The
poetry of all nations is a wail over unrealized ideals. It is
little that even the wisest and most potent statesman can realize
of what he conceives to be necessary for the state: political,
legislative or judicial reforms, even when loudly demanded, and
favored by authority, are hard to be effected, and not seldom
generations come and go without effecting them. The republics of
Plato, Sir Thomas More, Campanella, Harrington, as the
communities of Robert Owen and M. Cabet, remain Utopias, not
solely because intrinsically absurd, though so in fact, but
chiefly because they are innovations, have no support in
experience, and require for their realization the modes of
thought, habits, manners, character, life, which only their
introduction and realization can supply. So to be able to
execute the design of passing from the supposed state of nature
to civilization, the reformer would need the intelligence, the
habits, and characters in the public which are not possible
without civilization itself. Some philosophers suppose men have
invented language, forgetting that it requires language to give
the ability to invent language.
Men are little moved by mere reasoning, however clear and
convincing it may be. They are moved by their affections,
passions, instincts, and habits. Routine is more powerful with
them than logic.
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