December 18. 1831
A State — Persons and Things — History
The difference between an inorganic and an organic body lies in this:—In the first—a sheaf of corn—the whole is nothing more than a collection of the individual parts or phenomena. In the second—a man—the whole is the effect of, or results from, the parts; it—the whole—is every thing, and the parts are nothing.
A State is an idea intermediate between the two—the whole being a result from, and not a mere total of, the parts, and yet not so merging the constituent parts in the result, but that the individual exists integrally within it. Extremes, especially in politics, meet. In Athens each individual Athenian was of no value; but taken altogether, as Demus, they were every thing in such a sense that no individual citizen was any thing. In Turkey there is the sign of unity put for unity. The Sultan seems himself the State; but it is an illusion: there is in fact in Turkey no State at all: the whole consists of nothing but a vast collection of neighbourhoods.
When the government and the aristocracy of this country had subordinated persons to things, and treated the one like the other,—the poor, with some reason, and almost in self-defence, learned to set up rights above duties. The code of a Christian society is, Debeo, et tu debes—of Heathens or Barbarians, Teneo, teneto et tu, si potes.1
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!
December 27. 1831.
Beauty — Genius
The old definition of beauty in the Roman school of painting was, il più nell’ uno—multitude in unity; and there is no doubt that such is the principle of beauty. And as one of the most characteristic and infallible criteria of the different ranks of men’s intellects, observe the instinctive habit which all superior minds have of endeavouring to bring, and of never resting till they have brought, into unity the scattered facts which occur in conversation, or in the statements of men of business. To attempt to argue any great question upon facts only, is absurd; you cannot state any fact before a mixed audience, which an opponent as clever as yourself cannot with ease twist towards another bearing, or at least meet by a contrary fact, as it is called. I wonder why facts were ever called stubborn things: I am sure they have been found pliable enough lately in the House of Commons and elsewhere. Facts, you know, are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are not even premisses, but in the nature and parts of premisses. The truth depends on, and is only arrived at, by a legitimate deduction from all the facts which are truly material.
December 28. 1831.
Church — State — Dissenters
Even to a church,—the only pure democracy, because in it persons are alone considered, and one person à priori is equal to another person,—even to a church, discipline is an essential condition. But a state regards classes, and classes as they represent classified property; and to introduce a system of representation which must inevitably render all discipline impossible, what is it but madness-the madness of ignorant vanity, and reckless obstinacy?
I have known, and still know, many Dissenters, who profess to have a zeal for Christianity; and I dare say they have. But I have known very few Dissenters indeed, whose hatred to the Church of England was not a much more active principle of action with them than their love for Christianity. The Wesleyans, in uncorrupted parts of the country, are nearly the only exceptions. There never was an age since the days of the apostles, in which the catholic spirit of religion was so dead, and put aside for love of sects and parties, as at present.
January 1. 1832.
Gracefulness of Children — Dogs
How inimitably graceful children are in general before they learn to dance!
There seems a sort of sympathy between the more generous dogs and little children. I believe an instance of a little child being attacked by a large dog is very rare indeed.
Notes
1 “And this, again, is evolved out of the yet higher idea of person in contradistinction from thing, all social law and justice being grounded on the principle that a person can never, but by his own fault, become a thing, or, without grievous wrong, be treated as such; and the distinction consisting in this, that a thing may be used altogether, and merely as the means to an end; but the person must always be included in the end; his interest must always form a part of the object,—a mean to which he, by consent, that is, by his own act, makes himself. We plant a tree, and we fell it; we breed the sheep, and we shear, or we kill it,—in both cases wholly as means to our ends: for trees and animals are things. The woodcutter and the hind are likewise employed as means; but on agreement, and that too an agreement of reciprocal advantage, which includes them as well as their employer in the end; for they are persons. And the government under which the contrary takes place is not worthy to be called a state, if, as in the kingdom of Dahomey, it be unprogressive; or only by anticipation, where, as in Russia, it is in advance to a better and more manworthy order of things.”—Church and State, p. 10.