The Moral Function of the State: A Paper Read Before the Oxford Branch of the Guild of St. Matthew, on May 17th, 1887 (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

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Excerpt from The Moral Function of the State: A Paper Read Before the Oxford Branch of the Guild of St. Matthew, on May 17th, 1887

"Why need we take an interest in politics? Are not politics a despicable tangle of personal ambitions, party prejudices, unworthy compromises and dishonourable intrigues, deliberate exaggerations and wilful misstatements, unreasoning admiration and intemperate abuse? Is it not wiser for those, who are anxious to do their duty in the world and to lead a life that may be considered well-pleasing to God, to withdraw from the temptations and degrading influences of political activity? After all, can even the best laws and the best institutions - suppose we could secure them - avail to remedy the corruption of the human heart? Does not each of us need all his energies to struggle with his proper enemies, the passions within his own soul, and if we can do anything to help others than ourselves, have we not our obvious duties towards our own families and those with whom we are brought into contact in the ordinary course of life? There is the "daily round, the common task" - is not that sufficient and more than sufficient? And if we still wish to attempt something further, is not personal help given to the poor, the sick, the sorrowing, infinitely better than anything that can be done through acts of parliament? Let us lead quiet and peaceable lives and keep ourselves, if we can, unspotted from the world, leaving the dirty work of politics to those whom God has set in authority over us." (Apparently, it does not matter that they should be soiled.)

These are the sort of arguments that we very often hear: and there is obviously a great degree of truth in them.

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