General order

“ If we intend to comprise in the idea of Order all that society requires from its government which is not included in the idea of Progress, we must define Order as the preservation of all kinds and amounts of good which already exist, and Progress as consisting in the increase of them. ”

“ For the theory of universal order—that is, order as presiding in both the origin and administration of the world—we have the testimony of a vast number of facts in nature, and this one in addition—that whatever is left from the domain of ignorance, and made undoubted matter of science, forms a new support to the same doctrine. ”

“ Order is correctly said to be heaven's first law, as, without it, there could be nothing but confusion. In all deliberative bodies, to avoid confusion and economize time, there must be some rules of order. ”

“ This order is the base of the most perfect government, and the fundamental rule of all positive laws; for positive laws are only such laws as are required to keep up and maintain the natural order that is evidently most advantageous to the race. ”

“ In the sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable, and lay hold, as it were, on the eternities. At the very centre of your being, there is a fixed element, and that of a kind or degree essentially sovereign. A standard is set up in your very thought, by which a great part of your questions are determined, and about which your otherwise random thoughts may settle into order and law. ”

“ Order in nature means order in the scheme of the world as it affects humanity. And order in the providence which controls human affairs must have for principle fairness, justice, so that every deed shall have due reward. ”

“ These were the watchwords of the champions of the principle of authority. By all means let us have order and refinement—but what men have had to learn, and what they will learn even though it should take them centuries, is that order and refinement are the work of science or natural development, and never are or can be the work of arbitrary legislation, or of a criminal code and a public opinion founded upon tradition and authority. There is no real ordering, no real order of society but that which is the result of scientific insight into the nature of man. ”

“ If you say, he has made things to go, set them going, and left them— then I say, If his machine interfered with his answering the prayer of a single child, he would sweep it from him—not to bring back chaos, but to make room for his child. But order is divine, and cannot be obstructive to its own higher ends; it must subserve them. Order, free order, neither chaos, nor law unpossessed and senseless, is the home of Thought. ”

“ Who does not see that there is no empire, kingdom, dukedom, republic, state, or household, that is not established by laws, which constitute the order and so the form of its. government? In each of them the laws of justice are in the highest place, political laws in the second, and economical laws in the third. ”

“ Every human government is bound to make its laws so far resemble His that they shall be uniform, certain, and unquestionable in their operations; and this it can do only by a timely show of power, and by an appeal{25} to that authority which is of divine right, inasmuch as its office is to maintain that order which is the single attribute of that Infinite Reason which we can clearly apprehend and of which we have hourly example. ”

“ The rules of a society, in a majority of cases, may be conveniently divided into these four classes, though in some societies all the rules are found under one of these heads, being called either the constitution, or the by-laws, or the standing rules. ”

“ If these improperly contrasted ideas are to be used at all in the attempt to give a first commencement of scientific precision to the notion of good government, it would be more philosophically correct to leave out of the definition the word Order, and to say that the best government is that which is most conducive to Progress. For Progress includes Order, but Order does not include Progress. Progress is a greater degree of that of which Order is a less. Order, in any other sense, stands only for a part of the prerequisites of good government, not for its idea and essence. ”

“ The higher order has the authority of its position in the natural scale of evolution, over all that precedes it; and this authority is of that absolute character which receives the sanction of nature in all the kingdoms which man can view. ”

“ On the other hand, the whole has authority against its parts, and every particular duty is said to have authority just so far as it is backed by the whole mass of duties," as the command of a sovereign has authority because it gives expression to the will of the whole society over which he presides. Obligation "corresponds to the necessity under which an organism lies of acting in a certain manner in order to conform to its type." ”

“ It is sufficient to establish that there are certain definite limits which circumscribe the free action of every governing authority, and that these limitations admit of being formulated into more or less precisely articulated propositions. Such propositions, capable as they are of being handled, interpreted, and enforced, in courts of justice, have all the essential qualities that belong to the general rules framed by the governing authority itself, for the guidance of the conduct of all persons submitted to its dominion. ”

“ The Rulers, as well as all other Individuals, with all their individual powers, are taken into account in order to direct the powers of the governed,—who no more than they constitute the State,—towards the common purpose, so far as they understand it, and to enforce this purpose on all who are opposed to it. ”

“ Questions of Privilege.—These are questions which involve the rights and privileges of individual members, or of the society or assembly collectively. They take precedence over all other propositions, except a motion to adjourn.
9. Questions of Order.—In case of any breach of the rules of the society or body, any member may rise to the point of order, and insist upon its due enforcement; but in case of a difference of opinion whether a rule has been violated or not, the question must be determined before the application of the rule can be insisted upon. ”

“ If anyone thinks that an order is based on a misunderstanding on the part of the superior or on a false basis it goes without saying that it is his duty and responsibility -- that is, the duty and responsibility of every one of you -- to say so, and also to state his reasons truthfully like a man if he is convinced that they deprecate the order. ”

“ I believe in law and order; but I believe, as a condition precedent, that law and order should be predicated upon right and justice, pure and simple. Law is, intrinsically, a written expression of justice; if, on the contrary, it becomes instead written injustice, men are not, strictly speaking, bound to yield it obedience. ”

“ But mortal man is beginning to realize that he lives in a realm of comparative law and order as far as concerns the administrative policies and conduct of the Supreme Creators and the Supreme Controllers. ”

“ Order, in political society, is the effect of a necessary series of ideas, of wills, of actions, in those who compose it; whose movements are regulated in a manner, either calculated to maintain its indivisibility, or to hasten its dissolution. ”

“ No sooner is the idea of Universal Order present to the reason, than it is recognized as an absolute law; and, in consequence, the special end of our being, by participation in its character of goodness and sacredness, is henceforth pursued as a duty, and its satisfaction claimed as a right. ”

“ Order, thus understood, expresses, doubtless, an indispensable attribute of government. Those who are unable to make their ordinances obeyed, can not be said to govern. But, though a necessary condition, this is not the object of government. That it should make itself obeyed is requisite, in order that it may accomplish some other purpose. We are still to seek what is this other purpose, which government ought to fulfill abstractedly from the idea of improvement, and which has to be fulfilled in every society, whether stationary or progressive. ”

“ Let the sixteenth be that which we term the royal or political motion, by which the predominant and governing parts of any body check, subdue, reduce, and regulate the others, and force them to unite, separate, stand still, move, or assume a certain position, not from any inclination of their own, but according to a certain order, and as best suits the convenience of the governing part, so that there is a sort of dominion and civil government exercised by the ruling part over its subjects. ”

“ This motion, to entitle it to precedence, must be for the orders generally, and not for any particular one; and if it be carried on the question, "Whether the House will now proceed to the orders of the day?" they must be read and proceeded on in the course in which they stand.—2 Hats. 83. For priority of order gives priority of right, which cannot be taken away but by another special order. ”

“ They made a noble and privileged order—open to the whole world. No one could complain of an unjust exclusion, for the only thing that could exclude them from the order was unwillingness or inability to follow the Rule. ”

“ Thus the general doctrine, that all kinds of government exercised over men were at first one government—that the political, the religious, and the ceremonial forms of control are divergent branches of a general and once indivisible control—begins to look tenable. ”

“ A deliberate attempt may be made to recognize many wills, harmonize discords. Order may be brought out of chaos, and the limits of the realm within the borders of which order reigns may be indefinitely extended. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The practice, as it now prevails, is one of the many instances of the practical wisdom with which this nation often deals with difficult subjects. The standing order is retained as an instrument which, in certain cases, it may possibly be expedient to employ ”

“ This power is a much more complex and less determinate, or less easily determinable, thing; but a sense of possessing common interests, a desire for common objects on the part of the people, is always the condition of its existence. Let this sense or desire—which may properly be called general will—cease to operate, or let it come into general conflict with the sovereign's commands, and the habitual obedience will cease also. ”

“ Obligation "expresses that an act is the act required." "It is that relation in which the single part of the order stands to the whole order, when it is confronted by the whole," whether we consider the single act in relation to the whole character of the individual, or the single individual in his relations to society. "Duty in the abstract is the name which comprehends obligation in all its details; a duty in the concrete is any good act regarded in its relation to the whole. ”

“ It is, therefore, an established principle, that unless an order is so manifestly against law that the question does not admit of dispute, the order must first be obeyed by the inferior, and he must subsequently seek such redress against his superior as the laws allow. ”

“ Order and Regularity is not only the Beauty and Symmetry of Government and Societies, but also greatly contributes to their Establishment and Perpetuity. Statutes and Rules are as well the Bounds to determine, as Bonds to unite Fellowship and Societies together ”

“ But in government as in other departments of human agency, almost all principles which have been durable were first suggested by observation of some particular case, in which the general laws of nature acted in some new or previously unnoticed combination of circumstances. ”

“ But laws, in their more confined sense, and in which it is our present business to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct: that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and freewill, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour. ”

“ The cases in which the general rule has been adhered to, are, many of them, of a character which strongly test the principle upon which the rule itself is founded. Two or three only need be referred to. ”

“ The main point in the system of order and law is its absolute universality. Exceptions, if real, must pro tanto imply a deficiency in the chain of connexion, and might, to a sceptical disposition, offer a ground of doubt. ”

“ An order of government, established by such an all-wise, powerful being, must be good and perfect, and must be calculated to promote the permanent peace, happiness, and well-being of all his subjects. ”

“ That it may obtain for itself the largest sum of obedience, the government will respect the laws which it imposes on the governed; and, for the same reason, it will take good care that its legislative and administrative measures shall tend really and apparently to promote the general good. ”

“ It was seen that all over the face of the earth where human life was represented, government exists, and that this government was representative of one or another of the three orders of aggregates of individuals—the family, the tribal, or the nations, and that an aggregate of nations would add the fourth order. It was also seen that the evolution of government was the objective result of the persistence of force among its component parts. ”

“ Now the argumentation which is divided into five divisions is of this sort:—It is desirable, O judges, to refer all laws to the advantage of the republic, and to interpret them with reference to the general advantage, and according to the strict wording according to which they are drawn up. For our ancestors were men of such virtue and such wisdom, that when they were drawing up laws, they proposed to themselves no other object than the safety and advantage of the republic ”