The American Republic [32]
oak is in the acorn, but the acorn left to itself alone can never grow into the oak, any more than a body at rest can place itself in motion. Lay the acorn away in your closet, where it is absolutely deprived of air, heat, and moisture, and in vain will you watch for its germination. Germinate it cannot without some external influence, or communion, so to speak, with the elements from which it derives its sustenance and support.
There can be no absolutely spontaneous development. All things are doubtless active, for nothing exists except in so far as it is an active force of some sort; but only God himself alone suffices for his own activity. All created things are dependent, have not their being 92 in themselves, and are real only as they participate, through the creative act, of the Divine being. The germ can no more be developed than it could exist without God, and no more develop itself than it could create itself. What is called the law of development is in the germ; but that law or force can operate only in conjunction with another force or other forces. All development, as all growth, is by accretion or assimilation. The assimilating force is, if you will, in the germ, but the matter assimilated comes and must come from abroad. Every herdsman knows it, and knows that to rear his stock he must supply them with appropriate food; every husbandman knows it, and knows that to raise a crop of corn, be must plant the seed in a soil duly prepared, and which will supply the gases needed for its germination, growth, flowering, boiling, and ripening. In all created things, in all things not complete in themselves, in all save God, in whom there is no development possible, for He is, as say the schoolmen, most pure act, in whom there is no unactualized possibility, the same law holds good. Development is always the resultant of two factors, the one the thing itself, the other some external force co-operating with it, exciting it, and aiding it to act. 93 Hence the praemotio physica of the Thomists, and the praevenient and adjuvant grace of the theologians, without which no one can begin the Christian life, and which must needs be supernatural when the end is supernatural. The principle of life in all orders is the same, and human activity no more suffices for itself in one order than in another.
Here is the reason why the savage tribe never rises to a civilized state without communion in some form with a people already civilized, and why there is no moral or intellectual development and progress without education and instruction, consequently without instructors and educators. Hence the value of tradition; and hence, as the first man could not instruct himself, Christian theologians, with a deeper philosophy than is dreamed of by the sciolists of the age, maintain that God himself was man's first teacher, or that he created Adam a full-grown man, with all his faculties developed, complete, and in full activity. Hence, too, the heathen mythologies, which always contain some elements of truth, however they may distort, mutilate, or travesty them, make the gods the first teachers of the human race, and ascribe to their instruction even the most simple and ordinary arts of every-day life. 94 The gods teach men to plough, to plant, to reap, to work in iron, to erect a shelter from the storm, and to build a fire to warm them and to cook their food. The common sense, as well as the common traditions of mankind, refuses to accept the doctrine that men are developed without foreign aid, or progressive without divine assistance. Nature of herself can no more develop government than it can language. There can be no language without society, and no society without language. There can be no government without society, and no society without government of some sort.
But even if nature could spontaneously develop herself, she could never develop an institution that has the right to govern,
There can be no absolutely spontaneous development. All things are doubtless active, for nothing exists except in so far as it is an active force of some sort; but only God himself alone suffices for his own activity. All created things are dependent, have not their being 92 in themselves, and are real only as they participate, through the creative act, of the Divine being. The germ can no more be developed than it could exist without God, and no more develop itself than it could create itself. What is called the law of development is in the germ; but that law or force can operate only in conjunction with another force or other forces. All development, as all growth, is by accretion or assimilation. The assimilating force is, if you will, in the germ, but the matter assimilated comes and must come from abroad. Every herdsman knows it, and knows that to rear his stock he must supply them with appropriate food; every husbandman knows it, and knows that to raise a crop of corn, be must plant the seed in a soil duly prepared, and which will supply the gases needed for its germination, growth, flowering, boiling, and ripening. In all created things, in all things not complete in themselves, in all save God, in whom there is no development possible, for He is, as say the schoolmen, most pure act, in whom there is no unactualized possibility, the same law holds good. Development is always the resultant of two factors, the one the thing itself, the other some external force co-operating with it, exciting it, and aiding it to act. 93 Hence the praemotio physica of the Thomists, and the praevenient and adjuvant grace of the theologians, without which no one can begin the Christian life, and which must needs be supernatural when the end is supernatural. The principle of life in all orders is the same, and human activity no more suffices for itself in one order than in another.
Here is the reason why the savage tribe never rises to a civilized state without communion in some form with a people already civilized, and why there is no moral or intellectual development and progress without education and instruction, consequently without instructors and educators. Hence the value of tradition; and hence, as the first man could not instruct himself, Christian theologians, with a deeper philosophy than is dreamed of by the sciolists of the age, maintain that God himself was man's first teacher, or that he created Adam a full-grown man, with all his faculties developed, complete, and in full activity. Hence, too, the heathen mythologies, which always contain some elements of truth, however they may distort, mutilate, or travesty them, make the gods the first teachers of the human race, and ascribe to their instruction even the most simple and ordinary arts of every-day life. 94 The gods teach men to plough, to plant, to reap, to work in iron, to erect a shelter from the storm, and to build a fire to warm them and to cook their food. The common sense, as well as the common traditions of mankind, refuses to accept the doctrine that men are developed without foreign aid, or progressive without divine assistance. Nature of herself can no more develop government than it can language. There can be no language without society, and no society without language. There can be no government without society, and no society without government of some sort.
But even if nature could spontaneously develop herself, she could never develop an institution that has the right to govern,