Society And its Purpose
Book 3 - Determining the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 14
The various ways in which societies perish
449. Every human society is invisible and visible, as we have said. Human beings, who make up the elements of society, are themselves composed of an invisible spirit and a seen body.(193) Society is bound by invisible bonds; human societies are unions of spirits, not agglomerations of bodies. External society is only the material part of society; the union of spirits is its form, its soul, its essence. The former is the completion and, as it were, the outward clothing or expression of the latter. External society perishes through violence, as for example in conquests. Internal society, however, always perishes much earlier. Violence would have no power over external society if internal society had not been annihilated much sooner. As Cicero so wisely said about his own times: `We have retained what looks like the republic, but lost the reality long ago.’
450. Invisible society has perished as soon as it no longer tends to its final, essential end. This can happen either 1. through a defect in social law if the government proposes vicious laws which lead the governed away from rather than towards their own contentment; or 2. through the will of the members themselves when they are so perverted that they have entirely lost sight of human good, that is, contentment (the final end) in their desires, or are ignorant of the means leading to contentment while adhering to things which distant them from it. In such cases, society no longer has any standing, although externally things seem to go on as before.
In the same way, 3. invisible society has perished in the wills of the members who are no longer really intent on the proximate end, which is the immediate object for the society’s constitution, and no longer make any effort to attain it. No explicit declaration to this effect is necessary; when selfishness has taken the place of the proximate end of society, each member is intent on manipulating the society for his own particular benefit, as though there were a competition to despoil it. There is no longer any interest in the common good or in the existence of the society itself. All its members refuse the burdens of the society; all want its advantages, which are not divided, but misappropriated.
The ancient world that came to an end with the power of Rome saw its
societies vanish in these three ways long before the barbarians overthrew the
dead colossus of the empire. But when society collapsed internally, what hope
was there that humanity could rebuild itself and reform itself into truly
social bodies?(194)
— None.
Notes
(193) Bk. 1, c. 13.
(194) The nations existing outside the Roman empire gave no cause for hope to humanity. The nations of southern Asia were themselves stagnant and corrupt. The Scythians had never found a way of associating in true republics or States, nor did they show any signs of progress. Rather, they continued to decline towards savagery, which was only impeded by the beneficent influence reverberating from Roman civilisation. Once the Romans themselves had fallen into savagery through their own vices, there was no longer any hope for civilisation in the world.