Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/332

322 their concomitants, pains, and privations, the lash and thumbscrew, the dungeon, fagot, and gibbet, all based upon the undoubted belief that the human will is free and that a sufficient punishment will turn it. This is one aspect of the case, that of considering society and its organ, government, as a homogeneous compact actuated by a desire for the public good. But the major truth of history concerning government, whatever its manifestoes, is, that it is now and has been for all time an ever-varying resultant of the contending impulses, passions, sentiments, and aspirations of mankind; an establishment whereby the dominant forces or classes in society control and exploit the rest. Looking at it with an optimistic eye," we think there are signs of improvement, of evolution if you wish, by which the masses are gradually emerging from the ancient thraldom of ignorance and superstition and asserting their equal and inalienable rights. Not that human beings are any more inclined to relinquish the possession of power and privilege than formerly; not that they are more shocked at the sight of cruelty, rapine, and war, but that they have a clearer and larger view of social and governmental relations and a more extensive worldfraternity or cosmopolitanism. Some have asserted a general and large increase of altruistic feeling to account for the liberalizing tendency of governments and peoples, but this is unproven. Now, as of old, there are philanthropists and moral philosophers who point and lead the way to justice, but the conflicts of selfishness urge in the same direction. As Lincoln said of politics that "it is an aggregation of meannesses for the public good," so we can say with equal cynicism and truth that governments in general are the representative heads of privileges, operating in the name of the State and yielding upon compulsion to the demands of those who have been despoiled. The English people have a liberal and, in many respects,