THE DEATH OF THE BODY POLITIC
Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted
governments. If Sparta and Rome perished, what State can hope to endure
for ever? If we would set up a long-lived form of government, let us
not even dream of making it eternal. If we are to succeed, we must not
attempt the impossible, or flatter ourselves that we are endowing the
work of man with a stability of which human conditions do not permit.
The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as
it is born, and carries in itself the causes of its destruction. But
both may have a constitution that is more or less robust and suited to
preserve them a longer or a shorter time. The constitution of man is
the work of nature; that of the State the work of art. It is not in
men's power to prolong their own lives; but it is for them to prolong
as much as possible the life of the State, by giving it the best
possible constitution. The best constituted State will have an end;
but it will end later than any other, unless some unforeseen accident
brings about its untimely destruction.
The life-principle of the body politic lies in the sovereign authority.
The legislative power is the heart of the State; the executive power
is its brain, which causes the movement of all the parts. The brain
may become paralysed and the individual still live. A man may remain
an imbecile and live; but as soon as the heart ceases to perform its
functions, the animal is dead.
The State subsists by means not of the laws, but of the legislative
power. Yesterday's law is not binding to-day; but silence is taken for
tacit consent, and the Sovereign is held to confirm incessantly the
laws it does not abrogate as it might. All that it has once declared
itself to will it wills always, unless it revokes its declaration.
Why then is so much respect paid to old laws? For this very reason. We
must believe that nothing but the excellence of old acts of will can
have preserved them so long: if the Sovereign had not recognised them
as throughout salutary, it would have revoked them a thousand times.
This is why, so far from growing weak, the laws continually gain new
strength in any well constituted State; the precedent of antiquity
makes them daily more venerable: while wherever the laws grow weak as
they become old, this proves that there is no longer a legislative
power, and that the State is dead.