According to this theory, the life of animals, who, being created
unequal, are from birth to death engaged in a struggle for existence
in which the fittest survives, is eternally and universally
differentiated by a wide and deep chasm from the life of men, who,
being created equal, are engaged in a struggle against the
deteriorating forces of the universe in which each helps each and all
and in which each and all labor that each and all may not only live,
but may live more and more abundantly.
According to this theory, also, the glaring inequalities of physical
strength, of intellectual power and cunning, and of material wealth,
which are, on a superficial view, the determining facts of all social
and political life, are merely unequal distributions of the common
wealth, and each person is considered to hold and use his strength,
his talents and his property for the development of each and all as
beings essentially equal.
According to this theory, also, there is for mankind no "state of
nature" in which men are equally independent and equally disregardful
of others, which by agreement or consent becomes a "state of society"
in which men are equally free and equally regardful of others, but the
"state of nature" and the "state of society" are one and the same
thing. Every man is regarded as created in a state of society and
brotherhood with all other men, and the "state of nature,"--man's
natural estate and condition,--is the "state of society."
Were anyone asked to sum up in the most concise form possible the
ultimate doctrine of the Reformation, he could, perhaps, epitomize it
no more correctly than by the single proposition, "All men are created
equal." This doctrine of human equality arising from common creation,
growing out of Lutheranism and Calvinism through the intellectual
influence of Penn, and the broadening effect of life in this new and
fruitful land, underlay all American life and institutions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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