"“No human laws are of any validity if contrary to the law of nature; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority mediately or immediately from this original.” Thus writes Blackstone, to whom let all honour be given for having so far outseen the ideas of his time; and, indeed, we may say of our time. A good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so widely prevail. A good check upon that sentiment of power-worship which still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional governments as it once did those of monarchs. 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."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from EnglandAgnosticsEconomists from EnglandRight-libertariansSociologists from England
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Pt. III, Ch. 19 : The Right to Ignore the State, § 2
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era. He developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He is known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest".
77 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Herbert Spencer →
Related Quotes
"Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him."
"All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives. Does a…"
"Evil perpetually tends to disappear."
"Man needed one moral constitution to fit him for his original state; he needs another to fit him for his present stat…"
"Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberties by…"
"Limiting the liberty of each by the like liberty of all, excludes a wide range of improper actions, but does not excl…"
"Equity knows no difference of sex. In its vocabulary the word man must be understood in a generic, and not in a speci…"
"Attila conceived himself to have a divine claim to the dominion of the earth: — the Spaniards subdued the Indians und…"
"Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, …"
"The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. ... Think you that a drop of water, which to t…"