The error
of modern philosophers, or philosopherlings, is in supposing the
principle is deduced or inferred from the fact, and in denying
that the human mind has direct and immediate intuition of it.
Something that transcends the sensible order there must be, or
there could be no development; and if we had no science of it, we
could never assert that development is development, or
scientifically explain the laws and conditions of development.
Development is explication, and supposes a germ which precedes
it, and is not itself a development; and development, however far
it may be carried, can never do more than realize the
possibilities of the germ. Development is not creation, and
cannot supply its own germ. That at least must be given by the
Creator, for from nothing nothing can be developed. If authority
has not its germ in nature, it cannot be developed from nature
spontaneously or otherwise. All government has a governing will;
and without a will that commands, there is no government; and
nature has in her spontaneous developments no will, for she has
no personality. Reason itself, as distinguished from will, only
presents the end and the means, but does not govern; it
prescribes a rule, but cannot ordain a law. An imperative will,
the will of a superior who has the right to command what reason
dictates or approves, is essential to government; and that will
is not developed from nature, because it has no germ in nature.
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