Yet it is often taught that society, government, statutes, and officers are peculiarly and especially of divine appointment, in a very different sense from that mentioned just now; and therefore you and I are morally bound to respect all the four. We are told this by men who would be astonished if any one should claim divine appointment for farm-fences, rules of husbandry, for ploughmen and reapers.—This is sometimes done by persons who know no better.
In conformity with that fourfold claim of divinity for things of human appointment, we are told that the great safeguard of man's social welfare is this,—Entire subordination of the individual to the community, subordination in mind and conscience, heart and soul; entire submission to the government; entire obedience to the statute; entire respect for the officer; in short, the surrender of the individual to the State, of his mind to the public opinion, of his conscience to the public statute, of his religion to some bench of attorneys, and his will to the magistrate. This fourfold subordination of the individual is demanded, no matter what the community, the government, the statutes, or the officers may be.—Let us look a little more narrowly into this matter, and see what is the purpose, the end, and aim of individual human life, and of social human life; then we may be the better able to determine what are the safeguards thereof.
What is man here on earth to accomplish? He is to unfold and perfect himself, as far as possible, in body and spirit; to attain the full measure of his corporeal and spiritual powders, his intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious powers; to develop the individual into a complete man. That, I take it, is the purpose, the end, the scope, and final cause of individual life on earth. Accordingly, that is the best form of individual life which does this most completely; that worst which does it least. He is the most fortunate man who gets the greatest development of his body and his spirit in all their several and appropriate functions: all else is means thereto, and this the end thereof. Ease, wealth, honor, fame, power, and all the outward things men wish for, and all such things as are valuable, are means to this end, no more. Wise men do not account him lucky who comes into the world born to riches, distinction, thrones of power; but him who goes out of it wise, just, good, and holy.
Accordingly, all else is to be subordinated to the attainment of this purpose; this to nothing. But what faculties of the individual are to rule and take precedence? The highest over the lowest; the lasting over the transient; the eternal over the perishing. I will wound my hand to save my head, subordinating the less to the greater. Not barely to live, but to live nobly, is my purpose. I will wound or sacrifice my body to save the integrity of my spirit, to defend the rights of my mind, of my conscience, of my affections, of my religious faculty—my soul. Conscience, when awakened, commands this. Prophets of the Old Testament, and apostles of the New Testament, martyrs of all the churches under heaven, are historical witnesses to this instinct of human nature. Millions of soldiers have been found ready to sacrifice the life of their body to the integrity of their spirit: they would die, but not run.
Man is social by nature: gregarious by instinct, he is social with self-conscious will. To develop the individual into the perfect man, men must mix and mingle. Society is the condition of individual development. Moses or Newton, living all alone, would not have attained the human dignity of a clown or a savage; they would never have mastered articulate speech: the gregarious elephant, the lonely eagle, would surpass these men, born to the mightiest genius. Society, companionship of men, is both a necessity and a comfort, a good in itself, a means to other good.
As the great purpose of human life is to develop the individual into the complete and perfect man in body and spirit, so the purpose of society is to help furnish the means thereto; to defend each, and furnish him an opportunity and all possible help to become a complete and perfect man. Individuals are the monads, the primitive atoms, of which society is composed: its power, its perfection, depend primarily on the power and perfection of the individuals, as much so as the weight of a pendulum or of Mount Sheehallin depends on the primitive atoms thereof. Destroy the individuality of those atoms, human or material,—all is gone. To mar the atom is to mar the mass. To preserve itself, therefore, society is to preserve the individuality of the individual.
Such is its general purpose: this involves several particulars. One is purely negative in its form,—To prevent men from hurting one another. In early ages, that was the chief business of society which men had become conscious of. Society was recognized as an instrument to help accomplish two things: first, to defend itself against other societies or collections of men, and so preserve the integrity of the mass. This was done by means of armies, forts, fleets, and all the artillery of war. The next thing was, within itself, to defend the many feeble from the few that are strong, or the few strong from the many weak; to preserve the integrity of the individuals, the atoms which compose the mass. This was done by statutes of prohibition, declaring, "Thou shalt not." This defence from foreign or domestic harm involves two things: first, the protection of the person, the substance of the community or the individual; and, next, the protection of the property, the accident of the social or individual person. All this may be comprised in one term as the negative function of society, appearing in two modes, as it protects from foreign or domestic hurt. This function is performed consciously: one community says to other communities, "You shall not hurt me," and to its own members, "You must not hurt one another," and knows what it is about in so doing. Some of the nations of Europe have scarcely got beyond this; their government seems to acknowledge no function but this negative one.
Then comes the positive function of society. That is, To furnish opportunities for the mass, as such, to develop itself; and the individual, as such, to develop himself, individually and socially, and exercise all his faculties in his own way; subject only to this rule, that he hurts nobody else. See how this is done abroad between society and society. This community agrees with others, that they, mutually, shall not only not injure each other, but positively help one another. "Protect my citizens by your statutes, whilst in your land; and I will do the same with yours," says Belgium to France. That is agreed upon. "Let my ships into your harbors," says England, "come whence they may, and with what they may bring; and I will do the same by yours." America says, "Agreed;" and it is so to the good of both. Thus each Christian nation secures for itself opportunities for development in all other Christian countries, and so helps the person, and also his property. This is done by treaties; and each nation has its ministers and consuls to lie abroad, and help accomplish this work. This is the foreign part of the positive function of society, and is destined to a great expansion in times to come.
See how it is done at home, and the whole furnishes positive helps to the special parts. Society establishes almshouses, hospitals, schools, colleges, churches, and post-offices; coins money as a standard measure of all values; builds roads of earth, of water, or of iron; carries letters; surveys the land; prints books telling of its minerals, plants, and living things that swim or creep or fly or walk; puts light-houses along the coast, and breakwaters to protect a port. Thus society furnishes its members a positive help for the mind, body, and estate; helps the individual become a complete and perfect man, by affording him facilities for the development of his substance, and the possession of his accidents. This is the domestic part of the positive function of society. Some men, as the socialists in France, wish to extend it much further, making the government patriarchal to bless,—not, as of old, despotic to curse. This also is done with a distinct self-consciousness of the immediate end and the means thereto.