Society And its Purpose
Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 37
The necessity of politico-moral statistics
853. I shall conclude this book by noting how the wise government of a nation necessarily requires knowledge of the state of the spirit of the people who make up the nation. This shows the insufficiency of economic statistics, and the necessity of comprehensive, philosophical statistics about which I have spoken elsewhere.(363)
854. Politico-moral statistics form part of comprehensive, philosophical statistics, and present a vast, almost untouched field for learned investigation and research. The physical symptoms of the moral state of peoples, which should be collected in such statistics, require as their foundation a classification of human passions and cupidities. The hundred and twenty-nine capacities of spirit listed by us offer an outline, however imperfect, of these passions and cupidities.
855. Amongst the physical symptoms of the passions of the spirit, we find various values of affection given at different times and in different places to the things which form the objects of these passions.
856. By means of the politico-moral statistic we are discussing, government would reveal two things: 1. the nearness or distance between spirits and contentment, the end of society; 2. the influence exercised by things over human spirits themselves. The spirit, as seat of contentment, is the end of politics; as acting agent turning its own activity upon itself and modifying itself, or as acting upon the external things around itself which then re-act on the spirit, it is the very means of politics.
857. The spirit (considered under this second respect) and things modify one another respectively. The abundance of things present to the spirit has a persuasive force which modifies the spirit and stimulates its movement towards them. On the other hand, the love or passion that the spirit has towards things is that which at every instant determines and fixes the value of things. The value of things in its turn (other things being equal) is equivalent to the degree of force that things have for acting upon the spirit.
858. Humankind will never arrive at uniting all its brothers and sisters in the loving society which Christianity calls it to form unless all these things are considered carefully. These teachings must become commonplace, be perfected, and serve as the source from which are deduced the saving rules that governments must note as they proceed. The rules themselves must be made so obvious that everybody sees them and demands their observance by rulers. Finally, rulers themselves must feel that they cannot abandon these rules without falling under universal condemnation.
Notes
(363) Cf. SC, c.15.