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Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed

Book by Herbert Spencer · 3 quotes · Men, Atheism, Humans

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Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed Quotes

“It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization-is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct.”

“Let men learn that a legislature is not 'our God upon earth,' though, by the authority they ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at the best borrowed.”