Liberty

APPENDIX I

FAITHS ABOUT THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN

Before people can be persuaded to abandon one faith they must be given something else to grab hold of as a means of salvation. Men cannot live without faith in something.

JOHN RUSTGARD

THIS DISCUSSION of liberty is predicated on certain faiths regarding mankind.

However much it may be regretted that an analysis must be started on the “uncertain footing” of faiths, this is unavoidable. What we “know” is ever bounded on all sides by what we do not know. In the dimension of space, for instance, what can be viewed is bounded by what is unviewed; that which lies beyond must be dealt with in terms of theory or faith, as to its content and form. It is the same with all aspects other than space.

Despite man’s efforts to master ignorance and press back the boundaries of the unknown, there shall remain an unconquered and unknown portion until such a time as we may have gained an insight into everything between the primal mist and the end of eternity. Until then, faith will have to continue to bridge the unknown. The concepts which one holds have to be constructed within these faiths, and any analysis must rest on some working hypotheses.

Faiths are not debatable in terms of scientific reasoning. One faith, in that sense, stands equal to any other so far as “proof” is concerned. A faith may be based on “hunch,” or on “instinct,” or on the authority of someone admired and trusted in these respects. But whatever its origin, it is held with deep conviction until replaced by something accepted as more tenable. It is for these reasons that faiths serve well to illustrate the impropriety and unwisdom of authoritarianism.

The following are the faiths, or hypotheses on which this analysis of liberty is based. They relate to the nature and destiny of man.

1. There exists a Supernatural, which guides the affairs of the universe.

2. In the design of the universe, everything is subject to certain natural laws which rule without being subject to revocation by any human or any combination of humans; among them are “physical law” as well as “moral law”; these laws, and the events that occur under their ruling guidance, constitute what we call truth.

3. Humans intuitively act in harmony with these natural laws, both physically and morally; failure to do so is the result of ignorance rather than of inclination; thus it is concluded that man is basically “good,” and will do the right thing provided he is given the correct “facts” and is left free to follow his instincts without interference; if it were not so, it would be difficult to explain man’s survival and his capacity for progress.

4. Law, and other social guides to conduct, must be in harmony with natural law, if serious consequences are to be avoided; obedience to any other guides for conduct — guides that are in disharmony with natural law — must carry the penalty meted out by the court of Higher Justice which can be neither bought nor influenced by untruths.

5. Each person is a self-responsible, independent unit who is obligated to answer only to the Supernatural Authority, in any final sense; he must answer to the natural laws of the universe; no person or persons may rightfully intercede between him and his God, with any rights of unchecked power over the other person; there is no place for any “Divine Right of Kings,” by that or by any other name, in this order of things; whomever attempts to claim that right is attempting to forge the Supernatural and is therefore engaged in trespassing on the rights of another person or persons.

6. The individual has no bounden duty to serve some intangible “common good” or “society,” in violation of what seems to him to be the best thing to do; one’s obligation is to his conscience, and to the Supernatural Order as he interprets it, rather than to abdicate this responsibility and attempt to shift it to others in political office or to some abstraction in the form of some organization; no person, under guise of these conjured abstractions, has the right to obligate another person to something or to someone unknown specifically to him; and any person who attempts to do so is an impostor attempting somehow to gain power for himself in exchange for the promise that he can free another from unavoidable self-responsibilities.

7. A person’s capacity to perceive the nature of these natural laws, which rule his being, is limited by his intelligence or powers of instinctive conduct; his beliefs, in this respect, are both his privilege and his responsibility; he is free to choose his sources of information as guides in his search for truth, and he is personally responsible for the wisdom of that choice and for the resulting conclusions; he will know that no person, not even himself, has any direct and certain line of communication with the sources of truth; all conclusions carry a corresponding uncertainty no matter who holds them; he knows that while he cannot avoid acting on the basis of some belief, these beliefs must ever be held subject to change as further evidence or new reasoning becomes available; but always he is obligated, by honesty, to believe and act in accordance with truth as he then sees it.

It is within this structure of faiths, as working hypotheses, that liberty is herein discussed.