638 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



beginning with infancy and continued through life, of which whatcvei' else 

 it might include, one main and incessant ingredient was restraining disci- 

 pline. To train the human being in the habit, and thence the power, of 

 subordinating his personal impulses and aims to what were considered the 

 ends of society ; of adhering, against all temptation, to the course of con- 

 duct which those ends prescribed ; of controlling in himself all feelings 

 which were liable to militate against those ends, and encouraging all such 

 as tended toward them ; this was the purpose, to which every outward 

 motive that the authority directing the system could command, and every 

 inward power or principle which its knowledge of human nature enabled 

 it to evoke, were endeavored to be rendered instrumental. The entire civ- 

 il and military policy of the ancient commonwealths was such a system 

 of training ; in modern nations its place has been attempted to be supplied, 

 principally, by religious teaching. And whenever and in proportion as the 

 strictness of the restraining discipline was relaxed, the natural tendency 

 of mankind to anarchy re-asserted itself; the state became disorganized 

 from within ; mutual conflict for selfish ends, neutralized the energies 

 which were required to keep up the contest against natural causes of evil ; 

 and the nation, after a longer or briefer interval of progressive decline, be- 

 came either the slave of a despotism, or the prey of a foreign invader. 



" The second condition of permanent political society has been found to 

 be, the existence, in some form or other, of the feeling of allegiance or loy- 

 alty. This feeling may vary in its objects, and is not confined to aiiy par- 

 ticular form of government; but whether in a democracy or in a mon- 

 archy, its essence is always the same; viz., that there be in the constitution 

 of the state something which is settled, something pormanent, and not to 

 be called in question ; something which, by general agreement, has a right 

 to be where it is, and to be secure against disturbance, whatever else may 

 change. This feeling may attach itself, as among the Jews (and in most 

 of the commonwealths of antiquity), to a common God or gods, the pro- 

 tectors and guardians of their state. Or it may attach itself to csei'tain per- 

 sons, who are deemed to be, whether by divine appointment, by long pre- 

 scription, or by the general recognition of their superior capacity and 

 worthiness, the rightful guides and guardians of the rest. Or it may con- 

 nect itself with laws; with ancient liberties or ordinances. Or, finally, 

 (and this is the only shape in which the feeling is likely to exist hereafter), 

 it may attach itself to the principles of individual freedom and political and 

 social equality, as realized in institutions which as yet exist nowhere, or ex- 

 ist only in a rudimentary state. But in all political societies which have 

 had a durable existence, there has been some fixed point: something which 

 people agreed in holding sacred ; which, wherever freedom of discussion 

 was a recognized principle, it was of course lawful to contest in theory, but 

 which no one could either fear or hope to see shaken in practice; which, in 

 short (except perhaps during some temporary crisis), was in the common 

 estimation placed beyond discussion. And the necessity of this may easily 

 be made evident. A state never is, nor until mankind are vastly improved, 

 can hope to be, for any long time exempt from internal dissension ; for 

 there neither is nor has ever been any state of society in which collisions 

 did not occur between the immediate interests and passions of powerful 

 sections of the people. What, then, enables nations to weather these 

 storms, and pass through turbulent times without any permanent weaken- 

 ing of the securities for peaceable existence? Precisely this — that how- 

 ever important the interests about which men fell out, the conflict did not 



