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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
weak , to do whatever inclination or passion suggests , to seize on whatever lies before men , to be entirely unrestrained in word and deed , is to be the slave of want , to be under the bondage of our own and other men ' s passions , to hold life itself on the most uncertain tenure ,. He who is free to do whatever he likes , is exposed to have inflicted upon him whatever another likes . He who can lay his hand upon whatever he pleases , is liable to have taken from him whatever another pleases . He who can , at will , destroy his
enemy , is subject to be killed at the will of his enemy . He who conceives no security against his own wrong , cannot hold any security against another ' s wrong . Brute strength on the one hand , and cunning , deceit , and treachery on the other , are the qualities most in requisition among savages . The nobler powers of the mind , enlarged and enlightened feelings of benevo « lerice , the direction of the mental and bodily powers to the increase of the blessings of Providence , and the multiplication of their uses , can have no place . Association is almost unknown , or its ties are feeble : each man must suffice for himself as well as he is able .
It is not m such a state that men have the true enjoyment of their liberties . It is the freedom of the wild animals of the forest and the desert , where the strong prey upon the weak , and the cunning upon the simple . Men must first be in such a state of savage freedom , but this was not intended to be their lasting condition ; they have qualities to be developed of a higher nature than can be thus unfolded ; and they are led onward by various steps .
The misery and unfitness of that state of savage freedom in which every man ' s hand is against his neighbours , and he has no security for any thing that he possesses in the world , has been felt by almost . all tribes of human beings , even those most uncivilized , and , they have agreed on some customs and laws by which their community has been regulated . They have found that they could not live entirely independent one of another , and they have associated on such terms as could gain the general consent , Their bond of union has been very imperfect , and their mutual safety has rested on an insecure foundation , but it has been far better than absolute freedom from
restraint : and their government of public opinion was probably the first government which gave its salutary lessons on the true enjoyment of liberty . In pursuing their course towards the happier state for which they are destined , men have passed , and are passing , under various forms of government , suited to the exigencies of the times , and carrying on the great designs concerning the human race which are in the mind of the Eternal Father . But among those forms of government tyranny has for the most part prevailed .
The introduction to tyranny has , in most cases , been the passion for war : foreign conquest has been the cradle of domestic oppression . The victorious general won the affection and admiration of his soldiers , and by their aid usurped authority and established a throne . If the passion for war had not been indulged , it appears as if men might have been spared the miseries of despotism , and , as if public opinion might have continued to govern them with increasing light , might have taught them continually with greater
plainness , that it is social liberty which alone is suited to the nature , wants , and future prospects of mankind , and that social liberty consists in individual restraint . War , however , brought tyranny , tyranny allied itself with superstition , and then claimed its authority jure divino , and royal blood became sacred , and subject blood became ^ as water , to be poured out at the instigation of every caprice . Tyranny itself , however , has not been wanting in its lessons . It has car-
Untitled Article
602 On the proper Use of Government .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 602, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/18/
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