Civil

“ Speaking of the origin of civil power and the objects of law, he lays down these principles: "The law, strictly speaking, is directed primarily and principally to the common good; and to decree anything for the common benefit belongs either to the whole body of the people, or to some one acting in their place." ”

“ Our civil service, which you are pleased to describe as a Bureaucracy, is distinguished among all others existing at the present time, by the calibre of its members, by its efficiency and honesty, by its poverty, and not less by the honour in which it is held notwithstanding its poverty. ”

“ Knowledge of the civil law will, likewise, be necessary for the orator whom we have described, and together with it knowledge of the customs and religion of the commonwealth of which he may take charge, for how shall he be able to give counsel in public and private deliberations if ignorant of the many things which happen together particularly to the establishment of the State? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In every society there are political and civil concerns on one side, and on the other social concerns; for the first, civil authority must be established—in political and civil respects every one has to acknowledge the power of its jurisdiction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to the share of power, authority, direction, which each individual ought to have in the management of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society."—Ibid. ”

“ On the other hand, the constitutions of all civilized governments, whether written or unwritten, the principles of the civil as well as those of the common law, and the teachings of wise men of ancient and of modern times, recognize as a duty the protection of individual or selfish interests. They recognize as just and necessary the restraint and punishment of wrong-doers, and the protection of the rights and interests of the individual in person and property. ”

“ There are the persons, whom we call civil magistrates, kings and their ministers, our governors and rulers, who being indifferent persons to the greatest part of the state, have no interest, or but a remote one, in any act of injustice; and being satisfied with their present condition, and with their part in society, have an immediate interest in every execution of justice, which is so necessary to the upholding of society. Here then is the origin of civil government and society. ”

“ The Civil State THE passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. ”

“ They have handed down to us the representative principle, the jury method of trial, civil law, a clear conception of the rights of a citizen, a jealous regard for law and tradition, a comprehensive system of political checks and balances, model systems of local government and civil service, and methods of governing, civilizing, and unifying alien peoples which have never been equalled. ”

“ THE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: ‘Beware of listening to this impostor; ”

“ Whatever Means, therefore, are most effectual in curbing and subduing the selfish Desires of Man, are the most effectual Means of regulating his Actions, and establishing civil Liberty on its most permanent Foundations. ”

“ The people in both reserved in a manner the office of judgment to themselves, and brought the decision of civil rights, or of criminal questions, to the tribunal of peers, who, in judging of their fellow citizens, prescribed a condition of life for themselves. ”

“ But human things we call such duties as touch the life, the body, goods, and good name, as they are expounded in the second table of the Decalogue, for these are the things in which the whole civil administration standeth. Behold how the very circumstances which pertain to ecclesiastical order and decency are exempted from the compass of civil government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare. ”

“ It is an institution, in the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress. ”

“ But these communities of ours have it in their power to furnish to the world a far more illustrious example of human prescience, and benevolent care, by their prompt, exact, and well-considered administration of justice—including the cases both in the civil and the criminal courts. ”

“ Therefore if government, private property, marriage, and respect for human life are all good and essential to the very existence of civil society, then it follows that by strengthening every one of them superstition has rendered a great service to humanity. ”

“ The subject of the civil law, the ego, the object of the civil law, the objective or natural world, the relation between the two, or property—such is, in a word, the method; the equality of all men before the law is its principle; the respect for property and the directness of litigation are its aims. ”

“ An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political. ”

“ In the opposite class of moral beings, we have placed an equality of civil rights, freedom of religion, and of inquiry, division of power, national influence or sovereignty, knowledge, uncorrupted representation, and actual responsibility. This enumeration of a few individuals used to explain our reasoning, and not as including entire classes. ”

“ In the last analysis civil rights depend for their maintenance and enforcement upon a realization of their value by the whole people and the willingness of every citizen to grant to others the rights which he claims for himself. ”

“ For the body political is informed and denominated from the pars imperans, the governing part or head: therefore as a head of divine institution, authorized for the spiritual or pastoral work, denominateth the society accordingly; so a civil head can make but a civil society, and a head of man's making, but a human society. ”

“ But, perhaps, if there was less Law, there might be more Justice, than in some other Courts; for, if the civil Law be a Law of universal Reason, judging of the Rectitude, or Obliquity of Mens Actions, every Man of common Sense is endued with a Portion of it, at least sufficient to make him distinguish Right from Wrong, or what the Civilians call, Malum in se. ”

“ Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. ”

“ In every country, and at all times, an order of things may be conceived—civil, political, penal and administrative laws—which would best conform to the general interest, and be the most favourable to the well-being and progress of the nation. ”

“ From that opinion we glean a recognition of, and a reliance in part upon, attitudes of contemporary society and comparative law. And the emphasis is on man's basic dignity, on civilized precepts, and on flexibility and improvement in standards of decency as society progresses and matures. ”

“ I love the science of those great Lawyers and Civilians, who might themselves be Legislators; who re-ascend to that original Justice that settled human Society; who know what Liberty nature allows in establish’d Governments; and how far the natural liberty of private Persons is restrain’d for the publick good by necessary Politicks. ”

“ Back of all formal contracts or statutes or institutions, therefore, is this unwritten law of civilization that every citizen shall be a public servant. The cycles of social growth, arrest, decay, have always illustrated in turn observance, neglect and violation of this law. Men and institutions have begun by serving their day and generation in a socially needful way. They have sometimes ended by making their day and generation serve them in a socially harmful way. ”

“ The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. ”

“ But following the reign of law, the profound significance of which I will not now pause to dwell on, there is a third meaning attached to "civilise": it means to refine and enlighten; elevation in social and individual life. In the second and third meanings of this term, we have the guarantees of liberty, justice, equality, fraternity. ”

“ It follows then, as a consequence almost too obvious to justify the remark, that whatever in any country enlarges and strengthens these great attributes of civilization, raises its capacity for performing that noblest duty of social man, the administration of justice. ”

“ There are very many characteristics which go to make a model civil servant. Prominent among them are probity, industry, good sense, good habits, good temper, patience, order, courtesy, tact, self-reliance, manly deference to superior officers, and manly consideration for inferiors. ”

“ for no civilized society can long exist, with an active power in its bosom that is stronger than the law. ”

“ Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has operated, two ways, to make one part of society more affluent, and the other part more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state. ”

“ If a test of civilisation be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power,—from the exercise of the right of the strongest. ”

“ Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against “society,” that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship. ”

“ He may entertain, towards the different ranks of men with whom he is yoked in the state, maxims of respect and of candour: he may, in the choice of his actions, follow a principle of justice and of honour, which the considerations of safety, preferment, or profit, cannot efface. ”

“ And this is the form of a society characterized by status—a society, the members of which stand one toward another in successive grades of subordination. From the despot down to the slave, all are masters of those below and subjects of those above. The relation of the child to the father, of the father to some superior, and so on up to the absolute head, is one in which the individual of lower status is at the mercy of one of higher status. ”

“ When, therefore, the instructed in general can be brought to recognize one social arrangement, or political or other institution, as good, and another as bad—one as desirable, another as condemnable, very much has been done towards giving to the one, or withdrawing from the other, that preponderance of social force which enables it to subsist. ”