And so, every time we object to a thing being
done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at
all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against
education altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would
have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about
by the State--then we are against equality, &c., &c. They might as well
accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the
cultivation of corn by the State.
How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it does
not contain--prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science,
religion--should ever have gained ground in the political world? The
modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found
their different theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more
strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human
brain.
They divide mankind into two parts. Men in general, except one, form the
first; the politician himself forms the second, which is by far the most
important.
In fact, they begin by supposing that men are devoid of any principle of
action, and of any means of discernment in themselves; that they have no
moving spring in them; that they are inert matter, passive particles,
atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode
of existence, susceptible of receiving, from an exterior will and hand,
an infinite number of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and
perfected.
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