Welfare as Dependent on Policy.

As generally at all points, so the materialism of the age particularly appears, in that the political economists take wealth, defining their science in the vulgar acceptation, rather than in the good old English sense, welfare, well-being. If they occasionally venture a remark of a more liberal bearing on the general subject of public welfare; such is the exception to the general rule. Money, with its equivalents and exchangeables, is their usual theme in treating of wealth; thought the common use of the word economy might suggest a higher science. For he does not exhaust our idea of a good economist, who manages to have at command abundant materials for rendering home happy; while, for lack of wisdom to turn such materials to account, that home may be less happy than the next-door neighbor's, where want is hardly staved off. We exact, for fulfilling that character, wisdom in using the material means—provision for physical, intellectual, and moral training of the household—the just apportionment between labor and recreation-the true contentment, which frets not at present imperfection, while it still presses on to that perfection conceived to be attainable. Our writers on political economy would do well, to give the word as liberal a latitude of sense, as it legitimately assumes, when used in its primitive meaning of household management.

But, rather than attempt to raise a scientific term so much above its received sense, I use another word, and say, Policy must begin with the admission, that self-love is the mightiest mover of human conduct; and not a self-love enlightened, deep, calculating, directed to the sources of fullest contentment; but following the groveling estimate, that riches, power, office, ease, being the object of envy or admiration, are the chief goods of life.

Every business man admits, that his security for men's conduct must be found in their self-interest. He admits thus much practically, so for as his own business is concerned; the exceptions being so rare, as not to justify neglect of the general rule. Yet, neither business men nor politicians grasp the principle clearly, nor consequently apply it consistently. And he who would make a new application of it, is met with charges of great uncharitableness.

This backwardness to generalize a rule, found so necessary practically to be followed, may be resolved into that flattering conceit of human dignity, which is yielded reluctantly, inch by inch, as plain demonstration wrests it away. And further, self-love conceals itself, because generally it operates first to pervert the judgment. The consciousness of preferring private interest to worthier considerations, is too painful to be endured. The man therefore strives, but too successfully, to misrepresent the case to himself. He contrives to make that seem right, which tends to his own advantage. But though indirect, the operation of self-love is none the less sure. Whether the individual be any the less blamable, because self-love assumes this disguise, is not now to be considered.

There are individuals, to whom implicit confidence in their unguarded honesty, proves but an added motive to be more tremulously sensitive, not to abuse such confidence. There are, whom respect for their calling binds wholly to more carefulness, to prove worthy of such respect. So always if one is thoroughly pervaded with the right spirit. But dealing with bodies of men, as men yet are, these two rules should shape political institutions and social relations.

First, so far as men can command confidence and respect, for the sake of birth, calling, or office, so far they are relieved from the necessity of seeking the same by personal qualifications; and accordingly a body of men so protected, will perceptibly fall short of the average, in the staple elements of respectability.

Respect for station or calling so ample is here meant, as to satisfy the average desire of approbation. The extent, to which this is satisfied by the respect paid by the child, to the parent, for the relation's sake, is so moderate, as one of the elements tending to the formation of character, that it may be expected to operate generally as it universally would, where the right spirit fully reigns. The remark holds good, with moderate abatement, in the relation of teacher and pupil.

In the infancy of the Christian church, the relation between pastor and flock was closely analogous to that between parents and children. On the one side were men of a disinterested and paternal spirit, so earnestly living the new life hid with Christ in God, that hardly the possibility could be conceived of a desire to exalt and magnify self, over the ignorance and degradation of their spiritual charge. On the other side were men, children in knowledge, incapable of estimating the ministry simply after the consciousness of benefits received. We are not then to condemn the arrangement, which clothed the ministry with an official dignity, the office being revered independently of the claims of the man; nor to wonder, if the arrangement outlived the necessity, or passed the bounds of moderation; or if it was not fully calculated, the danger, lest men of the primitive spirit yield places to those of an inferior stamp; and how truly eternal vigilance is the cost, at which all things here must be saved from their tendencies to deterioration. Accordingly the history of the Papacy for centuries has been, that its ministers are sure of unbounded respect from the populace, independently of their personal claims. The consequence is, that while a few are thus moved to heroic and almost angelic devotion to the spiritual good of their flocks, the many would never command respect for what they are as men.

Similar remarks may be applied to the infancy of civil society. The prevalence of monarchy and aristocracy has been too universal, to be charged wholly upon force or chance. And yet in the origin, rational considerations can hardly be supposed to have been distinctly entertained. Still there may have been a dim consciousness of thoughts like these: It is so necessary that civil rulers be at all events respected, and so uncertain how to secure due respect to men meriting it, that we must invest a class of men with a factitious official dignity, and take the risk—rather the certainty—of its proving, in most cases, a cover for personal unworthiness, some degrees below the ordinary standard of humanity. If there existed a dim consciousness of such reasoning, it might have been well entertained.

The second rule of Policy—the master maxim of political wisdom—is, that no class of men must be expected to concur heartily, for extirpating the evils, from which its own revenues and importance are derived. Speaking of men acting in a body, there is no room for the many exceptions, necessarily admitted to the rule, that with the individual self-love is the ruling motive. The individual sometimes yields to nobler considerations, than the calculations of self-interest. In the corporation, the esprit du corps—the clannish spirit—is sure to master it over public spirit. Devotion to the honor, aggrandizement, wealth and power of the order, company, or corporation, is more sure to control their acts as individuals. It is less liable to self-rebuke for conscious meanness. It looks somewhat more like the public spirit which ought to be. It is less liable to occasional counteractions from impulses of honor, humanity, or regard to reputation.

Accordingly a body of men, so constituted as to find its best flourish short of the perfection of the whole social system, will inevitably, sooner or later, prove an obstacle to the onward march of improvement.

A corporation is not necessarily a grievance and a sore on the body politic. If it can have its full flourish, without let to the progress of society, it may be harmless or beneficent.

"Sooner or later;" be this condition marked, in estimating the spiritual policy of Rome. The body of reverends, which mediates between God and men, finds its best flourish, in just such degree of popular intelligence as suffices for comprehending the specious arguments, on which rest the claims of Holy Mother Church; and such amount of conscientiousness as galls the offender, till he has purchased absolution. More intelligence generally prevailing, and better appreciation of the divine law as a living rule of duty, would abate the awe in which the priesthood is held, and diminish the revenues accruing from mediating between offending man and his offended Maker. But Christianity found the world sunk below this moderate standard of intelligence and morals. The best flourish of the priesthood required in the people cultivation of understanding and conscience, up to the point of caring for their account in heaven's record. So the faulty relation between priesthood and people did not at once appear in the results; and, accordingly, the weight of the qualification, sooner or later.

But in the early growth of society, considerations like the above have been little attended to, compared with the obvious advantages of the division of labor. As ordinarily each handicraft is best exercised by those earliest and steadiest in their devotion to the trade; so it is argued, universally, that the several departments of the public service will be best attended to, by being left to their respective trades, guilds, faculties, orders, or corporations, each strictly guarded from unhallowed intrusion. So religion has been left to its official functionaries, prescribing articles of belief and terms of salvation by a divine right,—legislation to princes and nobles, equally claiming by the same right to give law in temporals; and so of other general interests.

Now a movement has been slowly going on, through some centuries, for working society into conformity with a rational rule; a rule not overlooking the advantages of the division of labor, but taking in too such qualifying considerations as the healthful stimulus of free competition, watchfulness over public functionaries, and the necessity of harmonizing private and corporate interests, with public duty.

The movement has been slow; for the actors have dimly apprehended the part they were acting, and the principles by themselves vindicated. It has consisted of two principle acts. The Reformation carried republicanism into religion: our own Revolution into legislation. The two movements were parts of one whole; and, to get at the principles at bottom, either will serve for both, as well as for what may remain for finishing the work begun.

The Reformation having been conducted by theologians, it was natural that disproportionate importance should have been attached to theological niceties. So far as Luther was right in regarding the doctrine of justification by faith only as the great article at issue, it must have been, because the opposite doctrine favored the conceit of a mysterious mediating power vested in a priesthood—a conceit so favorable to the aggrandizement of the order thus distinguished. But considered as a politic movement—as an advance in rightly adjusting the social relations—the Reformation aimed principally at that ill arrangement, by which the authorized expounders of the law divine found their account, in involving that law in a glorious uncertainty, and entrapping people in a frequent violation thereof. Considered as a politic institution, Protestantism differs essentially from Popery, in that it makes more of prevention than of remedy; gives the ministry its best flourish, in the best welfare of the whole body; and pays for spiritual health, rather than for spiritual sickness. If all Protestants do not consistently so, the fact accords with the dim understanding, on both sides, of the essential points contested.

This dim understanding further appears, in that after all the political discussion which has been, the success of republican institutions is still appealed to, as vindicating the reign of justice and benevolence in the public mind; mankind have within so much of the divine, are so self-disposed to do right, that they do not need much control, but may pretty safely be left to their own guidance. Nor is it left to the mere demagogue to talk thus.

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.