Communications
717 COMMUNICATIONS THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL ORDER Columbus, Ohio. TO the Editor:—Dr. John A. Ryan, in his careful review of my book, The Individual and the Social Order, has, in three...
...Recently I read an article in one of the staidest magazines in the country by a writer who proposed that the standards of beauty and ugliness should be substituted for the moral standards of right and wrong...
...Thy word is true from the beginning, and every one of Thy righteous judgments endureth forever...
...I agree that the individual, as such and without specific reference to his social relations, is an ethical entity and owes duties to himself...
...Virtue and vice, these evolutionists think, are old, outworn ideas analogous to the old idea of fixed species...
...Joseph A. Leighton...
...Just as two straight lines cannot enclose a space, so prohibition of private rights in the interest of the mass cannot admit of freedom of which it is in itself a negation...
...This same theory of evolution is accountable, also, for the cruel, old-time pagan doctrines advocated by modern eugenists...
...718 A correspondent in a recent number of The Commonweal suggests that fear of danger to faith is at the root of the indignation expressed in certain quarters at the publication of the original article unsupported by editorial comment...
...In order to square the evolution theory of "the survival of the fittest" with the actual fact that those individuals whom eugenists consider fit do not survive, and those whom they consider unfit do survive, eugenists would kill off all poor, weak, afflicted individuals, and preserve only the physically strong, the intellectually vigorous, and the "successful" and wealthy members of the community (the only ones fit to survive in the eyes of these people, obsessed as they are by the degraded, material ideals of evolution and neo-evolution...
...Collins merely skimmed over the surface in his comparison of the textile industry with railroad transportation, so I feel sure his detailed suggestions would prove of interest to the readers of your valued periodical...
...Obsessed by the theory of evolution, they think that even the old moral standards should give place to something progressive and higher...
...The adjective "cosmological" here refers solely to the astronomical or physical cosmos...
...John A. Ryan, in his careful review of my book, The Individual and the Social Order, has, in three respects, misinterpreted my views...
...I still hold that in ethical personality, imperfect though it be in man, we have the most adequate key to the mystery of the Godhead...
...Charles Hooper...
...They think that even God Himself (that is, those of them who think of God at all) must grow and progress into something higher and better...
...They were imprisoned, tortured or executed for their adherence to what one may name, coining a term scholastic fashion, the unicity of the Catholic and Roman Church...
...Perhaps a higher emotion than fear is assignable, namely, the instinct of loyalty...
...And the danger of a sectarian bigotry or of uncharitable bitterness is surely negligible among educated Catholics today, especially those who have innumerable social and business contacts with our separated brethren or who have themselves turned their backs on the will-o'-the-wisp of ''AngloCatholicism," leaving, however, dear friends and relations among those who are "not of this fold...
...Samuel Gompers, they have reference to matter previously discussed...
...While Christian men and Christian truth lie sleeping, these eugenists or evolutionists are actually putting their accursed theories into effect, and are preaching and putting into practice, so far as they can, "birth control" and "sterilization" laws...
...We might as well face these facts as beat aimlessly about the bush...
...In fact, in one place I have said that immortality is an ethical postulate...
...The universal godlessness and moral laxity of our age, are, in large part, directly traceable to this pernicious theory of evolution...
...G. D. Meadows...
...TO the Editor:—In the campaign now being conducted in America for religious freedom, arising out of Governor Smith's possible candidacy for the Presidency, might I suggest that there is a curious oversight...
...William H. Bastion...
...This perverse, absurd proposal is undoubtedly a product of the evolution idea...
...They are as follows: First, I attempted to make a distinction between the ''moral'' field, as having to do with social-ethical relations, and the "ethical," as a wider term inclusive of the individual's private values and duties...
...William Collins in The Commonweal of April 6; and while his suggestions are from the comment of the famous labor leader, Mr...
...TO the Editor:—May I suggest an aspect of this discussion which has not yet appeared in the pages of The Commonweal...
...and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty...
...MEETING UNEMPLOYMENT Somerville, Mass...
...It would surprise a good many people, and awaken them from their easy slumbers if they knew that "sterilization" laws are already in actual effect in a dozen states or more, and that bills of this infamous character are before other state legislatures...
...So inasmuch as we, actually individually, could never interest a commercial or industrial activity in our expression of thought, it occurred to me that only a chamber of commerce, board of trade, department of commerce at Washington, or a similar activity could ever interest business in creating new industries or promoting a maximum of employment in those already existing, so that the graduates of schools and colleges who did not enter professional careers after their schooling could be assimilated with the present force of employees...
...I have not changed my views since then...
...It is simple to understand that over-production is synonymous with under-consumption...
...And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence...
...nor with all the other Scriptures that proclaim the inviolable, permanent nature and character of God's laws, commandments, and precepts...
...TO the Editor:—I was interested to note the reference to an article I wrote concerning unemployment by Mr...
...May I express my appreciation of your thoughtful, dignified, and always interesting journal...
...TO the Editor:—Darwin probably did not foresee that his theory of the origin and evolution of species would be extended by following generations to apply to every department of life, not excluding religion and morality...
...J. H. BURNHAM...
...From all that has been mentioned, a practical theory may develop, since my only desire is to establish, a minimum of unemployment in this splendid country of ours, the credit for which will be due The Commonweal, for kindly permitting the expression of views publicly...
...I refer anyone who may be interested to that work, especially to chapter thirty-six...
...I had already discussed these implications quite fully in a book, Man and the Cosmos (1922...
...It was not a part of my purpose, in writing this elementary book on social ethics, to discuss the theistic implications of ethics, but only to point toward them...
...We who love the Christian name, and its Divine Founder, and the holy disciples and apostles whom that Founder inspired with divine wisdom, know the truth of Saint Paul's words, truth that the commonest kind of experience corroborates: "The foolishness of God is wiser than men...
...But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise...
...I hold that the heart of the Christian ethic stands as still the best we have...
...namely, the sacredness of ethical personality...
...Prohibition abolished freedom and substituted expediency or the so-considered best interest of the public or mass, as represented by a majority...
...Second, in dealing with sanctions I did not intend to say that belief in immortality is without value...
...Pagan doctrines were long since wholly discredited and discarded—why revive them...
...For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called...
...There is no question of freedom or propriety to be answered...
...It is that the viewpoint implied in the article by the Reverend Henry S. Whitehead stultifies all that the "cloud of witnesses" represented by the English martyrs, beatified and awaiting beatification by the Holy See, professed and suffered for...
...TWO RELIGIONS" OF ANGLICANISM Greenwich, Conn...
...It is all a question of expediency...
...The struggle to keep this issue clear, in the face of attacks from enemies and even the misunderstanding of friends such as the French enthusiasts for reunion, has been an urgent duty for close on four centuries with those Catholics who are most closely in touch with Anglicanism and its "religions"—the minority in the country that gave Anglicanism its birth and its name...
...Third, Dr...
...and, moreover, that argument from this premise to a God who is a Super-Person, nay, rather the only Perfect or Transcendent Person, as being the ground and goal of personality in man, is still valid...
...but lack of employment, so farreaching in its effect industrially and commercially, permits a lack of consumption with a diminished foreign or export trade a factor too...
...Ryan says that I do not believe in a personal God, because I have said the term is a symbol, have used such expressions as the "Cosmic Life" and "Cosmic Order," and have said that the cosmological framework of the classical Christian ethic and metaphysic has been shattered...
...These misinterpretations are due in part, I think, to the brevity of my treatment and, in part, to terminological differences...
...with God "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning...
...and the weakness of God is stronger than men...
...THE DARWINIAN THEORY Coeur d'Alene, Idaho...
...Yet this extended application of the theory of evolution to religion and morality cannot consist with the Scriptures: "I am the Lord, I change not...
...PROHIBITION AND EXPEDIENCY Peterborough, Canada...
Vol. 5 • May 1927 • No. 26
