the master, but an instrument to serve the people. Even in the ethical sense, the State or collectives should not be treated as an idol that is higher than, or has priority over the individuals, the citizens.
Against these two extreme ideas, the Chinese Communist Party has stressed the importance of refuting ultra-individualism and abandoning extreme ultra-leftist communist ideologies. The very idea of natural rights was regarded with derision by Jeremy Betham in 1776 as "simple nonsense...nonsense upon stilts...terrorist language."* Moreover, human rights seem to hunt in pair: a right is frequently accompanied by an exemption. Few doubt that human rights must be "positivised and particularized",' as put elogently by Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in 1606, "where there is no law, there is no freedom".
In the light of the competing claims for priority of citizens constitutional rights, what shall we do to the old formula? Insofar as the right to life is concerned, the individual seems to be on the right side; nonetheless, the theory of individualism, in spite of many attractions, always proves untenable. So is the ultra-leftist communist ideologies of "utter devotion to
others, without any thought of self." Some American individualists attempted to free men from all the false gods of social value, in order that each might pursue happiness in his own way and serve his god authentically. But they succeeded only in installing Mammon in the
place of the departed gods. The Marxist critique of liberalism is a fair one when
individualism is carried to its logical extremes; such extreme individualism denies all the
shared social values which make a society worth living in.
We, therefore, treat both Individualism and Rationalism in their extreme forms with suspicion
and respect. They often enshrine sound arguments for Freedom and Justice. At the same
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