A New Equality.

By WILLIAM I. Cranford, PH. D.

Regardless of the "self-evident" truth "That all men are created equal," and notwithstanding the repeated attempts of countless reformers to make them so, men still seem to be very far from being equal. Side by side with the all-pervading uniformity of nature, there appears a vast variety in outer manifestation. Inequality of some sort is one of the essential conditions of the reality and existence of all finite things as such. Men, in order to be men, must be finite, and each, in order that he may be himself and not another, must be unequal to every other. Men must differ if they be at all.

But on the other hand, it is equally true that all things within the bounds of reality are in some respects identical. In order for a man to be a man, he must, in some senses and in some ways, be equal to and like every other man. Not to be equal in some respects to every other man would be to be no man at all; yea, it would be to be nothing at all. But as we look out upon nature and the world of things about us, it is usually the differences and the inequalities that strike us first and with most force. To the casual observer, the great diversity and variety in the world seem most prominent. To the superficial observer who goes for the first time into a foreign country, the differences between the foreigners and the people of his own country, in their general appearance, in their manners, and in their modes of life, seem to him to be very great. It is only as one begins to look more closely and comes to see more deeply into the real nature of things about one, that one begins to realize more fully the great likenesses and uniformities of nature, of things and of men. The beginner in natural science, when he first looks out upon his field, is bewildered by the great variety of objects and processes to be investigated. To him there are many things and many ways in which these behave. In short, to the beginner, there are many kinds of things and many kinds of deeds—a great variety of objects and of actions; but to the man who has delved deep and looked far down into the heart of things, and who has traced their

actions far back toward their beginnings, these differences grow dimmer and of less importance, until we hear the foremost men of science talk about reducing all things to one thing and all processes to one process.

It is of the very nature of knowledge, as it grows deeper and looks farther inward, as it approaches more and more toward central truth, as it goes farther and farther toward inner completion, for it to become more and more comprehensive, more and more unifying, for it to tend more and more to reduce all differences to likenesses, to reduce all inequalities to some kind of equality. While on the other hand, it is equally of the very nature of knowledge, as it looks more and more to the external, to become more and more extensive, more and more diversifying, for it to reveal more and more of differences and to behold more and more of inequalities. Differences and inequalities are, therefore, just as real and just as ineradicable as are likenesses and equalities; but the former are more external and superficial while the latter are more internal and centerward.

It is of the nature of reality to develop in both of these respects and in both of these directions. As reality unfolds itself it manifests more and more of diversity, of variety; as it enfolds itself, as it develops more and more internally, it finds more and more of likeness and equality. So much for the principle. Now for its application to a limited sphere in practical life.

Many efforts at reform in the realm of human civilization have been failures because of the misapprehension or the nonapprehension of this principle, both on the part of the reformer and on that of those he intended to reform. Too much effort, it seems to me, has been wasted in striving to remove external differences and to wipe out external inequalities; while too little has been done to make men conscious of their inner likenesses and lack of differences. External differences not only remain but ever increase. The inequalities of external circumstances and conditions belong to the essential nature of human existence; and they will continue to exist and will multiply in number as man and his civilization develop. Nor is this to be greatly regretted. On the other hand, the over

effort to remove or to cover up external inequalities may sometimes result in a partial seeming success; but usually, if not always, this is done at the expense of a more important inner equality. This is always to be deplored. The overeffort to remove external inequalities frequently makes men only the more conscious of their differences. The effort to make men externally equal is deservedly a failure. The poor we shall always have with us, and the rich are not inclined to vacate in our favor. Both will, it is to be hoped, remain. Nor will the pretensions of the demagogue against the wealthy or the efforts of the sincere statesman for the relief of the poor ever result in establishing equality in the distribution of external goods. No legislative enactment can ever annihilate wealth or prevent poverty. Too much effort has already been devoted to both of these undertakings.

Nor will the differences among men ever be reduced to that of inequalities in the amounts of their possessions simply. Other inequalities ever have been, nor do they seem to be growing less or fewer. There ever have been and will continue to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water." These not only will be but must be. The day is a long way off, perhaps too far ever to come, when man can execute his will without exercising his muscles. Science is yet far from making it possible for man to live on the earth by merely pressing buttons. Even now, where great and complex results are obtained by the mere pressing of a button, immense and manifold muscular efforts are required to put the button and other necessary apparatus into the required relation. Old Earth is still our mother and from her we are yet compelled to get our sustenance, and in the sweat of somebody's brow we must still eat our bread. If this be a curse, it is one that will remain so long as men eat bread. The demand for muscular work may continue to grow less and less; but as the muscles come to do less, they are so weakened that more effort is required to accomplish the same external results; so that, as civilization advances, it is altogether doubtful if it requires any less energy to live. At any rate it is true that those who actually do the labor that makes and prepares the food and the clothing and the furnishings for those who do not so labor, do not stand

outwardly any more nearly equal to those for whom they labor than other such did in days long gone by. Many among the profoundest thinkers and keenest observers, when questioned as to the real superiority of the life of the modern working man over that of the artisan of some centuries ago, reply with a dubious shake of the head. There are real and solid grounds for doubt as to whether the working men and women of today are any nearer to any worthy ideal of life than were their fellows of some centuries back. This age of machinery, of steam and electricity, finds the working man actually possessing more of the world's external goods, more of the means to a worthy life, more of the furnishings for a high and comfortable existence, but it is very doubtful whether it finds him any nearer to an equality with the owner of the machine which he manipulates.

This is a great industrial and commercial age, and we profess to honor the men who are doing the world's work. The man who can bring things to pass is the hero of the day. The men who bore through our mountains and tunnel beneath our cities and give us great highways of travel and of traffic, the men who construct great systems of communication between cities and between continents, the men who organize great combinations of industrial enterprises, the men who build great structures for the housing of these, these are the men who are counted when we reckon up those who do the world's work; but these are not classed, either by themselves or by others, with those who put down cross-ties and lay on rails and drive spikes, nor with those who handle picks and shovel dirt, nor with the men who erect poles and climb them and put up wires. The man in the office is yet quite a distance from the one who carries the hod or who handles the trowel. And in external circumstance and condition, these classes are never likely to become equal. In the amount of external things possessed and controlled, they are getting no nearer together.

The same holds true in the realm of learning. The great majority of the great mass of humanity know more than they ever did in any time past, but they are farther from knowing all that is known than they ever were before; and there is no

hope that the great majority of mankind will ever come into anything like complete possession of the great mass of facts known. There will never be equality in the realm of external knowledge. We will always have the ignorant and the learned. At any rate equality along this line is too far off to wait for, if not too far off to work for. These external equalities are not desirable, and if desirable, they are not possible; so that any striving to make men externally equal is a vain striving, and therefore worse than merely vain, in that it delays the bringing about of the only desirable and possible equality. This desirable and possible equality is not an external and quantitative equality, but it is one that is internal and qualitative. This is an equality that ought to be and that ought to be striven for. It is one that, perhaps, already is far more nearly than we are accustomed to suppose; and what we need most to do is to open our eyes to it and to live in a fuller consciousness of it. What I mean is this: that in the inner intentions and purposes for which men live and strive, they are perhaps far more nearly equal than they suppose. In all that makes life significant, in all that fills it with meaning, in all that we inwardly strive for, in all that finally satisfies, men are, perhaps, after all not so unequal as we are accustomed to think. If we could only once come fully heart to heart, instead of face to face, with our fellows, we might more often see ourselves in our brothers' keeping. There is a blindness in our nature that prevents our seeing and appreciating the lives of those outside a very limited circle of which we are the center. As soon as the lettering of the external language becomes a little changed, we pass on without making any effort to read the story written within. If we have become accustomed to wield the pen, when we see a brother wielding the pick, we pass him by and make no effort to read the story he is writing. If we have become accustomed to live among books, we pass by the man of affairs and make no effort to look into the inner meaning of his life, If we are of the so-called educated, the unlettered man is a mystery to us known only enough to be pitied. If we live in a mansion and in a city, the cabin far back in the country shuts in a life too foreign to be of interest to us.