Equality

"EQUALITY"
By Charles Dudley Warner

In accordance with the advice of Diogenes of Apollonia in the
beginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy--"It appears to me to be
well for every one who commences any sort of philosophical treatise to
lay down some undeniable principle to start with"--we offer this:
All men are created unequal.
It would be a most interesting study to trace the growth in the world of
the doctrine of "equality." That is not the purpose of this essay, any
further than is necessary for definition. We use the term in its popular
sense, in the meaning, somewhat vague, it is true, which it has had
since the middle of the eighteenth century. In the popular apprehension
it is apt to be confounded with uniformity; and this not without reason,
since in many applications of the theory the tendency is to produce
likeness or uniformity. Nature, with equal laws, tends always to
diversity; and doubtless the just notion of equality in human affairs
consists with unlikeness. Our purpose is to note some of the tendencies
of the dogma as it is at present understood by a considerable portion of
mankind.
We regard the formulated doctrine as modern. It would be too much to
say that some notion of the "equality of men" did not underlie the
socialistic and communistic ideas which prevailed from time to time in
the ancient world, and broke out with volcanic violence in the Grecian
and Roman communities. But those popular movements seem to us
rather blind struggles against physical evils, and to be distinguished
from those more intelligent actions based upon the theory which began
to stir Europe prior to the Reformation.

It is sufficient for our purpose to take the well-defined theory of
modern times. Whether the ideal republic of Plato was merely a
convenient form for philosophical speculation, or whether, as the
greatest authority on political economy in Germany, Dr. William
Roscher, thinks, it "was no mere fancy"; whether Plato's notion of the
identity of man and the State is compatible with the theory of equality,
or whether it is, as many communists say, indispensable to it, we need
not here discuss. It is true that in his Republic almost all the social
theories which have been deduced from the modern proclamation of
equality are elaborated. There was to be a community of property, and
also a community of wives and children. The equality of the sexes was
insisted on to the extent of living in common, identical education and
pursuits, equal share in all labors, in occupations, and in government.
Between the sexes there was allowed only one ultimate difference. The
Greeks, as Professor Jowett says, had noble conceptions of womanhood;
but Plato's ideal for the sexes had no counterpart in their actual life, nor
could they have understood the sort of equality upon which he insisted.
The same is true of the Romans throughout their history.
More than any other Oriental peoples the Egyptians of the Ancient
Empire entertained the idea of the equality of the sexes; but the equality
of man was not conceived by them. Still less did any notion of it exist
in the Jewish state. It was the fashion with the socialists of 1793, as it
has been with the international assemblages at Geneva in our own day,
to trace the genesis of their notions back to the first Christian age. The
far-reaching influence of the new gospel in the liberation of the human
mind and in promoting just and divinely-ordered relations among men
is admitted; its origination of the social and political dogma we are
considering is denied. We do not find that Christ himself anywhere
expressed it or acted on it. He associated with the lowly, the vile, the
outcast; he taught that all men, irrespective of rank or possessions, are
sinners, and in equal need of help. But he attempted no change in the
conditions of society. The "communism" of the early Christians was the
temporary relation of a persecuted and isolated sect, drawn together by
common necessities and dangers, and by the new enthusiasm of self-
surrender. ["The community of goods of the first Christians at
Jerusalem, so frequently cited and extolled, was only a community of

use, not of ownership (Acts iv. 32), and throughout a voluntary act of
love, not a duty (v. 4); least of all, a right which the poorer might assert.
Spite of all this, that community of goods produced a chronic state of
poverty in the church of Jerusalem." (Principles of Political Economy.
By William Roscher. Note to Section LXXXI. English translation. New
York: Henry Holt & Co. 1878.)]--Paul announced the universal
brotherhood of man, but he as clearly recognized the subordination of
society, in the duties of ruler and subject, master and slave, and