Article September 2, 1939 Issue

Authority

ELEANORA B. CARR

The question of government is taking such a prominent place in men's minds today that many are driven to probe beneath the obvious, to try to discover what authority those powers have which claim to govern, and whence they derive it.

It is a truism that only the man who is obedient can truly be governed; and when we say this, we mean, of course, that he mentally consents to some authority which he believes, rightly or wrongly, to be stronger than himself. This authority may be beneficent, or it may be the reverse, but the man who is obedient to its rule certainly believes that, whether for good or ill, this is what he must do.

Now from the very earliest records of the appearance of the human race upon the earth, there would seem to have been two paramount authorities striving for mastery over men, not always appearing to clash, but in reality opposites, and tending to clash more and more. These are spiritual force and brute or material force.

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