582 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



what were considered the ends of society; of adhering, against all 

 temptation, to the course of conduct which those ends prescribed; of 

 controlHng in himself all those feelings which were liable to militate 

 against those ends, and encouraging all such as tended towards them; , 

 this was the purpose, to which every outward motive that the authority 

 directing the system could command, and every inward power or prin- 

 ciple which its knowledge of human nature enabled it to evoke, were 

 endeavored to be rendered instrumental. This system of discipline 

 wrought, in the Grecian states, by the conjunct influences of religion, 

 poetry, and law; among the Romans, by those of religion and law; in 

 modern and Christian countries, mainly by religion, with little of the 

 direct agency, but generally more or less of the indirect support and 

 countenance, of law. And whenever and in proportion as the strict- 

 ness of this discipline was relaxed, the natural tendency of mankind to 

 anarchy reasserted 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 inter\-al of progressive decline, became 

 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 loyalty. This feeling may vary in its objects, and is not 

 confined to any particular form of government ; but whether in a 

 democracy or in a monarchy, its essence is always the same ; viz., 

 that there be in the constitution of the state something which is settled, 

 something permanent, 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 indeed in most of the com- 

 monwealths of antiquity), to a common God or gods ; the protectors 

 and guardians of their state. Or it may attach itself to certain persons, 

 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 

 attach itself to laws ; to ancient liberties, or ordinances ; to the whole 

 or some part of the political, or even the domestic, institutions of the 

 state. But in all political societies which have had a durable existence, 

 there has been some fixed point; something which men agreed in 

 holding sacred ; which it might or might not be 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 temporaiy 

 crisis), was in the common estimation placed above 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 tho 

 immediate interests and passions of powei-ful sections of the people. 

 "What, then, enables society to weather these storms, and pass througlj 

 turbulent times without any permanent weakening of the ties which 

 hold it together % Precisely this — that however important tho interests 

 about which men fall out, the conflict does not affect tho fundamental 

 principles of the system of social union which happens to exist ; nor 

 threaten large portions of the community with the subversion of that 



