ature of the invitation
so kindly given to me and so cheerfully accepted. If you could wait a
lifetime for the proper treatment of the subject I would gladly give the
time; for, in truth, it is worth it.

What is the nature of this common life of mankind and with what is it
concerned? The subjects of its concern are as wide as human nature
itself. We cannot define them in a formula: for human nature overleaps
all formulas. Whenever men have tried to rule regions of human activity
and aspiration out of the common life of mankind, and to hedge them
round as private or separate or sacred or by any other kind of taboo,
human nature has always ended by breaking through the hedges and
invading the retreat. Man is a social animal. If he retires to a
monastery he finds he has carried problems of organization with him, as
the promoters of this gathering would confess you have brought with you
here. If he shuts himself up in his home as a castle, or in a workshop
or factory as the domain of his own private power, social problems go
with him thither, and the long arm of the law will follow after. If he
crosses the seas like the Pilgrim Fathers, to worship God unmolested in
a new country, or, like the merchant-venturers, to fetch home treasure
from the Indies, he will find himself unwittingly the pioneer of
civilization and the founder of an Empire or a Republic. In the life of
our fellows, in the Common Weal, we live and move and have our being.
Let us recall some wise words on this subject from the Master of
Balliol's book on the Middle Ages. 'The words "Church" and "State"', he
writes,

represent what ought to be an alliance, but is, in modern
times, at best a dualism and often an open warfare.... The
opposition of Church and State expresses an opposition
between two sides of human nature which we must not too
easily label as good and evil, the heavenly and the earthly,
the sacred and the profane. For the State, too, is divine as
well as the Church, and may have its own ideals and
sacramental duties and its own prophets, even its own
martyrs. The opposition of Church and State is to be
regarded rather as the pursuit of one great aim, pursued by
contrasted means. The ultimate aim of all true human
activity must be in the noble words of Francis Bacon 'the
glory of God and the relief of man's estate'.[53]

Bacon's words form a fitting starting-point for our reflec