The balance of altruism in the people of a country, preserved in the form of practical self-control (no matter under what name), gives the wealth and power of the country.
Good government then consists in customs which differentiate people. They represent a permission to each man to be different from his neighbor. They are the record of what once was love, and now is law.
Bad government consists in institutions which render men similar through some self-interest, some superstition.
Let us take a few examples at random from history, and see whether everything of permanent value to the race is not merely a different form of expression for the same ideal.
Napoleon is a type of selfishness. The focus of his almost illimitable intelligence fell within himself. He was so self-centred that he did not precipitate all the passion which supported him upon an idea. He did much, but he could not transcend the laws of psychology or escape the insecurity they dealt him out. He was a great reactionary, living in an age of progress, a great egoist in an age of altruism, a great criminal. The whole of Europe had hardly strength enough to shut him up. He went down finally, and yet before he went down, he had stood for civilization in every country he touched by establishing law. He gave France his code and his bureaux, things greater than his dynasty. He made use of the enlightenment, the expert intellect of France to establish order, and became a great educator through his institutions, his genius for administration. His worshippers are so struck with this side of his character that they forgive him his crimes. For our admiration is chained to the educator. Every great man is a great educator, and there is no greatness but this. The great man represents, draws out, projects, and establishes the non-self-regarding part, the intellectual apparatus of others, and those who do it by the establishment of law and order receive their tribute as civilizers. The saints serve the same end. They speak a language different from that of the law-givers, yet their function is the same. The part a man plays in the formal government of his times depends on circumstance. It seems to be governed by the ratio of his altruism to that of his contemporaries. People will not tolerate a man who is too good or too bad. Had Napoleon lived in an age of retrogression, very likely he would have died upon the throne. Had he been less self-seeking than he was, had he possessed for instance the imagination of Washington, very likely the French would have deposed him sooner, but in the end the memory of him would have educated France.
For this is the work of heroes. Where a leader has ideas that are more unselfish than those of his time, he is deposed, poisoned, or ridiculed, and his value as an educational force may be increased by any of these things. Socrates deliberately kept out of politics for many years, knowing that if he took part, his sense of justice would lead to his execution, and fearing to throw away his life; he finally expended it with such ability as to make every atom count. The scholars have not understood his Apology because they could not fathom the instinct of the agitator. It is the same with the martyrs, with the Quakers in Puritan New England, with the Anti-Slavery people. Their conduct was governed by the truest understanding of how to draw out and develop the conscience of others. The man who dies for his country does no more.
Another gigantic educator was Bismarck. To have welded the squabbling principalities of Germany into an Empire within a lifetime is one of the achievements of history. But Bismarck held the trump card. He had a cause to serve. His early work must have been his strongest; for since the war with France, patriotism has become the curse of Germany. It is caked into fanaticism, and is being used by autocracy to ruin intellect. This is the mystical yet relentless punishment for the element which was not patriotism but thrift in their conduct. The Germans must be great and unified and recover Alsace for their honor. But what did they want with the French milliards? They mulcted France to spare their pockets, and fastened upon themselves the personal hatred of the French peasant, which gives them William II. for a ruler. They looked upon property as power. Had they seen clearly that power is nothing but sentiment, they would have sown peace.
One reason why Holland lost her supremacy was because she came to regard money as power. She grasped the symbol. For a decline sets in as soon as selfishness has reached such a point that any of these symbols are worshipped. Witness Spain, where the gold of Peru ruined the Spaniards by making them individually selfish.
In the long run virtue and vice contend over national wealth, the first collecting, the second dissipating. Witness Cuba. Witness Ireland. China is wrecked by private greed. In the last analysis it is a matter of personal virtue.
The magnificent intellect and self-control epitomized in Roman Government, took centuries to perish. Is it a wonder these people conquered the world?