102 Foundations of Democratic Dogma
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Modern science, we are constantly told, has forever ex-
ploded this doctrine of natural rights. Biology and psychol-
ogy show us that there are no inborn or innate ideas of any
kind, still less of the nature of rights. History shows us
that the idea of pre-existing rights is pure myth. There are
no pre-existing rights physically existing in the individual
prior to his entrance into society. The idea that these rights
inhere in man in any physical sense—in the sense, namely,
that the qualities yellow, malleability, specific gravity may
be said to inhere in the substance gold—is manifestly absurd,
and belongs to an antiquated science and philosophy.
Now this is doubtless in part true, but, so far as I know,
the view criticized has never been held by any enlightened
exponent of the doctrine, least of all by the great Christian
philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas, who formulated the doc-
trine. Such conceptions belong to the wholly modern mate-
rialistic view of nature which none of the classical thinkers
ever entertained. It is part of the naturalistic fallacy of
which we spoke in the preceding lecture. When these great
thinkers spoke of man having by nature these rights, when
they spoke of them as inhering in man and inalienable from
his very nature as man, they meant something wholly dif-
ferent. They had reference to the ideal essence of man, not
his physical body. The nature they spoke of was not physi-
cal nature but spiritual nature. In this sense the doctrine of
natural rights, as also the phrase, “have by nature,” is not
only intelligible but represents a fundamental truth. Man’s
moral end is as much a part of his nature, as man, as are his
instincts, and the claims or rights deducible from this rational
and moral end are as much a part of his nature as are his
biological instincts and tendencies. These rights are inalien-
able. Man cannot be deprived of them without making him
less than man.