(2) But while the 'natural rights of man' cannot be theoretically vindicated, they may still be regarded as ends or ideals to be striven after. 'Justifiable or unjustifiable in theory, they may still remain a convenient form in which to couch the ultimatum of determined men.'[10] They give expression, at least, to a conviction which has grown more clear and articulate with the advance of thought—the conviction of the dignity and worth of the individual. This thought was the keynote of the Reformation. The Enlightenment, with its appeal to reason, as alike in all men, gave support to the idea of equality. Descartes claimed it as the philosophical basis of man's nature. Rousseau and Montesquieu were among its most valiant champions. Kant made it the point of departure for the enforcement of human right and duty. Fichte but elaborated Kant's view when he contended for 'the equality of everything which bears the human visage.'[11] And Hegel has summed up the conception in what he calls 'the mandate of right'—'Be a person, and respect others as persons.'[12] Poets sometimes see what others miss. And in our country, at least, it is to Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning, and still more, perhaps, to Burns, that we are indebted for the insistence upon the native worth of man.
But if this claim has only gradually attained to articulate {205} expression, and is only now being made the basis of social reconstruction, it must not be forgotten that it is essentially a Christian truth. In Harnack's language, 'Jesus Christ was the first to bring the value of every human soul to light, and what He did no one can any more undo.'[13]
When, however, the attempt is made to analyse this ultimate principle of manhood, opinions differ as to its constituents, and a long list of 'rights' claimed by different political thinkers might be made. The famous 'Declaration of Rights'[14] included Life, Liberty, Property, Security, and 'Resistance of Oppression.' To these some have added 'Manhood Suffrage,' 'Free Access to the Soil,' and a common distribution of the benefits of life and means of production. This is a large programme, and certainly no community as yet has recognised all its items without qualification. Obviously they are not all of the same quality, nor are they of independent validity; and at best they but roughly describe certain factors, considered by various agitators as desirable, of an ideal social order.
(3) We are on safer ground, and for Christian Ethics, at least, more in consonance with ultimate Christian values, when we describe the primary realities of human nature in terms of the revelation of life as given by the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ. The three great verities upon which He constantly insisted were, man's value for himself, his value for his fellow-men, and his value for God. These correspond generally to the three great ethical ideas of life—Personality, Freedom, and Divine Kinship. But although the sense of independence, liberty and divine fellowship is the first aspect of a being who has come to the consciousness of himself, it is incomplete in itself. Man plants himself upon his individuality in order that he may set out from thence to take possession, by means of knowledge, action, and service, of his larger world. Man's rights are but {206} possibilities which must be transmuted by him into achievements.
'This is the honour,—that no thing I know,
Feel, or conceive, but I can make my own
Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart.'[15]
Rights involve obligations. The right of personality carries with it the duty of treating life, one's own and that of others, as sacred. The right of freedom implies the use of one's liberty for the good of the society of which each is a member. And finally, the sense of divine kinship involves the obligation of making the most of one's life, of realising through and for God all that God intends in the gift of life.
In these three values lies the Christian doctrine of man.[16] Because of their fullness of implication they open out to our vision the goal of humanity—the principle and purpose of the whole process of human evolution—the perfection of man. Given these three Christian truths—the Sacredness of Personality, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Fatherhood of God—and all that is essential in the claim of the 'Natural Rights of Man' is implicitly contained. The one thing needful is that men become alive to their privileges and go forward to 'possess their possessions.'
II
SPHERES OF DUTY
We are thus led to a division, natural if not wholly logical, of duties which spring from these rights—duties towards self, others, and God. Though, indeed, self-love implies love of others, and all duty is duty to God, still it may be permissible to frame a scheme of duties according as one or other element is prominent in each case.