[529] individual human beings. The arguing of Rome is that the decisive thing is that nature should not be restricted if it wants to create a new immortal soul because the decisive thing is NOT the happiness or misery in time and space, but the existence of any individual immortal soul in terms of eternity. For this reason, the increase in population and the misery of individual human beings must be taken and accepted. This is enough of an example. The Church says: this is not

a special ecclesiastical law, but this is by NATURAL law^a, and it can be proven by the desire of nature to procreate new beings. In large groups of the present world, this doctrine of the natural law^b as we have it in Rome doesn't work any more, and especially with the addition of the peculiar Christian virtues which come not from natural law but alone from the Church. So this solution of the question of CONTENT (with which we deal today) is not valid for those who do not accept the Catholic doctrine. There is an alternative---if you accept it as an alternative---and this was the

totalitarian^c, especially the Fascist, alternative which answered the question of the contents by pointing to a CONCRETE reality, namely a nation, or a race, and the contents of the ethical command are identical with what is needed by the growth of a national group. This of course is not a rational but a very IRrational principle of a founding of contents of ethics, but certainly it is a possibility. And instead of nation and race, you also can say "Party," and then you are in the Communistic realm. Everywhere in these realms, a special finite reality is made the creator of contents, not because they are rational---here the Catholic doctrine is far superior; it is much more rational than the totalitarian doctrines---but they are identical in one point, namely that a special group, and the authorities WITHIN THIS group, are ultimately

decisive for the contents of the ethical behavior for individuals and groups. The result of course is that these groups, in their ethical contents, clash with other groups in THEIR contents, and that the ethical principle becomes, instead of being a matter of personality and community,