to the Industrial Situation, chap.  VI.  W. J. Brown, Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation.  Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. 10, p. 113.  A. T. Hadley, Freedom and Responsibility.  J. W. Garner, Introduction to Political Science, chaps, ix, X. Edmond Kelly, Evolution and Effort.  Lawlessness:  Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 441.  Outlook, vol. 98, p. 12; vol. 99, p. 901; vol. 100, p. 359.  J. G. Brooks, American Syndicalism.

CHAPTER XXIX

EQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE

All men, our Declaration of Independence tells us, are created free and equal-that is, with a right to freedom and equality.  They are not actually equal in natural gifts, but they ought, so far as possible, to be made equal in opportunity; equality is not a fact, but an ideal.  And as an ideal it comes sometimes into conflict with its twin ideal of liberty; the freedom of the stronger must be curtailed when it robs the weaker of their fair share of happiness; but, on the other hand, a dead level of equality must not be sought at the sacrifice of the potentialities for the general good that lie in the free play of individuality.  The various projects for securing a greater equality among men must be scrutinized with an eye to their total effects upon human happiness.

What flagrant forms of inequality exist in our society?

Equality is a modern ideal; in former times it was generally assumed that men inevitably belong to classes or castes; that some must have luxury and others poverty, some must rule and others obey.  Plato, in constructing his ideal state, retains the walls between the small governing class, the warriors, and the mass of artisans, who are of no particular account but to get the work done.  Castiglione, in his Book of the Courtier, declares that “there are many men who, although they are rational creatures, have only such share of reason as to recognize it, but not to possess or profit by it.  These, therefore, are naturally slaves, and it is better and more profitable for them to obey than to command.”

But the invention of the printing press brought ideas to the masses, the invention of gunpowder brought them power; the colonization of new continents leveled old distinctions of rank; the development of manufacture and commerce brought fortune and power to men of humble origin.  The forces thus set in motion have resulted in our day in the general acceptance of political democracy witness in contemporary affairs the inception of the Portuguese Republic, the Chinese Republic, the abolition of the veto-power of the British House of Lords-and are creating a widespread belief in industrial democracy.  So complete is our American acquiescence in the principle of equality in the abstract that it is difficult for us to realize the burning passions that underlay such familiar words as Don Quixote’s, “Know, Sancho, that one man is no more than another unless he does more than another”; or Burns’s “A man’s a man for a’ that”; or Tennyson’s " ’Tis only noble to be good.”