Wilhelm von Humboldt - The Sphere and Duties of Government (The Limits of State Action)

T o discover the legitimate objects to which the energies of State organizations should be directed, and define the limits within which those energies should be exercised, is the design of the following pages. That the solution of this prime question of political philosophy must be pregnant with interest and high practical importance is sufficiently evident; and if we compare the most remarkable political constitutions with each other, and with the opinions of the most eminent philosophers, we shall, with reason, be surprised to find it so insufficiently discussed and vaguely answered; and agree, that any attempt to prosecute the inquiry with more success, is far from being a vain and superfluous labour.

Those who have either themselves remodelled the framework of State constitutions, or proposed schemes of political reform, seem mostly to have studied how to apportion the respective provinces which the nation, and any of its separate elements, should justly share in the administration,to assign the due functions of each in the governmental plan,and to adopt the precautions necessary for preserving the integrity of the several interests at stake. But in every attempt to frame or reorganize a political constitution, there are two grand objects, it seems to me, to be distinctly kept in view, neither of which can be overlooked or made subordinate without serious injury to the common design; these arefirst, to determine, as regards the nation in question, who shall govern, who shall be governed, and to arrange the actual working of the constituted power; and secondly, to prescribe the exact sphere to which the government, once constructed, should extend or confine its operations. The latter object, which more immediately embraces the private life of the citizen, and more especially determines the limits of his free, spontaneous activity, is, strictly speaking, the true ultimate purpose; the former is only a necessary means for arriving at this important end. And yet, however strange it may appear, it is to the attainment of the first of these ends that man directs his most earnest attention; and, as it becomes us to show, this exclusive pursuit of one definite purpose only coincides with the usual manifestation of human activity. It is in the prosecution of some single object, and in striving to reach its accomplishment by the combined application of his moral and physical energies, that the true happiness of man, in his full vigour and development, consists. Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with repose; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm our eyes. If we consider the position of man in the universe,if we remember the constant tendency of his energies towards some definite activity, and recognize the influence of surrounding nature, which is ever provoking him to exertion, we shall be ready to acknowledge that repose and possession do not indeed exist but in imagination. Now the partial or one-sided man finds repose in the discontinuance of one line of action; and in him whose powers are wholly undeveloped, one single object only serves to elicit a few manifestations of energy. It may be well to observe, before deriving inferences from these general considerations on the usual tendency of mans activity, that the dissatisfaction we notice as attendant on possession, does not at all apply to that ideal of human perfection which is conceivable by imagination; but it is true, in the fullest sense, of the wholly uncultured man, and proportionately true of every intermediate gradation between this utter want of culture and that ideal standard above mentioned. It would appear then, from these general characteristics of human nature, that to the conqueror his triumph affords a more exquisite sense of enjoyment than the actual occupation of the territory he has won, and that the perilous commotion of reformation itself is dearer to the reformer than the calm enjoyment of the fruits which crown its successful issue. And thus it is true, in general, that the exercise of dominion has something in it more immediately agreeable to human nature than the mere reposeful sense of freedom; or, at least, that the solicitude to secure freedom is a dearer satisfaction than that which is afforded by its actual possession. Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, but yet real activity. The ardent desire for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.