The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863, page 169 by Various Authors
<< Return to Title Details & Download170
rged of corruption and abuse.
This development of organic complexity is just as necessary and inevitable in the political as in the animal economy; and the performance of any function, in the one case as in the other, depends for the degree of its completeness on the extent to which 'the division of labor' is carried through the complexity of the organic structure. There are no grounds of apprehension from this source whatever. In regard to government, this increase of complexity is most strikingly observable in the executive department; and it is worthy of notice that while this department of government is in general becoming less tyrannical and relatively weaker with reference to the legislative department, it is also becoming more complex: as tyranny recedes, complexity advances. There is no point better sustained in history than the general fact that, as government increases the multiplicity of its machinery, it gradually relaxes its interference with the private rights of individuals.
After man has laid aside his primitive habits of selfish isolation, and, though still rude and untutored, has come, through the mere increase of numbers, into a more compact form of society, the government, however circumscribed as to territorial limits, assumes a despotic and intermeddling character. Such was the government of the feudal lords during the middle ages, and of the kings at a still later day. Laws were made for the regulation of dress, as to quality and cut for particular classes, and the number of garments which any person might have in a year. Citizens were not allowed to keep certain kinds of furniture; and the dishes they might have for dinner and supper respectively were definitely and rigidly prescribed. The wages of the laborer were fixed by law to the great advantage of the lordly employer: this, however, was a very natural sequence to the abolition of villanage or vassal servitude. The law made service at particular trades compulsory; and decided where certain kinds of manufacturing should