power, resident in a person, of doing, possessing, or exacting something. It is a moral or will-power; it is not a physical power of muscle or sinew or whip or chain. It is a power resident in a person, and if it resides in a group of persons, this is due to their common requirements as a plurality of individuals, and not because they constitute a thing called community or society as an entity different from the elements of substantial personality which compose such groups. Right is founded upon law. For a right in one person means an obligation in all men of respecting that right in so far as this involves no disrespect of still other rights. And such obligation is imposed only by law. Now, all true law is ultimately based upon the Eternal Law, that is, the Divine Ordinance which has established the order to be observed in the universe, and which forbids man to disturb that order. Thus all true right is traceable to God’s perfections of Intellect and Will which impose the Eternal Law, and so, since the perfections of God are identical with His essence, all right is ultimately based upon God Himself. God is the origin of rights—not the State, not society, not public opinion. Right, founded upon law, takes its classification from the classification of laws themselves. Thus a right is natural if founded on the natural law, that is, the Eternal Law (which, with reference to free human activity, is the moral law), as manifested to man by reason or conscience. Contrasted with natural right is positive right, founded upon positive or statute law; and this is, in turn, ecclesiastical or civil, according as its basis is the statute law of Church or State. The “statute law,” so to speak, set forth in Divine Revelation (notably the Commandments of God) is the basis of divine right. To illustrate: A man’s right to life is natural; his right to immunity from lawless murder is divine, as well as natural> in view of the Fifth Commandment; his right to vote is a civil right; his rights as established by Canon Law are ecclesiastical. A right to possess and use material goods and to dispose of them at will is a right of property; a right to make laws, to rule and govern subjects, is a right of jurisdiction. A right which cannot be ceded or renounced is inalienable (such, for instance, is the right of a man to offer true worship to God). A right which may be lawfully renounced at will is alienable (such, for instance, is the right to property, for property may be given away, or right to it transferred by sale). A right is juridical or perfect when it is founded upon strict justice; it is moral or imperfect when it is founded upon charity or equity and so constitutes a claim. A right ceases to be a right when it collides with a greater right. The greater must prevail. And the “greater” is that right which is concerned with the graver matter, or belongs to the more universal order (touches more human individuals), or is founded upon a stronger title or claim. Thus the right of an employer to a very large profit must cede to the right of the employee to a living family wage, because the right to life and its necessaries touches a graver matter than the right to non-essential property. Again, the right of the many (call them the public, or the State, or the community> or society, if you will; but remember that these terms do not indicate something superhuman which absorbs the individual person and rises superior to him; the terms mean only collections or pluralities of individual human persons with their individual and collective requirements) may take precedence over the right of the few or the one. Thus, for general public advantage, a highway may be built through a man’s field even if he is unwilling to sell or cede the property for this purpose. This “right of eminent domain” is of more universal order (i. e., concerns more persons and their needs) than that of the owner of the field. Similarly, in times of war or extreme economic stress, the State (i. e., the public through its government) may take over the control and even the ownership of railways or privately owned businesses or enterprises. Ordinarily, due compensation is to be made to the persons whose rights are thus ceded (though they be unwilling to cede them) to the right of eminent domain or common weal. Finally, the right of a devoted relative to inherit the goods of a man who dies without making a will, prevails over the right of an equally devoted friend or a faithful servant. For blood-relationship is a stronger basis of right than friendship or service.

2. A duty is something one is obligated to do or to omit doing. It is properly defined as a moral obligation incumbent upon a person of doing, omitting, or avoiding something. It is a moral obligation and binds the will; it is not a physical obligation or bond which exercises power of compulsion over the body or its members. Since duty binds the will, it binds only a person, for only a person has free-will. And if duty is common or public or general, as it often is, this is not because the public or society has a corporate will distinct from the individual wills of those who compose the group; it is because the group is composed of individual human persons, each with identical requirements. A duty is the correlative of a right. One has the duty of doing or omitting something because the right (of God or men) requires such performance or omission. A duty in one person answers a right in another or others; a right in one imposes a duty on others of respecting that right and not violating it. Duty, like right, is based upon law, and ultimately upon the Eternal Law, and on God Himself. Thus the true origin of duties is God and His Eternal Moral Law, not the State or society or the community or public opinion. The State and the community and society do make requirements upon individual men; these groups of individuals have collective needs and rights which impose true duties on individuals; and, conversely, the nature and needs of the individual call for the attention and action of the groups, and so the State and society have their duties too. But (again the student is warned of the need of keeping clear-cut and accurate concepts) these relationships of individual and group, and the consequent duties and rights involved in them, are ever matters that concern individual human persons, each of whom is cast in the image of God, and each of whom has a dignity which no group as such possesses. A duty imposed by the natural law is a natural duty; such, for example, is the duty incumbent upon parents of caring for the needs of their children. A duty imposed by positive or statute law is a positive duty; such, for example, is the duty of obeying traffic laws or paying taxes; such also is the duty of Catholics to hear Mass on Sundays and holydays of obligation. A duty which requires the positive performance of an act is an affirmative duty; such, for instance, is the duty of paying taxes. A duty which requires the omission or avoidance of a thing is a negative duty; such, for example, is the duty of avoiding sin. An affirmative duty is to be fulfilled, but its requirements are not binding upon a person at every single moment of his existence; one must pay taxes, but not every day and hour and moment; one must hear Mass, but not at every instant. A negative duty places its requirement upon a person at every single instant of his existence; thus one must avoid sin always, everywhere, every day and hour and moment. Hence one may be exempted from the performance of an affirmative duty when extreme or grave necessity requires it (and so, for example, one is exempted from the duty of restoring ill-gotten goods so long as one has not and cannot get money to make the payment); but one is never, under any circumstances, exempted from the performance of a negative duty of the natural order (and so, for example, one is not exempted from the duty of not denying the true faith, even if one faces the alternative of torture and death). It is to be carefully noted that exemption from an affirmative duty requires not only a high degree of stress or necessity, but also the exclusion of any involved violation of a negative duty. Sometimes a law is set forth in affirmative terms, yet implies a negative obligation, from which there is never an exemption. Consider the law, “Honor thy father and mother.” As far as terms go, this is an affirmative prescription imposing an affirmative duty; but the law also involves a prohibition or negative duty, viz., “Do not dishonor father or mother.” Hence, while the affirmative prescription of this law does not exact active observance at every moment (for a man must often be engaged in pursuits in which he is not even thinking of his parents), its negative requirement binds at every instant (and thus never, at any moment, is it lawful to dishonor one’s parents). Exemption from affirmative duty is, therefore, never permissible, no matter what the necessity, if it involves an implicit violation of a negative duty imposed by natural or divine law. A duty which binds in strict justice is perfect; one which does not bind in justice, but in charity or other virtue, is imperfect. Where duties seem to collide, the greater prevails and the lesser ceases to be a duty. The greater duty, like the greater right, is that which, when compared with another or brought into apparent collision with another, is seen to be imposed by the higher law, or to be concerned with the graver matter, or to be based on the more valid title. Thus if a man were forbidden by civil law or by order of his parents to worship God, the duty of obedience to civil and parental authority would cease in face of the divine authority which requires worship; the divine law is the higher law. Again, the duty of taking care of life and health ceases when one risks them for the sake of safeguarding one’s virtue; thus the martyrs suffered torture and execution rather than apostatize: the care of the soul is a graver matter than the care of health and life. Finally, the exposing of one’s life to extreme danger for the sake of saving another who has no claim in nature to such service, is not imposed by duty (unless it be in the order of one’s freely undertaken office, as in life-guards, policemen, etc.), although it is one’s right and an act of heroic virtue; for, in ordinary cases, the care of one’s own life rests upon a more valid title than the care for the life of another.

3. Rights and duties are, as we have seen, based upon law, that is, upon the natural law, which is the Eternal Law as manifested to man by sound reason or conscience. Inasmuch as the natural law is ultimately identified with the divine perfections, and so with God Himself, we have rightly declared that the true origin of rights and duties is Almighty God. Now, dealing more immediately with men and their human conduct, we find that the requirements of the natural law, whether basic or derived, exact the ad-;Wment of human activity to their norm, demand that human conduct be just in line with them. This fact and the terms adjustment and just give some suggestion of the meaning of the virtue called justice. But the full meaning of justice among men, the fundamental requirement of the natural law (upon which all human laws and most social obligations rest), is found in the following definitions. Justice, taken subjectively, that is, as resident in the person or subject who has it, is a virtue or unfailing intention of giving to everyone that which is his due. Taken objectively, or as a thing or object, justice is the rule or law which requires all men to recognize the fundamentally equal dignity of all human beings, and so binds all to equality and proportion in their mutual dealings.

The requirements of justice among men are supported by sanctions, that is, by inducements which are sufficient to make a reasonable man observe these requirements. Sometimes the sanctions are moral (such as the guilt and the impending punishment for sin) and sometimes they are civil (such as the penalties prescribed for the evasion of taxes or the violation of speed-laws). Sometimes—indeed, very often —civil and moral sanctions are attached to the same requirements of justice; thus both the moral law and the civil law forbid stealing, each under its own penalties. Justice is itself a single thing. But there are various names for justice, according to the various human relationships which it regulates. Hence we have the following classification of justice: (a) Legal Justice governs the relations of the individual man to the many (State, community, the public, society). Legal justice requires the citizen to observe the statute laws. Inasmuch as legal justice also requires the citizen to show an active interest in the common weal, to have spirit and to expend energy for the common good, it is called Social Justice.—

(b) Distributive Justice governs the relations of the many (State, community, society) towards families and individuals. It regulates the activities of the group towards its constituent members. It requires that the burdens of community-life be properly distributed, so that each member may have his proportionate share to carry. Equitable systems of taxation are, for example, prescribed by the requirements of distributive justice. Further, distributive justice requires that the honors and emoluments, the offices, benefits, and dignities of the communitygroup be properly distributed, that is, assigned to individuals who are capable and worthy. Appointive offices, therefore, are to be given only to those who deserve them and are able to discharge their duties effectually. Elective offices are to be bestowed by voters, and the latter are not to be deceived by lies, tricks, dirty politics, or deceiving campaigns. Finally, distributive justice requires that punishments for offences be lawfully, reasonably, rightly, and promptly imposed, and perfectly executed, without let or hindrance, and without distinction of persons based on wealth or social influence. In this latter function, distributive justice is frequently called Retributive Justice.—(c) Commutative Justice governs the relations of person to person. Here the term person has a twofold meaning, viz., first, a single human being, and, secondly, a group (business, firm, corporation, government, college, religious community, etc.), which, for purposes of social action, must be considered as an individual. A single human being is a physical or a natural person; a group or body considered as individual is a moral person. If, for instance, Jones sues Smith, the action is between man and man; physical persons are involved.

But if Jones sues the Paradise Railroad Company, or sells a farm to the Cosmopolitan Country Club, the action concerns a physical person on the one hand (Jones), and, on the other, a moral person (Company, Club). If, finally, the College of St. John buys the property of Community Farms, Inc., the action concerns two moral persons. In all social action between persons, whether physical or moral, commutative justice requires suitable and equable procedure, balance, proportion. The term commutative comes from the Latin commutare, which means “to change or exchange, to barter or trade.” Commutative justice regulates the give-and-take among members of society, whether these be physical or moral persons, in business, law, and personal relations. A man who will not pay his just debts violates commutative justice; so also does a man who injures his neighbor’s reputation by slanderous talk.

4. Justice is the necessary and wholly indispensable basis of all right human relations and of social action. But justice is not in itself sufficient for the needs of man and the rounded well-being of society. Justice needs the support of supplementary virtues, the chief of which is charity. * Charity is a word of Latin origin; love is derived from Saxon roots; and the terms are synonyms. Love or charity is not mere affection in the sense of tender feeling. It is a virtue of the will (and may or may not be associated with tenderness), which steadily tends either to possess, or to do good to its object. The love or charity which tends to possession is called love of desire; the love which tends to do good to its object is called love of benevolence. It is chiefly the love of benevolence which engages our attention in the present study, and to which we refer when we employ the term charity. If justice is the reasonable or rational basis of social action, charity is the virtue which renders such action properly human. If justice is, so to speak, the head, charity is the heart. Justice is coldly and rigorously right; charity is warmly and humanly right. Justice and charity are never opposed; they are supplementary, or, more precisely, charity supplements— and presupposes—justice. Justice sheds a clear but impersonal light upon human affairs; charity brings to this undiminished and undistorted light the warmth and glow of personal humanity and blood brotherhood. Charity is not merely a fine and gracious thing, which men do well to practise. It is a duty, imposed by the natural law, clearly recognized by reason. By force of this duty, man must love God (by love of desire) above all things, for His own sake, and (by love of benevolence) must love all other men as he loves himself, that is, he must wish, and in due measure seek to obtain, the same sort of good for his neighbor that he seeks for himself. This requirement of human nature and of society finds its expression and place in social relationships. It plays a notable role in regulating the relations of governments and peoples, keeping nationalism within due bounds, and preventing sane persons from regarding any race or nationality as “a lesser breed without the law.” Charity fosters forbearance and goodwill among people of differing colors and creeds. It obligates the wealthy to consider, not only the needs, but also the thoughts and feelings, of those less amply supplied with worldly goods; thus it forbids vulgar and vain display, selfish lavishness, bizarre and inhuman luxury. A few years ago, a parvenu millionaire signalized the entrance of his young daughter into polite society by conducting a reception of regal splendor. He made it his proud boast that the “party” had cost thirty thousand dollars. Such extravagant expenditure, for a single evening’s pleasure and display, of means that would have procured a comfortable living for many families for an entire year, could not but arouse bitterness and resentment in many of the millionaire’s poor neighbors, especially in persons of socialistic, communistic, or anarchistic tendencies. Of course, the millionaire spent his own money in his own way; justice was not violated. But charity was violated. And such violations of charity hurt the well-being of men in society; they promote restlessness and discontent; they plant seeds of revolutionary and destructive upheavals.

The Catholic must recognize the law of charity as part and parcel of the one thing necessary for men on earth, as proposed by Our Lord Himself, when He said that the whole law and the prophets depend upon love of God and love of neighbor. And this charity or love is not a matter of the feelings, or of the will alone; it must be carried into action. “If you love me,” said Christ, “keep my commandments” In other words, if you have charity, let it appear in your conduct, your thoughts, words, deeds. And if the love of God be so to appear, so also the love of neighbor. It is impossible to stress too strongly the real obligation which rests upon all men of practising true charity. It is equally impossible to overestimate the role of charity in the due regulation of social relations. To most people the term charity suggests the giving of alms. This is a very important form of the virtue, it is true, but it by no means exhausts the meaning of the term. Charity is as wide as love, for it is love; and love is a virtue of the widest and most varied expression, extending from the thinking of kindly thoughts to the most ardent labors on behalf of one’s fellowmen. The man who gives alms, directly or through agencies, practises charity; the employers who are available to their workers, not holding themselves aloof and regulating the labors of men through great impersonal organizations, practise charity; employers who plan together to prevent periods of unemployment, practise charity; workers who refuse to join organizations which are built upon hatred and stress the distinction of classes, practise charity; workers who join unions justly and reasonably formed to protect their rights, and not to destroy the rights of others, practise charity. These are but a few aspects of the social function of this necessary virtue.

5. There is another virtue which supplements justice, and which bears some resemblance to charity, though clearly distinct from it, and the name of this virtue is equity. Equity, like justice, is, at least sometimes, enforceable by processes of law; charity is not so enforceable. Equity, like charity, regulates human conduct and social relations where the application of cold justice is not clearly apparent. Equity may be described as a fine and splendidly human spirit of interpreting the requirements of justice where these are dubious; it is of the spirit of justice, not the frigid letter. St. Thomas describes this virtue of equity as a species of justice, and declares that it is a virtue which moves a man to forego what he might claim in the strict letter of the law, but which would be unfair or damaging to a neighbor. To illustrate: In 1933 a gifted young singer sought the help of an acquaintance in gaining a position with a large broadcasting company. Said the singer: “jlohn, if you get me this place, I’ll agree to pay you, for the next ten years, one-third of all I make in excess of $100 a week.” The agreement was formally drawn up, signed, and witnessed. Within a year the singer was earning the amazing salary of $7000 a week. He objected to the payment of $2300 a week to the friend whose word had procured him, not the high-salaried position, but the opportunity which led to it. Here we see an obvious inequality or disproportion. Leaving out of account the question of whether any entertainer is entitled to such a princely salary as $7000 a week, it is manifestly out of all reason to maintain that the mere word of recommendation of a friend is worth $2300 a week. Yet the contract called for that amount; justice, according to the letter, called for the fulfillment of the contract. If the friend insisted, like Shylock, on “his bond,” a court of equity could set aside his claim, and give an official interpretation of the real meaning or spirit of the agreement. Possibly a lump sum would be assigned to the friend, and his claim ended once for all with its payment. Or a much smaller amount than $2300 might be assigned as the weekly fee to be paid by the singer. Here cold justice is not sufficient to regulate the seemly relations of the contractors. Charity might urge its claims in vain for benevolence to one whose salary is so very large. Equity is manifestly required for the balance and equalization of rights, claims, and duties.

A further illustration: A man buys a property for $10,000, borrowing the sum from a Building and Loan Company. He makes return payments, with interest, to the Company, until his debt is reduced to $1000. The depression comes; his income is barely sufficient for his family’s needs; he cannot meet the requirements of his contract in point of either interest or principal. Now, according to the terms of his contract with the Loan Company, his property may be taken, unless all payments are made as agreed. But surely the spirit of justice (r. e., equity) dictates that he has a very solid claim to the property which has been almost paid for, but not entirely. Cold justice here would see the man dispossessed; charity could not be enforced by any public and authoritative means. Only equity can see to the proper regulation of this “social phenomenon,” this unhappy situation, too familiar in our times, of a distressed householder and his family at the mercy of a cold and impersonal corporation. The illustrations suggest the importance of the part played by equity in the regulation of social action. Further illustrations will certainly present themselves to the thoughtful student who turns over in mind the stirring and oft-times heart-rending events of the “hard times” of 1929-1934. Moratoriums for those whose homes or farms are mortgaged; concessions to struggling home-owners; mitigation of unbearable tax-burdens; industrial and oldage pensions; industrial group-insurance; reliefmeasures for workmen by firms that have no present employment to offer; plans for profit-sharing—these and many other familiar measures illustrate the function and the value of equity in the relations of men in society.

b) Religion

That man has the duty of living virtuously and of practising the true religion, we have already seen. (Cf. Part First} Chapter II, Art. 2, c). We merely recall the matter here for logical completeness in the present study. We bring again to mind the important fact that the duty of religion and virtue is a matter of justice; it is a debt of our very nature, and must be paid. Therefore, the man who professes indif ference in religion is a defaulter, a debtor who will not pay his debts. He damages himself, as every debtor does, and the fact that his obligation is involved with eternal issues makes his offence the greater. He also damages his neighbor by evil example, and so offends not only in justice against God, but in charity against his neighbor. The man who seeks directly to dissuade others from the practise of religion, also offends in justice against his fellowmen. If the primal debt of religion be not paid, then there is no hope that the merely temporal conditions of men can be rightly regulated. Social evils have always at their foundation and source the evil of the neglect of God and the ignoring of the true religion. Plans and programs, theories and suggestions, will never bring mankind to full peace and well-being upon earth, if all plans and theories are robbed of point and meaning at the very outset by the iniquitous denial to Almighty God of that which is His due, and the equally iniquitous denial to men of that which is the direct and the only means of their achieving the end for which they exist. Any direction of human affairs that does not lie, as mathematicians say, “in the same plane” as the direction given to creatures by their Creator, is a futile and a false direction. Vainly, therefore, does the sociologist labor and plan and promote schemes for human betterment, if he leaves out of account that which indicates the true nature and the true goal of human life. As we have said before, unless a man be seen against the background of eternity—that is, unless he be seen together with the bonds of religion and virtue which bind him to the service of God—he is not seen at all; and if he be not seen, how shall he be served? Manifestly, there is no true sociology, no sociology of lasting achievement, that is not interwoven throughout, warp and woof, with matters of true religion and virtue.

c) Life

A man has the duty of preserving his life and the integrity of his body. For a man does not own his body, nor is he the master of his life; these things belong to God, and man is entrusted with their care and must stand responsible for their use. For this reason one must make use of ordinary and normal means to avoid death, mutilation, needless danger, intemperance, and all unreasonable use of objects or practices which are harmful to life, limb, or health. One has the further duty of bending one’s energies to acquire what is necessary for the maintenance of life and decent sustenance for oneself and one’s dependents, and to provide, in so far as serious attention and effort may avail, for future needs in times of sickness, age, or unemployment. A man’s duty in this matter is also an inalienable right. The right is not, however, absolutely inalienable, for in certain circumstances it is lawful, nay praiseworthy, for a man to incur great risk or to offer his life for a high cause. But normally and ordinarily the right (and duty) of life and bodily integrity is not to be surrendered. This right of a man to life and integrity indicates a corresponding duty in others of allowing its exercise and of doing nothing to thwart its action. The social significance of this requirement appears clearly in matters of industry. Those employers offend against man’s life and the means of supporting it who require workers to labor in unhygienic surroundings; who exact of women or children duties unsuited to their state and condition; who ignore the duty of instructing laborers in the exercise of watchfulness and care; who refuse to install safety devices where the use of such things would mean a real protection; who demand inhumanly hard services, or require too long a working day, or press workers to intense effort to “speed up” production. Those also offend who refuse to pay their employees a living wage, that is, such a wage as will enable a prudent and frugal man to maintain himself, to marry and found a family, and to provide decently for his children, their rearing and education, and for himself and all dependents in times of sickness or unemployment. The right to life is not, as we have said, absolutely inalienable, although it is inalienable in ordinary and normal circumstances. It is not lawful for a man to dispose of his life at will, as he would dispose of a piece of property. A man may not take his own life, for suicide is an offence against God, the one master of life and death; it is an offence against all other men (society), inasmuch as it upsets the order and damages the integrity of the group of which a man is a natural member; it is an offence against the person who commits it, for it contradicts nature and destroys the opportunity for attaining the true end of life. But, while a man may not dispose of his life at will, he may forfeit the right to live. For certain heinous offences a man may lawfully be sentenced to die. The reason for this fact lies in the principle, already learned, which (as a dictate of natural law) declares that where rights collide, the greater prevails and the lesser ceases to be a right. Now (other things being equal) that right is greater which concerns the greater number; and where the execution of a criminal is exacted for the well-being and security of all other men, his right to life ceases, and he may be lawfully put to death. Notice carefully, however, that the right to life is never forfeited except by reason of crime and heinous guilt. An innocent person may never be lawfully executed even to save the whole world. There is no more damnable doctrine than that summed up in the words of the Jewish High Priest, “It is expedient that one man die for the people.” The innocent man—whether he be a menace to health, such as a leper; or a menace to comfortable living, such as an unwanted child; or a menace to peace and security, such as an insane person—never forfeits his right to live. It cannot be taken away from him for the convenience or the comfort of society. Again, the student is reminded that the dignity of personality resides in the human individual and not in society as such. It is sometimes lawful for a private individual to take the life of a human being; this is the case when the direct protection of one’s own life (or virtue, or liberty) involves indirectly the killing of an unjust aggressor. But it is never lawful directly to take the life of another, apart from the legal punishment of heinous crime. Offences against the right to life and integrity of members are always anti-social; for to injure the members of society is to injure society itself. Thus abortion, sterilization, euthanasia, are not only crimes against human persons, but crimes against the social group. Sociologists who espouse the “betterment” of society by such means are not sociologists at all, but enemies of society.

d) Liberty

A man—since he is the child of God and is dowered with the dignity of personality—has the natural right to freedom of person and freedom of action as long as he does not violate the laws of God or the rights of other men. This being so, it follows that there is a duty incumbent upon all (whether individuals or States) of recognizing essential human freedom or liberty, and of doing nothing to limit or destroy it. As a man may forfeit his right to live by committing terrible crime, so, even for lesser crime, he may forfeit his right to personal bodily liberty, and be subjected to lawful imprisonment. Sometimes too— or at least it so appears—a man may be lawfully deprived of freedom for enforced military service, but this only when his country is conducting a necessary war of defence, or faces the certain danger of such a war, and adequate troops cannot be enlisted without conscription. Compulsory military service as a matter of national policy, such as we see it to-day in many States of Europe, is a manifest violation of the right of personal liberty. Man’s conscience is his reason pronouncing upon matters of right and wrong, of good and evil. It is the natural guide of a person, and, if sincere and certain, one may never act against it. Therefore, man has a natural and inalienable right to freedom or liberty of conscience. It may happen, however, that a person, led by an erroneous conscience (though he himself is sincere and certain of its conclusions), may perform actions which violate the rights of others, and for such actions he may be punished. A person of abnormal or subnormal mind may, for example, practise nudism with the conscientious conviction that he is doing a lawful or even a meritorious thing. Yet he violates the most important rights of others, for he is setting an example of indecency which of its nature is harmful, particularly to the young, and he turns the minds of his fellows to things that, since the Fall, are too likely to exercise an influence for what is lawless and vile. Therefore, he may be prevented, nay, even punished. For a person must remember that while conscience is inviolable, other men have consciences too. This is a profitable subject for the studious attention and

• meditation of people (especially those of high-school and college age) who think that matters of dress and conduct in public are “their own business” and must not be interfered with by persons whom they please to call “fogies.” What a person does (or wears) in public is everybody’s business. Intimately connected with freedom of conscience is the liberty of choosing one’s own state in life. In this matter everyone is bound to consult the will of God and the manifest intentions of His providence. One’s moral and physical fitness, one’s inclinaation and aptitude for the work, are normal indications of the divine plan with reference to the state of life. But the human decision in this question belongs to the individual concerned. Since the choice of a state of life involves the most intimate and sacred interests, freedom in the matter is an inalienable right. For the lawful exercise of this right, one must have attained an age sufficient to warrant a prudent and reasonable choice, and one should give consideration to the advice of parents and other elders who have one’s true interests at heart. But one should not submit to disproportionate influence or interference. Catholics know that they must, in this matter, obey the laws of the Church, for the Church is truly their mother, and she is directly commissioned by Our Lord to lead them to their true end and destiny. Further, Catholics will take prudent counsel with their confessors or spiritual directors regarding the choice of a state of life. The right to personal liberty is violated by those who enslave human beings. Absolute slavery is always a horrible evil, for it usurps the rights of God, who alone owns men, and transfers this ownership to slave-holders. Sometimes a modified serfdom may be tolerated as a temporary measure exacted by inevitable conditions; but such conditions are not to be allowed to endure, and steady effort must be made towards the full and complete emancipation of serfs; meanwhile the serfs are to be guaranteed all essential personal rights. It is the fashion to-day to think and speak with pity of the ancient days of feudalism and serfdom. Yet, even in the land of the free, there is now in existence a system of industrial serfdom which is far more debasing, far more a violation of human freedom, than anything recognized as just in medieval times. The man who has no choice in matters of employment or rate of pay, but must take the job or leave it at the wage offered, is in no sense free; for he must submit to imposed conditions or starve. He must report at a certain hour; he must punch a time-clock; he must observe a military system of routine; he may be discharged from the employer’s rolls and from his care or responsibility at a moment’s notice and for any or no reason; he has no guarantee that he will be taken care of in sickness or old age. The medieval serf had no such exacting conditions to meet, and he was secure in his prospects; for the feudal lord could not throw off responsibility at will. People of radical tendency like to talk of the modern “wage-slave.” The radicals are wholly wrong in their theory of the proper mode of emancipation, but they are right in their terminology. For, beyond serious question, millions of American workers are precisely what the radicals call them—“wage-slaves.” This is a matter to engage the attention of true sociology. We shall have occasion to say more of it later. Not only is a man rightfully free in matters of conscience, in the choice of a state of life, in personal life and action as opposed to enslavement; he is also free to choose the sort of work he wishes to do. Sometimes, however, a man may be called upon to sacrifice his own desires for the well-being of other men, but it is normally not within the province of just public authority to apportion jobs and to decide what each citizen must take up as his steady employment. There is a tendency to-day, against which the sociologist must direct his best efforts, towards absolutism in governmental control. More and more, men are being taught to rely upon public direction in all things. This is inevitable in a civilization shaped by industry and its requirements; for men who must take what work is offered, no matter what their personal preferences may be, are soon trained to accept direction meekly in almost everything. Thus, for example, free citizens allow the State to dictate courses of education, and even to determine the text-books used by their children. Thus even alert young men and women are taught to rely upon bureaus for “vocational guidance,” and to accept direction almost as if it had the force of absolute law. Sometimes, indeed, direction and guidance is a valuable thing, but when it becomes—as it easily does—a meddlesome interference with personal liberty on the part of States or public bureaus, it is an evil capable of tremendous growth, and its end is absolute enslavement of the individual. Let the student call once more to mind the fundamental principle of sociology; let him remember that the human individual has personal dignity; not society, not the State. Man is not made for society or for the State; these institutions exist for man, and their function is not to thwart his just activity and shape him to some governmental ideal; the function of society and the State is to serve man, to keep his personal dignity sacred, to foster and further his worthy activity, to help him to his final and eternal end by rendering equitable, peaceful, and secure his time of sojourn here on earth.

e) Labor

If man has a right to life and the duty of living, he has the right and the duty of doing what is required for the preservation of life. In a word, he has the right and the duty of working, of laboring. This is a clear prescription of the natural law, for man has needs which only labor can supply. Food, clothing, shelter, means for the training of mind and heart and will—these are purchased by work and not by idleness. If further proof of the natural necessity of human labor were needed, it is found in the fact that laziness and inactivity deprive a man, ordinarily, of the decent requirements of bodily life, and have a debasing effect upon his mind and will. Now, if a man has the right and duty of working, he must not be unjustly denied the opportunity of fruitful work. The lazy idler cannot rightly say, “The world owes me a living”; but all men can say, “The world owes me the chance to work, so that I may live.” We live on a planet that is a richly stored treasury of all we need for bodily life and decent comfort. That many are denied opportunity for work is not due to the earth, nor to the Creator, but to the neglect of the Christian faith and its requirements. Unemployment, depressions, and “hard times” are the fruit of an unchristian civilization and of an industrial policy which trains men to merely artificial tasks, which, for the most part, supply not basic needs, but conveniences and comforts. Thus workers are lured from the land to the factory; they no longer have the opportunity or the knack of winning a living from the soil and from labor in the home. Unemployment leaves them stranded and helpless, their right to labor contradicted and denied. Here is a most important subject for the study and the energy of the sociologist. Industrialism has done great harm to men in point of thwarting their fruitful labor and in teaching them to desire things that are non-essential. For some opaque reason, the outcome of this influence of industrialism has come to be called “a higher standard of living.” The phrase, of course, means only that men of the industrial era have learned to want comforts and conveniences, and have been taught to squander their earnings upon many things that they would be better without. In a word, industrialism has taught men to live more expensively and to get less lasting values for their money. A glance through the advertising columns of almost any magazine will show what things people of our day are interested in, what they want and are prepared to pay for. Here is a list compiled from the one hundred advertisements in one issue of a very popular weekly fiction-magazine in the summer of 1934: Automobiles and accessories…24 Articles for toilet and personal use… 22 Wearing apparel a la mode… 11 Soaps, paints, polishes, utensils, etc., for use in the home… 17 Typewriters, pencils, paper, duplicators… 8

Sports, travel, entertainment… 9 Canned foods… 4 Life insurance… 4 Services of patent lawyer… 1

The list needs discussion (which we have not space to give in full) to manifest the fact that nearly all its items are luxuries, comforts, and conveniences, rather than necessaries. Granted that the automobile has become necessary for many persons, it remains a means of pleasure and convenience for more than half of those who use it daily. The articles for toilet and personal use listed are, in nearly every case, non-essential; the household articles advertised are almost all little luxuries priced outrageously. Summing up, it may be fairly stated that at least seventy-five of the hundred items listed answer no pressing need and confer no very valuable benefit upon the purchaser. Yet these are the things that people buy; these are the things called for by our “high standard of living”; the steady call for these things keeps the wheels of industry going; the manufacture and distribution of these things (omitting, of course, the poor “patent lawyer” with his little card in a dim corner of the magazine) give employment to a tremendous number of workers. Now consider: when money becomes “tight,” when unscrupulous Capitalism messes things up in the stockmarket, when, in a word, hard times come upon the populace, most people perforce do without the luxuries and conveniences which mean work and bread and butter for the masses. Unemployment follows; man’s natural right to labor gainfully is denied him, not indeed by this person or that, by this employer or that exploiter, but by the converging forces which arise from the fact that man of the industrial age has no roots for his employment in real essential human needs. The industrial employee depends for his work upon the current desire for nonessentials and upon the ability of the people at large to indulge their taste in them. Manifestly, while this state of things continues, no permanent prosperity can be secured. The sociologist is recommended to do some serious thinking upon the remark, made to Mr. G. K. Chesterton by a Bulgar (a waiter in a fashionable American hotel), whose sad eyes spoke his longing for his home and his native way of life: “From the earth we come; to the earth we return; when people get away from that, they are lost.” The labor of a man’s hands is a noble thing, and equally noble is the labor of a man’s mind. No labor, whether of body or mind, can bear lasting fruit without the expenditure of great effort, of persevering toil, and even suffering. The poet and the musician, the professional man and the artist, all labor as truly as the tiller of the soil and the factory employee. And in one way or another, all men must feel and fulfil the duty of laboring for the maintenance of life and the culture of the soul.

f) Property

Property means external goods or objects capable of being distributed among men and possessed for exclusive ownership and use by individuals. Lands and animals, tools and implements of labor, houses and furniture are property, as are food and clothing, books and paintings, and all that a man normally speaks of as his own. The term property is an apt name, for it derives from the Latin proprius, which means, “peculiar, special, not common, one’s own ” The right of property is not the right of each individual to a portion of the earth and the objects, natural and artificial, to be found upon it. It is the right to acquire, by lawful means, the possession and ownership of property, and to hold it thereafter for exclusive use and disposal. Such a right is the natural heritage of every human being. That the right of property is a natural right is evident from the fact that it answers a natural need. Man must preserve life and health; he must take care of his family and dependents; he must provide for the requirements of old age and the uncertainties of the future, such as unemployment, incapacity, sickness. But a man cannot fulfil this natural duty if he is not allowed to own things and to dispose of them at will. A man must, for the security and independence which attach to personality, be able to strike root, to have some stable assurance not only for the moment or the day, but for the long and uncertain reaches of the future. Only the right of property meets this natural human requirement. Again, man must labor, and by his labor he attaches something of his own, something almost of himself, to the products of his toil. The man who tills the soil puts into the product something of his own, which is thereafter inseparable from it; the man who works at bench or machine, even if he does no more than handle a lever or push a button, contributes something of his own to the output, and this element is part and parcel of the product. Certainly, then, man has a right, in due measure, to the fruits of his labor; this right is natural, and is neither more nor less than the right of ownership, or private property. The right, therefore, of property is a natural right of man. A man may lawfully acquire property: (a) by occupation of that which does not belong to anyone else and is not in itself required by the natural need of all; (&) by finding, if the true owner of the object found cannot be discovered by an effort proportionate to its value; (c) by accession, or natural increase of property without damage to others, as when land is extended by alluvial deposits, or herds and flocks increase by propagation; (d) by prescription through uninterrupted and undisturbed possession of property, which the holder honestly believes to be his own, for a period of time fixed by statute law; (e) by transfer through free contract (buying, selling, gifts, wages, etc.). Man’s right to acquire and hold property is natural and, normally, inalienable. But, like all human rights in externals, it is limited by the rights of others. Therefore, a man may not set out with unbridled greed to gain possession of a wholly disproportionate share of the land, nor may he use his property in such wise as to endanger the property of others. The natural right of a man in the domain of property is pretty well defined by normal human needs; when one goes beyond these, the statute law, as well as the natural law, may justly affix limits to the extent, and even the use, of property that one may acquire and hold for exclusive disposal. But no authority on earth can take away from man the right he establishes by his lawful and personal exertions, that is, by his own labor. Nor can a man be justly hindered from lawfully obtaining and possessing what is required for his present and future needs and those of his dependents. The right of individual ownership of property is denied by those who profess the theories that may be summed up (inadequately) as Communism> the chief form of which is Socialism. Socialistic theories are invalid, for they come in conflict with the natural requirements of individual man, who is prior to the State or Commune, and who is dowered with a personal dignity which the group does not possess. Further, socialistic doctrines point to a kind of evil peace and equality of misery in which individual life would be distorted, liberty destroyed, happiness made impossible, and morals subverted. The most satisfactory, and the most scientific, criticism of socialistic theories is to be found in the famous Encyclicals, “Rerum Novarum” of Pope Leo XIII, and “ Quadrag esimo Anno” of Pope Pius XL To these documents the student is referred for the full discussion of the right of private ownership, especially of the land. The fundamental error of all communistic theories lies in the denial of man’s natural right to acquire property, especially land, by first occupation. The denial of valid individual ownership of land is common to all the various forms of Socialism, the Democratic or Industrial Socialism of Karl Marx (1818- 1883) as well as the Agrarian Socialism of Henry George (1839-1897). Against these theories, Pope Leo XIII writes as follows: “Man… the master of his own acts… governs himself by foresight under the eternal law and power of God… Therefore, it is in his power to exercise his choice not only on things which regard his present welfare, but also on those which will be for his advantage in time to come. Hence man not only can possess the fruits of the earth, but the soil itself, for of the products of the earth he has to lay up provision for the future. Man’s needs do not die out, but recur; satisfied to-day, they demand new supplies tomorrow. Nature, therefore, owes to man a storehouse that is unfailing in supplying his daily wants. And this he finds only in the inexhaustible fertility of the earth.” Further, speaking of the desirability of more owners for more properties, the Holy Father writes: “If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land… the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over and the respective classes brought nearer to each other.” Wise men of all ages have believed that the ideal social order can prevail only when States are composed largely of small landowners, especially small farmers or peasants.

Summary of the Article

In this rather lengthy Article we have learned many important things. We have defined the terms right, duty, justice, charity, equity, and have reviewed essential principles connected with these powers and virtues. We have indicated the natural duty incumbent upon every man of worshipping God in the recognition and practice of the true religion. We have considered the right and duty of life and bodily integrity, and have noted the social significance of this right in matters of industrial activity. We have seen the evil of self-murder, and the anti-social character of certain measures which are recommended by modern sociologists in violation of the right to life and integrity of members. We have studied the question of personal liberty and have discerned its proper field, noticing certain modern violations of this fundamental right. We have discussed man’s natural right to labor, and his right to acquire property, the normal requirement for fulfilling the duties of life and labor.