In almost every phase of life, this doctrine of political
altruists is equally impracticable and pernicious. In its social
results, it involves the substitution of the community in the
family's present position. In its political aspects, it involves
the absolute dominion of the State over the actions and property
of its subjects. Thus, though claiming to be an exaltation of
the so-called natural rights of liberty and equality, it is in
reality their emphatic debasement. It teaches that thoughtless
docility is a recompense for stunted enterprise. It magnifies
material good at the cost of every rational endowment. It
inculcates a self-denial that must result in dwarfing the
individual to a mere instrument in the hands of the State for the
benefit of his fellows. No such organization of society-no
organization that fails to take note of the fact that man must
have scope for the exercise and development of his faculties-no
such organization of society can ever reach a permanent success.
However beneficent its motives, the hypothesis with which it
starts can never be realized. The aphorism of Emerson, "Churches
have been built, not upon principles, but upon tropes," is as
true in the field of politics as it is in the field of religion.
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