That which is true of nations is so of classes and of individuals composing classes. Every community has its natural aristocracy, its superior men and women. These constitute the top of the pyramid of Society; and comprise those in whom intellectual powers, moral purposes, and practical capacities are most highly developed and combined. Below them comes the somewhat larger body of persons who are less endowed in respect to the qualities just enumerated. Below these comes, in turn, the still greater congregation who are still less gifted; and so on, the number increasing as the range of general capacity decreases, until we reach the layer which embodies the great mass of Society; who, though measurably affectionate, well-intentioned, and docile, are ignorant, superstitious, and simple minded, wanting in any large degree of high moral purpose, and constantly prone to the development of the vicious and depraved passions incident to this lower stratum of life.
It is evident that to meet the needs of these widely different grades of individuals, widely different manners, customs, and institutions are indispensable. Culture, delicacy, and intelligence have their own attractions, which are wholly diverse from those of crudeness, coarseness, and simplicity. The surroundings which would bring happiness to the lover of art or the man of large mental endowment, would render miserable the peasant who still lacked the development to appreciate the elegancies of refinement; while the tidy cottage and plain comforts which might constitute the paradise of the humble and illiterate rustic, would be utterly inadequate to the requirements of larger and more highly organized natures.
The Constitution and Structure of Society should be of such a nature, therefore, for the purposes of human growth and happiness, as to allow the needs and wants of every one of its members to be adequately supplied. As yet there has been no such arrangement of our social organization. In nations governed by Monarchical or Aristocratic rule, the institutions of the country are made to satisfy the demands of the privileged classes; with scarcely any reference to the wants of the masses. In Democratic communities, the opposite method is adopted; and the character of their public organizations and of their public opinion—the latter always the most despotic of institutions—is determined by the average notions of the middle class, which ordinarily furnishes the bulk of the voters; with little consideration to the desires of the higher or the necessities of the lower orders.
The institutions of any people, civil or religious, are, therefore, representative, in the main, of the state of development of the dominant and controlling class in the community. In a Monarchical or Aristocratic nation it is the upper portion of the body politic whose condition is chiefly indicated. In this case, the manners, customs, laws, etc., of the country are in advance of the great body of the people, who have yet to grow up to them. In Democratic states, the manners, customs, laws, etc., conform to the stage of advancement which the majority of the people have reached. They are thus above the level of the lower classes, who are not sufficiently developed to participate in their full benefits; and below the capacity of the superior ranks, who, though fitted for the right use and enjoyment of more liberal and higher social adaptations, are nevertheless obliged to cramp their natures and dwarf their activities to the measure of the capacities of the more numerous circle of citizens.
Three classes have thus far been named as the personnel of any Society. There is, however, a body of individuals which, although made up of persons from the three classes above indicated, constitute, in a peculiar sense, a distinct order. This includes the Philosophers, Poets, Scientists—the Thinkers of all kinds—who are in advance of the best institutions of either Monarchical or Democratic countries; who see farther into the future than even the great bulk of men of intelligence and high development; who especially understand the transient nature and inadequate provisions of existing societies, and feel the need of better conditions for intellectual, social, and moral growth.
It is from this body of men that the incentives to progress chiefly spring. They behold the errors which encumber old systems—they are, indeed, too apt to conceive them as wholly composed of errors. To them, the common and current beliefs appear to be simply superstitious. It irks them that humanity should wallow in its ignorance and blindness. They chafe and fret against the organizations which embody and foster what they are firmly convinced is all false. The Church is, in their eyes, only a vast agglomeration of priests, some of them self-deceived through ignorance; most of them not so, but deliberately bolstering up an obsolete faith for place, profit, and power. The State, both as existing in the past and now, is likewise, in their understanding, a tremendous engine of tyranny, keeping the light of knowledge from the masses; withholding liberty; and hindering the prosperity of mankind.
That there is much truth in such opinions, too much by far, is not to be denied. That Society needs regeneration in all departments of its life—political, religious, industrial, and social—is plainly apparent. But there is an essential omission in the kind of reform which is spontaneously taking place at this time, and which is lauded by Mill, Buckle, Spencer, Draper, and the advanced Thinkers of the day generally, as the true direction in which change should be made; an omission which will bring Society to disastrous revolution, even, it may be, to fatal overthrow, unless supplied.
The tendency of modern reform in reference to the institutions of Church and State—and these, in the sense in which they are here used, include all other institutions—is, as has been said, to do away with the former altogether, and to restrict the latter to the sole functions of protection of person and property. Reformatory ideas come, it has also been said, from that small circle of men and women in Society, who are in advance of the general development of the age even as represented in the superior class—meaning by this, the class which, in the average estimate, occupies the highest position; as, for instance, the Aristocracy in England, and the Wealthy Families of America.
Human Society, in all its Institutions, has been, thus far in the history of the world, a thing of spontaneous, instinctual, or automatic growth. There has never been and is not to-day, so far as is publicly known, any Science of Social Organization; any System of Laws or Principles embodying the true mode of Social Construction. There has not been, in other words, any discovery of the right Principles upon which the affairs of mankind should be conducted in reference to their mutual relationships; and hence, there is no real knowledge, but only conjecture, of what are the right relations. Might has always been the accepted Right and the only Standard of Right in the regulation of Society. The opinions of the Ruling Power give tone to human thought and action. While Kings and Oligarchies were in the ascendency, the Standard of Right—the King's or the Oligarchs' will—were based on his or their ideas of right. Later, when the People secured the conduct of their own affairs, the voice of the Majority became the voice of God, as expressed in the popular motto: Vox populi, vox Dei.
Having then no Standard of true Social Organization, it is natural, though short sighted, that the reformatory party—perceiving the insufficiencies and drawbacks of our present Societary Arrangements, feeling that they have no need of the Governmental and Religious institutions of the day, that these are, indeed, rather hindrances than aids to their progress—should think that the people of the whole world, of the civilized nations, or of one civilized nation, at least, were in like state of preparation, and that those Institutions could be safely and advantageously dispensed with. There could scarcely be a greater mistake. There are but comparatively few individuals in the world who are so highly developed in their intellectual and moral capacities, and in practical ability also, as to be competent to be a law unto themselves in the general conduct of life. The great mass of mankind, even in the most advanced communities, need still the guiding hand of a wisely constituted and really paternal Government, and the religious admonitions of a true priesthood. The greatest danger with which Society is threatened in modern times, arises from the lack of these essential concomitants of any high civilization. The degradation, squalor, ignorance, and brutality of the lowest classes; the irreverence, disrespect, dishonesty, and moral blindness of the middle orders; and the apathy, heartlessness, unscrupulousness, selfishness, cupidity, and irreligion of the upper stratum of Society, are alike due to the absence of a rightly organized State, which should command the allegiance, and of a rightly constituted Church, which should absorb the devotion, of the whole community.