;lO$ANCElfj> 2^. klBRABYO? ENGLISH ESSAY, 1852. CENTRALIZATION, ITS BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES, A PRIZE ESSAY, READ IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD, JUNE 23, 1852. HANS WILLIAM SOTHEBY, B.A., FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE. IIoAAa juey e ) OVK ecrnv OL^LVOV. Centralization, in the still wider sense in which it is brought before us by History, appears as the alter- nate reconstruction of previously disrupted societies. The human race, projected from the formative will of its Creator, is first the one family, is then dispersed into communities; each of which viewed in its pri- mary and ideal character, presents in its subordinate yet independent parts, an analogon of man's physical constitution, where the functional activity of diversely harmonious organs ensures under the superintendence of the central nervous energy, the continuance of Life. Declining from this their original state, societies are disintegrated into anarchy, and recombined into still more numerous unities, by the amalgamations of Con- quest, of Colonization, of Federation, of Monarchy; or present, finally, that narrower and intenser applica- 42 Necessity and difficulty of the question. tion of the principle which is the bane of Administra- tive Centralization. It is at this stage that the Poli- tician must encounter it : it is at this stage that it becomes most formidable. As the Philosopher tries to grasp his ' fundamental antitheses,' so the States- man must reconcile his; and they are, especially in this instance, problems of a more pressing character. For while Philosophical doubt, though it may vex the heart and weary the brain, seldom conducts to the Euripus, the problems of Politics are always pro- pounded by a Sphinx, and the prosperity, if not the fate of a nation, is in the hand of the (Edipus who can answer them. To attempt the framing of such solutions : to com- bine new wants and old arrangements : to make poli- tical unity compatible with local independence: to steer between the rebellious prejudices which shatter all improvement, and the whirlpool which draws all improvement to itself: in a word, to reconcile the centripetal and centrifugal forces of society, and imi- tate in states the harmony of the universe, this is the task of the Statesman and the Legislator, nor does it seem that it can be efficiently performed without a due sense of the evils of Centralization. But if from a sight of these evils we should be led unreservedly to condemn it, we must remember that its principle, though precluded by the inevitable weaknesses of our nature from innocuous developement, may yet be one of those tendencies of the human mind which Philosophy no less than History acknow- Centralization a tendency of the human mind. 43 ledges, and which point to some state of unseen per- fectibility, where the individual will shall be inde- pendent of, yet harmonious with, the Supreme, and neither absorption on the one hand, nor discordance on the other, shall mar the symmetry of their co- operation. And if the complexities and shortcomings around us seem to remove from mortal ken so glori- ous a consummation, yet we, too, may say with Plato S 'AAA' eV Ovpavw ia-co? TrapaSetyfjia avaKCLrai rw (3ov\ofjLi>q) bpav KOL op&vri eavrov * Republic, b. ix. ad fin. OXFORD : FEINTED BY I. SHKIMPTON. A 000 097 800 7