STUDIES IN CIVICS.
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
GOVERNMENT: WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT IS.
At the very beginning of our study, two questions naturally present themselves: First. What is government? Second. Why do we have such a thing?
These questions are much easier to ask than to answer. The wisest men of the ages have pondered upon them, and their answers have varied widely. Yet we need not despair. Even boys and girls can work out moderately good answers, if they will approach the questions seriously and with a determination to get as near the root of the matter as possible.
Beginning without attempting an exact definition of government, because we all have a notion of what it is, we notice that only certain animals are government-forming. Among these may be mentioned the ant, the bee, and man. The fox, the bear, and the lion represent the other class. If we should make two lists, including in one all the animals of the first class and in the other all those of the second class, we should make this discovery, that government-forming animals are those which by nature live together in companies, while the other class as a rule live apart. The generalization reached is, that only gregarious animals form governments. We would discover upon further investigation that the greater the interdependence of the individuals, the more complex the government.
Confining our attention now to man, whose government is the most complex, we may put our generalization into this form: Man establishes government because by nature he is a social being. This may be taken as the fundamental reason. Let us now proceed to trace the relation between cause and effect.
In order that people may go from place to place to meet others for pleasure or business, roads are needed. Some of these roads may cross streams too deep for fording, so bridges must be provided. These things are for the good of all; they are public needs, and should be provided by the public. But "what is every body's business is nobody's business." It follows that the public must appoint certain persons to look after such things. By the act of appointing these persons, society becomes to that extent organized. We see, then, that society organizes in order to provide certain public improvements, to carry on certain public works.
For his own preservation, man is endowed with another quality, namely, selfishness. Sometimes this is so strong in a person as to cause him to disregard the rights of others. By experience man has learned that every person is interested in seeing that conflicting claims are settled on a better basis than that of the relative strength of the contestants. In other words, all are interested in the prevalence of peace and the rightful settlement of disputes. That this work may surely be done, it is obvious that society must appoint certain persons to attend to it; that is, society organizes to establish justice.
Communities take their character from that of the individuals composing them, therefore communities are selfish. A third reason appears, then, for the organization of society, namely, the common defense.