his faith say to a believer of this kind. A certain bigotry is altogether
natural to him. His creed seems to him a primitive fact, as certain and
evident as the stars. The political faith (for it is a faith) of these
persons is of a kind analogous. The virtue of loyalty assumes in them a
passionate aspect, and overflows, as it were, all the intellect which
belongs to the topic. This virtue, this need of our nature, arises, as
political philosophers tell us, from the conscious necessity which man is
under of obeying an external moral rule. We feel that we are by nature
and by the constitution of all things under an obligation to conform to
a certain standard, and we seek to find or to establish in the sphere
without, an authority which shall enforce it, shall aid us in compelling
others and also in mastering ourselves. When a man impressed with this
principle comes in contact with the institution of civil government as
it now exists and as it has always existed, he finds what he wants—he
discovers an authority; and he feels bound to submit to it. We do not, of
course, mean that all this takes place distinctly and consciously in the
mind of the person; on the contrary, the class of minds most subject to
its influence are precisely those which have in general the least defined
and accurate consciousness of their own operations, or of what befalls
them. In matter of fact, they find themselves under the control of laws
and of a polity from the earliest moment that they can remember, and they
obey it from habit and custom years before they know why. Only in later
life, when distinct thought is from an outward occurrence forced upon
them, do they feel the necessity of some such power; and in proportion to
their passionate and impulsive disposition they feel it the more. The law
has in a less degree on them the same effect which military discipline
has in a greater. It braces them to defined duties, and subjects them
to a known authority. Quieter minds find this authority in an internal
conscience; but in riotous natures its still small voice is lost if it be
not echoed in loud harsh tones from the firm and outer world:
‘Their breath is agitation, and their life
A storm whereon they ride.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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