The following is from The COURSE of AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC THOUGHT, by Ralph H. Gabriel, Larned Professor of American History, Yale University. 1940, The Ronald Press Company.

"The second doctrine of the democratic faith...was that of the free individual. It contained a theory of liberty and of the relation of the individual to the State which [each] ultimately governed...This philosophy affirmed that the advance of civilization is measured by the progress of [humankind] in apprehending and translating into individual and social action the eternal principles which comprise the moral law...Out of the concept that [a] civilized [individual] is the virtuous [one] and this hopeful philosophy that [all are] on the march toward a better world came the nineteenth century theory of liberty. As [people] became more nearly perfect in obedience to the fundamental moral law,...they needed less the external control of man-made laws. "Hence," insisted Emerson following Jefferson, "the less government we have the better...The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual...To educate the wise...the State exists, and with the appearance of the wise...the State expires.", [Emerson, Works, (Centenary ed.), III, 215-216]. Henry Thoreau, Emerson's Concord friend, carried this reasoning to a logical conclusion. The [one] who has achieved moral maturity, he thought, should reject imperfect laws made by stupid majorities and should accept the higher law which is disclosed by [one's] conscience as the sole guide and regulator of [one's] life." (pp. 19-20)

"...What is twentieth century humanism? It is not a philosophy, though it implies one. It is a point of view. It is an approach to the problem of living. It begins with the assumption, as old as Christianity, that human life is of supreme worth. From this premise follows inevitably the conclusion that [all] must be treated as an end, not as a means. Humankind does not exist to make possible any particular moral or social order. [We] do not live for the purpose of glorifying God or the State. Social institutions exist for [humankind]...But humanism implies more than the mere increase in the lives of [humankind]. It is an effort to enrich human experience. It aims at nothing less than the fullest possible life for every person born into the world. In order that this end may be approached humanism seeks to understand human experience by human inquiry. Its instrument is scientific investigation, for the humanist of the twentieth century cannot depend upon divine revelation. The humanist believes that knowledge will make possible the improvement of the condition of [all],...[and] does not wait for the blind forces of nature to act,...[and]puts...trust in creative human intelligence[,]...[but] does not ignore the determinism which science finds in nature...[and] understands that order in nature sets limits to human possibilities. But [one] does not permit such order to paralyze action. Twentieth century humanism, in essence then, is the faith that [individuals] to a limited degree [are] master[s] of [their] destiny and, being such, [have] a share in the responsibility for [their] fate. In the United States the background of this humanism is the eighteenth century Enlightenment and the nineteenth century religion of humanity." (p. 374)