The Essentials of Spirituality | Page 8

that is the spiritual attitude.
I have spoken of superiors and equals, of our attitude toward those who are more developed than we are, and toward those who are about equally developed; but my address to-day will be mainly occupied with our duty toward those who are or seem to be wholly undeveloped. The fundamental principle of Ethics is that every human being possesses indefeasible worth. It is comparatively easy to apply the principle of anticipating our neighbor's latent talents to the highly gifted, to the great authors, scientists, statesmen, artists, and even to the moderately gifted, for their worth is, in part, already manifested in their lives. But it is not so easy to apply or justify the principle in the case of the obscure masses, whose lives are uneventful, unilluminated by talent, charm, or conspicuous service, and who, as individuals at least, it might appear, could well be spared without impairing the progress of the human race. And yet this doctrine of the worth of all is the cornerstone of our democracy. Upon it rests the principle of the equal rights of even the humblest before the law, the equal right of all to participate in the government. It is also the cornerstone of all private morality; for unless we accept it, we cannot take the spiritual attitude toward those who are undeveloped.
The doctrine, then, that every man possesses indefeasible worth is the basis of public morality, and at the same time the moral principle by which our private relations to our fellow-men are regulated. What does it mean to ascribe indefeasible worth to every man? It means, for instance, that human beings may not be hunted and killed in sport as hunters kill birds or other game; that human beings may not be devoured for food as they have been by cannibals or sometimes by men in starvation camps when hard pressed by hunger; that human beings may not be forced to work without pay, or in any way treated as mere tools or instruments for the satisfaction of the desires of others. This, and more to the same purpose, is implied in the ascription of indefeasible worth to every man. Moreover, on the same principle, it follows that it is morally wrong to deprive another of the property which he needs for his livelihood or for the expression of his personality, and to blast the reputation of another--thereby destroying what may be called his social existence. And it also follows that a society is morally most imperfect, the conditions of which are such that many lives are indirectly sacrificed because of the lack of sufficient food, and that many persons are deprived of their property through cunning and fraud. The life of animals we do take, and whatever secret compunction we may have in the matter, the most confirmed vegetarian will not regard himself in the light of a cannibal when he partakes of animal food. The liberty of animals we do abridge without scruple; we harness horses to our carriages, regardless of what may be their inclinations, and we do not regard ourselves as slaveholders when we thus use them. Why is there this enormous distinction between animals and men? Are the Hottentots so greatly elevated above the animal level; are the lowest classes of negroes so much superior in intelligence to animals? Have the black race and the brown race any claim to be treated as the equals of the white? Among white men themselves is there not a similar difference between inferiors and superiors? Such questions naturally suggest themselves; and they have been asked at all times. It seems obvious that value should be ascribed to those who possess genius or even talent, or at least average intelligence; but why should value be ascribed to every human being just because he wears the human form?
The positive belief in human worth on which is based the belief in human equality, so far as it has rooted itself in the world at all, we owe to religion, and more particularly to the Hebrew and Christian religions. The Hebrew Bible says: "In the image of God did He create man"--it is this God-likeness that to the Hebrew mind attests the worth of man. As some of the great masters on completing a painting have placed a miniature portrait of themselves by way of signature below their work, so the great World-Artist when He had created the human soul stamped it with the likeness of Himself to attest its divine origin. And the greatest of the Hebrew thinkers conceived of this dignity as belonging to all human beings alike, irrespective of race or creed. In practice, however, the idea of equal human worth was more or less limited to the Chosen People. At least, to keep within the