Fallacy of Divine Rights

Hokitika Guardian, 9 June 1922, Page 4

Fallacy of Divine Rights

THE DISEASE OF OUR AGE. WANTED A NEW PSYCHOLOGY. • :<'ontrihuted by the N.Z. Welfare League). The day lias passed when people believe in the “divine right of kings.” Still there are multitudes clinging to the false, idea of divine rights or absolute rights, call it which you will. We have only substituted presidents, politicians, Labour Unions, the masses, or our own dear selves to whom is ascribed the possession of certain absolute or divine rights. Wherever yo ut-urn today there is the cry resounding of our rights, our rights! The whole world is in a turmoil on account of the clamant I assertion of rights. From the Sinn Fein motto of “all for ourselves” to the assertion of our Post and Telegraph , officers that they haro n right to join any lawful association they please ; from nations, societies and individuals there is one general outcry of “our rights before everything.” What does this mean? It is nothing more than the doctrine of divine rights transferred in application to people in the mass.

“The workers can do no wrong” is hut a modern translation of the old adage “The King can do no wrong.” Vox populi vox dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God) is the vain gospel of assumed divine authority with which we entangle our puny souls in the meshes of never ending conflicts. Strange, most strange, is it lo find Ibis disease, for so we regard it, amongst our so-called Christian peoples. From first to last neither the Jewish religion nor the -Christian ever recognises man as possessing any absolute rights. On the other hand the scientific mind knows nothing of absolute rights. Thus science and religion both disavow this anarchic conception. Every right is relative to the associations in which it arises, and limited by the obligations on which it resls. Religion says -rights are of God, duty is of man. Science says rights are hut the outcome of laws observed. Roth dicta place duty before rights, and yet to-day poor humanity is floundering in a morass of ceaseless trouble in trying to sceuro rights free of all corelated duties. DISEASE OF OUR, TIME.

The world unrest of to-day is being looked upon as rising from material causes. Socialists, Communists and others are preaching “change the et onomie sysom ami all will come right.” In our opinion the philosophy is unsound. It is true now as it was at first that “man does not live hv bread alone;” in modern terms -that the material is not everything, indeed not even the principal factor of life. It- is mir plivchology, mental and moral that is at fault. People have been seized with the disease of false conceptions of. human relationship which impels them to place their rights before and above their fluty, 'ibis putting of rights before duty has blinded people to the truth that in the order of humanity every right Unit man, as a social being has acquired has come to him out of the endless fulfillment of numberless Mie.at ions. The'disease of our time, though affected by materi )' < auditions, is essentially a malady of our plivehology. The circulation of minor quantities of knowledge on many subieets has stimulated the vast conceit that all know every tiling, and from the vanity of (his conception the masses are ilicit Oil to clamour for power. The great lesson of histurv wo have not yet learnt that power without wisdom is of no value for human welfare whether it is we V dot I by a single autocrat or by the masses as dictator. NEY PSYCHOLOGY WANTED.

,\ fresh mental outlook is urgently required. It is a new psychology wo need and yet indeed one as old as the tcelling of Christ to his first followers. It is fust the common-sense and yet the scientific view of life arid society. That every right is the outcome of duty done. That none have a claim (o absolute right as citizens or human beings. That every right of man considered individually or (<Vloetively relates to the obligations of his situation and should never he greater than the fulfillment fo hi- duty will allow. When we begin to place duty first we will have entered upon the pathway of a. truer and better psychology and the nnivst of our age will begin to give way. to a healthier state for poor suffering, humanity.