Part 9 (1/2)

5th. The highest problem for the human species, to the solution of which it is irresistibly urged by natural impulses, is the establishment of a universal civil society, founded on the empire of political justice.

6th. This problem is, at the same time, the most difficult of all, and the one which is latest solved by man.

7th. The problem of the establishment of a perfect const.i.tution of society depends upon the problem of a system of international relations, adjusted to law, and apart from this latter problem cannot be solved.

8th. The history of the human race, as a whole, may be regarded as the unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for accomplis.h.i.+ng a perfect state of civil const.i.tution for society in its internal relations (and as the condition of that, by the last proposition, in its external relations also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of human nature can be all and fully developed.

_Sir Thomas More_.--This is indeed a master of the sentences, upon whose text it may be profitable to dwell. Let us look to his propositions.

From the first this conclusion must follow, that as nature has given men all his faculties for use, any system of society in which the moral and intellectual powers of any portion of the people are left undeveloped for want of cultivation, or receive a perverse direction, is plainly opposed to the system of nature, in other words, to the will of G.o.d. Is there any government upon earth that will bear this test?

_Montesinos_.--I should rather ask of you, will there ever be one?

_Sir Thomas More_.--Not till there be a system of government conducted in strict conformity to the precepts of the Gospel.

_Montesinos_.

”Offer these truths to Power, will she obey?

It prunes her pomp, perchance ploughs up the root.”

LORD BROOKE.

Yet, in conformity to those principles alone, it is that subjects can find their perfect welfare, and States their full security. Christianity may be long in obtaining the victory over the powers of this world, but when that consummation shall have taken place the converse of his second proposition will hold good, for the species having obtained its perfect development, the condition of society must then be such that individuals will obtain it also as a necessary consequence.

_Sir Thomas More_.--Here you and your philosopher part company. For he a.s.serts that man is left to deduce from his own una.s.sisted reason everything which relates not to his mere material nature.

_Montesinos_.--There, indeed, I must diverge from him, and what in his language is called the hidden plan of nature, in mine will be the revealed will of G.o.d.

_Sir Thomas More_.--The will is revealed; but the plan is hidden. Let man dutifully obey that will, and the perfection of society and of human nature will be the result of such obedience; but upon obedience they depend. Blessings and curses are set before you--for nations as for individuals--yea, for the human race.

Flatter not yourself with delusive expectations! The end may be according to your hope--whether it will be so (which G.o.d grant!) is as inscrutable for angels as for men. But to descry that great struggles are yet to come is within reach of human foresight--that great tribulations must needs accompany them--and that these may be--you know not how near at hand!

Throughout what is called the Christian world there will be a contest between Impiety and Religion; the former everywhere is gathering strength, and wherever it breaks loose the foundations of human society will be shaken. Do not suppose that you are safe from this danger because you are blest with a pure creed, a reformed ritual, and a tolerant Church! Even here the standard of impiety has been set up; and the drummers who beat the march of intellect through your streets, lanes, and market-places, are enlisted under it.

The struggle between Popery and Protestanism is renewed. And let no man deceive himself by a vain reliance upon the increased knowledge, or improved humanity of the times! Wickedness is ever the same; and you never were in so much danger from moral weakness.

Co-existent with these struggles is that between the feudal system of society as variously modified throughout Europe, and the levelling principle of democracy. That principle is actively and indefatigably at work in these kingdoms, allying itself as occasion may serve with Popery or with Dissent, with atheism or with fanaticism, with profligacy or with hypocrisy, ready confederates, each having its own sinister views, but all acting to one straightforward end. Your rulers meantime seem to be trying that experiment with the British Const.i.tution which Mithridates is said to have tried upon his own; they suffer poison to be administered in daily doses, as if they expected that by such a course the public mind would at length be rendered poison-proof!