nation compromises its civilization, and lies open either to anarchy or conquest, or both. Governmental progress is never made by radical destruction or suppression of established order, with a view to evolve a new organization, giving up historic advantages. Gradual modification is the condition of true progress, for no constitution or organization is of any value, unless it is the work of ages.
In order to guarantee security and respect for individual rights, the government derives a certain amount of force from the nation, and this force makes up the power of the state. The value of a government is to be estimated by the difference between what it costs and the benefits it secures. If we would know what is the value of French political institutions, for instance, we have only to estimate the value of our present capital, and compare it with what we should have were our institutions at an end. Hence, we see that political institutions are a true civilizing force, as yielding an excess of utility over expenditure.
A political society is an organism, and the individuals may be regarded as elementary cellules. Social progress consists in the increasing adaptation of individuals, which results from the separation of functions and the division of labor. Just as, in the lower grades of the physiological scale, one organ will discharge many very diverse functions, so, in the more imperfect forms of society, the government discharges every kind of office, as that of the soldier, priest, school-master, tutor, manufacturer, agriculturist, merchant, banker. The great problem is, to determine what is to be done by the state, what by other forces. The government will be more effective in proportion as it is freed from the embarrassment of diverse functions.
From this point of view we should say that France has departed from the path of progress in two directions: First, her revolutions have unduly weakened the government; second, public opinion has unduly favored the extension of governmental interference. The result of the first is, that no government in France is sufficiently strong; the result of the second, that government is entangled in affairs from which it were better freed, and every schemer and visionary is clamoring for government assistance to work out his plans.
Every ephemeral constitution we have had, has to-day a factious party ready to do battle for it. Thus, every administration finds itself surrounded with a coalition of minorities. Time alone can give authority to any constitution.
Not less serious are the consequences of Utopianism which would shape the state according to every fantastic notion. All forms of socialism strive to enlarge the action of society; and communism, its latest development, seeks to absorb the individual in the state. Governments have often unconsciously yielded to the influence of these dreams, as we see where they favor protection, state interference in religious matters, and in the direction of art and science, etc.
The university, too, is to blame for our disasters. Its metaphysics
