Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/67

Rh Solon or Charlemagne, but of Almighty God; a contrivance for three things—to prevent men from hurting one another in person or property; to give the strong and the weak the advantage of living together; and thus to enable each to have a fair chance for the development of his person and the acquisition of property. The mechanism of society, with its statical and dynamical laws, is the most marvellous phenomenon in the universe. Thereby we are continually building wiser than we know, or rather the providence of the Father builds by us, as by the coral insect of Pacific Seas, foundations for continents which we dream not of.

These three things are the general end of society, and indispensable to the purpose of life. To attain them there must be a certain amount of individual variety of action, a certain amount of social unity of action; and the two must be to a certain degree balanced into equilibrium. The larger the amount of individual variety and social unity of action, the more complete the equilibrium of the two, the more completely is the purpose of individual and social life accomplished and attained: the atom is not sacrificed to the mass, nor the mass to the atom; the individual gains from being a citizen, the citizen from his individuality; all are the better for each, and each for all.

To accomplish this purpose, men devise certain establishments—institutions, constitutions, statutes—human machinery for attaining the Divine end in the individual and the social form. But here is the condition of existence which all these establishments must conform to. Everything in nature has a certain constant mode of action: this we call a law of nature. The laws of nature are universal, unchangeable, and perfect as God, whose mind they in part express. To succeed in anything, we must find out and keep the natural laws relating thereto. There are such laws for the individual—constant modes of action which belong to human nature, writ therein by God. My mind and conscience are the faculties by which I learn these laws. Conscience perceives by instinct: mind sees afterwards by experiment. There are also such laws for society, constant modes of action, which belong to human nature in its social form. They are also written in the