of the nation, as only an association of individuals in an external order, for certain temporary ends; an existence subsisting only in the secular, and each, therefore, has regarded its course as profane, and the crises of its existence too often have seen their latent or avowed alliance.

The principles of economy have a common ground and application; the laws of commerce and exchange are as wide as the seas on which their ships sail. They are laws which are applied by every nation, but they are not immanent in the organism of the nation, nor determined in its individual existence. Thus the nation may form a treaty of reciprocity in trade, but it can form none of reciprocity in political rights; for the nation, as an organic and moral power, is subsistent in these. There is nothing in the principles of political economy which can become the ground of the separate life of the nation.1

This conception, in its premise and conclusion, corresponds to the preceding; and the characteristic of all is the identity of the nation with the civil corporation, and the rejection of its organic and moral being. These theories become the source not of the constructive energy, but involve the elements of the dismemberment of society. They can apprehend the nation only as the field of individual ambition, and selfish interests, and private ends.

1 "Die burgerliche gesellschaft rein als solche, ist eine Kosmopolitin.". Rothe, Theologische Ethik, vol. ii. p. 123.

CHAPTER III.

THE ORIGIN OF THE NATION AS DEFINED IN THEORIES.

THE Conception of the origin of the nation is necessarily presumed in the conception of its unity and its substance. They alike shape the action of men in the conduct of affairs, and there has been in modern history no more manifest illustration of the relation between the thought and the work of a people. The response has been given in various theories, to the inquiry, Whence does the nation, that is, the organization of society, derive its being, and its unity, and the authority in its government, and its rights, and its powers.

It is not the beginning of the nation, in its historical circumstance, which is the object of this inquiry; and this has been the same, in no separate nations. Their inception, in their external phases, has been as varied as the infinite life of history. The historical beginning may be, for instance, in the growth of a family, and the accession of other families, or in the planting of a colony, or in the migration of a race, and so on. But there is in this only the incident of their historical inauguration, and we do not attain to the origin of the nation, nor of its unity, nor the authority in its government, nor its rights and powers. The characteristic of these various propositions in review is their lack of consistence with the necessary conception of the nation; they are mere abstractions, and their worth is only in their illustration of the necessary conception.

It is said that the nation has its origin in the development of the family: the family is the unit of human society,

and of its organic process in the nation; and in the explication of the family the nation is formed. The right in which the government of the nation subsists, is then also the right of the father, and the people who form the nation. are related to the government as its children.

It is true that the family is the unitary form of society, but it is not therefore the only form, nor determinative of the whole. The nation is not the continuation of the family, nor is it the result simply of its extension, nor is it in its form necessarily correspondent to it. The organism in its perfectness cannot transcend its germ or spore, and the family in its widest development is still only the family. The nation is not necessarily implanted in the family, but it is itself an organism; it has its seed in itself, and the condition of its development is in its own organic unity and the conformance to its organic law.

The rights and powers which belong to the nation also transcend those of the family. The authority in each is different from the other, and while the latter in its form is absolute, and obedience is rendered to it as to an imperative, the former is the determination of the organic will as law, and obedience to it is in the conscious obligation to law. The rights of the former, also, are private rights, and its power is private power as an estate, as it is also indeed when power is held as the property and entail, of a patrimonial prince or an hereditary aristocracy; but in the nation there are public rights, and its power is vested as a public trust. The duties of the family are also in implicit obedience to one, who is the father of the house, but in the nation there are public duties.

The right which is the ground of the government of the family, cannot become that of the government of the nation. The government of the family rests in the right of the father to govern his child, but this is necessarily limited to those who are his children, and cannot justify the extension of his authority over those who are not his

children. When it is thus extended over the children of another, it conflicts with the unity of the family and its authority in its natural head, and wherever, in the organization of society, it has been transposed beyond its natural limits, it has sought its justification in a civil conception, and in some legal fiction, as that of adoption.

The nation is over the family, and the latter in its relation to it is subordinate. The father is responsible to the nation for the manner in which he may exercise his authority in the family, and the relations of the latter, and the obedience of the child, are to be sustained and enforced by its law. It prescribes the age when the child may be withdrawn from the formal authority of the father, and even in earlier years it may take the child from him when it deems necessary, and institute a guardianship over it.1 The right of the nation, therefore, instead of residing in the right of the father, holds the latter in subjection.

This proposition is often stated thus, that the nation has its origin in the association of certain separate families. It is derived from the existence of a certain number of families, separated from all others, and connected by marriage among themselves. But this does not necessarily transcend the limits of a tribal relation, and does not attain to the nation. It does not correspond to its historical institution and course. It is, for instance, descriptive of the plebeian or the patrician organization in Rome; but neither of these was Rome.

The evidence of history is, that where society has not passed beyond the development of the family, there has been no national existence. With the long dynasties and vast populations in Asia, where society has adhered to the patriarchal type, there has been no nation, no citizenship,

1 "Society must suffer if the child is allowed to grow up a worthless vagabond or a criminal, and has a right to intervene both in behalf of itself and of the child, in case his parents neglect to train him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or are training him up to be a thief, a drunkard, a murderer, a pest to community." - Brownson, The American Republic, p. 41.

and no political freedom. Their life has been characterized by the absence of political spirit.

There is yet a truth which underlies this conception of the origin of the nation; and while the latter does not exist in identity with the family, and is not formed simply in its continuance, there is still a necessary connection; their origin and end is not diverse. They exist in an organic and moral interrelation, and the nation has its fruition in the life of humanity, in the universal family. It rests in the unity of humanity in the divine fatherhood; and therefore not with vague and unmeaning phrases, but as its end, it looks to the brotherhood of men and the fraternity of the nations, in the order of the world.

It is said that the nation has its origin in mere might: it is founded upon force; it is the right of the stronger, as superior, to control the weaker, as inferior.

But this involves the immediate contradiction to the being of the nation. The nation is constructive of an order in law and freedom. There is the subjection of barren force to right, and authority in it is wrested from the rude hand of power and placed in the hand of justice, and the conquest of civilization is in the manifestation of power no longer, as mere force, but in the recognition of a law of righteousness. The conception is subversive of rights, for these necessarily presume another postulate than mere force.

There is in mere force no element from which progress can be evolved, but in the prospect of its prevalence there is the awakening of dread, and by it man is not ennobled but subdued. There is the rejection of a principle of humanity. The law of justice is unrecognized, and the procedure of justice is leveled beneath its iron tread, and in a condition in which no asylum is sacred from its invasion, the place of equity is usurped by its authority.

It is so immediate a contradiction to the being of the