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, for she has not
herself that right. Nature is not God, has not created us, therefore
has not the right of property in us. She is not and cannot be our
sovereign. We belong not to her, nor does she belong to herself, for
she is herself creature, and belongs to her Creator. Not being in
herself sovereign, she cannot develop the right to govern, nor can she
develop government as a fact, to say nothing of its right, for
government, whether we speak of it as fact or as authority, is distinct
from that which is governed; but natural developments are nature, and
indistinguishable from her. The governor and the governed, the
restrainer and the restrained, can never as such be identical.
Self-government, taken strictly, is a contradiction in terms. When an
individual is said to govern himself, he is never understood to govern
himself in the sense in which he is governed. He by his reason and
will governs or restrains his appetites and passions. It is man as
spirit governing man as flesh, the spiritual mind governing the carnal
mind.

Natural developments cannot in all cases be even allowed to take their
own course without injury to nature herself. "Follow nature" is an
unsafe maxim, if it means, leave nature to develop herself as she will,
and follow thy natural inclinations. Nature is good, but inclinations
are frequently bad. All our appetites and passions are given us for
good, for a purpose useful and necessary to individual and social life,
but they become morbid and injurious if indulged without restraint.
Each has its special object, and naturally seeks it exclusively, and
thus generates discord and war in the individual, which immediately
find expression in society, and also in the state, if the state be a
simple natural development. The Christian maxim, Deny thyself, is far
better than the Epicurean maxim,