Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/264

260 tho most successful nation which has an exceptional class of men, highly cultured, well-bodied, well-minded, well-born, well-bred, at the one end of society; and at the other a mighty multitude, an instantial class, poor, ill-born, ill-bred, ill-bodied, and ill-minded, too, as in England; but that is the most successful nation which has tho whole body of its people well-born, well-bred, well-bodied, and well-minded, too; and those are the best institutions which accomplish this best; those worst, which accomplish it least. The government, the society, the school, or the church, which does this work, is a good government, society, school, or church; that which does it not, is good for nothing.

As with men, so with nations. Each has a certain object of chief desire, which object prevails over others. The nation is not conscious of it,—less so, indeed, than the individual; but, silently, it governs the nation's life. Sometimes this chief desire is the aggrandizement of the central power,—the monarchy; it was so once in France; but, God be praised! is not so now. Then devotion to the king's person was held as the greatest national excellence, and disrespect for the king was treason, the greatest national crime. The people must not dare to whisper against their king. Sometimes it is the desire to build up an aristocracy. It was once so in Yenice. It may be an aristocracy of priests, of soldiers, of nobles, or an aristocracy of merchants. Sometimes it is to build up a middle class of gentry, as in Basel and Berne. It may be a military desire, as in ancient Rome; it may be ecclesiastical ambition, as in modern Rome; or commercial ambition, as in London and many other places.

The chief object of desire is not always the same in the course of a nation's history. A nation now greatens the centripetal power, strengthening the king and weakening the people; now it greatens the centrifugal power, weakening the king and strengthening; the people. But, commonly, you see some one desire runs through all the nation's history, only modified by its youth, or manhood, or old age, and by circumstances which re-act upon the nation as the nation acts upon them.

This chief object of desire may be permanent, and so govern the whole nation tor all its history. Or it may be, on the other hand, a transient desire, which is to govern