Цепочка: от самопомощи к свободе нации

Магистральный аргумент главы I: почему свобода и сила государства выводятся из личного характера, а не из институтов. Логическая лестница от поговорки до политической антропологии.

1. Начать с проверенной поговорки — self-help

   “HEAVEN helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience.
   — Self-Help, ch. I

2. Помощь извне расслабляет — self-help

   Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
   — Self-Help, ch. I

3. Закон не заменит характер — self-help

   no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
   — Self-Help, ch. I

4. Внешнее правление вторично, самоуправление первично — character-the-crown

   It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from within.
   — Self-Help, ch. I

5. Худшее рабство — внутреннее — character-the-crown

   The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
   — Self-Help, ch. I

6. Итог: свобода стоит на характере — character-the-crown

   The solid foundations of liberty must rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure guarantee for social security and national progress.
   — Self-Help, ch. I

7. Нация — сумма личных усилий — dignity-of-labour

   National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
   — Self-Help, ch. I