314 ON THE NATURAL I NATALITY OF MKX vn 



proposition fare much better if we modify it, so as 

 to say that all men ought to be free and equal, so 

 long as the " ought " poses as a command of im- 

 mutable morality. For, assuredly, it is not intu- 

 itively certain " that all men ought to be free and 

 equal." Therefore, if it is to be justified at all a 

 priori, it must be educible from some proposition 

 which is intuitively certain ; and unfortunately 

 none is forthcoming. For the proposition that 

 men ought to be free to do what they please, so 

 long as they do not infringe on the equal rights of 

 other men, assumes that men have equal rights 

 and cannot be used to prove that assumption. 

 And if, instead of appealing to philosophy we 

 turn to revealed religion, I am not aware that 

 either Judaism or Christianity affirms the political 

 freedom or the political equality of men in Rous- 

 seau's sense. They affirm the equality of mm 

 before God but that is an equality either of 

 insignificance or of imperfection. 



With the demonstration that men are not rill 

 equal under whatever aspect they are contemplated, 

 and that the assumption that they ought to be con- 

 sidered equal has no sort of a priori foundation 

 however much it may, in reference to positive law, 

 with due limitations, be justifiable by considerations 

 of practical expediency the bottom of Rousseau's 

 argument, from a priori ethical assumptions to the 

 denial of the right of an individual to hold private 

 property, falls out. For Rousseau, with more 



