CONSTITUTIONAL POLITY. CONVERSATION I. What is meant by Constitutional Polity-The grand aim of the new Social System, viz: the promotion and harmonization of all real human interests -The seven spheres of human interest, viz: Individuality, Connubiality, Consanguinity, Congeniality, Federality, Humanity and Universality-The wants, rights and duties of Individuality, &c., &c. Inq. I think our twelve Conversations on the Fundamental Principles of your Social System have enabled me to understand that part of the subject. I now accept your invitation to enter on an exposition of what you designate as the Constitutional Polity of your System; which term I would thank you to define and explain. Ex. I mean by Constitutional Polity the compacts, laws and arrangements according to which my proposed new order of Society is to be constituted and governed. Every thing important in the constitution and operation of organized society belongs to its Constitutional Polity. It includes whatever is properly Institutional. Having laid the foundation, I am now to erect the superstructure. The twenty-four essential divine principles of the Christian Religion, expounded in Part I. of this general Exposition, have been set forth as the foundation. The whole edifice must be framed and completed in just correspondence with that basis. I will proceed accordingly. Suppose then, I find twenty souls, or one hundred, or one thousand, or ten thousand, with the distant prospect of millions, who heartily accept my fundamental principles, and who say to me, Please show us how we can communitize and establish an order of society in accordance with your principles. This is precisely what I now propose to do; and thereby I shall present the Constitutional Polity of what, in my judgment, is the true Social System. That System has for its grand aim the promotion and harmonization of all human interests. If actualized in any established order of Society, all the real interests of the members will be secured to their utmost extent, and yet so secured as to harmonize in the highest common good. Ing. Then you do not propose to annihilate individual interests, nor sacrifice them to societary interests in the least degree; nor, on the other hand, to sacrifice the common good to individual good? Ex. Certainly not. Inq. This will be a very difficult problem to solve, I must think. I have been accustomed to regard it as impossible to institute Society without compromising conflicting interests, and sacrificing those of individuals to the public good. And I supposed your Social System would carry this compromise of individual interests much farther than is done in the existing order of society. Ex. By no means. I will explain. Understand me to take for granted that all real human interests, could we but see them in the true light of nature and the divine order, are perfectly consonant with each other; the highest good of each and all being identical in every possible case. Ing. I concede that, in the metaphysical abstract. Ex. Very well. Now the desideratum is, a Social System which shall illustrate real interests, as distinguishable from imaginary ones, and actualize their divinely ordained harmony in all human relationships. It is not enough to have the truth in metaphysical abstract; we want it in the practical concrete. Inq. Go on then and exhibit it, if you can. Ex. Remember, that as a Practical Christian Socialist, I propose a System of Society which keeps distinctly in view. the preservation and promotion of all real human interests. It must not destroy, override or impair one of them. It must recognize, promote, secure and harmonize them all. Neither individual, nor social good, must be sacrificed. Both must stand together on a common foundation, upheld by common |