Disraeli, community, and urbanism

After reading my recent post about Philip Bess's presentation on the New Urbanism and natural law, my friend and colleague Frank Snyder sent me this:

[In Disraeli's "Sybil, or the Two Nations," there is a scene that] has the hero Egremont meeting two strangers at the ruins of an ancient abbey.  One of the men talks about how splendid England was in the days of the monasteries, and how much better the peasants lived.  It goes on:

   "You lament the old faith," said Egremont, in a tone of respect.

    "I am not viewing the question as one of faith," said the stranger.  "It is not as a matter of religion, but as a matter of right, that I am considering it: as a matter, I should say, of private right and public happiness.  You might have changed if you thought fit the religion of the abbots as you changed the religion of the bishops: but you had no right to deprive men of their property, and property moreover which under their administration so mainly contributed to the welfare of the community."

    "As for community," said a voice which proceeded neither from Egremont nor the stranger [but from the stranger's younger companion], "with the monasteries expired the only type that we ever had in England of such an intercourse.  There is no community in England; there is aggregation, but aggregation under circumstances which make it rather a dissociating, than an uniting, principle." . . .

    "You also lament the dissolution of these bodies," said Egremont.

    "There is so much to lament in the world in which we live," said the younger of the strangers, "that I can spare no pang for the past."

    "Yet you approve of the principle of their society; you prefer it, you say, to our existing life."

    "Yes; I prefer association to gregariousness."

    "That is a distinction," said Egremont, musingly.

    "It is a community of purpose that constitutes society," continued the younger stranger; "without that, men may be drawn into contiguity, but they still continue virtually isolated."

    "And is that their condition in cities?"

    "It is their condition everywhere; but in cities that condition is aggravated.  A density of population implies a severer struggle for existence, and a consequent repulsion of elements brought into too close contact.  In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain.  They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbours.  Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourself; modern society acknowledges no neighbour."

Rick