Civil life

“ Shall our lives be secure? Shall our homes be safe? Shall our wives and children live in quiet? Shall right, and not might, be the governing principle of society?
“It is to decide questions thus vital to our happiness and that of those who are dependent upon us, that we have now met; and I beg you as fellow-men, as brothers, as friends and neighbors, as you value life, and liberty, and justice, and a good conscience, to come to their consideration ready and determined to act for the best good of the greatest number. ”

“ Here, then, lie the first Foundations of civil Liberty: In forming the Habits of the youthful Heart, to a Coincidence with the general Welfare: In checking every rising Appetite that is contrary to This, and in forwarding every Passion that may promote the Happiness of the Community: In implanting and improving Benevolence, Self-Controul, Humility, Integrity, and Truth ”

“ The powers of state, therefore, should embrace individual life in its entirety; from infancy to mature age, “in all conditions and relations, whether domestic, religious, social, industrial or political.” ”

“ The duties imposed on each man in regard to the particular society of which he is a member, are called civil duties. He, himself, in regard to this society, is what is called a citizen; finally, the society itself, considered as one and the same person, of which the citizens are the members, is what is called the State or the city. ”

“ Nothing need be said to shew the value of the three kinds of liberty which I have distinguished under the names of Physical, Moral, and Religious Liberty. They are, without doubt, the foundation of all the happiness and dignity of men, as reasonable and moral agents, and the subjects of the Deity.—It is, in like manner, true of Civil Liberty, that it is the foundation of the whole happiness and dignity of men as members of civil society, and the subjects of civil government. ”

“ Look at the next safeguard of society. Setting aside the institution of Slavery, and the statutes relating thereto, I think we have the most righteous establishments in the world. By no means perfect, they produce the greatest variety of action in the individuals, the greatest unity of action in society, and afford an opportunity to achieve the purpose of social and individual life. ”

“ Now, the circumstances of every associated group of human society, contending bravely for national honors and felicity of life, differ only from those thus supposed, in the greater, instead of less, necessity for the establishment of restraining law. ”

“ Kind persons among the rich, and wise among the poor, modify the connexion of the classes: the efforts made to raise and relieve on the one side, and the success and honest toil on the other, bind and blend the orders of society into the confused tissue of half-felt obligation, sullenly-rendered obedience, and variously-directed, or mis-directed, toil, which form the warp of daily life. ”

“ This society now publishes books and tracts upon the moral, economical, physiological, political, financial, religious, medical and social phases of the reform. We have the writings of over two hundred different persons in almost every walk and station in life. We already have a literature of no mean character. Its influence is not only felt in every State and Territory in the land, but in every country on the globe. ”

“ If this be life, if it be life to impart a tone to the Court and Houses of Parliament, to Ministers of State, to law and literature, to universities and schools, and to society, if it be life to be a principle of order in the population, and an organ of benevolence and almsgiving towards the poor, if it be life to make men decent, respectable, and sensible, to embellish and reform the family circle, to deprive vice of its grossness and to shed a glow over avarice and ambition ”

“ Out of rights grow duties; the first of which is to live an honest, truthful, self-loyal life, acting and speaking always and everywhere in accordance with the laws of our being, as revealed in our own physical and mental organization. It is by the light of this fact that we must look upon all social requirements, whether in dress, manners, or morals. All that is fundamental and genuine in these will be found to harmonize with universal principles, and consequently with our primary duty in reference to ourselves. ”

“ We hear, indeed, some wild talk about the establishment of a social order, or disorder, without government and without laws and courts of justice, in which everybody can do what he or she pleases, and that when everybody can do what he or she pleases, everybody will do right, and have enough of the good things of the world, and be happy. ”

“ But beneath the mould of two centuries was found evidence of another and lasting foundation, the fundamental basis of all happiness, all moral good, and all national prosperity—that of the simple, wholesome domestic life of the fireside. ”

“ The really living totality,—that which preserves, in other words continually produces the state in general and its constitution, is the government. The organisation which natural necessity gives is seen in the rise of the family and of the 'estates' of civil society. ”

“ And the more morality is taught, recommended and practiced, the more prosperous will be civil society—the more strengthened in its kind purposes will be civil government—the more respected will be the laws against vice and injustice—the more esteemed will be civil rulers—the more sober, regular, and industrious will be the whole mass of the citizens. ”

“ And the prosperity of individuals, of families, and of nations, for this life and the life to come, depends more on the proper control and regulation of these principles than on any other social or moral duty. ”

“ With a little more common sense, and much less of the uncommon sort, we should better understand Scripture, the institutions under which we live, the several rights of our fellow-citizens in all sections of the country, and the good, sound, practical, social relations, which ought to contribute infinitely more than they do to the happiness of mankind. ”

“ The formation of all that is meant by social order, the bringing about of a state of things in which men can meet habitually without fear or precaution, counting with complete confidence upon the absence of any hostile intention, is, obviously, an essential condition of everything that makes life worth living in a civilised country. ”

“ But beyond this, there is not, it is believed, to be found in the theories of writers on Government or in any actual experiment heretofore tried, an exposition of the term citizen which has not been understood as conferring the actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment, of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political. ”

“ But the daily round of business and pleasure soon again fills the mind, and public duty fades into the background of life. This dulness of imagination and the mere indolence which makes us neglect to stop and think, are a chief cause of that indifference which chokes the growth of civic duty. ”

“ In addition to both these types of human environment we must mention yet another in close association with which we all necessarily live. It is no other than the universally prevailing spiritual surroundings of our life whether they be religious, legal, or moral, the organization of the State, that is to say, the constitution of the government, the judicial institutions, the family, the institutions of both public and private life, and all other social relations. ”

“ And thus the stages are before us in the course of which the coming just society may gradually be established—that society in which the individual shall attain his highest liberty and development, and consequently his greatest happiness. ”

“ Justice, humanity, and benevolence, are the duties you owe to society in general. To your country the same duties are incumbent upon you, with the additional obligation of sacrificing ease, pleasure, wealth, and life itself for its defense and security. To your parents you owe love, reverence, and obedience to all just and equitable commands. ”

“ Under the influence of this policy, therefore, the occasions which employed and cultivated the understandings of men, which awakened their sentiments, and kindled their imaginations, are gradually removed; and the progress by which mankind attained to the honours of their nature, in being engaged to act in society upon a liberal footing, was not more uniform, or less interrupted, than that by which they degenerate in this unhappy condition. ”

“ The common duties of every-day life, and the common rules of social policy, are matters which no moralist states once for all: on the contrary, they are reiterated as often as occasion requires—and occasion requires them very often. ”

“ One leads to a higher citizenship, a freer expression of the individual and a fuller life for all. The other leads to reaction, the rule of the few over the many, and the restriction of the average man's chances to grow upward. ”

“ In other words, as a return for what you wish to have society do for you, what can you do for society? This is a very important question—more important to you than to society. The question is, whether you will be a member of society by right, or by courtesy. If you have so mean a spirit as to be content to be a beneficiary of society—to receive favors and to confer none—you have no business in the society to which you aspire. ”

“ If we raise the level of our review to a more spiritual range, we are confronted with the world where rights are established and enforced, the world of legislative enactment, family life, division of social classes, in a word, the concrete living organism of the State. ”

“ that the question was, whether, if the reformers of society and government could succeed in their objects, and every person in the community were free and in a state of physical comfort, the pleasures of life, being no longer kept up by struggle and privation, would cease to be pleasures. ”

“ The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden—that is what the State is there for. ”

“ I spent many years in that illustrious society, in a well-regulated course of useful discipline and studies, and in the agreeable and improving commerce of gentlemen and of scholars; in a society where emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without animosity, incited industry, and awakened genius; where a liberal pursuit of knowledge, and a genuine freedom of thought, were raised, encouraged, and pushed forward by example, by commendation, and by authority. ”

“ In this new nation was realized the dream of the social philosophers and philanthropists of all ages: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, resting on the deep and solid foundations of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. ”

“ Others study the principles on which civil laws are founded, and try to discover what there has been of good as well as of evil in the governments under which men have lived from the time of the patriarchs till now. ”

“ Read the history of what has been done in this commonwealth, in this city, during the last twenty-five years for humanity, for education, for science and the arts, for every form of public use or human need, and then say, if you can, that public spirit has been dying out. Our people have never been otherwise than public spirited, and hence the promptness and unanimity of their response to this new call to public duty. ”

“ It gives habits of analyzing the aims and motives of men, and the means they employ to attain their ends, i.e., it gives insight into character and hence makes social adjustment easier.
(b) It develops tolerance for the opinions, convictions, and ideals of others, and tends to prevent hard, dogmatic, and uncompromising judgments and attitudes.
(c) It gives appreciation of the civic and political institutions of to-day—their origin, development, and purposes—and hence teaches the rights and obligations that are inherent in citizenship. ”

“ Communities, however, have existed where people have thought more of their obligations than of their 'rights,' more of the welfare of their [Pg 323] country, or of the success of a cause to which they have devoted themselves, than of their personal pleasure or interest—have preferred the wise leading of superior men to their own wills and wishes. ”

“ We have now seen, gentlemen, two periods of the world, each of which is dominated by the ruling idea of a particular class of the community which impresses its own principle on all the social arrangements of its time. ”

“ Again, I find that there are rules of social life, which take the form of what are called "laws," and these are imposed by the will of some governing authority; they are always the product of some one human will, or of the collective will of a greater number of persons. ”

“ The benevolence, charity, capacity and industry which exerted in private life would make a family, a parish or a town happy, employed upon a larger scale and in support of the great principles of virtue and freedom of political regulations, might secure whole nations and generations from misery, want and contempt. ”

“ Whatever we can do to benefit society benefits ourselves, and in throwing ourselves heart and soul into any of those enterprises that benefit society we are discharging in a very special way the duties of good citizenship. ”

“ Those who know something of the general laws of life, and who perceive that these general laws of life underlie all social phenomena, will see that this dual change in the character of advanced governments, involves an answer to the first of all political questions. ”

“ The issue of this may either be an apparent suspension of the moral growth of the individual, or a clearer apprehension of the spirit underlying the letter of the obligations laid on him by society, which makes his rational recognition of duty, when arrived at, a much more valuable influence in promoting the moral growth of society. ”