ORPORATE BODIES

Corporate bodies have no soul.

Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals,
because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to
disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor
goodwill. The principle of private or natural conscience is extinguished
in each individual (we have no moral sense in the breasts of others),
and nothing is considered but how the united efforts of the whole
(released from idle scruples) may be best directed to the obtaining of
political advantages and privileges to be shared as common spoil. Each
member reaps the benefit, and lays the blame, if there is any, upon
the rest. The _esprit de corps_ becomes the ruling passion of every
corporate body, compared with which the motives of delicacy or decorum
towards others are looked upon as being both impertinent and improper.
If any person sets up a plea of this sort in opposition to the rest, he
is overruled, he gets ill-blood, and does no good: he is regarded as
an interloper, a _black sheep_ in the flock, and is either _sent to
Coventry_ or obliged to acquiesce in the notions and wishes of those
he associates and is expected to co-operate with. The refinements of
private judgment are referred to and negatived in a committee of the
whole body, while the projects and interests of the Corporation meet
with a secret but powerful support in the self-love of the different
members. Remonstrance, opposition, is fruitless, troublesome, invidious;
it answers no one end; and a conformity to the sense of the company is
found to be no less necessary to a reputation for good-fellowship than
to a quiet life. Self-love and social here look like the same; and in
consulting the interests of a particular class, which are also your
own, there is even a show of public virtue. He who is a captious,
impracticable, dissatisfied member of his little club or _coterie_ is
immediately set down as a bad member of the community in general, as no
friend to regularity and order, as 'a pestilent fellow,' and one who
is incapable of sympathy, attachment, or cordial co-operation in any
department or undertaking. Thus the most refractory novice in such
matters becomes weaned from his obligations to the larger society, which
only breed him inconvenience without any adequate recompense, and wedded
to a nearer and dearer one, where he finds every kind of comfort and
consolation. He contracts the vague