How Do We Know

27

STRIVE TO BE A NOBLEMAN

True nobility is derived from virtue, not from birth. Title may be purchased, but virtue is the only coin that makes the bargain valid.

—RICHARD E. BURTON

What a noble observation by this American author and professor of English (1861-1940)! “Nobleman,” in its generic sense, is a man or woman inheriting at birth such titles as King, Lord, Prince, Duke, or a woman having the rank of “peer in her own right.”

However, not all such labels are inheritances. I have an elderly friend on whom the title of “Lord” was recently bestowed. Why? Because of his virtue! These exceptions, throughout history, are numerous. I know of a Prince who is a freedom devotee.

My comments in no way contradict the accuracy of Burton’s truisms. Error is too often mistaken for truth, for error is all about us and truth lies deep and must be searched for. As Austin O’Malley phrased this point: Truth lives in the cellar, error on the doorstep.

What about “title may be purchased”? Many titles, throughout recorded time, have been “purchased” by brute force. To name several examples: Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao Tse-tung, Stalin.

What, really, is brute force? Is this a tyranny only of the past, a vice to be forgotten? Perish such a thoughtless notion!

A bum with a gun who robs another of his or her possessions obviously resorts to brute force. Even this kind of a low-brow bum wouldn’t disagree! It’s when a significant percentage of the citizenry descends to the Napoleonic level that titles are “purchased” by brute force.

Those who descend to this infamous level fall into two categories: (1) the millions of politicians who rob Peter to pay Paul and (2) the millions of Pauls who encourage and vote for the political robbers.

Is brute force implicit in this ignoble procedure? Yes, or the whole kit and caboodle of interventions by our 78,000 governments—federal, state and local—could be spoken of in the past tense.

These interventions are by the countless thousands. Several examples: social security, many forms of welfarism, government mail “delivery,” coercive labor union tactics, embargoes, tariffs, government “education,” local swimming pools, other special privileges in every town, city and state in the nation, the Gateway Arch being typical.

Are these interventions backed by brute force? Affirmative! For proof, try breaking these laws. Result? A fine or jail! Freedom of choice down the political drain! Napoleonic? Yes, indeed! Let us strive for their Waterloo!

Here is a suggestion as to the kind of thinking that, hopefully, might bring about a “Waterloo” to the employers of brute force—unrestrained and devilish action: It is incorrect to think of liberty as synonymous with unrestrained action. Liberty does not and cannot include any action, regardless of sponsorship, which lessens the liberty of a single human being. To argue contrarily is to claim that liberty can be composed of liberty negations, patently absurd. Unrestraint carried to the point of impairing the liberty of others is the exercise of license, not liberty. To minimize the exercise of license is to maximize the area of liberty. Ideally, government would restrain license, not indulge in it; make it difficult, not easy; disgraceful, not popular. A government that does otherwise is licentious, not liberal.1

True nobility is derived from virtue. The English clergyman, Caleb Colton, expressed this point with clarity: “There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement, and every conquest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her; and zealously to labor after her ways is to receive them.”

Virtue? According to my dictionary it is “Manliness . . . general moral excellence; right action and thinking; goodness of character.” What a boon to mankind were a few as perfect as this definition suggests. However, no individual is or ever has been anywhere near perfect—Godlike! But bear in mind that there is no better aspiration, an ideal to be sought constantly, never forsaken. This truth inspired the English divine, A. W. Hare (1792-1884) to write: “They who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny the sun because it is not always noon.” Believe in virtue!

Wrote the French archbishop, Francis Fenelon (1651-1715): “The most virtuous of all men, says Plato, is he who contents himself with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.”

Seeking to appear virtuous is the pursuit of fame, an infamous goal.

For what is understood by Fame

Beside the getting of a Name?

—Swift

Fame is nothing but an empty name.

—Charles Churchill

So let us content ourselves by being virtuous!

• 1See Science Is a Sacred Cow by Anthony Standen (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1950), pp. 63-64.