marvellous creative force that hewed a new civilization out of chaos; his serenely magnificent faith, together with its accompanying emotionalism in hymn and ceremonial, is replaced by our doubt and almost absurdly pathetic attempt at mysticism, for who, unless a hopeless victim of his prejudices, would compare a modern half-baked Christian with a Bernard, a Maeterlinck and Rostand with a Thomas à Kempis or Tauler or Francis of Assisi? We have lost even the art of sinning, for our sins are of the skulking kind, shadings off from our virtues and very largely making use of the mask of piety, a cowardly, sneaking, "eminently respectable" way of sinning, compared to which a robber-baron cutting a Jew-peddler's throat by the Rhine or Loire seems positively artistic, and Colonna beating a Pope almost to death at Anagni appears Satanic in his sin-Why?-because, those men in their very sin paid tribute to God by defying Him brazenly, and did not, like your modern Sunday-school superintendent or affinity-seeker or half-naked opera-box holder, skulk around in the clothing of piety and love and art. And so on. The list grows indefinitely of modern shallowness of thought, rottening of emotion, until a plain man knows not whether to lash it all like the prophet interpreting the writing on the wall or, like that superbly devilish Voltaire, wish that he had twenty more years of life wherein to see all this pretense collapse as it did collapseand as this will.

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Therefore, let us, once and for all, cease our uncritical, undiscriminating prattle about " modern progress " and the “dark ages and gradual evolution of the race" and "modern enlightenment "-shibboleths on the lips of every smug professor and yellow journalist. Let us shake off the hypnotic spell of a tyrannical physical-science and tell it boldly that, while we admire it and are grateful to it and unreservedly accept its facts as science, yet, that it is impertinent and silly and out of its sphere when it presumes to become a philosophy and to make itself the supreme and sole judge of truth. Let us, while being in full sympathy with all the genuine worth in our age, nevertheless keep our heads clear enough and our

.

Surely this is not

And, if a bit rude

hearts pure enough to see the false in it. pessimism, but merely rational criticism. in style, let me say finally that some such brusque language would seem to be needed if we would succeed in waking up the modern sentimentalists from their day-dreaming in their fools' paradise.

LUCIAN JOHNSTON.

WHY PRIVATE LANDOWNERSHIP IS A NATURAL RIGHT.

A natural right is a right derived from the nature of the human individual, and existing for his welfare. Hence it differs from a civil right, which has its source in society or the State, and is intended to fulfil a social or civil purpose. Such, for example, is the right to vote, or the right to hold a civil office. Since a natural right is neither derived from nor primarily intended for a civil end, it cannot be destroyed, and it may not be ignored, by the State. For instance, the right to life and the right to liberty are so sacred to the individual, so necessary to his welfare, that the State cannot rightfully kill an innocent man, nor punish him by a term in prison.

While all natural rights are equally valid, they differ as to their basis and urgency. From this point of view, we may profitably distinguish three principal types.

The first is exemplified in the right to live. Life, the object of this right, is intrinsically good, good for its own sake, an end in itself. It is the end to which even civil society is a means. Since life is good intrinsically, the right to life is also valid intrinsically, and not because of consequences. Since there is no conceivable equivalent for life in the case of any individual in any contingency, the right to life is immediate and direct in all possible circumstances.

Among the natural rights of the second class, the most prominent are the right to marry, to enjoy personal freedom, and to own consumption-goods, such as food and clothing. The objects of these rights are not ends in themselves, but means to human welfare. Confining our attention to marriage, we see that membership in the conjugal union is an indispensable means to reasonable life and self-development in the majority of persons. The only conceivable substitutes are free love and celibacy. Of these the first is inadequate for any person, and the second is adequate only for a minority. Marriage is,

therefore, directly and per se necessary for the majority of individuals; for the majority it is an individual necessity. If the State were to abolish marriage it would deprive the majority of an indispensable means of right and reasonable life. Consequently the majority have a direct natural right to the legal power of marrying.

In the case of the minority who do not need to marry, who can live as well or better as celibates, the legal opportunity of marriage is evidently not directly necessary. But it is necessary indirectly, inasmuch as the power of choice between marriage and celibacy is an individual necessity. No argument is required to show that the State could not decide this matter consistently with individual welfare or social peace. Whence it follows that even the minority who do not wish or do not need to marry, have a natural right to embrace or reject the conjugal condition. For them the right is indirect, but none the less inviolable. (The marriage-rights of criminals, degenerates, and other socially dangerous persons, are passed over here as not pertinent to the present discussion. For the same reason no use is made of the perfectly valid social argument for the individual right of marriage.)

The right of private landownership belongs in a third class of natural rights. Inasmuch as ownership of land is not an intrinsic good, but merely a means to human welfare, it differs from life, and resembles marriage. On the other hand, it is essentially unlike marriage because it is not per se and directly necessary for the majority nor for any one individual. The alternative to marriage, namely, celibacy, would not under the most perfect social administration enable the majority to lead right and reasonable lives. The alternative to private ownership, namely, complete or partial Socialism, if efficiently administered would attain all the vital ends of private ownership. At least, this result has been attained in many pastoral societies, and conceivably it may be repeated in other social conditions than those now existing. Food, clothing, shelter, secu

1 Cf. Vermeersch, Quaestiones de Justitia, no. 204.

rity of livelihood and of residence, and all the other vital goods to which private landownership is a means, could be obtained through the managerial use of productive land by the individual, or even through a system of wages and insurance, together with long-term leases of the land used for residence sites. Even now something of this kind happens in the case of many persons who work upon or live upon land owned by the State. Such persons are not by nature exceptions. Any other person could be adequately provided for in the same way. Comparing the nature and needs of the individual with the nature and capacities of State ownership we see that the latter are per se sufficient in any and every case. No individual, neither Brown, nor Jones, nor Smith; no group of individuals, neither Germans, nor Irish, nor French, exists for whom this system of land tenure is essentially insufficient.

In our present industrial civilization, however, private land ownership is indirectly necessary for the welfare of the individual. It is said to be indirectly necessary because it is necessary as a social institution, rather than as something immediately connected with individual needs as such. It is not indeed, so necessary that society would promptly go to pieces under any other form of land tenure. It is necessary in the sense that it is capable of promoting the welfare of the average person, of the majority of persons, to a much greater degree than State ownership. It is necessary for the same reason and in the same way as a civil police force. As the State is obliged to maintain a police force, so it is obliged to maintain a system of private landownership. As the citizen has a right to police protection, so he has a right to the social and economic advantages which are connected with the system of private ownership of land. These rights are natural, derived from the needs of the individual in society, not dependent upon the good pleasure of the city or the State. They are individual rights to the existence and benefits of these social institutions.

But man's rights in the matter of land tenure are more extensive than his rights with regard to a police force. They are not restricted to the presence and functioning of a social