st do, I may be too much disturbed by the circumstances
to see so clearly the absurdity of their command. Therefore all public
ends look vague and quixotic beside private ones. For any laws but those
which men make for themselves, are laughable. If I put myself in the
place of my child, and we stand in one thought and see that things are
thus or thus, that perception is law for him and me. We are both there,
both act. But if, without carrying him into the thought, I look over
into his plot, and, guessing how it is with him, ordain this or that,
he will never obey me. This is the history of governments,--one man does
something which is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with
me, taxes me; looking from afar at me ordains that a part of my labor
shall go to this or that whimsical end,--not as I, but as he happens to
fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts men are least willing to pay
the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think
they get their money's worth, except for these.

Hence the less government we have the better,--the fewer laws, and the
less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government is
the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the
appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of
the wise man; of whom the existing government is, it must be owned, but
a shabby imitation. That which all things tend to educe; which freedom,
cultivation, intercourse, revolutions, go to form and deliver, is
character; that is the end of Nature, to reach unto this coronation
of her king. To educate the wise man the State exists, and with
the appearance of the wise man the State expires. The appearance of
character makes the State unnecessary. The wise man is the State. He
needs no army, fort, or navy,--he loves men too well; no bribe,
or feast, or palace, to draw friends to him; no vantage ground, no
favorable circumstance. He needs no library, for he has not done
thinking; no church, for he is a prophet; no statute book, for he has
the lawgiver; no money, for he is value; no road, for he is at home
where he is; no experience, for the life of the creator shoots through
him, and looks from his eyes. He has no personal friends, for he who
has the spell to draw the prayer and piety of all men unto him needs not
husband and educate a few to share with him a select and poetic life.
His relation to men is angelic; his memory is myrrh to