gs unowned instead of commanding
their service, "stocks and stones." He reverses the true order when he
becomes a miser and serves that which is his own, "which his own
fingers have made," instead of compelling it to serve him. He is not
less degraded when he exalts over himself a thing owned by another and
serves it. The ownership of another does not change the nature of the
thing. One can serve his neighbor's idol as truly as he can his own.

There is nothing above man but God. His fellow man is by his side, his
equal, and all other material creations are beneath his feet, and he
is not to permit his fellow man to lift up the inferior thing and
place it above him. If he does he must step down from the pinnacle on
which he was placed by his God and which his own consciousness demands
he shall occupy.

"Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall
the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod
should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff
should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Isaiah 10:15.

If he serves the borrowed ax and saw for the claim that the ax and saw
have against him, he admits his debt to things and Isaiah's ridicule
of an idolater can be turned against him and he steps down from the
position of conscious inborn dignified lordship and becomes a servant
of the inferior things.

CHAPTER XVII.

EQUAL RIGHTS OF MEN.

All men have sacred rights that must be regarded. That these rights
are equal is so familiar and stale an expression that it hardly need
be spoken. "All men are created equal," each having rights, that are
inalienable, and each having the right to resist the encroachment on
his rights by another. To protect these rights governments are
instituted.

The vital energy of a man is his own and his right to it must be
regarded. Since the abolition of chattel slavery this has been
indefeasible except for crime.

He has a right to his own vital energy and to all that his own vital
force produces. He has a right to his property inherited, earned, or
however secured, except by fraud. He has no claim against the vital
energy of his fellow man, nor has he any claim whatever against the
property of another.

The working man needs capital. His vital energy must waste unless
there is material upon which it may be expended. There must be the
tree, land or material in some form, upon which he can work. But give
him the wo