A principle which has entered deeply into the systems of the writers on political law is that of the duty of governments to watch over the manners of the people. 'Government' say they, 'plays the part of an unnatural step mother, not of an affectionate parent, when she is contented by rigorous punishments to avenge the commission of a crime, while she is wholly inattentive beforehand to imbue the mind with those virtuous principles which might have rendered punishment unnecessary. It is the business of a sage and patriotic magistracy to have its attention ever alive to the sentiments of the people, to encourage such as are favourable to virtue, and to check, in the bud, such as may lead to disorder and corruption.
How long shall government be employed to display its terrors without ever having recourse to the gentleness of invitation? How long shall she deal in retrospect and censure to the utter neglect of prevention and remedy?'
These reasonings have, in some respects, gained additional strength by means of the latest improvements, and clearest views, upon the subject of political truth. It is now more evident than it was in any former period that government, instead- of being an object of secondary consideration, has been the principal vehicle of extensive and permanent evil to mankind.
It was unavoidable therefore to say 'since government can produce so much positive mischief, surely it can do some positive good'.
But these views, however specious and agreeable they may in the first instance appear, are liable to very serious question. If we would not be seduced by visionary good, we ought here, more than ever, to recollect the fundamental principles laid down and illustrated in the work, 'that government is, in all cases, an evil', and 'that it ought to be introduced as sparingly as possible'. Man is a species of being whose excellence depends upon his individuality; and who can be neither great nor wise but in proportion as he is independent.
But, if we would shut up government within the narrowest practicable limits, we must beware how we let it loose in the field of opinion. Opinion is the castle, or rather the temple, of human nature; and, if it be polluted, there is no longer anything sacred or venerable in sublunary existence.
In treating of the subject of political obedience, we settled, perhaps with some degree of clearness, the line of demarcation between the contending claims of the individual and of the community. We found that the species of obedience which sufficiently discharged the claims of the community was that which is paid to force, and not which is built upon a sentiment of deference; and that this species of obedience was, beyond all others, least a source of degeneracy in him that paid it. But, upon this hypothesis, whatever exterior compliance is yielded, opinion remains inviolate.
Here then we perceive in what manner the purposes of government may be answered, and the independence of the individual suffer the smallest degree of injury. We are shown how government, which is, in all cases, an evil, may most effectually be limited as to the noxiousness of its influence.
But, if this line be overstepped, if opinion be rendered a topic of political superintendence, we are immediately involved in a slavery to which no imagination of man can set a termination. The hopes of our improvement are arrested; for government fixes the mercurialness of man to an assigned station. We can no longer enquire or think; for enquiry and thought are uncertain in their direction, and unshackled in their termination. We sink into motionless inactivity and the basest cowardice; for our thoughts and words are beset on every side with penalty and menace.
It is not the business of government, as will more fully appear in the sequel, to become the preceptor of its subjects. Its office is not to inspire our virtues, that would be a hopeless task; it is merely to check those excesses which threaten the general security.
But, though this argument ought perhaps to be admitted as sufficiently decisive of the subject under consideration, and cannot be set aside but upon grounds that would invalidate all the reasonings of this work, yet the prejudice in favour of the political superintendence of opinion has, with some persons, been so great, and the principle, in some of its applications, has been stated with such seeming plausibility, as to make it necessary that we should follow it in these applications, and endeavour in each instance to expose its sophistry.
In the meantime it may not be improper to state some further reasons in confirmation of the general unfitness of government as a superintendent of opinion.
One of these may be drawn from the view we have recently taken of society considered as an agent. A multitude of men may be feigned to be an individual, but they cannot become a real individual. The acts which go under the name of the society are really the acts now of one single person and now of another. The men who by turns usurp the name of the whole perpetually act under the pressure of encumbrances that deprive them of their true energy. They are fettered by the prejudices, the humours, the weakness and the vice of those with whom they act; and, after a thousand sacrifices to these contemptible interests, their project comes out at last, distorted in every joint, abortive and monstrous. Society therefore, in its corporate capacity, can by no means be busy and intrusive with impunity, since its acts must be expected to be deficient in wisdom.
