The Advantages Of Government

It is impossible to change or correct anything material in our nature.

The utmost we can do is to:

• change our circumstances and situation, and
• render the observance of the laws of justice our nearest interest, and their violation our most remote.

But this is impractical with respect to all mankind.

It can only take place with a few who are interested in the execution of justice.

Civil magistrates, kings, ministers, governors, and rulers are indifferent persons to most of the state.

They have no interest or but a remote one, in any act of injustice.

They have an immediate interest in every execution of justice as they are satisfied with their:

• present condition, and
• part in society.

Here then is the origin of civil government and society.

Men are not able radically to cure that narrowness of soul in themselves or others.

This narrowness makes them prefer the present to the remote.

They cannot change their natures.

All they can do is to:

• change their situation, and
• render the:
  • observance of justice the immediate interest of some persons, and
  • violation of justice their more remote interest.

These persons, then, are induced to:

• observe those rules in their own conduct,
• constrain others to a like regularity, and
• enforce the dictates of equity throughout the society.

If needed, they may also:

• interest others more immediately in the execution of justice if it is necessary, and
• create civil and military officers to assist them in their government.

The Advantages Of Government

This execution of justice is the principal advantage of government.

But it is not the only one.

Violent passions hinder men from distinctly seeing the interest they have in an equitable behaviour towards others.

It hinders them from seeing that equity itself.

It gives them a remarkable partiality in their own favours.

This inconvenience is corrected in the same manner as that above-mentioned.

Those who execute the laws of justice will also decide all controversies concerning them.

They will decide them more equitably than everyone would in his own case, as they are indifferent to most of the society.

Through these 2 advantages in the execution and decision of justice, men acquire a security against the weaknesses and passions of each other and of their own.

Under the shelter of their governors, they taste at ease the sweets of society and mutual assistance.

But government extends farther its beneficial influence.

It is not contented to protect men in those conventions they make for their mutual interest.

It often:

• obliges them to make such conventions, and
• forces them to seek their own advantage, by a concurrence in some common end or purpose.

The quality in human nature which causes the most fatal errors in our conduct is the quality which:

• leads us to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote, and
• makes us desire objects more according to their situation than their intrinsic value.

Two neighbours may agree to drain a meadow they jointly own.

Because it is easy for them to know each other’s mind.

Each must see that the failure to do his part would cause the whole project to be abandoned.

But it is impossible that 1,000 persons should agree in any such action.

It is difficult for them to concert so complicated a design.

It is still more difficult for them to execute it while each seeks to:

• free himself of the trouble and expence, and
• lay the whole burden on others.

Political society easily remedies both these inconveniences.

Magistrates find an immediate interest in the interest of any considerable part of their subjects.

They consult only themselves to form any scheme to promote that interest.

The failure of any one piece in the execution is connected with the failure of the whole, though not immediately.

They prevent that failure because they find no immediate nor remote interest in it.

Thus, bridges are built, harbours opened, ramparts raised, canals formed, fleets equipped, and armies disciplined everywhere by the care of government.

Government is composed of men subject to all human infirmities.

But it becomes by one of the finest and most subtle inventions imaginable.

It is a composition exempted from all these infirmities.