Extract from Maitland's Introduction to Political Theories of the Middle Age by Otto von Gierke

Staats- und Korporationslehre – the Doctrine of State and Corporation. Such a title may be to some a stumbling-block set before the threshold. A theory of the State, so it might be said, may be very interesting to the philosophic few and fairly interesting to the intelligent many, but a doctrine of Corporations, which probably speaks of fictitious personality and similar artifices, can only concern some juristic speculators, of whom there are none or next to none in this country. On second thoughts, however, we may be persuaded to see here no rock of offence but rather a stepping-stone which our thoughts should sometimes traverse. For, when all is said, there seems to be a genus of which State and Corporation are species. They seem to be permanently organised groups of men; they seem to be group-units; we seem to attribute acts and intents, rights and wrongs to these groups, to these units. Let it be allowed that the State is a highly peculiar group unit; still it may be asked whether we ourselves are not the slaves of a jurist's theory and a little behind the age of Darwin if between the State and all other groups we fix an immeasurable gulf and ask ourselves no questions about the origin of species.

I quote these words from Sir F. Pollock's First Book of Jurisprudence. They may serve to attract a little interest to that curious freak of English law, the corporation sole. In a previous paper I have written something concerning its history. I endeavoured to show that this strange conceit originated in the sixteenth century and within the domain of what we may call ‘church property law’. It held out a hope, which proved to be vain, that it would provide a permanent ‘subject’ in which could be reposed that fee simple of the parochial glebe which had been slowly abstracted from the patron and was not comfortable in those clouds to which Littleton had banished it. Then, following in the steps of Sir William Markby, I ventured to say that this corporation sole has shown itself to be no ‘juristic person’, but is either a natural man or a juristic abortion.

If the corporation sole had never trespassed beyond the ecclesiastical province in which it was native, it would nowadays be very unimportant.

Part XI

Ladies, Gentlewomen and other Inferiors, but not less worthy, I have been industrious to assemble you together, and wish I were so fortunate as to persuade you to make a frequentation, association, and combination amongst our sex, that we may unite in prudent counsels to make ourselves as free, happy, and famous as men, whereas now we live and die as if we were produced from beast rather than from men; for men are happy, and we women are miserable, they possess all the ease, rest, pleasure, wealth, power and fame, whereas women are restless with labour, easeless with pain, melancholy for want of pleasures, helpless for want of power, and die in oblivion for want of fame; nevertheless, men are so unconscionable and cruel against us, as they endeavour to bar us of all sorts or kinds of liberty, as not to suffer us freely to associate amongst our own sex, but would fain bury us in their houses or beds, as in a grave; the truth is, we live like bats or owls, labour like beasts, and die like Worms.

Ladies, Gentlewomen, and other Inferior Women, the Lady that spoke to you hath spoken wisely and eloquently in expressing our unhappiness, but she hath not declared a remedy, or showed us a way to come out of our miseries; but if she could or would be our guide, to lead us out of the labyrinth men have put us into, we should not only praise and admire her but adore and worship her as our goddess; but alas, men, that are not only our tyrants but our devils, keep us in the hell of subjection, from whence I cannot perceive any redemption or getting out; we may complain, and bewail our condition, yet that will not free us; we may murmur and rail against men, yet they regard not what we say: in short, our words to men are as empty sounds, our sighs as puffs of wind, and our tears as fruitless showers, and our power is so inconsiderable as men laugh at our weakness.

PART XV

A Sleepy Speech to Students

Fellow Students,

Who study to think, and think to dream; as there are three sorts of worlds, so there are three kinds or sorts of life, viz. the material, poetical and drowsy world, and the dreaming, contemplating and active life; but of all these three worlds and three lives, the drowsy world and dreaming life is most wonderful, for it is as a life in death and a death in life; and this drowsy world and dreaming life is a type of an unknown world and an unknown life, for sleep is a type of death, and dreaming is a type of the rewards and punishments in the other world; good dreams are like as the rewards for the blessed, and bad dreams are like as punishments for the wicked, the one receives pleasure and joy, the other fear and torments, and these joys, pleasures, fears and torments are as sensible to the senses, and as apparent to the understanding and knowledge, as when awake; also memory and remembrance, and the same appetites and satisfactions are as perfect in dreams as when awake, the passions of the mind as forcible, the dispositions and humours of the nature as various, the will as obstinate, the judgement as deep, the wit as quick, the observation as serious, reason as rational, conception as subtle, courage as daring, justice as upright, prudence as wary, temperance as sparing, anger as violent, love as kind, fear as great, hopes and doubts as many, joys as füll, hate as deadly, faith as strong, charity as pitiful, and devotion as zealous in perfect dreams as awake: also they are as uncharitable, wicked, foolish, cowardly, base, debased, furious and the like in perfect dreams as awake; but dreams in sleeping senses are shorter than the actions of waking senses, and not so permanent, for they suddenly fade and their sudden fading oftentimes makes a confusion and more disorder than in the waking and active life; but to speak of the sleeping senses generally and particularly, have we not the same appetites and satisfactions? Are not we sensible of dying, living, suffering, enjoying, mourning, weeping, rejoicing, laughing? Are we not as sensible of pain and ease?

A merchant travelling into a foreign country, feil extremely in love with a young Lady; but being a stranger in that nation, and beneath her both in birth and wealth, he could have but little hopes of obtaining his desire; however his love growing more and more vehement upon him, even to the slighting of all difficulties, he resolved at last to steal her away; which he had the better opportunity to do, because her father's house was not far from the sea, and she often using to gather Shells upon the shore, accompanied not with above two or three of her servants, it encouraged him the more to execute his design.

I know not how to please all that are pleased to read my works; for do what I can, some will find fault; and the worst is that those faults or imperfections I accuse myself of in my Prefatory Epistles, they fling back with a double strength against my poor harmless works, which shows their malice and my truth. And as for my plays, which they say are not made up so exactly as they should be, as having no plots, designs, catastrophes and such like I know not what, I expressed in the Epistles prefixed before my plays that I had not skill nor art to form them as they should be, for that work was like a tailor's work to make clothes. But many that find such faults are not so good as a tailor, but mere botchers or brokers, to patch and set several old and new pieces together to make up a play, which I never did; for I thank my Fates, all is not only new but my own, what I have presented to the world. But this age is so censorious that the best poets are found fault with, wherefore it is an honour to my writings which are so much inferior to theirs; neither can their dislikes deter me from writing, for I write to please myself rather than to please such crabbed readers. Yet all my readers have not been so cross nor cruel, for there are many to whom my endeavours and works are acceptable, and the more honour it is to my works, as being approved and known by worthy and judicious men and noble persons. But many men have more ill natures to find faults with their neighbours than virtue to mend faults in themselves; also they are apt to censure other men's wit, and yet have none of their own. The truth is, they are a sort of persons that in plays prefer plots before wit and scenes before humours; in poems, rhyme before similizing and numbers before distinguishing; in theology, faction before faith and sophistry before truth; in philosophy, old authors before new truths and opinions before reason; and in orations, they prefer artificial connections before natural eloquence. All which makes them foolish, censorious and unjust judges.

PART III

An Oration to a Dejected People, ruined by War

Unfortunate Citizens and Countrymen,

You now seem to be as much cast down and dejected in your misery as you were puffed up with pride in your prosperity, in which prosperity you were so confident, and so careless of your security, as you would neither believe your danger nor provide for your safety, insomuch that you murmured and mutinied against all assessments and payments, although it were to keep the kingdom in peace and to strengthen it against foreign force; but now you do not murmur at small taxes but mourn for your great losses, not for your security but your ruin; your vanity is vanished, your pride humbled, and plenty and prosperity fled from you; where are your brave furnishings, your gay adornings? Your far-fetched curiosities, and your curious rarities? Your numerous varieties and rieh treasures? All plundered and gone. Where are your chargeable buildings, your stately palaces, your delightful theatres, your pleasant bowers? All burnt to ashes. Where are your races of horses, your fleecy flocks, your lowing herds, your feathered poultry, and your full-stored barns? All ruined and gone. Where are your rieh merchandises and your thriving trades? All spoiled. Where are your wise laws? All broken. Your sporting recreations? All ceased. Your ancestors’ monuments? All pulied down, and your fathers’ bones and ashes dispersed. Where are your comrades, companions, and acquaintance? Most of them killed. Where are your beautiful wives, daughters, sisters, and mistresses? The enemy enjoys them, and your country is desolate, ruined, and forlorn; and you that are left are miserable. But what was the cause of your misery? Your pride, envy, factions, luxury, vanity, vice, and wickedness; for you would neither be instrueted, advised, persuaded nor ruled; you neglected the Service of the gods, disobeyed the Orders of your governors, trampled down the laws of the nation and despised your magistrates, and did all what you would; which brought this confusion, and so a destruetion, in which destruction you must have patience, for patience will mediate and qualify your misery.

PART XIV

An Oration against Taxes

Fellow Citizens,

This city is taxed to pay a great sum of money, which tax is more than we are able to pay without being impoverished, yet if it were all that would be laid upon us, there were some comfort, but that is not likely unless our ministers of State and magistrates were less covetous to get, and more sparing to save; for though they get much, they spend much, or rather spoil much in luxury, vanity, and bravery, which makes them always needy, and though they pretend that their taxing is for the Service of the Commonwealth, yet most of it is employed in their common expenses, or hoarded up to buy lands and build stately palaces for their posterity to enjoy and live in; thus they build upon our Stocks and buy lands with our labours, so that we take pains for their pleasure; but if they tax us often, we shall be so poor as we shall not only have nothing to pay, but nothing to live on, which poverty will either starve us, or force us to be their slaves for maintenance, for when they have engrossed all the wealth they will become lords of the people, or rather their tyrants. Thus if we part with our wealth, we part with our liberty, but to keep both, let us not part with our money until we know how it shall be employed, for if it be employed in the Service of the Commonwealth, it will return to our profit, which will be as traffic to enrich and not as robbery to impoverish us, but if they rob the Commonwealth, employing our money to their own use, we are doubly robbed, like as men should take our fathers’ goods, which is our inheritance, and also that we have gotten by our own industry; and if it be requisite for us to part with our money, it is requisite they should give us an account of the distribution; for as the magistrate or ministers of State are the commonwealth's Stewards, so the people ought to be their overseers, lest they cozen the Commonwealth, by which the Commonwealth will thrive and become so rich as to keep the natives from beggary and slavery.

The Empress having now ordered and settled her government to the best advantage and quiet of her Blazing World, lived and reigned most happily and blessedly, and received oftentimes visits from the immaterial spirits, who gave her intelligence of all such things as she desired to know, and they were able to inform her of: one time they told her, how the world she came from, was embroiled in a great war, and that most parts or nations thereof made war against that kingdom, which was her native country, where all her friends and relations did live, at which the Empress was extremely troubled; insomuch that the Emperor perceived her grief by her tears, and examining the cause thereof, she told him that she had received intelligence from the spirits, that that part of the world she came from, which was her native country, was like to be destroyed by numerous enemies that made war against it. The Emperor being very sensible of this ill news, especially of the trouble it caused to the Empress, endeavoured to comfort her as much as possibly he could, and told her, that she might have all the assistance which the Blazing World was able to afford. She answered, that if there were any possibility of transporting forces out of the Blazing World, into the world she came from, she would not fear so much the ruin thereof: but, said she, there being no probability of effecting any such thing, I know not how to show my readiness to serve my native country. The Emperor asked, whether those spirits that gave her intelligence of this war, could not with all their power and forces assist her against those enemies? She answered, that spirits could not arm themselves, nor make any use of artificial arms or weapons; for their vehicles were natural bodies, not artificial: besides, said she, the violent and strong actions of war, will never agree with immaterial spirits; for immaterial spirits cannot fight, nor make trenches, fortifications, and the like. But, said the Emperor, their vehicles can; especially if those vehicles be men's bodies, they may be serviceable in all the actions of war.