Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/352

338 of wealth already acquired and the acquisition of a yet higher good. Sensual pleasure yields, in a measure, to intellectual pleasure, the acquisition of money to the acquisition of learning.

Where brute intelligence is the order of the day, man requires no more governing than brutes, but when lands are divided, and the soil cultivated, when wealth begins to accumulate and commerce and industry to flourish, then protection and lawful punishment become necessary. Like the wild-horse, leave him free, and he will take care of himself; but catch him and curb him, and the wilder and stronger he is the stronger must be the curb until he is subdued and trained, and then he is guided by a light rein. The kind of government makes little difference, so that it be strong enough.

Granted that it is absolutely essential to the first step toward culture that society should be strongly governed, how is the first government to be accomplished; how is one member of a passionate, unbridled heterogeneous community to obtain dominion absolute over all the others? Here comes in another evil to the assistance of the former evils, all for future good—superstition. Never could physical force alone compress and hold the necessary power with which to burst the shell of savagism. The government is but a reflex of the governed. Not until one man is physically or intellectually stronger than ten thousand, will an independent people submit to a tyrannical government, or a humane people submit to a cruel government, or a people accustomed to free discussion to an intolerant priesthood.

At the outset, if man is to be governed at all, there must be no division of governmental force. The cause for fear arising from both the physical and the supernatural must be united in one individual. In the absence of the moral sentiment, the fear of legal and that of spiritual punishments are identical, for the spiritual is feared only as it works temporal or corporal evil. Freedom of thought at this stage is incompatible with progress, for thought without experience is dangerous, tending toward anarchy. Before men can govern themselves they must be subjected to the sternest discipline of government; and whether this government be just, or humane, or pleasant, is of small consequence, so that it be only strong enough. As with polity, so with morality and religion: conjointly with despotism there must be an arbitrary central church government, or moral anarchy is the inevitable consequence. At the outset it is not for man to rule, but to obey; it is not for savages, who are children in intellect, to think and reason, but to believe.

And thus we see how wonderfully man is provided with the essentials of growth. This tender germ of progress is preserved in hard shells and prickly coverings, which, when they have served their purpose, are thrown aside, as not only useless but detrimental to further development. We know not what will come hereafter, but up