5.—Party; Class.

That which constitutes a Party, or class, is always some community of Interest: in other words, some thing or things, to be obtained, secured, or augmented, by the common endeavours of the class, and operating as a cause of pleasure to all of them.

The People, that is, the Mass of the community, are sometimes called a class; but that is only to distinguish them, like the term Lower Orders, from the 228 Aristocratical class. In the proper meaning of the term class, it is not applicable to the People. No interest is in common to them, which is not in common to the rest of the community. There is nothing which can operate as a cause of benefit to them exclusively. Whatever operates as a cause of benefit to them in common, operates equally as a cause of benefit to every part of the community, saving and excepting those who are in possession of some mischievous power over a portion, greater or less, of the community. It may no doubt very easily happen, that what is a benefit to the rest of the community, is an evil to the possessors of such power; as what is an evil, and the greatest of all Evils, to the Community, is a Benefit to them.

There is no Love of Class, therefore, but in a Privileged Order. The Patricians, in ancient Rome, were a Class of this sort. And in modern Europe there are two such classes: the Nobility, in each Country: and the Incorporated Clergy; calling themselves the Church, in Catholic countries, the Established Church, in Non-catholic countries.

The associations which the members of a governing class have with one another, individually, as fathers, sons, companions, friends, are not here to be taken into account. The associations connected with the privileges which constitute any body of men a class, are alone concerned in forming the states of mind which we now are explaining.

Such privileges consist of Wealth, Power, Dignity, one, or all, conferred by Legislative act: that is, not the result of natural acquisition, but of a sort of force, or compulsion, put upon other people.

229 We need not again enter into an explanation of the agreeable associations which every man has with his own Wealth, Power, and dignity, and with the causes, either of their existence, or of their increase, or of their security. When these causes to one man, are causes also to a circle of other men, the whole Body has both individually and collectively the associations with those causes, which constitute Affection.