Body politic

“ The body politic is also a moral being, possessed of a will, and this general will, which tends always to the preservation and welfare of the whole and of every part, and is the source of the laws, constitutes for all the members of the State, in their relations to one another and to it, the rule of what is just or unjust. ”

“ The body-politic needs rest, but it can and it will have no undisturbed repose as long as there are classes of men who have to struggle for their rights. Our democratic system of government can stand with security only upon the foundation of impartial justice and right, equal to all. ”

“ A body politic, to be complete, must, like a natural body, have head and feet, as well as all the intermediate members. It must have rulers, men of large minds, whose province it is to watch over the general interests of the nation; and it equally needs persons of the humblest faculties, to perform the simplest uses, such as those of the common laborer; and there must be minds of every grade between the two. Now, it is evident, that, together with these differences of function, there must be proportionate inequalities in the amount of wealth needed to sustain these various uses. ”

“ Where the States, so forming themselves into one body politic, retain for certain purposes a distinct name and character, their position in the body politic, of which they form a part, is precisely the same with that of the individual citizens in an ordinary community. ”

“ That, then, is genuine civil service reform.
What patriotic man is there who will not recognize that the evils from which the body-politic suffers absolutely require so thorough a measure of change, and who will not eagerly embrace every opportunity to secure it? ”

“ Here, again, we are reminded that the citizen, by his incorporation in a body politic, is in a great degree coerced into such sentiments and beliefs as further its preservation: unless this is the average result, the body politic will not be preserved. Hence another obstacle in the way of Social Science. We have to allow for the aberrations of judgment caused by the sentiment of patriotism. ”

“ Almost all the prosperity of a public society and civil community does, under God, depend on their rulers. They are [Pg 105] like the main springs or wheels in a machine that keep every part in their due motion, and are in the body politic, as the vitals in the body natural, and as the pillars and foundation in a building. ”

“ Such a system, by creating and perpetuating arbitrary and yet almost impassable lines of social cleavage, must be fatal to the development of a robust body politic which can only be produced by the reasonable intermingling and healthy fusion of the different classes of the community. ”

“ The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries in itself the causes of its destruction. ”

“ When I walk towards an object, it is necessary first that I should will to go there, and, in the second place, that my feet should carry me. If a paralytic wills to run and an active man wills not to, they will both stay where they are. The body politic has the same motive powers; here too force and will are distinguished, will under the name of legislative power and force under that of executive power. ”

“ To understand this progress as necessary we must consider not so much the motives for the establishment of the body politic, as the forms it assumes in actuality, and the faults that necessarily attend it: for the flaws which make social institutions necessary are the same as make the abuse of them unavoidable. ”

“ The natural influences breed chronic distempers, which I fear will still keep the body-politic of this Republic in uneasy agitation for a long time to come. They will require judicious and prudent treatment. ”

“ This, however, enters equally into the principle here laid down; for in such a case, the great city of the world becomes the body politic, whose general will is always the law of nature, and of which the different States and peoples are individual members. From these distinctions, applied to each political society and its members, are derived the most certain and universal rules, by which we can judge whether a government is good or bad, and in general of the morality of all human actions. ”

“ But what are the attractive forces which hold together the body politic? They are a number of human passions, which even the acutest psychologists are as yet quite unable to analyse or to classify: they act according to laws of which we have hardly the vaguest inkling ”

“ Ceasing by-and-by to have any knowledge of, or power over, the concerns of the society as a whole, the serf-class becomes devoted to the processes of alimentation; while the noble class, ceasing to take any part in the processes of alimentation, becomes devoted to the co-ordinated movements of the entire body-politic. ”

“ Although the petty rule of my life has been never to trouble myself about what the world calls 'politics'— (a fine word, by the by, much easier expressed than understood) —yet, I must own, I am always happy when I see a nation enjoying itself, and melancholy when I observe any large body of people suffering pain or imprisonment. ”

“ It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the principal ability of the country into the governing body is fatal, sooner or later, to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body itself. ”

“ He viewed this practical political activity of the individual citizen, not only as one of the most effectual means of training the social feelings and practical intelligence of the people, so important in themselves and so indispensable to good government, but also as the specific counteractive to some of the characteristic infirmities of democracy, and a necessary protection against its degenerating into the only despotism of which, in the modern world, there is real danger—the absolute rule of the head of the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals but all slaves. ”

“ The members of their political being, are supposed, like those of the human body, to have no brains; and the head of course can only know what is best for them. Could they have come up to the perfection of the model; could they have constructed a head, unable to hurt a member without hurting itself ”

“ However discouraging the action of our governing bodies through the obstruction and perverse action of an ignorant or corrupt majority or minority in them may be in the administration of great public affairs, the time at last comes when the nation arouses from its lethargy, shakes off its torpor, shows the strain of its blood, and follows its trained and intelligent leaders, like the man who, in a time of sore distress, after the ancient fashion, put ashes on his head, rent his garments, tore off his coat, his waistcoat, his shirt, and his undershirt, and at last came to himself. ”

“ To be able to converse in a tone approaching to equality with powerful officials; to emancipate oneself from restrictions trifling, yet galling, in matters of dress and demeanour; to share in some measure in the vague sense of power vested in the representatives of the great European States—must be the climax of ambition to a member of a despised nationality in a land where neither intelligence nor wealth nor good reputation give a man security or social recognition. ”

“ To see a grey-haired man of seventy-five years of age, kneeling down, in a large assembly, to kiss the hand of a young woman, is a sight for which institutions essentially democratic do not prepare a spectator of either sex, and must naturally place the opinions upon which a republic is founded, and the sentiments which support it, in strong contrast with a government based and upheld as ours is. ”

“ Are you fit for political power even though you do not allow them to wear what apparel or ornaments they like? Are you fit for political power even though you do not allow them to eat any food they like? ”

“ Well, then, what if we tried to rise above the idea of class to the idea of the whole community, the State, and to find our centre of light and authority there? Everyone of us has the idea of country, as a sentiment; hardly anyone of us has the idea of the State, as a working power. ”

“ By melting down the fetters of moral and republican principles in party confidence, we abolish the only known remedy against the evil qualities of human nature, abandon our experiment of political law founded in these principles, and rest for security on ignorant mobs, guided by a few designing leaders, or on cunning combinations, guided by avarice and ambition. ”

“ Such is the progress of society, that conversation, social manners, and the incitements of example, now combine in furtherance of personal culture.
Our Political Institutions present, likewise, eminent incentives to a higher self-training than has ever yet been witnessed. The republican principle not only gives scope for individual freedom of thought and action, but awakens associated effort. ”

“ Instead of opening his heart to an exalted patriotism and the obligation of public duty, it awakens and nourishes in him the disposition to use a public function for his own interest, pleasure, or caprice; the same feelings and purposes, on a humbler scale, which actuate a despot and oppressor. Now an ordinary citizen in any public position, or on whom there devolves any social function, is certain to think and feel, respecting the obligations it imposes on him, exactly what society appears to think and feel in conferring it. ”

“ This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine. It moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and the same direction. ”

“ There will still be political workers, but they will be workers for public measures and policies, no longer the mercenary crowd working for loot. There will be leaders, but statesmanlike leaders of thought and endeavor—no longer leaders of hireling bands. There will be party contests, but contests of opinion fired with the enthusiasm for great principles—no longer miserable cat-fights for post-offices and collectorships. ”

“ In the older countries of which I speak, political power and social recognition are supposed to emanate from some autocratic source, and the effort and ambition of all naturally look toward that source, and, knowing none other, feel a personal interest in maintaining its ascendency, the statu quo. In our own broad land, power and light have no such inevitable abiding-place, but may emanate from an endless variety of points and personalities. ”

“ But I fear—In short, I have been told that political strife was a necessary result of human nature."
"Human nature!" cried the old boy, impetuously; "what human nature? The human nature of paupers, of slaves, of slave-holders, or the human nature of wealthy freemen? ”

“ To the practice of these social amenities is doubtless ascribable the absence of any rancor from the rough contests and collisions of public life, and thus men of every shade of politics and party, differing even in class and condition, formed admirable social elements, and cohered together to perfection. ”

“ The truth is palpable, that our men are not all gentlemen, nor our women all ladies, nor our children all docile and obliging. In that small and insignificant circle which is called 'Society,' which, small and insignificant as it is, gives the tone to the manners of the nation, the chief efforts seem to be, to cleanse the outside of the platter, to conceal defects by gloss and glitter. ”

“ On the whole, therefore, the tendency of modern political rule appears to be towards an almost unmixed gain in respect of happiness,—by the security it affords for life and property, by its wide distribution of political power, and by the room it gives for individual freedom. ”

“ But the social will expressing itself either by public opinion or through an act of parliament is just as much a natural force as any other, and by a favorable disposition of physiological conditions is capable of securing physical progress. ”

“ An oligarchy is invariably formed in all political parties for reasons based partly on individual psychology, partly on crowd psychology, and partly on the social necessity of party organisation. Under the first head is grouped the individual's consciousness of his own importance, which with opportunity develops into the natural human lust for power, and, further, such individual qualities as native tact, editorial ability, and so on. ”

“ And, seeing this, we shall infer that the emotion excited in men by embodied political power must now, and for a long-time to come, be a great obstacle to the formation of rational sociological conceptions—tending, as it must ever do, to exaggerate the importance of the political factor in comparison with other factors. ”

“ But the active exercise of politics requires common sense, sympathy, trust, resolution and enthusiasm, qualities which your man of culture has carefully rooted up, lest they damage the delicacy of his critical olfactories. Perhaps they are the only class [3] of responsible beings in the community who cannot with safety be entrusted with power. ”

“ It cannot be repeated too often that your peculiar power consists in your standing with that public opinion and nothing else. When we spoke at the Reform Club banquet about the “moral forces in politics,” we meant just this. You cannot try to carry your points by making concessions to the spoils politicians without being ultimately beaten, for you leave the ground on which you are strong. ”

“ In a thousand ways the difference forces itself upon even the most careless observer — in the forms of government, in the rigid structure of society, in the fashions of dress, in the popular amusements, in the lack of facilities for travel and communication — in short, in all those particulars which distinguish the old, unprogressive régime with its numberless feudal survivals from our own bustling, democratic age. ”