I consider the freedom or moral strength of the individual mind as the
supreme good, and the highest end of government. I am aware that other
views are often taken. It is said that government is intended for the
public, for the community, not for the individual. The idea of a
national interest prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is
thought that the individual may be sacrificed. But I would maintain that
the individual is not made for the State so much as the State for the
individual. A man is not created for political relations as his highest
end, but for indefinite spiritual progress, and is placed in political
relations as the means of his progress. The human soul is greater, more
sacred than the State, and must never be sacrificed to it. The human
soul is to outlive all earthly institutions. The distinction of nations
is to pass away. Thrones which have stood for ages are to meet the doom
pronounced upon all man's works. But the individual mind survives, and
the obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to power never wielded
by earthly potentates.
A human being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of
the body, or as a wheel is a part of a machine, intended only to
contribute to some general joint result. He was created not to be merged
in the whole, as a drop in the ocean or as a particle of sand on the
seashore, and to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being,
made for his own perfection as his highest end; made to maintain an
individual existence, and to serve others only as far as consists with
his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments have tended greatly to
obscure this importance of the individual, to depress him in his own
eyes, to give him the idea of an outward interest more important than
the invisible soul, and of an outward authority more sacred than the
voice of God in his own secret conscience. Rulers have called the
private man the property of the State, meaning generally by the State
themselves; and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have
even believed that this was their highest destination. These views
cannot be too earnestly withstood. Nothing seems to me so needful as to
give to the mind the consciousness, which governments have done so much
to suppress, of its own separate worth. Let the individual feel that
through his immortality he may concentrate in his own being a greater
good than that of nations. Let him feel that he is placed in the
community, not to part with his individuality or to become a tool, but
that he should find a sphere for his various powers, and a preparation
for immortal glory. To me the progress of society consists in nothing
more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness
of his own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his
own mind.
In thus maintaining that the individual is the end of social
institutions, I may be thought to discourage public efforts and the
sacrifice of private interests to the State. Far from it. No man, I
affirm, will serve his fellow-beings so effectually, so fervently, as he
who is not their slave; as he who, casting off every other yoke,
subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind. For this law
enjoins a disinterested and generous spirit, as man's glory and likeness
to his Maker. Individuality, or moral self-subsistence, is the surest
foundation of an all-comprehending love. No man so multiplies his bonds
with the community, as he who watches most jealously over his own
perfection. There is a beautiful harmony between the good of the State
and the moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so,
were these interests in any case discordant, were an individual ever
called to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought not
to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer. Property, life,
he should joyfully surrender to the State. But his soul he must never
stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the rack, the gibbet, he should
not recoil; but for no good of others ought he to part with
self-control, or violate the inward law. We speak of the patriot as
sacrificing himself to the public weal. Do we mean that he sacrifices
what is most properly himself, the principle of piety and virtue? Do we
not feel that however great may be the good which through his sufferings
accrues to the State, a greater and purer glory redounds to himself; and
that the most precious fruit of his disinterested services is the
strength of resolution and philanthropy which is accumulated in his own
soul?...
The advantages of civilization have their peril. In such a state of
society, opinion and law impose salutary restraint, and produce general
order and security. But the power of opinion grows into a despotism,
which more than all things represses original and free thought,
subverts individuality of character, reduces the community to a
spiritless monotony, and chills the love of perfection. Religion,
considered simply as the principle which balances the power of human
opinion, which takes man out of the grasp of custom and fashion, and
teaches him to refer himself to a higher tribunal, is an infinite aid to
moral strength and elevation.
An important benefit of civilization, of which we hear much from the
political economist, is the division of labor, by which arts are
perfected. But this, by confining the mind to an unceasing round of
petty operations, tends to break it into littleness. We possess improved
fabrics, but deteriorated men. Another advantage of civilization is,
that manners are refined and accomplishments multiplied; but these are
continually seen to supplant simplicity of character, strength of
feeling, the love of nature, the love of inward beauty and glory. Under
outward courtesy we see a cold selfishness, a spirit of calculation, and
little energy of love.
I confess I look round on civilized society with many fears, and with
more and more earnest desire that a regenerating spirit from heaven,
from religion, may descend upon and pervade it. I particularly fear that
various causes are acting powerfully among ourselves, to inflame and
madden that enslaving and degrading principle, the passion for property.
For example, the absence of hereditary distinctions in our country gives
prominence to the distinction of wealth, and holds up this as the chief
prize to ambition. Add to this the epicurean, self-indulgent habits
which our prosperity has multiplied, and which crave insatiably for
enlarging wealth as the only means of gratification. This peril is
increased by the spirit of our times, which is a spirit of commerce,
industry, internal improvements, mechanical invention, political
economy, and peace. Think not that I would disparage commerce,
mechanical skill, and especially pacific connections among States. But
there is danger that these blessings may by perversion issue in a
slavish love of lucre. It seems to me that some of the objects which
once moved men most powerfully are gradually losing their sway, and thus
the mind is left more open to the excitement of wealth. For example,
military distinction is taking the inferior place which it deserves: and
the consequence will be that the energy and ambition which have been
exhausted in war will seek new directions; and happy shall we be if
they do not flow into the channel of gain. So I think that political
eminence is to be less and less coveted; and there is danger that the
energies absorbed by it will be spent in seeking another kind of
dominion, the dominion of property. And if such be the result, what
shall we gain by what is called the progress of society? What shall we
gain by national peace, if men, instead of meeting on the field of
battle, wage with one another the more inglorious strife of dishonest
and rapacious traffic? What shall we gain by the waning of political
ambition, if the intrigues of the exchange take place of those of the
cabinet, and private pomp and luxury be substituted for the splendor of
public life? I am no foe to civilization. I rejoice in its progress. But
I mean to say that without a pure religion to modify its tendencies, to
inspire and refine it, we shall be corrupted, not ennobled by it. It is
the excellence of the religious principle, that it aids and carries
forward civilization, extends science and arts, multiplies the
conveniences and ornaments of life, and at the same time spoils them of
their enslaving power, and even converts them into means and ministers
of that spiritual freedom which when left to themselves they endanger
and destroy.
In order, however, that religion should yield its full and best fruit,
one thing is necessary; and the times require that I should state it
with great distinctness. It is necessary that religion should be held
and professed in a liberal spirit. Just as far as it assumes an
intolerant, exclusive, sectarian form, it subverts instead of
strengthening the soul's freedom, and becomes the heaviest and most
galling yoke which is laid on the intellect and conscience. Religion
must be viewed, not as a monopoly of priests, ministers, or sects, not
as conferring on any man a right to dictate to his fellow-beings, not as
an instrument by which the few may awe the many, not as bestowing on one
a prerogative which is not enjoyed by all; but as the property of every
human being and as the great subject for every human mind. It must be
regarded as the revelation of a common Father to whom all have equal
access, who invites all to the like immediate communion, who has no
favorites, who has appointed no infallible expounders of his will, who
opens his works and word to every eye, and calls upon all to read for
themselves, and to follow fearlessly the best convictions of their own
understandings. Let religion be seized on by individuals or sects, as
their special province; let them clothe themselves with God's
prerogative of judgment; let them succeed in enforcing their creed by
penalties of law, or penalties of opinion; let them succeed in fixing a
brand on virtuous men whose only crime is free investigation--and
religion becomes the most blighting tyranny which can establish itself
over the mind. You have all heard of the outward evils which religion,
when thus turned into tyranny, has inflicted; how it has dug dreary
dungeons, kindled fires for the martyr, and invented instruments of
exquisite torture. But to me all this is less fearful than its influence
over the mind. When I see the superstitions which it has fastened on the
conscience, the spiritual terrors with which it has haunted and subdued
the ignorant and susceptible, the dark appalling views of God which it
has spread far and wide, the dread of inquiry which it has struck into
superior understandings, and the servility of spirit which it has made
to pass for piety--when I see all this, the fire, the scaffold, and the
outward inquisition, terrible as they are, seem to me inferior evils. I
look with a solemn joy on the heroic spirits who have met, freely and
fearlessly, pain and death in the cause of truth and human rights. But
there are other victims of intolerance on whom I look with unmixed
sorrow. They are those who, spell-bound by early prejudice or by
intimidations from the pulpit and the press, dare not think; who
anxiously stifle every doubt or misgiving in regard to their opinions,
as if to doubt were a crime; who shrink from the seekers after truth as
from infection; who deny all virtue which does not wear the livery of
their own sect; who, surrendering to others their best powers, receive
unresistingly a teaching which wars against reason and conscience; and
who think it a merit to impose on such as live within their influence,
the grievous bondage which they bear themselves. How much to be deplored
is it, that religion, the very principle which is designed to raise men
above the judgment and power of man, should become the chief instrument
of usurpation over the soul!