EVOLUTION 251 



individual element, so that the rights of personality can 

 be sacrificed to nothing in the heavens above or in the 

 earth beneath, and the individual's good can be postponed 

 to neither city nor state nor humanity, it must not be 

 forgotten, on the other hand, that all this sacredness and 

 supremacy of the individual's personality comes from its 

 identification with that which is more than personal. It 

 is the moral law, the universal good, the objective right, 

 the eternal purpose written in the heavens, of which no 

 jot or tittle can in any wise pass away, that gives validity 

 to his claim to his own way. Hence, he can_resist the 

 will of the communityor of the State only if he has identi^. 

 fied himself with a will which, in the concrete sense, is 

 more universal than either. In fact, the content of the 

 morally authoritative will must always be the common 

 good \ just as the common good must always assume a 

 personal form. 



When this is borne in mind it is seen that we are entitled 

 to resist every invasion of personality, in whatever high 

 name it may come upon us. The common good attains 

 reality not by invading but by constituting personality, 

 by becoming, that is, the desire of the heart of the people. 

 It cannot therefore come into collision with private good, 

 although it may well conflict against private wills more 

 or less ignorant of the good. Society develops not by 

 limiting but by expanding private rights : only, on the 

 other hand, the private rights must be more than private 

 claims, that is, the rights must be right, and therefore 

 universal. 



Among the rights of the individual which, on this view, 

 are constituted by society and ratified and further evolved 

 by its progress is that of private property ; and a reference 



