But the greater part of this positive work is done with no such distinct consciousness thereof: it is brought about by the men living together; is done, not by government, but by society. The presence of numbers increases the intellectual temperature, so to say, and quickens the social pulse. Machines are invented, science extended, new truths in morals and religion are found out, literature and art create new loveliness, and men become greater and more noble, while society takes no heed; and so all are helped. The government often only checks this work.
By most subtle contrivances, though not of you and me, a provision is made for the great. Without willing it, we prepare a cradle for every giant, ready to receive him soon as he is born. A young woman has a rare genius for music; no legal and constitutional provision has been made for her, society having no instinctive and prophetic consciousness of such an advent; but men with music in their souls, and spell-bound by their ears, are drawn together, and encourage her sweet soul into all the wildest, sweetest, and most bewildering witchery of song. If some lad of marvellous genius is born in the woods, men seek him out, and train him up with the accumulated wisdom of ten thousand years, that this newest diamond from the mine of God may be appropriately set. So it is with a thousand other things; and thus society calls out the dainties of the cook, the machine of the inventor, the orator's persuasive power, the profound thought of the thinker, the poet's vision and his faculty divine, the piety of the highest saint God sends. Thus, spite of all the Herods in Jerusalem, a crown is got ready for him that is born King of the world; wise men are always waiting for the star which goes before the new-born Son of God; and, though that star stand still over a stable, they are ready on the spot with their myrrh, their frankincense, and their gold. Society has its shepherds watching their flock, and its angels to proclaim the glad tidings of great joy to all mankind.
While society, in its positive function, thus helps the strong, it provides also for the weak, and gives them the benefit of the strong man's protection: thus the individuality of the ablest and the most feeble is defended at the same time. This is done in part by private charity; in part also by the organized public charity. The sick, the poor, the crazy, the lame, the blind, the deaf, are sacredly cared for. Even the fool is not left in his folly, but the wisdom of society watches over his impotent and wretched brain. Thus the two extremes of the human race are provided for: the man of vast genius and a tough body gets his culture and his place; and from his station in the senate, the pulpit, or the closet, sends out his thunder, his lightning, or his sunshine over all the land, to save the people and to bless; while the lame man, the lunatic woman, the blind boy, the poor and sickly little girl, born with the scrofulous worm feeding on her cheek,—all have the benefit of the manifold power of society. The talent of a Webster, the genius of an Emerson, the frailty of an unacknowledged child left on the doorstone at night, to die next month in the almshouse, all have their place in the large cradle of society, whose coverlet wraps them all,—the senator, the poet, and the fool. Attend a meeting of the alumni of Harvard College, of the heads of the railroads or factories of New England, a convention of merchants, naturalists, metaphysicians, of the senate of the nation, you see how society gives place and protection to the best heads in the State. Then go to some house of industry, and see the defence afforded for the worst; you see what a wonderful contrivance society itself is. I say a contrivance, yet it is not the contrivance chiefly of Solon or Charlemagne, but of Almighty God; a contrivance for three things,—To prevent men from hurting one another in person or property; to give the strong and the weak the advantage of living together; and thus to enable each to have a fair chance for the development of his person and the acquisition of property. The mechanism of society, with its statical and dynamical laws, is the most marvellous phenomenon in the universe. Thereby we are continually building wiser than we know, or rather the providence of the Father builds by us, as by the coral insect of Pacific Seas, foundations for continents which we dream not of.
These three things are the general end of society, and indispensable to the purpose of life. To attain them, there must be a certain amount of individual variety of action, a certain amount of social unity of action; and the two must be to a certain degree balanced into equilibrium. The larger the amount of individual variety and social unity of action, the more complete the equilibrium of the two, the more completely is the purpose of individual and social life accomplished and attained: the atom is not sacrificed to the mass, nor the mass to the atom; the individual gains from being a citizen, the citizen from his individuality; all are the better for each, and each for all.
To accomplish this purpose, men devise certain establishments,—institutions, constitutions, statutes—human machinery for attaining the divine end in the individual and the social form. But here is the condition of existence which all these establishments must conform to. Every thing in nature has a certain constant mode of action: this, we call a law of nature. The laws of nature are universal, unchangeable, and perfect as God, whose mind they in part express. To succeed in any thing, we must find out and keep the natural laws relating thereto. There are such laws for the individual,—constant modes of action which belong to human nature, writ therein by God. My mind and conscience are the faculties by which I learn these laws. Conscience perceives by instinct; mind sees afterwards by experiment. There are also such laws for society, constant modes of action, which belong to human nature in its social form. They are also written in the nature of man. The mind and conscience of the individuals who make up the society are the faculties by which these laws likewise are found out. These laws, constant modes of individual or social action, are the sole and exclusive basis of human establishments which help attain the end of individual and social life. What conforms to these natural rights is called right; what conforms not, is wrong. A mill-dam or a monument must conform to the statical laws of matter, or not serve the purpose it was meant for; a mill or a steam-engine must conform to the dynamical laws of matter, or it is also useless. So all the social establishments of mankind, designed to further the positive or negative functions of society, must conform to the laws of human nature, or they will fail to achieve the purposes of individual and social life.
As I come to individual self-consciousness, I give utterance to these natural laws, or my notion of them, in certain rules of conduct which I make for myself. I say, "This will I do, for it is right; that will I not do, for it is wrong." These are my personal resolutions, personal statutes. I make them in my high act of prayer, and in my common life seek to conform thereto. When I rise higher, in another act of prayer which has a greater experience for its basis and so represents more life, I shall revise the old rules of conduct, and make new ones that are better. The rules of conduct derive all their objective and real value from their conformity with the law of God writ in my nature; all their subjective and apparent value, from their conformity to my notions of the law of God. The only thing which makes it right, and an individual moral duty for me to keep my resolutions, is, that they themselves are right, or I believe them so. Now, as I see they are wrong, or think I see it, I shall revise or change them for better. Accordingly, I revise them many times in my life: now by a gradual change, the process of peaceful development; now by a sudden change, under conviction of sin, in penitence for the past, and great concern of mind for the future, by the process of personal revolution. But these rules of conduct are always provisional,—my ladder for climbing up to the purposes of individual life. I will throw them away as soon as I can get better. They are amenable subjectively to my notion of right, and objectively to right itself,—to conscience and to God.
As the individuals, all, the majority, or some controlling men, come to social self-consciousness, they express these natural laws, or their notion thereof, in certain rules of social conduct. They say, "This shall all men do, for it is right; that shall no man do, for it is wrong." The nation makes its social resolutions, social statutes, in its act of prayer; for legislation is to the State what prayer is to the man,—often an act of penitence, of sorrow, of fear, and yet of faith, hope, and love. When it rises higher, it revises and makes better rules of conduct: they derive all their objective and real value from their conformity with the law of God; all their subjective and apparent value, from their conformity with the nation's notion thereof. The only thing which makes it right, and a social moral duty for society, or any of its members, to keep these social statutes, is that they are right, or thought so. In the progress of society, its rules of conduct get revised a good many times: now it is done by gradual, peaceful development; now by sudden and stormy revolutions, when society is penitent for the sin of the past, and in great anxiety and concern of mind through fear of the future. These social statutes are only provisional, to help men climb up to the purpose of social life. They are all amenable subjectively to the notion of right; objectively to right itself,—to the conscience of the individuals and to God.
Then society appoints officers whose special conventional function is to see to the execution of these social rules of conduct. They are legally amenable to the rules of conduct they are to carry out; socially amenable to the community that appoints them; individually amenable to their own conscience and to God.
To sum up all this in one formula: Officers are conventionally amenable to society; society, with its officers and its rules of conduct, amenable to the purpose of society; the design of individual life, to the individuals that compose it; individuals, with their rules of conduct, amenable each to his own conscience; and all to the law of the universe, to the Eternal Right, which represents the conscience of God. So far as society is right, government right, statutes right, officers right, all may justly demand obedience from each: for though society, government, statutes, and officers are mere human affairs, as much so as farms, fences, top-dressing, and reapers, and are as provisional as they; yet Right is divine, is of God, not merely provisional and for to-day, but absolute and for eternity. So, then, the moral duty to respect the government, to keep the statutes, to obey the officers, is all resolvable into the moral duty of respecting the integrity of my own nature, of keeping the eternal law of nature, of obeying God. If government, statutes, officers, command me to do right, I must do it, not because commanded, but because it is right; if they command me to do wrong, I must refuse, not because commanded, but because it is wrong. There is a constitution of the universe: to keep that is to preserve the union between man and man, between man and God. To do right is to keep this constitution: that is loyalty to God. To keep my notion of it is loyalty to my own soul. To be false to my notion thereof is treason against my own nature; to be false to that constitution is treason against God. The constitution of the universe is not amenable to men: that is the law of God, the higher law, the constant mode of action of the infinite Father of all. In that He lives and moves, and has His being.