When any individual, of however little account, but one who does not deliberately imperil another’s existence, disappears from the World without or even against his will, this is a far more important happening than any political or religious or national occurrence or the sum total of the scientific and artistic and technical advances made throughout the ages by all the peoples of the World. Should anybody be inclined to regard this statement as an exaggeration, let him imagine the individual concerned to be himself or his best beloved. Then he will understand and accept it. The value-arithmetic of human lives is a concept of the appraisal of a person’s life by the individual being is something indefinite, varying, according to the mental state of the individual, from nothing to infinity.  His life means nothing to him in moments of extreme unhappiness nor when he is willing to sacrifice it for a cause in which he believes; but in other circumstances he regards it as a possessing infinite value. From an ethical point of view, the existence of a stupid peasant-boy is just as infinitely valuable as the existence of a Shakespeare or a Newton. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7

There is not the remotest equivalence between the existence of a human being who wants to go on living and who is not trying to destroy another one, and any other value; the former exceeds the latter infinitely. Let us suppose that the angel of death were to allow Shakespeare and Newton, in the most creative periods of their lives, to go on living only on condition that we surrender to him two stupid day-laborers or even two incorrigible thieves. As moral being we must not so much as consider an exchange of this kind. It would be far better if Shakespeare and Newton were to die. One may call attention, as much as one wishes, to the pleasure produced in countless future ages by Shakespeare’s plays; one may point to the immense progress of science which would be the consequence of the prolongation of Newton’s life—by comparison with the sacrifice of a human being, these are mere luxury-values. However, a man whose life is threatened by another may, in self-defense, kill the aggressor without having to feel the slightest remorse or misgivings. In such a case, the person’s own life rightly counts as something infinite, while the life of the aggressor, be he one or many, counts as nothing. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7

It is in fact a person’s duty, and not merely his right, to defend himself in such a case with all means at his disposal. In addition to helping himself, he also exerts a beneficial influence on millions of others if he demonstrates to them by his example what importance and value non-aggressive human being attaches to his life. It would be better if all the aggressors in the World, even if they numbered millions, were to be destroyed than if a single human being succumbed to them without resistance. Civilized persons actually judge and behave in a great many situations, when their vision is not clouded by bias or prejudice. Suppose, for example, a fire were to break out in the Louvre; in such a situation, it would not occur to any of the firemen or any of the voluntary helpers to save the paintings in preference to the human beings present. If somebody were to save a painting and let a human being die, his behavior would generally condemned and he might in fact be subjected to punishment. It is true, that sometimes when people hear that in a fire in some distant location a number of human being perished but that certain valuable manuscripts or collections were saved, they respond with greater satisfaction than if it had been the other way around; but this only proves that distance from the place of a disaster produced indifference and makes people forget the enormous value of somebody else’s life. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7

It becomes altogether different if one stands in front of the burning house. To take another illustration, in all civilized nations a person may not be subjected to vivisection or become the involuntary subject of a medical experiment, regardless of the benefits that might accrue to medical science and, indirectly, to future generations. People do in fact here to these principals. In fortresses or on ships, where the shortage of food many become so acute as to necessitate the sacrifice of some individuals, civilized men would always decide the issues by casting of lots: in such a situation it would not occur to anybody to refer to the special literary or scientific talents of some member of the group. Shakespeare and Newton would count no more than anybody else, and nobody would dare to propose that a less talented person be killed so that the great dramatist or the great physicist be kept alive instead. This is very evident in a case of this kind because once the terror of death is so close, everybody perceives that the naked existence of a human being is something so elevated and infinite that compared with it everything else—be it genius, scholarship, or physical beauty—becomes quite inferior in value and a mere luxury. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God can be seen then, to continue as paradigm of American intellectual history. It was abstracted, mystified, and secularized in a confusing mix of entrapment, victimization, and expiation typical of this cosmology and expiation typical of this cosmology blended into an enduring and recognizable formulas of religious eroticism. Such a process is at work if person, X, recommends a policy which involves the killing of one or more nonaggressive human beings, we extract from him the admission that the policy would not be justified if he, X, were the individual to be killed; we then extract from him the admission that other human beings have the same right to live and not be sacrificed to some biological, cultural, or aesthetic goal. Except in periods of hate, most human beings are ready to make the latter of these admission, at the very least for other member of their own nation or class. It does not, of course, mean that human beings should realize that the mourning of somebody else in a similar situation is justified as one’s own and that to this other person his life or the life of somebody dear to him is more important than anything else. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7

Some philosophers and aesthetes who flaunted their readiness to approve the killing or enslavement of millions of ordinary human beings if this were necessary to achieve a biologically superior race or to produce great works of art. Giving artificial assistance to the weakest members of a society, its physical and moral qualities are undermined and that, furthermore, all acts by the state to protect the weak and the sick are a sin against the natural laws of life. However, think about these dubious analogies on which such conclusions are based and the arbitrary preference for the value of the future lives to those now in existence. Suppose, those taking such a biological view point were themselves to become sick or unable to look and look after themselves. Would they approve of a society that turned to them and said: “Perish miserably! To help you is to make future generations less perfect.” Some people might believe such practices, after much anguished speculation, that their own existence is an ontological impossibility and, therefore, the greatest proof of God’s absence. Many do not really value life and love until someone they deeply love is killed or passes away, until then, all they care about is money and status. It is as if they think they can keep people on hold forever and leave them in danger because life never ends.  Argument about the existence of God is rare. The concept of God as something than which nothing is greater can be conceived. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7

Something than which nothing is greater can be conceived cannot be conceived not to exist (and thus exists necessarily). A being which cannot be conceived not to exist is eternal in the sense of having no beginning or end and always existing as a whole, that is, not in successive phases. If such a being can be conceived, it must also exist. For the idea of an eternal being which has either ceased to exist or had not yet come into existence is self-contradictory; the notion of eternal existence excludes both of these possibilities. Thus death is itself an unfulfillment, for all that we know of life is in the restlessness of incompletion. Eternal life beyond death is for many a source of anxiety and sorrow, whereas for is it seems the image of all human needs. The very fear of death is why we all want to be part of society. Man longs to be freed of nature, but once released to imaginative realms, he needs to involve himself back in time and natural cycle. Only in such surroundings can the imagination guarantee itself life. That part of us to which we refer as our greater Self loves rather than seeks love. Consequently, there comes the awareness that we are at all times surrounded by love, which is unlimited. Love is automatically attracted to the person who is loving. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7