Let me give you one more illustration. Take it in the line of
government. The first tribes were governed by two forces, brute force
and superstitious fear. These were the two things that kept the primal
tribes of the world in order, such order as was maintained in those
far-off times. The world has gone on developing different types of
government, different types of social order. I need not stop to outline
them for you this morning: you know what they are; and I only wish you
to catch the thought I have in mind. I suppose that every time one of
the old types was about to pass away the adherents of that type have
been in a panic lest anarchy was threatening the world. Believers in
these types have said that it was absolutely necessary to keep them, in
order to preserve social order. Take the attitude of the monarchy
to-day, for example, as towards the republic. When we attempted to
establish our republic here in this western world, it was freely said
by the adherents of the old political idea in Europe that it would of
necessity be a failure, that there was no possibility of a stable human
order without a hierarchy of nobles with a king at the top; and I
suppose they believed it. But we have proved beyond question that we
can have a strong government, an orderly government, without either
nobility or king. There is less government in the United States here
to-day than in almost any other country of the world, a nearer approach
to what the philosopher would call anarchy.
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