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Read Ebook: Critiques and Addresses by Huxley Thomas Henry
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"All the culture and art which adorn humanity, the most refined social order, are produced by that unsociability which is compelled by its own existence to discipline itself, and so by enforced art to bring the seeds implanted by nature into full flower."
In these passages, as in others of this remarkable tract, Kant anticipates the application of the "struggle for existence" to politics, and indicates the manner in which the evolution of society has resulted from the constant attempt of individuals to strain its bonds. If individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.
But when men living in society once become aware that their welfare depends upon, two opposing tendencies of equal importance--the one restraining, the other encouraging, individual freedom--the question "What are the functions of Government?" is translated into another--namely, What ought we men, in our corporate capacity, to do, not only in the way of restraining that free individuality which is inconsistent with the existence of society, but in encouraging that free individuality which is essential to the evolution of the social organization? The formula which truly defines the function of Government must contain the solution of both the problems involved, and not merely of one of them.
Locke has furnished us with such a formula, in the noblest, and at the same time briefest, statement of the purpose of Government known to me:--
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