authority

Though I have said above. . . . That all men by Nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of Equality: Age or Virtue may give Men a just Precedency: Excellency of Parts and Merit may place others above the common level: Birth may subject some, and Alliance or Benefits others, to pay an Observance to those to whom Nature, Gratitude or other Respects may have made it due; and yet all this consists with the Equality which all men are in, in respect of Jurisdiction or Dominion one over another, which was the Equality I there spoke of . . . being that equal Right that every Man hath, to his natural Freedom, without being subjected to the Will or Authority of any other Man.

They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure; with a power of dispensation over all the rules and obligations of morality; with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes; with a power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from allegiance; with a power of procuring or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude to him and his subordinate tyrants, who, it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God and that was worshipped.

He who would be useful, strong, and happy, must cease being a passive receptacle for the negative, beggardly, and impure streams of thought; and as a wise householder commands his servants and invites his guests, so must he learn to command his desires, and to say, with authority, what thoughts he shall admit into the mansion of his soul.

The authority and influence of France on the world scene in the 21st century will not depend solely on its modernity and cohesion, nor even on the continuity and professionalism of its foreign policy. France will be heeded if it has a message to convey. Faced with the temptations of laissez-faire, France must stand out as the nation with the imagination and determination to pursue an ambition that combines cogency with generosity.

Almost everywhere political secularization was accompanied at length by a general decrease in religious observance. Theological matters ceased to be, if they had ever genuinely been, the main interest of the people. This does not mean that religion died out: far from it. But it became the interest, not of the whole, but of a section of the people. The Church, instead of being a recognized ruling authority, became what its Founder said it was, a little yeast in a large lump of dough. In some countries it barely maintained the right to exist; in others it had to adapt its methods to new conditions. But wherever possible it has continued openly to pursue the same ends, and has not ceased to declare what it believes to be the will of God even in the political sphere. Indeed, we may recognize a gain in the new situation. What it could once do by authority, it now seeks to do by persuasion.

Believe, if you will, that there may have been faults in our industrial system, yet the fact remains that the welfare of the average man has not so far advanced under any other form of government, and that whatever evil exists will not be corrected by delegating to government, with all its weaknesses, the authority to run and control all business and to control the daily lives and activities of laboring mankind. Nor will any existing waste and extravagance of government be eliminated or appreciably diminished until the average man realizes that the burden of paying its bills will, through direct or indirect taxation, ultimately fall upon him, his children or his children's children.

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority-literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.

Each person is oriented toward a quest for his personal invisible guide, or . . . he entrusts himself to the collective, magisterial authority as the intermediary between himself and Revelation.

As knowledge increases, the verdict of yesterday must be reversed today, and in the long run the most positive authority is the least to be trusted.

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.