Principality

“ These three classes are the principals, the agents, and the operatives. The principals are in the thought of ends. They have the direction, decide what shall be done, and set the others to doing it. Thus they represent the head, and afford an illustration of the third or highest heaven whose denizens are in ends, or in the thought of ends. The agents are in the thought of means or causes. They know how the intention of the principals is to be executed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Classifying these faculties under the heads of Reason, Will, and Passion, he classifies the members of his ideal society under what he regards as three analogous heads:—councillors, who are to exercise government; military or executive, who are to fulfil their behests ”

“ If I am asked, what system of political philosophy I substituted for that which, as a philosophy, I had abandoned, I answer, No system: only a conviction that the true system was something much more complex and many-sided than I had previously had any idea of, and that its office was to supply, not a set of model institutions, but principles from which the institutions suitable to any given circumstances might be deduced. ”

“ The Republic (like the Politikus) presents to us the march of society with its Principal Cause — its concurrent or Auxiliary Causes — and its inferior governable mass or matter, the human flock, indispensable and co-essential as a part of the whole scheme. ”

“ We are ready to acknowledge that extraordinary virtue, talents and wealth united, will govern, and ought to govern, and yet it is denied that this confession is reconcileable with the system of king, lords and commons. If a body of men, which possesses the virtue, talents and wealth of a nation, ought to govern; it follows, that a body of men, which does not possess these attributes, ought not to govern. ”

“ But we might with equal propriety turn the maxim round, and lay it down, as the fundamental principle of government, that all rulers will govern well, unless some motive interferes to keep them from doing so. ”

“ To create a better leadership of men,—to form a new order and union of men,—a new nobility of men, acquainted with the doctrine of their own nature, and in league for its advancement, to seize the 'thoughts' of those whose law is the law of the larger activity, and 'inform them with nobleness,'—was the plan. ”

“ In the category of People, we observe that individuals, self and others, and this in interest, perhaps even more than in interests, commonly take precedence of groups. Institutions and Government are, however, of general interest, the state being much more prominent than is the church ”

“ The interest of the monarch, or the interest of the aristocracy, either collective or that of its individual members, is promoted, or they themselves think that it will be promoted, by conduct opposed to that which the general interest of the community requires. ”

“ In an institution the chief thing to look at is the idea it represents—the primordial thought; for that is the human mould in which the human substance of the institution is cast, and as the sheep are filled "according to their pasture," so the institution is like the idea which controls its shape. ”

“ And therefore, if those whom we are addressing be consistent, they will exert themselves to do the latter; and, by increasing the knowledge, increase also the power of an extensive and important class,—a class which is as deeply interested as the peerage or the hierarchy in the prosperity and tranquillity of the country ”

“ These differences are of several kinds; but riches, nobility or rank, power and personal merit being the principal distinctions by which men form an estimate of each other in society, I could prove that the harmony or conflict of these different forces is the surest indication of the good or bad constitution of a State. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But we should look twice before we should thus qualify a government in which the chief makes his will outweigh the wishes of the citizens, or a government in which the will of the citizens outweighs that of the chief. ”

“ I come to the principles of authority, which are internal, and founded upon the goods of the mind. These the legislator that can unite in his government with those of fortune, comes nearest to the work of God, whose government consists of heaven and earth ”

“ Being thus obliged to place before ourselves, as the test of good and bad government, so complex an object as the aggregate interests of society, we would willingly attempt some kind of classification of those interests, which, bringing them before the mind in definite groups, might give indication of the qualities by which a form of government is fitted to promote those various interests respectively. ”

“ Then, with regard to the phenomena of what are called constitutions of government, or the political systems of exercising public authority, I find numerous cases in which the force of an individual will and intelligence has been not only a great factor, but by far the largest factor in the production of particular institutions. ”

“ The 'wise and good,' he says, 'in any class of men do, for all general purposes, govern the rest.' [103] Now, the class in which wisdom and virtue are commonest is not the aristocracy, but the middle rank. ”

“ The power of will should be exercised only by the higher faculties, and curbed by the sentiments, or it will hold the reins, misguide the judgment, and let loose the lower propensities. To guard and govern thought is the province of the higher faculties, acting upon the body beneficially. ”

“ People who undertake the task of governing others, as I do, be their rule a kingdom or a hamlet, must adopt a principle of government and adhere to it. The principle that suits best with the Hill is Respect for the Proprieties. ”

“ The organization of a society, whose institution shall serve as a bond to its members, for the purposes of virtue, happiness, liberty, and wisdom, by the means of intellectual opposition to grievances, would probably be useful. ”

“ The fact that they are ruled, governed, and owned they must acknowledge and confess as a favour of heaven! On the other hand, there are those rulers themselves whose greatness is in inverse proportion to their number. ”

“ Thus, noble institutions are established on earth for the enlightenment, education, and elevation of our race; grand labors for the suppression of vice and the promotion of virtue are pursued, and these are types, counterparts, and representations of like institutions and good works in the spirit world. ”

“ And who commands our life and regulates it? The nobles, the functionaries and all sorts of other people, not belonging to our class. From them come the laws, the newspapers, science—everything from them. ”

“ But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. ”

“ Combinations of classes in society, united by the bond of a corporate spirit, for the accumulation of power, influence, or wealth, by the control of intercourse or trade, or the spiritual or moral concerns of society, unquestionably desire limitations upon the sovereignty of the people, and the existence of an authority upon which they can repose in security and confidence. ”

“ Skill and sagacity in managing the affairs of common life, or wisdom in council and command, is nothing else than an extensive and ready knowledge of the intricate movements of the great machine of the social system; and the high price which this skill and wisdom always bears among men, may be held to represent two abstractions; first, the perplexing Irregularities of the system to which human agency is to be conformed; and then, the real and substantial Uniformity of the movements of that system. ”

“ It is expressed in the first mode by those who, as the highest free Leaders of men, originally guide and order their affairs:—their relations with each other, or the legal condition,—and their relation to passive nature, or the dominion of reason over the irrational world;—who possess the right and calling, either by themselves or in concert with others, to think, judge, and resolve independently concerning the actual arrangement of these relations. ”

“ From the desire of [104] being approved and noticed, arises every effort which constitutes the variety of employments and excellencies the world possesses. It actuates the prince and the beggar, the peasant and the politician, the labourer and the scholar, the mechanic and the soldier, the player and the divine. In a word, there is not an individual in the community whose conduct is not influenced by its dictates. ”

“ And it would be a further fact consequent on the other 289 two, that the aggregate character of the Government would represent the aggregate moral and ecclesiastical character of the people, were every distinct portion into which the people are parcelled to exert itself in proportion to its share of political influence. ”

“ For this institution, whether good or bad, is, beyond all dispute, a very important institution. Its office is to form the character of those who are to form the character of millions. Whether we ought to extend any patronage to such an institution is a question about which wise and honest men may differ. But that, as we do extend our patronage to such an institution, our patronage ought to be worthy of the object, and worthy of the greatness of our country, is a proposition from which I am astonished to hear any person dissent. ”

“ I am not aware that history furnishes any example in which a number of these political atoms or corpuscles have coalesced into a body, and learned to feel themselves one people, except through previous subjection to a central authority common to all. [2] It is through the habit of deferring to that authority, entering into its plans and subserving its purposes, that a people such as we have supposed receive into their minds the conception of large interests common to a considerable geographical extent. ”

“ Next to the head or supreme class in this organized body, the state, we have another class who act as agents. They do not consider the wisdom or expediency of what the head decides to do. This is no part of their business. Therefore they have no need of the knowledge requisite for settling such questions. But they know how to execute the intentions of those above them—how to accomplish the objects at which the head aims. ”

“ So there is no exclusive, permanent servile class—none that does all the work, and enjoys none of the results: there is no exclusive and permanent ruling class; all are masters, all servants; all command, and all obey. ”

“ For which reason, we are quite well acquainted with the manner in which all societies of men are brought into being. We know that ourselves, the prospective members of the proposed society, assemble and organize it and become its first members and constitute the powers of its government to command us, its members, for the achievement of the purpose for which we create it. ”

“ Whether political, ecclesiastical, or moral, all their teaching has for its object the improvement of individual and collective Configuration—with special reference of course to the Configuration of the Circles, to which all other objects are subordinated. ”

“ To meet that natural demand, to satisfy those intellectual affections and aspirations of the people, this institution has arisen; and it has endeavored to fulfill its location in a spirit commensurate with those wants on the part of the public, to which it owes its existence and its prosperity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You must find a fixed standard of some kind or other; for if there is no standard but the immediate momentary purpose of the day, guided and governed by the man who uses it, fixed not only for the disposition of all the wealth and strength of the state, but for the life, fortune, and property of every individual, your Lordships are left without a principle to direct your judgment. ”

“ For what is applicable to our wants, habits, and necessities as a community or state, must necessarily to some extent be determined from the nature and genius of our government and institutions. Or, in other words, 412to determine whether a particular principle harmonizes with the spirit of our institutions, we must look to the habits and condition of the society which has created and lived under these institutions. ”

“ Such aggregations of wealth and influence, connected as they usually are or soon become with social distinctions, naturally come to be regarded as the fountains of patronage by those who are in search of it. ”

“ I pretend to form no system, but by following out a succession of principles, consistent with the nature of man and with one another, I shall endeavour to furnish some materials towards the forming of a good one. ”

“ Socially, the idea of self-determination is applied to evaluate the religious institutions, the class structure, and the value system. The application concerns, once again, the authority of the people to determine their own social patterns. ”