"Fruits are always of the same nature with the seeds and roots from which they come, and trees are known by the fruits they bear: as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, that society of men which constitutes a government upon the foundation of justice"
About this Quote
Organic metaphors do political violence here, and that’s the point. Sidney isn’t reaching for pastoral poetry; he’s building a test that sounds as natural and unavoidable as biology. Seeds, roots, fruit: origins determine outcomes. If you want to know what a government is, don’t read its proclamations - watch what it produces. Policy is the fruit. Justice is the rootstock. Everything else is decoration.
The sharper subtext is anti-mystique. In the 17th century, monarchy sold itself as a sacred exception: kings as a different kind of creature, ordained, untouchable, accountable to God rather than the governed. Sidney collapses that claim with a blunt analogy: “as a man begets a man.” No miraculous species change occurs in politics. Power reproduces its own nature. If the foundation is unjust - conquest, prerogative, corruption - the harvest will be predictable: coercion, favoritism, violence dressed as order.
Calling government “that society of men” is a deliberate demotion. It’s not a divine instrument; it’s a human arrangement, made by people and therefore judgeable by people. The line also smuggles in a radical standard: legitimacy isn’t inherited, asserted, or ceremonially performed. It’s evidenced. A just foundation doesn’t merely sound righteous; it yields institutions that behave justly over time.
Sidney wrote in the heat of England’s constitutional crisis and paid for his principles with his life, executed for alleged treason. That context gives the metaphor its hard edge: justice isn’t an ornament for stable times; it’s the only root that can keep a state from poisoning its own fruit.
The sharper subtext is anti-mystique. In the 17th century, monarchy sold itself as a sacred exception: kings as a different kind of creature, ordained, untouchable, accountable to God rather than the governed. Sidney collapses that claim with a blunt analogy: “as a man begets a man.” No miraculous species change occurs in politics. Power reproduces its own nature. If the foundation is unjust - conquest, prerogative, corruption - the harvest will be predictable: coercion, favoritism, violence dressed as order.
Calling government “that society of men” is a deliberate demotion. It’s not a divine instrument; it’s a human arrangement, made by people and therefore judgeable by people. The line also smuggles in a radical standard: legitimacy isn’t inherited, asserted, or ceremonially performed. It’s evidenced. A just foundation doesn’t merely sound righteous; it yields institutions that behave justly over time.
Sidney wrote in the heat of England’s constitutional crisis and paid for his principles with his life, executed for alleged treason. That context gives the metaphor its hard edge: justice isn’t an ornament for stable times; it’s the only root that can keep a state from poisoning its own fruit.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|
More Quotes by Algernon
Add to List
