yields to nobler considerations, than the calculations of self-interest.
In the corporation, the _esprit du corps_--the clannish
spirit--is sure to master it over public spirit. Devotion to the
honor, aggrandizement, wealth and power of the order, company, or
corporation, is more sure to control their acts as individuals. It is
less liable to self-rebuke for conscious meanness. It looks somewhat
more like the public spirit which ought to be. It is less liable to
occasional counteractions from impulses of honor, humanity, or regard
to reputation.

Accordingly a body of men, so constituted as to find its best flourish
short of the perfection of the whole social system, will inevitably,
sooner or later, prove an obstacle to the onward march of improvement.

A corporation is not necessarily a grievance and a sore on the body
politic. If it can have its full flourish, without let to the progress
of society, it may be harmless or beneficent.

"_Sooner or later_;" be this condition marked, in estimating the
spiritual policy of Rome. The body of reverends, which mediates
between God and men, finds its best flourish, in just such degree of
popular intelligence as suffices for comprehending the specious
arguments, on which rest the claims of Holy Mother Church; and such
amount of conscientiousness as galls the offender, till he has
purchased absolution. More intelligence generally prevailing, and
better appreciation of the divine law as a living rule of duty, would
abate the awe in which the priesthood is held, and diminish the
revenues accruing from mediating between offending man and his offended
Maker. But Christianity found the world sunk below this moderate
standard of intelligence and morals. The best flourish of the
priesthood required in the people cultivation of understanding and
conscience, up to the point of caring for their account in heaven's
record. So the faulty relation between priesthood and people did not
at once appear in the results; and, accordingly, the weight of the
qualification, _sooner or later_.

But in the early growth of society, considerations like the above have
been little attended to, compared with the obvious advantages of the
division of labor. As ordinarily each handicraft is best exercised by
those earliest and steadiest in their devotion to the trade; so it is
argued, universally, that the several departments of the public service
will be best attended to, by being left to the