Doubtful it may be, whether it should be called dimness of understanding, or rather perverse ingenuity, that men reason thus, when the facts are:  So general is the disposition to abuse power, that wherever it is accumulated, it will surely be abused; accordingly it must be distributed as equally as possible.  If government be made the business of one part of the community—­one tenth, or one hundredth, or one thousandth—­that part will inevitably exalt self, at the cost of the others.  So strong is self-love, turned towards temporal interests, so acute to discern what tends to the one desired end, and so sure to bend every thing that way, that men’s temporal interests are pretty safe in their own hands, and safe no where else.  Now the legitimate end of civil government being, to secure the temporal welfare of all, all must have a share in it, or the excluded portions must find their rights neglected.

It may have favored the common mistake, that the leaders in successful republican movements have so often shown a heroic self-devotion and disinterestedness—­men like Luther, and Washington.  But these are the exceptions, the rare gems of humanity.  If they were the fair specimens, their work would never have been needed.  Then we might leave to a class the regulation, whether of our spirituals or temporals, with the like advantage, that we leave the making of our watches or our shoes to their respective trades.  But the indistinct apprehension, why the advantages of the division of labor fail in the matter of government, accords well with the observation, that republican principles make slow progress in the world, are held in gross inconsistencies; and the most zealous assertors thereof in one department, are oft found most strenuously opposed in others.

It is thus that we are so slow to conform to one rule, our arrangements for spiritual instruction; for preserving health; for preventing crime; for cheaply, expeditiously, and satisfactorily settling disputed claims; for furnishing the whole people with instruction in their rights, interests, and duties; as well as that thorough cultivation of the whole man, which the full success of republicanism requires.

Part III.

Welfare as Dependent on Philosophy.

But the whole office of Policy, in arranging the social relations, supposes the prevalence of an ill-informed and misdirected self-love.  And, accordingly, the second way of attempting the promotion of general welfare is, to convey and impress just estimates of its constituents.  Such is the office of Philosophy:  the study of the truly wise man-wise for the present life—­still leaving out man’s hold on a future, and his relations to his Maker.  What would such an one pursue; as life’s chief ends—­covet, as life’s best goods?

We still suppose self-love to be as really as ever the main-spring to human conduct; but that self-love enlightened, regulated, refine—­ choosing first the goods which satisfy the nobler parts of man’s nature, and on a liberal estimate of the ties which bind society together; in virtue of which, if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.