"--III. 28.
The fifth Essay discusses the _Origin of Government_:--
"Man, born in a family, is compelled to maintain society from
necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit. The same
creature, in his farther progress, is engaged to establish
political society, in order to administer justice, without which
there can be no peace among them, nor safety, nor mutual
intercourse. We are therefore to look upon all the vast apparatus
of our government, as having ultimately no other object or purpose
but the distribution of justice, or, in other words, the support of
the twelve judges. Kings and parliaments, fleets and armies,
officers of the court and revenue, ambassadors, ministers and privy
councillors, are all subordinate in the end to this part of
administration. Even the clergy, as their duty leads them to
inculcate morality, may justly be thought, so far as regards this
world, to have no other useful object of their institution."--(III.
37.)
The police theory of government has never been stated more tersely:
and, if there were only one state in the world; and if we could be
certain by intuition, or by the aid of revelation, that it is wrong for
society, as a corporate body, to do anything for the improvement of its
members and, thereby, indirectly support the twelve judges, no objection
could be raised to it.
Unfortunately the existence of rival or inimical nations furnishes
"kings and parliaments, fleets and armies," with a good deal of
occupation beyond the support of the twelve judges; and, though the
proposition that the State has no business to meddle with anything but
the administration of justice, seems sometimes to be regarded as an
axiom, it can hardly be said to be intuitively certain, inasmuch as a
great many people absolutely repudiate it; while, as yet, the attempt to
give it the authority of a revelation has not been made.
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