The difference between an inorganic and an organic body lies in this:--In
the first--a sheaf of corn--the whole is nothing more than a collection of
the individual parts or phenomena. In the second--a man--the whole is the
effect of, or results from, the parts; it--the whole--is every thing, and
the parts are nothing.
A State is an idea intermediate between the two--the whole being a result
from, and not a mere total of, the parts, and yet not so merging the
constituent parts in the result, but that the individual exists integrally
within it. Extremes, especially in politics, meet. In Athens each
individual Athenian was of no value; but taken altogether, as Demus, they
were every thing in such a sense that no individual citizen was any thing.
In Turkey there is the sign of unity put for unity. The Sultan seems
himself the State; but it is an illusion: there is in fact in Turkey no
State at all: the whole consists of nothing but a vast collection of
neighbourhoods.
* * * * *
When the government and the aristocracy of this country had subordinated
_persons to things_, and treated the one like the other,--the poor, with
some reason, and almost in self-defence, learned to set up _rights_ above
_duties_. The code of a Christian society is, _Debeo, et tu debes_--of
Heathens or Barbarians, _Teneo, teneto et tu, si potes_.[1]
[Footnote 1:
"And this, again, is evolved out of the yet higher idea of _person_ in
contradistinction from _thing_, all social law and justice being grounded
on the principle that a person can never, but by his own fault, become a
thing, or, without grievous wrong, be treated as such; and the distinction
consisting in this, that a thing may be used altogether, and merely as the
_means_ to an end; but the person must always be included in the _end_; his
interest must always form a part of the object,--a _mean_ to which he, by
consent, that is, by his own act, makes himself. We plant a tree, and we
fell it; we breed the sheep, and we shear, or we kill it,--in both cases
wholly as means to _our_ ends: for trees and animals are things. The
woodcutter and the hind are likewise employed as _means_; but on agreement,
and that too an agreement of reciprocal advantage, which includes them as
well as their employer in the _end_; for they are persons. And the
government under which the contrary takes place is not worthy to be called
a state, if, as in the kingdom of Dahomey, it be unprogressive; or only by
anticipation, where, as in Russia, it is in advance to a better and more
_manworthy_ order of things."--_Church and State_, p. 10.]
* * * * *
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But
passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a
lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!
_December_ 27. 1831.