EQUALITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 324, 7 September 1945, Page 5

EQUALITY

Sir,-In his talk on heredity published in your issue for August 20-26, Professor I. L. G. Sutherland writes: "The American Declaration of Independence stated that ‘all men are created equal’: that is, are equal by inheritance." I submit, sir, that the professor has misinterpreted this famous document, which reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Although, as the professor says, "since Thomas Jefferson’s day, a great deal has been learned about inheritance," this does not affect the truth of Jefferson’s statement, which has.

nothing to do with inheritance. Jeffers son was obviously concerned with the essential equality of men, an equality which is based on their possession of a common human nature which all have received from the Author of Nature. This essential equality is compatible with such inequalities as the hereditary ones which the professor has described and which Aristotle would call accidental. This distinction between the essential equality of men and their accidental "inequality is extremely important, for on it: rests the doctrine that man is endowed by nature with certain inalienable rights, and this doctrine is the only rational ground on which to take a stand for individual liberty against totalitarianism, Beyond telling us that equality is "a big, significant word," which "has a most significant meaning" Professor Sutherland does not even hint at this distinction. He could -have made it briefly and, I submit, should have made it, so as to make it clear to the reader that his statement "all men are unequal" is only half the truth-or less. A full statement of "the matter is: "All men are equal in essentials; all men are unequal in non-essentials,"

G.H.

D.

(Greenmeadows) .