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THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW 
 ^nbltBhexB to th£ SlmbcrsitQ. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. 
 New Vorkt - - The Macmillan Co. 
 London^ ... Sztftpkin, Hafnilton and Co, 
 Cambridge^ - - Mac-millan and Bowes. 
 Edinburgh, • • Douglas and FouUs. 
 
 MDCCCXCVI. 
 
The 
 
 State & the Individual 
 
 An Introduction to Political Science, with 
 
 special reference to Socialistic and 
 
 Individualistic Theories 
 
 By 
 
 William Sharp M'Kechnie, M.A., ll.b. 
 
 Lecturer on Constitutional Law and History in the 
 University of Glasgow 
 
 Glasgow 
 James MacLehose and Sons 
 
 Publishers to the University 
 1896 
 
n V/ 3p 
 
The 
 
 State & the Individual 
 
 An Introduction to Political Science, with 
 
 special reference to Socialistic and 
 
 Individualistic Theories 
 
 By 
 
 William Sharp M'Kechnie, M.A., LL.B. 
 
 Lecturer on Constitutional Law and History in the 
 University of Glasgow 
 
 Glasgow 
 James MacLehose and Sons 
 
 Publishers to the University 
 1896 
 
57/ 
 
 n 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The practical object of this Essay is twofold : first, to state 
 impartially the points at issue between Socialism and Indi- 
 vidualism, and to mediate between their claims as rival 
 schemes for the regeneration of society ; and, secondly, to offer 
 a contribution towards the solution of some of the problems 
 to which both systems address themselves. A preliminary 
 investigation is, however, necessary ; since it is futile either 
 to estimate the value of current opinions or to devise remedies 
 for social evils, apart from the fundamental principles under- 
 lying aU political phenomena alike. The volume has thus 
 assumed the character of an introduction to the Theory of 
 the State with special reference to one of its divisions — the 
 methods and limits of government interference. 
 
 In spite of a steadily increasing interest in social and 
 political questions there is, perhaps, no topic upon which 
 popular thought remains so lax and uninformed, no inquiry 
 which has received so few attempts at systematic and un- 
 biassed treatment as the legitimate province of law and 
 government. The copious literature on the subject is 
 polemical rather than constructive ; negative rather than 
 positive. Its destructive and unsystematic nature, however, 
 is not the only characteristic calling for supplement if not 
 for correction. Most existing treatises either confine their 
 investigations to the economic features of the inquiry, to the 
 neglect of those broader aspects which confront statesmen 
 and legislators ; or else they are the work of ardent partisans 
 of one or other of the competing theories in its most uncom- 
 promising attitude. 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 The following Essay is primarily an attempt to supply in 
 an elementary form a systematic introduction to the study of 
 the problem, subordinating its economic to its political aspects, 
 and endeavouring to discard all a priori presumptions either 
 for or against individual liberty and initiative, on the one hand, 
 and government intervention, on the other. At the same 
 time an effort has been made to give unity to the various 
 speculations by viewing them all steadily in the light of 
 one philosophical conception. 
 
 Any claim it may have to originality must be based upon 
 the re-arrangement and combination of old theories rather 
 than upon the invention of new ones. The distinction 
 between direct government management and indirect govern- 
 ment control cannot assuredly be claimed as a discovery : but 
 it is perhaps new to make this the keystone of a system of 
 practical politics ; and to show how, by its aid, some at least 
 of the aims of the more moderate Socialists may be achieved 
 in safety from the pitfalls dreaded by even the more moderate 
 Individualists. 
 
 The double character of the Essay as, on the one hand, 
 an introduction to political science in general, and, on the 
 other, a detailed investigation of Socialism and Individualism 
 from a stand-point which identifies itself with neither, may, 
 it is hoped, render it of some use to students of social phil- 
 osophy, of constitutional history, or of systematic politics, by 
 bringing within a reasonable compass information otherwise 
 accessible only in the many bulky volumes of a somewhat 
 scattered literature. 
 
 The various authorities placed under contribution are too 
 numerous to be specified here ; but the sources of borrowed 
 ideas have been, as far as possible, indicated in the text or 
 in footnotes. I am indebted to my friends, Mr. W. E. J. 
 Gray and Mr. E. A. Moody, for their .kindness in reading 
 the proof-sheets and for many valuable suggestions. 
 
 Glasgow, 21sf September, 1896. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 (1) Mutual Dependence or State and Individual, - - 1-26 
 
 Every human being, the citizen of a State, 1. Three pro- 
 visional hypotheses : (1) Connection between individual and 
 community essential, not accidental ; (2) every community a 
 State or part of a State ; (3) organic nature of the State, 5-8. 
 Qualifications necessary to conception of developing organism 
 as applied to political phenomena, 12. Five theories of the 
 nature of society: (1) Monadistic or nominalist; (2) monistic 
 or realist ; (3) chemical ; (4) mechanical ; (S) organic, 13-14. 
 Three groups of organisms : (a) " Discrete " organisms ; (6) con- 
 crete organisms ; (c) perfect organisms, 17. Types of these and 
 their applicability to society, 18. Inadequacy of all analogies, 
 21. Deductions from organic nature of State, 23. Wherein 
 society differs from a purely natural organism, 2S. 
 
 (2) The Scope and Practical Bearing of Political Science oe 
 
 THE Theory of the State, 26-40 
 
 Ambiguity of phrase, " Science of Politics," and resulting mis- 
 conceptions, 26. Popular use of "polities'' misleading, 27. 
 Science of politics complex and difficult, but not impossible nor 
 barren of results, 30. Its principles underlie every act of 
 statesmanship and every legislative enactment, 33 ; and are in 
 turn dependent on philosophy, 35. Four groups of questions 
 of Political Science, 38. Three of these here treated, and 
 threefold division of Essay, 40. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE STATE: ITS NATURE, ORIGIN, AND END; ITS MEMBERS 
 AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Chapter I. The Definition of the State, 43-61 
 
 A State provisionally defined as "an independent organized 
 society," 43. Philosophical definitions of Kant, Hegel, Spencer, 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAOSS 
 
 etc., 45. Ambiguity of word " State," confusion with govern- 
 ment, 47. It embraces the people with all their interests and 
 organizations, 49. Definition must leave room for diversity 
 and development, 51. Definitions given by Public Law, 52. 
 Criticism of characteristics as given by Bluntschli, 54. Antith- 
 esis between society and State only relative, 58. Boundaries 
 of primitive States vague, but become definite with advancing 
 civilization, 59. 
 
 Chapter II. The Obioin and Natuke of the State, - 62-73 
 
 Why or how does the State exist? — Dangerous ambiguity of 
 the question, 62. Historical process of origin must not be 
 confused with philosophical justification of right to exist, 63. 
 The basis of political obligation, or why should the individual 
 obey the State? 64. One solution depends on "general con- 
 sent" or "social contract, " 65 ; another, on "authority "or force, 
 
 67. Both theories involve unproved individualistic assumptions, 
 
 68. "Will "the true basis of the State, 69. Origin of individual 
 implies origin of State, 70. Must realize an organic brother- 
 hood of men, 70. Respects wherein Greek city-states, Roman 
 Empire, and modern national States fall below the ideal, 71. 
 
 Chapter III. The End op the State, - - - 74-91 
 
 No narrower end will suffice than "good of Humanity," 74. 
 Five directions in which this has been sought : (1) As something 
 external to society ; (2) as confined to one section or class ; 
 (3) as in the individuals apart from the whole ; (4) as in the 
 whole apart from the individuals ; (5) as realized in an organic 
 unity of whole and parts, 75-76. Inadequate views of this 
 welfare : (1) Order ; (2) progress ; (3) constitutional forms ; (4) 
 liberty ; (5) equality ; (6) fraternity ; (7) some combination of 
 these ; (8) happiness ; (9) abstract justice ; (10) utility, 78-82. 
 Kant's theory of right must be combined with Bentham's 
 theory of happiness, 83, True end, the perfection of the 
 citizens as an integral portion of humanity, 86. Bluntschli's 
 theory of developing " the national self," 87. Definition of the 
 goal must be vague to allow for future development and dis- 
 coveries, 89. 
 
 Chapter IV. The Sphere of the State, - - 92-99 
 
 Includes everything to which its influence can penetrate, 92. 
 Exemptions sometimes claimed for : (1) The individual's sphere; 
 (2) the family's sphere ; (3) sphere of Church and religion ; (4) 
 sphere of morality, 93-94. Doctrine of "the legal State" in- 
 adequate, 95. State's sphere essentially moral, 97. 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 PASES 
 
 Chapter V. The Constitution op the State, - 100-104 
 
 Constitution a legal framework or skeleton, 100. Its relation 
 to State, 101 ; and to laws and government, 108. 
 
 Chapter VI. The Government and other Agents or the State, 105-108 
 Ambiguity of term "government," 105. Various minor State 
 agents and officials, 106. Responsibility for private citizens : 
 " Alabama " case, 107. 
 
 Chapter VII. Nature and Objects op Government, - - 109-119 
 
 It exists to perform the will of its master, the State, 109. Ex- 
 pediency determines powers vested in each government organ, 
 111. Are governments " natural " or " artificial " ? 112. John 
 Stuart Mill's doctrine stated and criticised, 113. Society is a 
 contractual organism, and makes itself, 118. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Classipication op the various Functions op 
 
 Government, - - 120-126 
 
 All functions of government depend on coercion of executive as 
 ultimate applier of force, 120. These functions may be reduced 
 under eight heads : (1) Deliberative ; (2) enforcement of delib- 
 erations ; (3) legislative ; (4) enforcement of laws ; (5) judicial ; 
 (6) enforcement of decrees ; (7) enforcement of private con- 
 tracts ; (8) miscellaneous or abnormal functions, 121-124, 
 
 Chapter IX. The Conception op Sovereignty, 127-138 
 
 Three kinds of Sovereignty : (1) Nominal or formal ; (2) legal ; 
 (3) political, 127-128. Danger of confusing these, 128. Political 
 sovereignty founded on will of community and synonymous 
 with State itself, 129. Legal sovereignty a manifestation of 
 political sovereignty, 131. Practical importance of having the 
 seat of legal sovereignty clearly defined, 133. Criticism of 
 Austin's theory, 134. 
 
 Chapter X. The Seat op Legal Sovereignty in Great Britain, 139-144 
 Parliament or the Queen in Parliament, 139. The legal sove- 
 reign an extremely complex body, 141. Its analysis shows the 
 close connection between the holders of legal and political 
 power, 142. 
 
 Chapter XI. The Ideal State and the State Universal, - 145-156 
 Definition of a perfect State, 145. It involves perfect indepen- 
 dence, and this can only be realized in a world-empire embrac- 
 ing all States, 145. Elements of imperfection inherent in all 
 merely national States, 148. Objections to the possibility of a 
 world-state best answered by the fact that such a State already 
 exists, though in an imperfect .form, 150. International law, 
 150. Rudiments of an international government and constitu- 
 tion, 152. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART II. 
 THE PEOVINCE OF LAW AND GOVERNMENT. 
 
 PAOES 
 
 Chapter XII. The Peoblem or the Province of Goveenmbnt, 159-170 
 
 Normal duties of government must be defined before deter- 
 mining ideal constitution, 159. Five solutions of problem 
 "What ought the government to do?": (1) the Opportunist; 
 (2) the Socialistic ; (3) the Individualistic ; (4) the Compromise ; 
 (5) the Organic, 165-167. 
 
 Chapter XIII. The Socialistic Solution, - - - 171-212 
 
 Difficulty of a comprehensive definition of Socialism, 171. It 
 always involves an undue subordination of individuality and 
 liberty, 174. In its ends a social scheme, and In its means a 
 political system, 175. Communism and Collectivism, 175. 
 Philosophic Socialism and practical Socialism, 177. Mr. 
 Blatchford's Merrie England, 178. Two essentials of Socialism : 
 (a) An approximation to material equality, and (6) an increase 
 of government intervention, 180. Its opponents argue : (1) 
 That its philosophic basis is untenable, 182 ; (2) that mild 
 Socialism in the present necessitates extreme Socialism in the 
 future, 185 ; (3) that no system of Economics has yet been 
 framed on a basis consistent with Socialism, 187 ; (4) that it 
 is an utterly unrealizable ideal, 189 ; (5) that even as an ideal 
 it Is undesirable and detrimental to subjects, to governors, and 
 to the State, as a whole, 191. The best tests are the experi- 
 ments of which History has kept the record : (1) Paper Utopias, 
 196 ; (2) the Greek city-states, 197 ; (3) modern communistic 
 societies on a voluntary basis, 198 ; (4) coUectivist tendencies of 
 the Australian colonies, 204. Result : History has furnished 
 no evidence that Socialism is either practicable or desirable, 
 211. It attacks the two pillars of society — property and the 
 family, 211. 
 
 Chapter XIV. Individualistic Solution considered Generally, 213-220 
 
 The modern State on the whole Individualistic, 214. While 
 Socialism is constructive, Individualism is destructive, 215. 
 Degrees of Individualism, 216. The Anarchist wishes to 
 abolish the State, 217. Moderate Individualists desire only to 
 reduce its activity, 217. Impossible to limit the power of the 
 people over themselves, 218. General characterii^tics of In- 
 dividualism, 219. 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Chapter XV. Individualistic Solution — Argument froh Ab- 
 stract Rights, - - - - 221-240 
 Two chief lines of individualistic argument, 221. General 
 aspects of natural rights, 224. Mr. Spencer's view, 224. Par- 
 ticular aspects of the doctrine : (1) Rights of individual liberty ; 
 
 (2) rights of conscience ; (3) contractual and proprietary rights ; 
 (4) rights of the Church, etc. ; (5) rights of subject nationalities; 
 (6) the rights of man, 227-237. " Natural Eights " not absolute 
 rights, 238. Ambiguity of the phrase, 239. 
 
 Chapter XVI. Individualistic Solution — Arguments from the • 
 
 Futility and Inexpediency or Over-Government, 241-260 
 
 "Over-government" always defeats its own ends, 241. In- 
 dividualistic attempts to distinguish the mutually exclusive 
 provinces of the government and of the individual, 244. Mr. 
 Spencer's indictment of existing tendencies of society, 248. 
 Xhree lines of defence : (1) Mr. Spencer gives too great 
 prominence to the purely economic aspects ; (2) ilaissez /aire has 
 its limits even in economics ; (3) the Individualist fails to 
 define the exact phases of "over-government" to which he 
 objects, 252-255. Ambiguity of " over-government" : its eleven 
 different meanings, 257. 
 
 Chapter XVII. The Solution by Compromise, 261-263 
 
 Various forms of compromise between laissez /aire and regi- 
 mentation: (1) The legislature may act on moral but not on 
 economic grounds ; (2) it may interfere on economic grounds, 
 but must not tamper with the moral tone of the community ; 
 
 (3) it must never disturb freedom of contract ; (4) it must 
 never provide the necessaries of life, 261-263. 
 
 Chapter XVIII. The Organic Solution, - - 264-269 
 
 A complete solution must neglect neither socialistic nor in- 
 dividualistic elements, 264. The organic theory alone avoids 
 this, 266. Elements involved in this conception, 266. The 
 practical solution must be sought through the distinction be- 
 tween government management and government control, 268. 
 
 Chapter XIX. An Analysis of Actual Relations between the 
 State and the Individual prom the Point op View op 
 the Latter, - . - - 270-277 
 
 The restraints on the individual's liberty are of three kinds: 
 (l)Physioal; (2) social; (3)legal, 271-273. Three ways in which 
 legal restrictions may be enforced, 273. The judicial method 
 free from objections valid against the executive method, 274. 
 Legal restraints save the individual from social tyranny, 275. 
 Also from all tyranny of corporations and local governments, 
 276. 
 
Xll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapteb XX. An Analysis of Actual Eelations between the 
 State and the Individual from the Point of View of 
 THE Former, - - ... 278-289 
 
 I. The. Sphere of the Legislature. — Classification of laws aooord- 
 ing to their main objects : (1) To define and protect rights ; (2) 
 to define and punish crimes ; (3) to alter the Constitution ; (4) 
 to confer powers on the Executive ; (5) to pass private Acts, 
 Acts of Indemnity, etc. ; (6) to provide for the poor and pro- 
 tect the weak ; (7) to promote material prosperity ; (8) to 
 elevate morals and to educate ; (9) to impose taxes, 279-284. 
 No sphere alien to Parliament in legislation, 285 ; but it may 
 err in its control of the Executive, 286. II. The Sphere and 
 Duties of the Executive. — "Facultative" functions: (1) To 
 regulate diplomacy, etc. ; (2) to preserve peace; (3) to dis- 
 tribute poor-relief ; (4) to provide education ; (5) to maintain a 
 church ; (6) to supervise local authorities ; (7) to aid its citizens 
 generally ; (8) to institute registers, and grant licences ; (9) to 
 protect and stimulate trade, 287-289. 
 
 Chapter XXI. Local Authorities and Volttntaky Associations, 290-304 
 
 Central and local government, 290. Local legislation and bye- 
 laws, 291. Allocation of administrative duties, 293. Antith- 
 esis between local government and voluntary associations 
 not absolute, 295. Main difference one of origin, 297. Minor 
 distinctions, 298. Tyranny of voluntary associations, 299. 
 Trades Unionism, 299. How far socialistic aims can be realized 
 on a voluntary basis, 302. 
 
 Chapter XXII. Liberty and Coercion, - 305-321 
 
 Opposition between liberty and coercion, 305. Democracy and 
 freedom, 305. Mr. Spencer's theory that government and 
 aggression are synonymous, 306. Is liberty an end or merely a 
 means ? 308. Does liberty increase in proportion as the 
 authority of government is lessened? 309. The rights of 
 minorities partially safe-guarded by a second legislative 
 chamber, 310. The tyranny of the majority, 312. Rules 
 for securing rights of minorities, 315. Negative and positive 
 liberty, 317. The former impossible, 317. Positive freedom 
 a relative thing, and means removal of restraints to the attain- 
 ment of welfare, 319. Authority and education, 320. Govern- 
 ment not necessarily an aggressor, 321. 
 
 Chapter XXIII. Equality, - 322-340 
 
 Fundamental inequality of men an axiom, 322. Equality a 
 relative term, 323. Seven practical meanings : (1) Civil 
 equality, 325 ; (2) political equality, 326 ; (3) equality in free- 
 dom, 327 ; (4) religious equality, 327 ; (5) moral equality, 328; 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 FAOSS 
 
 (6) social equality, 328 ; (7) equality in wealth, 329. The 
 immorality of confiscation, 331. A graduated income tax, 333. 
 Graduated death duties, 334. Rights of property valuable as 
 means of developing personality, and, when abused, defeat 
 their end, 337. How far the government can prevent this 
 abuse, 338. 
 
 Chaptek XXIV. The State and the Family, - - 341-362 
 
 Tendencies disintegrating the family, 341. These are of two 
 kinds — socialistic and individualistic, 345. Socialism and 
 Individualism alike fail to explain the social phenomena of the 
 family, 345. The interests of the State entwined with the 
 family in four ways : (1) Population ; (2) education ; (3) social 
 status ; (4) distribution of wealth, 248-250. The State cannot 
 assume a negative attitude towards the family, 250. Rules 
 that ought to regulate its interference : (1) It must protect 
 its sovereignty over the family ; (2) respect its privacy ; (3) 
 protect itself in protecting the interests of family ; (4) interfere 
 only when absolutely necessary ; (5) fix how far the parents are 
 to be entrusted with education ; (6) regulate the distribution of 
 family property on its dissolution; (7) regulate the conditions of 
 marriage and divorce, 351-355. 
 
 Chapter XXV. The State and Education, - 363-376 
 
 The legislature must adopt a positive attitude towards educa- 
 tion, 363. Three attitudes possible: (1) To repudiate all 
 responsibility for education, 364. Inconsistencies of Von Hum- 
 boldt and Mill, 365. Arguments valid against the individual- 
 istic position, 369. (2) To compel parents to educate children 
 at their own expense, 370. This is not unjust to the parents, 
 371. (3) To provide and enforce free education for all, 372. 
 Arguments against free education, 372. 
 
 Chapter XXVI. The State and Morality, - ... 377-390 
 
 Ought the State actively to promote the virtue of its subjects ? 
 377. It is impossible for it to avoid influencing its citizens for 
 good or evil, 379. It is its duty to act as a censor of morals 
 whenever such action is likely to do good, 380. Five suggested 
 criteria : (1) It must never direcUy aim at making men moral, 
 383. (2) It may persuade but not coerce to virtue, 386. (3) It 
 may remove obstacles, but must not afford positive support, ' 
 386. (4) It must never go beyond what public opinion 
 warrants, 388. (5) It is subject to no restraints, so long as 
 its end is good, and likely to be realized at a proportionate 
 cost, 389. 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGES , 
 
 Chaptbr XXVII. The State and the Church, - 391-405 
 
 All churches embraced in modem State, 391. Contrast medi- 
 aeval church, 392. Historical analogies misleading, 393. 
 Common law controls canon law, 397. Five schemes con- 
 sistent with establishment of religion : (1) Establish one 
 church with uniform creed and discipline ; (2) establish one 
 uniform church, but allow dissenters to stay without ; (3) 
 compel attendance, but allow within it wide divergencies ; 
 (4) allow latitude within the one established church, and also 
 permission to stay without ; (5) establish all religions alike, 
 398-400. Three attitudes consistent with voluntary basis : 
 (1) Refuse right of association for religious purposes ; (2) protect 
 all churches equally like associations for secular purposes ; (3) 
 allow "the church" a share in the government of the State, 
 400-403. Impossible to decide what is "the church" on a 
 purely voluntary basis, 403. Liberationist ideals, 404. Two 
 links between the civil government and religion : (a) Morality 
 and (6) education, 404. 
 
 Chapter XXVIII. Custom, Contract, and Leoislation, 406-413 
 
 Maine's law of progress from status to contract, 406. Sup- 
 plemented by the principle of legislation, 406. Custom, 
 contract, legislation; a less inadequate formula, 407. Three 
 stages of progress : Legislation does not supersede contract 
 any more than contract supersedes status, 407. Individualistic 
 theories of complete laissez /aire, free competition, and free 
 contract have all broken down, 408. They had to be supple- 
 mented by Factory Acts, etc., 410. Such legislation does 
 not imply Socialism in the sense of State-ownership, 413. 
 
 Chapter XXIX. Three Methods of State Intervention, - - 414-427 
 
 Laissez faire must be supplemented by State intervention; 
 but this does not necessarily involve Socialism, 414. Govern- 
 ment interference takes three forms : (1) State-ownership, 415. 
 Arguments for and against the institution of private property, 
 417. State-ownership would make government a terrestrial 
 providence, 420. Exceptional instances may be admitted 
 without prejudicing the general inadvisability, 420. (2) 
 Government administration or regimentation, 420. The 
 dangers of direct government interference, 421. Socialism 
 involves all of these, in addition to those exclusively its own, 
 421. (3) Legislative control, 422. Wherein this method diflfers 
 from regimentation, 422. It is possible to diminish govern- 
 ment management, and at the same time to increase legislative 
 control, 424. 
 
CONTENTS XV 
 
 PAET III. 
 
 THE APPLICATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICAL POLITICS. 
 
 Chaptbr XXX. Some Practical Conchtsions, - - 431-443 
 
 The organic theory of the State as a brotherhood of men must 
 be borne in mind in formulating practical conclusions, 431. 
 
 (I) The righteous State must strive for the highest good of 
 the whole community ; (2) it can neglect no means towards 
 this end. This doctrine of expediency is not a hedonistic 
 utilitarianism. (3) There is no presumption either for or 
 against government intervention ; (4) no alleged absolute 
 rights of individuals can be allowed to stand ; (5) there is no 
 absolute objection to coercion whether negative or positive ; 
 
 (6) yet there is, caeter is paribus, a presumption against coercion ; 
 
 (7) there should be only one law-making body in a State ; (8) 
 throughout its territories law should be uniform ; (9) muni- 
 cipalities, etc., may make local bye-laws; (10) some adminis- 
 trative duties can only be performed by the central government ; 
 
 (II) others are better left to local authorities; (12) the central 
 government must always retain its sovereign rights intact ; (13) 
 other social wants can be best supplied by voluntary associa- 
 tions ; (14) where self-help is best, government may still act as 
 a stimulus ; (15) few arbitrary powers should be entrusted to 
 executive ofSoials ; (16) in interfering to promote virtue, the 
 law must be careful not to promote hypocrisy ; (17) legislative 
 control is preferable to direct government management, 432-439. 
 Four concluding suggestions for a programme of reform : I. 
 Individual initiative and freedom should be stimulated in every 
 way. II. Where freedom must be interfered with, the method 
 of indirect legislative control is preferable to direct govern- 
 ment management. III. Primary responsibility must be 
 enforced on individuals although the State takes ultimate 
 responsibility. IV. The chief want of the present day is a 
 new economic reintegration of society, 440-443. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 (1) MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF STATE AND INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 The student of humanity must accept the individual specimen 
 as he finds him — one man associated with his fellow-men in a 
 more or less highly organized community. To separate arbi- 
 trarily in thought things essentially related in reality, would 
 be to vitiate at the start the premiss to be founded on. A 
 rational being can no more free himself from the ideas and 
 habits of the nation that has produced and still encircles him, 
 than he can shake off his own shadow. Every individual is 
 dependent on society for his origin and up-bringing, and he 
 remains an integral part of it, in a sense, even in the solitude 
 of a desert isle or the isolation of a convict's cell. Every man 
 is a member of a community, and every community needs 
 organization of some sort, and is therefore potentially, if not 
 actually, a body politic. All human beings, then, are necessarily 
 citizens of a State. 
 
 This assertion by no means implies that every group of men, 
 civilized or savage, is necessarily part of a vast organized 
 nation like one of the great powers of modern Europe. These 
 powers are States indeed, and in common speech monopolize 
 the exclusive right to be so named. The word State, however, 
 is here employed with a much wider connotation, embracing as 
 it does every independent group of men, whether large or small, 
 aiiiong whom the most embryonic rudiments even of organiza- 
 tion can be, however indistinctly, traced. In this wide meaning 
 of the term, every individual is born, lives, and dies the member 
 of a State. Apart from the community of his fellows, the 
 
2 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 human unit could never have come into existence or attained 
 maturity. The State, on the other hand, is equally dependent 
 for its very being, if not on any one individual, yet on indi- 
 viduals as a class. No body politic can exist apart from the 
 citizens of whom it is composed. All its institutions and 
 organizations fade from the world of realities and become mere 
 logical abstractions when taken away from the lives,, the 
 interests, the aspirations, and the pleasures of the men and 
 women -whom they control. The form and structure of the 
 national institutions and the moral characteristics of the 
 citizens are necessarily related to one another in the compo- 
 sition of a commonwealth, like the outside and the inside of 
 a vessel, or like the body and mind of a man. 
 
 The State cannot exist without the individuals nor the 
 individuals without the State. To analyze and examine the 
 relations which unite them constitutes the entire scope of 
 political science. Two results seem to foUow from the neces- 
 sary connection between men and States. On the one hand, it 
 is impossible to form even a vague estimate of the true nature 
 of the State, or of the ends of its existence, without knowing 
 something of the nature and aims of individuals ; and, on the 
 other hand, it is equally impossible to trace the origin or 
 prophesy the destiny of the latter without knowing the history 
 and the tendencies of the former. Man is a spirit. From 
 Socrates to Pope, and from Bacon to Eobert Browning, 
 thinkers of every school have agreed that his chief intellectual 
 duty and his greatest privilege lie in the endeavour to make 
 his own spiritual nature intelligible to himself. "Know thyself" 
 is as imperative a duty to-day as it was two thousand years 
 ago. "The proper study of mankind is man" is an axiom 
 which new men and changing manners cannot shake. This 
 universal and familiar truth has been re-af&rmed only yesterday 
 in a new dress by Eobert Browning, who declares that outside 
 of the "incidents in the development of a soul, little else is 
 worth study. "^ 
 
 If man is " by nature a social and political animal " — and 
 no lover of paradoxes has dared openly to deny this great 
 truth since Aristotle gave it utterance — then it is absurd to 
 ' Tide Dedication to Sordello in the collected edition of 1863. 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 endeavour to fulfil the mandate "Know thyself" without striv- 
 ing at the same time to know that community of selves in 
 which the nature of each is inextricably involved. "The de- 
 velopment of a soul " must indeed be determined from within, 
 but it cannot find the environment it needs for its growth 
 in a vacuum, or in the prison of its own subjective individu- 
 ality. Society and the State (which is only another name 
 for society considered as politically organized) mould the 
 individual after their own image, and furnish him with the 
 nutriment necessary for making his latent potentialities real. 
 
 The welfare of the individual is bound up in the welfare of 
 the State, and whatever affects the one affects the other. -^ Thus 
 there is no part of the subject-matter of social and political 
 science which is not of vital interest to the student of mankind. 
 Every question which may be raised as to the form of the 
 national institutions, or the duties of government, or the position 
 and rights of the subject, has important bearings on the 
 spiritual development of the individual man. Broadly speak- 
 ing, these questions may be divided into two classes : (1) The 
 first group treats of the structure of the machinery of govern- 
 ment. Its chief question (of which the others are merely 
 phases) is : Under what form of constitution can the State best 
 fulfil its destiny or attain the ends for which it exists ? Or 
 more briefly: What ought the form of the State to be? (2) The 
 second group deals with the duties of the State and the limits of 
 the province of government. It examines the extent to which 
 the common welfare of the whole and the highest interests of 
 each separate part can be furthered by the active intervention 
 of the State in the affairs of its citizens, and how far these 
 ends are best achieved by a policy of laiss&s faire. In its 
 shortest form the question becomes : What ought the State, 
 acting through its government, to rfo ? 
 
 These two questions, simple as they seem, are an abstract of 
 all the possible problems of practical and theoretical politics. 
 They are constantly presenting themselves under endlessly 
 
 ^ Cf. Sheldon Amos, Seierwe of Politics, p. 456. " So far as our know- 
 ledge extends, it is in the life of the State, and only there, that human 
 life, in all its ramifications, can obtain the nourishment it needs for its 
 appropriate expansion and development." 
 
4, THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 varying forms. Full answers to them would involve a com- 
 plete political science, and perhaps a complete philosophy of 
 the universe as well. The following essay aims at setting 
 forth some of their chief aspects, and at indicating the general 
 lines upon which any attempt at solution must proceed. Before 
 trying to discover, however, either the most perfect form of 
 the constitution, or the proper province of the agents of the 
 State, it is necessary to fix on some criterion or principle of 
 judgment, som^ aim or ideal the furtherance or hindrance of 
 which is the test of the excellence or failure of all institutions 
 and methods of government. Thus, before a systematic attempt 
 to answer either group of questions can be made, a preliminary 
 investigation is necessary into the nature, origin, sphere, aims, 
 and destiny of the individual, of society, and of the State. 
 
 Starting from the fact that the State is necessarily com- 
 posed of individuals whose nature is moulded by the whole 
 community, it seems plain that a perfect comprehension of 
 the State would involve a knowledge not only of its own 
 aims and destiny, but also of the essential characteristics of 
 all its members, and the nature of the relations between 
 the two. Now, the solution of all these problems lies in 
 the analysis of the relations between the State and its 
 individual citizens. In making this analysis the natural 
 method is to begin with the whole whose essence is the 
 centre of the system, and work outwards and downwards 
 towards the members, considering each in the light of the 
 whole. 
 
 Three propositions may be laid down at the outset, not 
 as self-evident axioms upon which a system is to be built, 
 but rather as hypotheses whose truth must be verified or 
 disproved in the course of the subsequent inquiry. These 
 propositions are: 
 
 (1) The relations which are observed to exist between 
 the individual and the community are essential and not merely 
 accidental. (2) Every community attaining to any permanent 
 existence — every society which is not merely a mob — implies 
 political organization or government of some sort, forming 
 the rudiments, at any rate, of a State. (3) The nature of 
 the relations binding the individual to the State (or organized 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 society) may be better classed as " organic " than under any 
 lower category. 
 
 Each of these hypotheses requires a word of explanation ; 
 and in especial, it is necessary to guard against certain mis- 
 conceptions which are frequently made as to what is meant 
 by describing the structure of society as " organic." (1) The 
 first proposition is most readily understood in relation to a 
 rival theory of man's nature which exercised for more than 
 one century a complete sway over modern Europe. It has 
 been a common practice with men in all ages, when feeling 
 themselves out of harmony with the existing social order 
 and methods of government, to look upon the evils of life 
 as in great measure due to the restraints placed upon the 
 individual man by the community of which he is a 
 member, and to picture the imaginary perfection to which 
 he would attain if he lived in a golden age and a state of 
 nature where his inherent excellencies had free scope to 
 blossom forth in their full beauty unblighted by the breath 
 of a corrupt civilization. To such men — and such have 
 existed in all countries and ages — the true nature of 
 the individual man is to be discovered by isolating him 
 from his fellows, and studying the problematical course of 
 his development on the assumption of its being as little as 
 possible influenced from without. To attain to maturity he 
 only needs to be left alone. Social influences merely cramp 
 and deform him. To such philosophers the State with its 
 laws and rulers is an evil, necessary, mayhap, buJ; if so, 
 only because each man cannot have a whole world to him- 
 self in which to develop. In the absence of these necessary 
 evils, constant collisions would occur between man and man. 
 The golden age and the state of nature are thus unfortunately 
 found to involve a " state of war," and men must associate 
 together for mutual protection. Thus the State has some- 
 times been described as " an association for the protection 
 of life and property." On this ground it has been argued 
 that its sphere of activity and powers should be extended no 
 further than is absolutely necessary for fulfilling these pur- 
 poses for which alone its baleful and mischievous influence 
 is tolerated. That this picture is hardly a caricature of 
 
6 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the extreme form in which the theory of the merely accidental 
 relations of men to the State is sometimes seriously put 
 forward will be apparent on a comparison with the words 
 of John Locke. " Men," says Locke, " being by nature all 
 free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this 
 estate and subjected to the political power of another with- 
 out his own consent. The only way whereby any one 
 divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds 
 of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and 
 unite into a community." ^ This belief, that the relations 
 binding each member to the society are merely accidental, 
 will by force of contrast explain the opposite theory which 
 is here maintained, that man is by his nature essentially a 
 social animal. If it were not for such expressions of a con- 
 trary opinion as that just quoted, it would seem almost 
 unnecessary seriously to postulate that one individual could 
 never exist apart from others. He cannot attain to man- 
 hood without the help and protection of his fellow men. 
 The child is born less able to obtain the nutriment and 
 warmth which the body needs than the young of any of 
 the lower animals. If it were possible for society and the 
 family (which forms a part of society) to minister to the 
 material needs of the child until able to help himself with- 
 out contributing anything to the development of his mind, 
 his " state of nature '' would be a state of idiotcy or 
 imbecility. The individual mind has no content apart from 
 what is received from direct or indirect educative influences 
 of society. Man attains to his true nature not in propor- 
 tion as he retires into a hermit's ceU and shuts out all 
 contact with the world ; but in proportion to the closeness 
 of the sympathy he attains with every current of thought 
 and feeling pervading the society of his own age and 
 country, and in proportion as he reduces all discordant 
 elements into a harmonious whole at one with each other 
 and with the rational principle which forms his distinctive 
 right to the name of man. The individual can never shake 
 himself free from the conditions of society ; but he may try 
 to do so, if he is so foolish as to rebel against the inevitable. 
 ' Treatise of Civil Government, ll., § 95. 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 If he make the effort he will only succeed in stunting him- 
 self in the process. He will fall behind his fellows, in 
 seeking to outstrip them. If he wishes to rise in the scale 
 of humanity he should rather learn that this is, possible 
 just in proportion as he realizes more intimately his con- 
 nection with all the factors of the oommunity of mankind. 
 The full height of his mature development as a rational 
 man can be reached only in and through society. This 
 then is what is meant by saying that his relations to the 
 State are necessary and not accidental.^ 
 
 (2) Society cannot exist without a principle of organiza- 
 tion or order of some sort. Only extreme anarchists imagine 
 that it could. Lawlessness is merely another name for 
 violence, robbery, and bloodshed. The existence of an 
 ef&cient law implies some sanction to enforce it and some 
 executive authority constituting at least the rudiments of a 
 government, and therefore the beginnings of a State. A 
 strong executive, however, while restraining disorder in 
 others is too apt to use its power to make good its own 
 arbitrary desires — a lesson which may be read in the 
 history of all nations — Eepublics as well as Monarchies. 
 Thus complicated and elaborate constitutions arise, partly to 
 supply the needed checks upon the prerogatives of a too- 
 powerful executive, and partly to meet the growing needs 
 of the community for increasing governmental control, legis- 
 lative, judicial, and administrative. More and not less 
 guidance is needed by a society as it increases in civilization, 
 and as its individuals progress upwards in the scale of 
 humanity, and in the attainment of knowledge and culture. 
 The further the stage of development reached by the indi- 
 viduals, the greater is the progress of society as a whole 
 and the higher the degree of organization that is needed. 
 
 iCf. Professor D. G. Eitchie's State Interference, p. 11. "The 
 individual, apart from his surroundings, is a mere abstraction — a 
 logical ghost, a metaphysical spectre, -which haunts the habitations of 
 those who have derided metaphysics. The individual, apart from all 
 relations to a community, is a negation. You can say nothing about 
 him, or rather it, except that it is not any other individual." See 
 also F. C. Montague's Limits of Individwxl lAberty, p. 55. 
 
8 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Thus, as the State is only another name for society properly 
 organized under an orderly government on a permanent 
 political basis, it develops as the society itself develops, 
 both keeping pace with the approximation of individuals 
 towards that ideal of fully realized manhood which is for 
 rational beings the true "state of nature." If the perfect 
 State, however, can only come with the perfection of 
 humanity, its undeveloped potentialities are necessarily bound 
 up with the individual savages in their wildest stage of 
 primeval barbarism. Man — even barbarous man — is essentially 
 a member of society, and society is necessarily a State. 
 
 (3) It is not enough to say that the relations which 
 bind the individual to the State are necessary and essential 
 to the existence of both. A further field for inquiry 
 remains in the exact nature of these relations — as to the 
 precise position with regard to the whole occupied by each 
 part. Now in using the word "organic" as the best de- 
 scription of this relationship, it is necessary to make some 
 attempt at explaining and defending the exact position 
 which is thus taken up. 
 
 It may be best at the outset to confess that the word is 
 adopted not because it is fitted with absolute accuracy and 
 freedom from ambiguity to express the truth which it is 
 intended to convey ; but simply from want of a better. 
 The student of natural history divides the world into the 
 " organic " and the " inorganic " ; and by the former, he means, 
 broadly speaking, all forms of animal and plant life. 
 
 The word " organism " thus took its rise as a scientific term, 
 and was in use in a specific and somewhat limited accepta- 
 tion long before it was adopted by philosophers and political 
 students as a convenient formula for conveying a compara- 
 tively new conception of the nature of society. It has now 
 passed from the scientific world to the street, and the 
 words "organism" and "organic" have long been familiar 
 to the comparatively illiterate as applied to the class of 
 objects in connection with which they were originally used. 
 Thus it is not surprising to find that in popular thought 
 these words are closely associated with the ideas of animal 
 or vegetable life, especially the former; nor is it astonish- 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 ing that naturalists or biologists, finding a word which they 
 have long been accustomed to regard as their exclusive 
 property applied in what seems to them an altogether new 
 and unwarrantable manner, should be inclined to laugh at 
 or to misunderstand the new departure. It is astonishing, 
 however, to find that the greatest of living " scientific " 
 philosophers — who has himself done more than any other 
 living author to popularize in current English thought the 
 application of the "organic" conception to social subjects — 
 should support his doctrine upon a series of minute and 
 accidental parallels instead of the broad universal principles 
 underlying all such minutiae. In his Principles of Sociology, 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer draws a series of detailed analogies 
 between the growth, functions, and structures of animals on 
 the one hand, and of societies on the other. -^ 
 
 It is equally surprising to find how far a crude method of 
 applying this idea of an organism to the manifestations of 
 social and political life vitiates much of the reasoning of 
 Bluntschli — the father of modern political science — whose 
 chief fault seems to lie not so much where the compilers of 
 the authorized translation have placed it (in too thorough- 
 going and extreme an application of his "organic or psycho- 
 logical conception of the State "), as in using that conception 
 in a one-sided and inadequate way. Indeed, the chief defects 
 in Bluntschli's theory of the State seem to result from his 
 failing to apply the organic conception in a sufficiently' 
 thorough and systematic way; minor faults spring from his 
 tendency to neglect the broader aspects of the category 
 employed and to trace misleading parallels between the 
 nature of the State and the physiological structure of 
 existing animals. His conception of the political organism 
 is contorted by his failure to throw off the influence of con- 
 fusing analogies from the animal world, whence the idea was 
 originally borrowed. Thus, while Mr. Spencer warns us that 
 society is to be compared only with low forms of animal life, 
 Bluntschli insists, in more places than one, that the State is 
 
 ' See Principles of Sociology, Part ii., chapters ii. to xi; See also 
 the criticism of Mr. Spencer contained in Prof. D. G. Ritchie's State 
 iTiterferenee, p. 15, note. 
 
10 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 essentially a maU organism, while the Church, in his opinion, 
 is also an organism, but of the opposite sex.^ 
 
 When such expressions as these are found in two so great 
 exponents of the organic theory of society as BluntschK and 
 Mr. Spencer, it is hardly to be wondered if the enemies of 
 that theory have little difficulty in caricaturing it in many 
 ways. These hostile critics demand to be told what species 
 of animal society is, if it is really an organism at all ; or they 
 triumphantly pronounce against it because they cannot obtain 
 satisfaction as to the exact position of its " sensorium," or, 
 mayhap, of its back-bone. Thus, Count Leo Tolstoi^ sums 
 up against the claims of humanity to rank as organic, because 
 it lacks what he considers an essential characteristic of every 
 organism, viz. a centre of sensation or consciousness. "We 
 call an elephant as well as a bacterium," he goes on to say, 
 " organisms, only because we suppose by analogy in these 
 beings unification of sensations or consciousness. As for 
 human societies and mankind, they lack this essential ; and 
 therefore, however many other general character-signs we 
 may find out in mankind and in an organism, without this 
 the acknowledgment of mankind to be an organism is 
 incorrect." Several points in this argument are open to 
 criticism. To emphasize or even to indicate these would, 
 however, only lead to confusion by distracting attention 
 from the object with which these words are here quoted ; 
 which is to point out the mode of attack usually adopted 
 against the organic conception of society and to illustrate 
 its special vulnerability unless duly fenced from miscon- 
 ception by a clear definition of its meaning. 
 
 The truth is that society may be, and is, an organism 
 without resembling any animal organisms whatever : it is not 
 only neither like a lion nor an elephant, nor a bacterium, nor 
 a mass of protoplasm ; but has characteristics which all forms 
 of animal life — and of plant life too for that matter — ^utterly 
 lack, and it wants characteristics which they one and all 
 possess. For all that, it remains emphatically an organism 
 in the sense in which that word is used in this essay and 
 
 ^Cf. D. G. Ritchie's State Interference, p. 15, note. 
 ^ What must we Do then, English translation, p. 116. 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 by all writers on social science who are favourable to the 
 theory here upheld. 
 
 Plant and animal forms of life are thus merely two species 
 of organisms, and by no means exhaust the genus. It is as 
 absurd to reject the claims of society to rank as an organism 
 by showing its essential difference from all known forms of 
 animal life as it would be to argue that a mollusc is not an 
 animal because it is confessedly not part of the sub-kingdom 
 mammal. Animals are only one kind of organism, and 
 assuredly not the highest in the list. 
 
 The organic school have themselves to blame in great 
 measure for opening their lines of defence to the enemy ; for 
 undouhtedly they have often indulged in that most dangerous 
 of all forms of argument — reasoning from analogy. This 
 process has its uses, like many other aids, which have first 
 to he used and then thrown aside to enable the user to 
 advance beyond them. It must, however, always be employed 
 with caution, and never taken as the final stage in the search 
 for truth. Undoubtedly the analogies between society and that 
 particular class of organisms called animals have afforded 
 many clues or hypotheses invaluable as suggesting methods 
 of advance to a clearer knowledge of the nature of social 
 and political phenomena. It is apt, however, to be forgotten 
 hy friends as well as foes that these are mere analogies, and 
 must never be accepted by themselves as proofs. 
 
 The device of illustrating theories of the constitution of 
 the commonwealth hy tracing analogies between the body 
 politic and the material frame of animals is as old at least 
 as the days of Menenius Agrippa,^ who used it to prove the 
 danger of dissensions and the necessary subordination of the 
 plebs to the patricians who formed by nature (as interpreted 
 by the speaker) the head or government of the whole. The 
 healing effect of this reasoning is well known, and illustrates 
 the political value of the analogy where used in a broad and 
 popular way. It is equally clear, however, that had Menenius 
 Agrippa proceeded to make his hypothesis the basis of a 
 system of philosophy he would have been drawn into serious 
 errpr by allowing those details of the analogy (so useful for 
 
 'Suggestions of it are to be found in both Plato and Aristotle. 
 
12 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 oratorical effect) to prevent his seeing that the nature of a 
 commonwealth of men transcends in many ways the nature 
 of a merely physical organism, and has many phenomena 
 which cannot be so explained. 
 
 In applying the idea of a developing organism to social 
 and pohtical problems it is necessary to be more than usually 
 careful not to be misled by false analogies. Society is an 
 organism not because it resembles any particular type of 
 animal, nor even because it presents analogies to the elements 
 which are common to all animals, but because it possesses the 
 essential characteristics to be found in all organic life of which 
 animal and plant life are merely lower phases. In drawing 
 any comparison, attention must be fixed on the essential 
 elements involved, not on the mere accidental features of 
 structure or functions. In fact, when once the analogy has 
 played its part by furnishing a clue to direct our thoughts to 
 the true nature of society, it is safer to throw it away entirely, 
 as a whole man throws away the crutch he leaned on in his 
 convalescence. Otherwise what has been a help in the past 
 may become a hindrance for the future. Language — the most 
 useful of man's servants — often ends by enslaving its master, 
 if constant care is not exerted to define the phrases that are 
 employed. 
 
 It is necessary then to explain carefully the meaning of the 
 word "organic'' as here applied to States or political com- 
 munities. It is best to begin negatively by pointing oub 
 what it does not mean. Indeed, the first inducement towards 
 calling the relationships existing between communities and 
 their members " organic " seems to have been that social 
 relations were less unlike those of animal bodies than any 
 lower form of existence. It is well, then, to begin by explain- 
 ing the total inadequacy of these lower relationships to afford 
 even partial analogies to social phenomena. There are at least 
 five ways in which the parts of any object whatever may be 
 related to the whole. These may be described in general terms 
 as Monadistic, Monistic, Mechanical, Chemical, and Organic.-' 
 
 ' Cf. J. S. Mackenzie's Social Philosophy, p. 128 seq., where the various 
 forms of unity are clearly explained and the nature of the social 
 organism analyzed. 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 (1) It is possible to imagine a system of social philosophy- 
 founded on the assumption that society is an aggregate made 
 up of isolated individuals independent of one another. On 
 this theory every man would be an atom or monad, and the 
 theory of society might be described as monadistic. It is 
 true that the logical consequence of this view is not so 
 much to give a special interpretation to the relations between 
 the part and the whole as to deny the existence of any 
 relations at all ; for if each individual is complete within 
 himself, he can evidently with difficulty be considered as part 
 of a wider whole. The State would thus cease to be an 
 entity or reality; and society would be not a thing but a 
 mere word — a convenient collective name for the sum of a 
 number of separate human beings. This nominalistic view in 
 its extreme form (which is, however, the only one logically 
 self-consistent) carries its refutation so clearly on the face of 
 it that it is always- in practice subjected to modification of 
 some sort. No individual can be either complete in himself 
 or independent of others, unless he has absolutely absorbed 
 the whole universe into his own personality ; and this even 
 an Alexander with a thirst for world-empire cannot do. 
 Each human atom is only one among other atoms in a 
 society, and only one among other objects in the conscious- 
 ness of the observer. Society is, in this view, an extremely 
 loose aggregate of monads, like a cairn of stones or a heap 
 of cannon balls. This is only one application of the nomin- 
 alistic view, which regards the particulars as the only 
 realities and all universals as empty najnes. When this 
 theory is used to explain the nature of society, the State, 
 along with the Church and the Family, become meaningless 
 abstractions, and the individual citizen alone is real. 
 
 (2) The extreme view on the opposite side is even more 
 clearly inadequate as a correct and full account of social 
 phenomena. Only approximations to it — if even these — are 
 likely seriously to affect speculative thought or practical 
 politics. As the monadistic view seems to negative or 
 minimize the relations between whole and part by denying 
 the existence of the whole, the monistic theory tends to the 
 same result by denying the separate existence of the parts. 
 
14 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 It is dif&cult to ignore so thoroughly all the personal 
 aspirations and sufferings, strivings and despairs that make 
 up human life as to consider the existence of the 
 individual merely as a manifestation of the universal spirit 
 of the society in which he moves. The old Greek States in 
 some aspects seemed to be unconsciously influenced by such 
 an idea as this. The individual life was counted valijable 
 only in so far as it contributed to the common life of the 
 commonwealth. In this view, if the individual is not so 
 completely absorbed in the whole as to cease to be, he 
 becomes at best merely like a wave of the ocean — a mood 
 or aspect of a reality which exists apart from him. This is 
 merely an application to the structure of society of the 
 extreme Eealist doctrine, which looked on the universal alone 
 as real, while the individual counted for nothing. It receives 
 illustration from the expression used by Auguste Comte that 
 "man is a mere abstraction, and there is nothing r^al but 
 Humanity."^ 
 
 (3) The third conception of this relationship is the mechan- 
 ical one. The State, it is sometimes said, is like a machine or 
 engine — the resultant of a number of separate pieces put 
 together artfully, and connected by rivets and joints and bolts. 
 A little reflection is sufficient to show that while many of the 
 functions of government may receive explanation from such an 
 analogy as this, it is utterly incapable of furnishing a complete 
 explanation of social phenomena. Indeed, according to modern 
 ideas, the more closely the constitution and government of any 
 country approximate to this conception, the worse they become. 
 A despotic government is a mechanical one, where the power of 
 the ruler is something alien to the life of the subject, presses 
 down upon him from above, and interrupts the free current of 
 his life instead of aiding it. Even the lowest and worst forms 
 of pohtical organization cannot be fully explained by this 
 analogy, but the higher the stage of civilization, the less 
 adequate the idea becomes. 
 
 (4) Chemistry affords illustrations of a closer form of relation- 
 ship between whole and part. Two or more atoms are joined 
 together into one whole called a molecule, and their individual 
 
 ^ Cited by the Master of Balliol, Comt^s Social Philosophy, p. 76. 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 natures are so transformed in the process that they lose 
 completely their original attributes. Professor Huxley found 
 in this an analogy of the position of men in society. " The 
 process of social organization," he asserts in his famous Essay 
 on AdministrcUive Nihilism,^ "appears to be comparable not so 
 much to the process of organic development as to the synthesis of 
 the chemist, by which independent elements are gradually buUt 
 up into complex aggregations — in which each element retains 
 an independent individuality, though held in suboVdination to 
 the whole. . . . Each atom has given up something, in order 
 that the atomic society, or molecule, may subsist. And as 
 soon as any one or more of the atoms thus associated resumes 
 the freedom which it has renounced, and follows some external 
 attraction, the molecule is broken up, and all the peculiar 
 properties which depended upon its constitution vanish." 
 
 The inadequacy of this conception becomes apparent when 
 we reflect that it is impossible to remove the atom man from 
 the so-called molecule society ; for the individual has no pro- 
 perties and no existence apart from society. He does not find 
 his true nature by withdrawing from the State. As will be more 
 clearly apparent in the sequel, the individual does not lose his 
 true self in the compound, but rather finds it. This chemical 
 analogy stands to the monistic view very much in the same 
 relation as the mechanical stands to the monadistic. An 
 advance in each case has been made towards qualifying the 
 extreme one-sidedness of the original crude conception by some 
 admixture of the other ; but the mechanical theory still under- 
 estimates the closeness of the tie, and so leaves elements of 
 dualism or plurality ; while the chemical theory underestimates 
 the independent existence of the parts, and so fails to preserve 
 the individuality of the separate citizens. 
 
 (5) The fifth and last conception contains in a sense the 
 various elements of truth conveyed by all the others, but con- 
 tains also incalculably more. The organic theory of society 
 seeks to combine the liberty and semi-independent existence 
 of the part with the authority of the whole, and to explain 
 their intimate and essential connection. Men are "members 
 one of another." The social atoms are to the State like the 
 ' Vide Method and Results, p. 274. 
 
16 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 branches to the vine, like the cells of which a plant is made 
 to the structure of the whole. Injure one and you injure all. 
 The life of the whole pulses through all the parts, which in 
 turn contribute something needful to the welfare of the whole. 
 
 When it is said that society is organic, it is not meant 
 that it is exactly like a plant or like an animal, but simply 
 that the forms under which plants or animals live suggest a 
 less incomplete analogy than those afforded by such words 
 as "chemical" or "mechanical." This is what is meant by 
 writers such as the late Sheldon Amos ; who, in referring to 
 the British constitution "as an organic whole and not as a 
 mere aggregate of distinct institutions and laws," uses these ex- 
 planatory words : ^ "If any metaphorical language were to be 
 adopted (which is a very dangerous experiment in the case 
 of politics — a study crowning aU other studies, and therefore 
 eminently md generis) the parts of the English constitution 
 might be said to be connected together physiologically rather 
 than chemically, and least of all mechanically." 
 
 To have progressed beyond mechanical and chemical to 
 physiological categories is then much ; but after all it is only 
 an advance from the more to the less inadequate. If organic 
 is to be used — for want of a better word — to include society 
 and the State, it must be extended to cover a wider con- 
 notation and to embrace many objects besides animal 
 organisms. Society ought perhaps to be described in Mr. 
 Spencer's phrase as super-organic, or hyper-organic, rather 
 than as simply organic. 
 
 Thus it is possible that within the realm of the organic 
 taken in its widest sense, there may be several subdivisions, 
 and it would be not unnatural to expect that these should 
 bear some resemblance to the distinction already met with 
 in dealing with lower categories. Thus, as the mechanical 
 conception bore a certain relation to the monadistic, and 
 the chemical to the monistic, it is not surprising to find 
 two classes of organisms reproducing in a still less extreme 
 form the characteristics of mechanical and chemical unities — 
 the one laying stress on the part, and the other on the 
 whole. 
 
 ^ Fifty Years of the English Constitution, p. 11. 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 Thus (a) the individual man, considered as a combination 
 of mind and body, may be called an organic union of Wo 
 factors — one material and the other spiritual. Here we 
 have, at least in appearance, a remnant of that dualism 
 which was seen to be one characteristic of mechanism. Mind 
 and body are mysteriously welded into one; but they are 
 not inseparable, for the former may embody itself, or part 
 of itself, anew in a manuscript or printed volume, and so 
 live on after the brain which gave it birth is decomposed, 
 while the body exists as a lifeless mass after death has 
 given wing to the soul. The two factors cannot be 
 identified, and are indeed, in popular thought, considered the 
 very opposites of one another in the familiar antithesis of 
 "body and soul." The relation between the two, in the life 
 of one human being, forms an excellent type of the first 
 class of organic unity, where, though elements of union and 
 separation are both found, the latter seem to outweigh the 
 former. But (6) there is a second kind of organic unity, 
 where just the reverse holds true — where the tendencies 
 towards a complete union seem to overbalance those towards 
 separation. Of this latter class, animal organisms afford the 
 best types. These are made up of cells which are alive only 
 as they share the life of the whole; but which might yet 
 in other circumstances have formed the germs each of an 
 independent organism of its own. The relationship is still 
 organic, but the parts have no separate consciousness nor 
 even separate lives. They have been absorbed entirely in 
 the whole. Here is a reproduction on a higher plane of some 
 of the characteristics of a chemical union, (c) A third class 
 combines and transcends the characteristics of each of these. 
 It is possible to imagine other and stiU more perfect forms 
 of organic or super-organic life embodying what is best in all 
 the more partial or one-sided phases — preserving the unity 
 more completely than the first, and giving greater scope for 
 liberty and individual life than the second. The individual 
 mind is a type of this. The self-consciousness, or unity of 
 apperception, or principle of identity, which is the centre 
 of the system, cannot exist without the moods of volition, 
 feeling, and cognition through which it manifests itself; while 
 
18 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 these are inconceivable apart from the unity of the conscious 
 mind. 
 
 Various other examples of organic unities might be men- 
 tioned, some of which it is difficult to classify. Every work 
 of art, for example, is an organic whole, and so is the system 
 of positive laws and customs which regulate the life of 
 every nation. It is needless to multiply examples. The 
 main point to observe is, that many forms of organisms exist, 
 widely different from one another and from the animal and 
 plant systems to which the term was first applied. Different 
 writers on social science have pictured humanity under one 
 or other of these varied forms. 
 
 {a) Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer holds that^ "the parts of 
 an animal form a concrete whole ; but the parts of a society 
 form one, which is discrete." A few pages further on,^ he 
 points out "a cardinal difference in the two kinds of organisms. 
 In the one, consciousness is concentrated in a small part of 
 the aggregate. In the other, it is diffused throughout the 
 aggregate; all the units possess the capacity for happiness 
 and misery, if not in equal degrees, still in degrees that 
 approximate. As, then, there is no social sensorium, the 
 welfare of the aggregate, considered apart from that of the 
 units, is not an end to be sought. The society exists for 
 the benefit of its members, not its members for the benefit 
 of the society." It is thus by making society what he calls 
 a " discrete " organism — and what from the point of view of 
 this essay might be called an organism of a somewhat 
 mechanical type — that Mr. Spencer reconciles his organic 
 conception of the State with a theory of thorough-going 
 individualism in politics, such as he has expounded in his 
 famous work, Tlie Man versus the State. 
 
 (6) Quite an opposite conception of the social organism is, 
 however, possible — one approximating rather to the chemical 
 than the mechanical type. By straining the analogy between 
 the body politic and the animal body, the organic conception 
 is often pressed into the service of socialism. The relations 
 of the individual citizen to the State are compared to the 
 position of the cells which make up the tissue of a tree or 
 '^Prindples of Sociology, 2nd edition, p. 445. ^p 449 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 animal, the life and independence of each being sapped and 
 " exploited " for the benefit of the whole. The cells of an 
 animal have neither separate consciousness nor separate aims 
 and interests from those of the whole. Similarly, a few 
 extreme socialists would prevent the individual from being an 
 end to himself, and make him the bond-slave of the needs of 
 the community. It is as a reaction against such a one-sided 
 interpretation as this that many moderate-minded men are 
 led to condemn the idea of a social organism altogether. Thus 
 Professor Laurie^ "maintains that the organic conception, if 
 accepted in any unqualified sense, would reduce all individuals 
 to slavery, and personal ethics to slavish obedience to existing 
 law." Obviously this criticism, however applicable to the 
 organic conception in the hands of socialists, has no force 
 against such an interpretation as that of Mr. Spencer. 
 
 (c) Thus it is possible to use the same idea in support both 
 of the excessive authority of the State and of the unbridled 
 license of individual liberty, according as we emphasize one 
 or another of the two leading moments which it contains. 
 A third course is, however, open. Just as it was possible 
 to combine the mechanical and chemical conceptions of society, 
 and at the same time to transcend them both in the idea 
 of organic union, so it is possible to rise above both inadequate 
 ideas of such an organic union to one which is neither con- 
 crete nor discrete, but a truly " organic " organism in which 
 neither the whole is sacrificed to the part nor the part to 
 the whole, but each finds its complement, or alter ego, in the 
 other, and so realizes its full life and perfect well-being. 
 
 The true and full interpretation of the organic conception 
 of society is opposed to both of the caricatures used to 
 support one-sided socialistic or individualistic theories. It 
 is, unfortunately, impossible to obtain a perfect analogy of 
 such a conception of the highest form of unity in difference 
 iand difference in unity with which to compare the State. 
 The body politic, indeed, in its highest development is 
 essentially sui generis, and the imperfection of all other 
 organisms must be judged by their shortcomings when com- 
 pared with the standard which its perfection sets up. 
 1 S. S. Laurie, Ethica, p. 212. 
 
20 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Every nation has a life of its own, and every citizen has a 
 life of his own. 
 
 Thus every man is both an end and a means — an end as 
 regards his own realization, and a means as regards that of 
 the State ; and these two realizations in their ultimate form 
 must coincide. To understand this fully, two truths must 
 be borne in mind. In the first place, when mankind as a 
 whole is called an organic unity, it is a unity of minds and 
 not of bodies that is meant. The State has undoubtedly 
 power over men's physical frames and material goods, but 
 it is primarily a union of spirits — of beings capable of under- 
 standing and following the universal as embodied in the form 
 of the laws and institutions of the State. Thus the ultimate 
 conception of society is assuredly not of a number of animal 
 existences, or even of an aggregate of beings capable of feel- 
 ings or passions, but of a union of persons endowed with 
 reason who attain to true maturity in proportion as their 
 rational nature triumphs over their lower instincts, and who, 
 by the very same process by which they attain self-realiza- 
 tion, come closer into sympathy and unity with others of 
 like nature with themselves. In the second place — and this 
 is merely another aspect of the same truth — the organic unity 
 of society is rather an ideal to be aimed at than a goal 
 already reached. The solidarity of the race holds good 
 of humanity at every stage of its development, but 
 among savage tribes it is potential rather than actual. 
 Centuries of slow progress have been needed before the brother- 
 hood of men of all races and colours has become consciously 
 realized, even to a partial extent. The practical results, 
 which ought to flow from the discovery of the truth that all 
 men are brothers, can as yet hardly be said to have begun. 
 If modem evolutionists are right, the whole vegetable and 
 animal kingdoms, including man with his power of speech 
 and thought, his moral and rational nature, his political and 
 social organizations, are present in embryo in the uniform 
 mass of " protoplasm "plus chlorophyll," out of which all Uving 
 forms have come.^ Similarly it may be said that the universal 
 brotherhood of man exists in spite of the criminal and even 
 ^Cf Edward Clodd, Primer of Evolution, pasivm. 
 
INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 cannibal instincts of the rudest race of barbarians. All these 
 theories may be true, but they contain only one aspect of 
 truth as seen from a philosophic standpoint. No simple thing 
 can progress towards a complex ideal, unless that ideal is 
 already existent. The acorn contains the oak only to the 
 mind already familiar with the idea of the full-grown tree. 
 Similarly, the organic conception of the State, though always 
 involved potentially in the rudest beginnings of political life, 
 is an ideal to which civilization approximates more and more, 
 and not the point from which it starts. While it forms the 
 clue in guiding us towards a true conception of society as 
 it ought to be in its perfection, we must not suffer ourselves 
 to be disappointed, nor yet regard the idea as untenable, 
 because it has never yet been adequately realized. On the 
 contrary, the whole of history shows a struggle towards this 
 idea through lower categories. Governments have gradually 
 been emancipating themselves from mechanical theories of 
 their duties, and approaching to a nobler understanding of 
 the intimate organic connection between rulers and their 
 subjects. 
 
 It is impossible, as has been already said, to find any 
 exact analogy of the constitution of society thus conceived; 
 but a clearer general idea of what is meant may perhaps 
 be obtained by comparison with the unity of thought and 
 sound which presents itself to the ear and mind of the lover 
 of music when he listens to the rendering of a symphony 
 by an orchestra of a hundred performers, each drawing the 
 appropriate sounds from his own instrument in obedience to 
 the law of the conductor's baton. Clearly the performance 
 of the symphony — if a satisfactory one — is a unity of a 
 very perfect, intimate, and organic kind. Yet if attention 
 were directed chiefly to the hundred bodies of the performers 
 or to the hundred different instruments — string and brass and 
 wood — the verdict would be, like Mr. Spencer's on society, 
 that the unity was a very " discrete " one indeed. It is 
 somewhat different when the unity of action is chiefly thought 
 of — ^how each man subordinates his own impulses and im- 
 pressions of time and emphasis not only to the composer's 
 thought, but to the interpretation put on it by the conductor; 
 
22 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and thus the iildividuals cease to be a law to themselves, 
 because they work in obedience to an external law. Thus 
 a conception of a higher kind of unity is attained. The 
 highest and truly organic level is only reached when all 
 idea of a mechanical obedience is thrown away, and when 
 each individual, while voluntarily obeying an apparently ex- 
 ternal law, is really thereby making it his own, and finding 
 he thus gives the most perfect rendering of which he as an 
 individual is capable, and at the same time contributes to 
 the harmony of the whole in proportion as both conductor 
 and performers rise to the full height of their rational nature 
 in giving the most perfect rendering of which their powers 
 are capable. This imperfect comparison is only the faiutest 
 image of the way in which a truly organic view of society 
 may be obtained by gradually rising above the consideration 
 of the mere bodily peculiarities of the various members with 
 their antagonistic animal needs, and petty individual feelings 
 and desires, and by fixing our minds on the highest eternal 
 welfare realized by each in attaining to true self-development 
 along the lines of those universal principles of reason and 
 morality, the consciousness of which really makes them men, 
 and which alone can lead them towards the ultimate destiny 
 of mankind. 
 
 While it is apparent that it is by no means a simple task 
 to state exactly what kind of organism society is, every 
 illustration makes it clearer that it is possible to use the 
 term without implying any ridiculous comparisons between 
 its members and the limbs of any particular animal. When 
 the ideas meant to be conveyed by the application of the 
 term "organic" to such entities have been fully grasped, it 
 is of no consequence though the word itself be discarded. 
 The analogy has served its day as a half truth, by which 
 the searcher has been led to a whole truth, which is at last 
 seen more clearly apart from the avenue of original approach. 
 
 The full significance of the application of this idea ■ to 
 society has probably not yet been exhausted, and it would 
 be vain to hope to sum up in a few sentences all the 
 consequences involved, but a few of the chief amongst them 
 may be briefly indicated. 
 
INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 (1) In the first place, when the relations between the 
 State and its citizens are spoken of as organic, this necessarily 
 implies that the parts are essentially and intrinsically — not 
 merely accidentally — related to the whole. Indeed, it is these 
 relations to the whole that make the individual what he 
 is. Again, the whole is not merely an aggregate of its parts. 
 Its characteristics are not to be found by simply enumerating 
 those of its various parts. " We must not ignore the truth," 
 says Professor Eitchie,^ "which to abstract logic appears absurd, 
 that an organic whole is not merely the sum of its parts. 
 The body corporate is mysterious, like the personality of 
 the individual." Indeed, the sum of its parts considered 
 away from the whole is not only less than that whole ; it is 
 nothing and less than nothing. Each part is like the 0, which 
 when added to a sum multiplies it tenfold, but is by itself 
 nothing at all. The mutual relations make up the essence 
 of both whole and parts. 
 
 (2) As the State is a true and intimate unity, the parts 
 must be subject to the authority of the whole. This is the 
 philosophical basis of the doctrine of "sovereignty." The 
 rational will of the community must prevail. 
 
 (3) Each part, however, retains its independent existence. 
 The man is not the slave of the State, but enjoys freedom 
 and the full participation in the common life. This is the 
 basis of the doctrine of the rights of the subject — rights 
 within the State, and not against it. 
 
 (4) The sovereignty of the State and the liberty of the 
 individual are not really opposed to one another. It is 
 within the State, and in obedience to its laws, that positive 
 freedom is found for man to develop his rational nature, 
 while the authority of the State is founded on the will of 
 the people. The whole recognizes the rights of the parts, 
 and the parts acknowledge the authority of the whole. In 
 this light the fatal antithesis so often absolutely drawn between 
 the authority of the State and the freedom of the subject is 
 overcome. It is seen that to increase the former is not 
 necessarily to subtract something from the latter, as though 
 they were the positive and negative sides of an algebraic 
 
 1 Limits of State Interference, p. 69. 
 
24 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 equation. Authority when guided by rational principles in 
 preserving order is the friend of all freedom that is not mere 
 anarchy. 
 
 (5) The State develops from within, and is an end to itself 
 This is the basis of the doctrine of the independence of each 
 nation from foreign intervention. 
 
 (6) No abstract description of this end or ideal can be 
 adequate. It consists in nothing short of the full and 
 harmonious development of all the latent capacities contained 
 in it and in all its members. This self-realization of the 
 State as a rational embodiment of man's spirit or will 
 involves the attainment of all the highest interests of 
 mankind and the true sv/mmum honum of every individual 
 citizen. 
 
 (7) Thus the end of the whole is one with the end of every 
 part; still, the individual, before fully realizing this truth, 
 must have risen to the highest level of which he is capable — 
 must have caused his rational nature to triumph over his 
 mere animal nature, and so reached a standpoint of duty. 
 He must allow no private selfish interest to outweigh his 
 sense of what is due to other individuals and to the State 
 as a whole.^ These characteristics might be elaborated still 
 further and subdivided under many heads ; but enough has 
 probably been already said to indicate the sense in which 
 the State is here described as organic. The propositions above 
 laid down are given as hypotheses, not as axioms. They are 
 intended to suggest the main lines upon which a philoso- 
 phical justification of the practical conclusions arrived at in 
 
 I Professor J. S. Mackenzie in his Introduction to Social Philosophy, 
 approaching the same problem from a somewhat different side and 
 with different objects in view, arrives at conclusions not materially 
 different from those of the present writer. In his third chapter (on the 
 Social Organism), he gives three features wherein society realizes the 
 essentials of an organism. These are (a) that it is a "whole whose 
 parts are intrinsically related to it" ; (6) that "it develops from within" ; 
 and (c) that " it has reference to an end which is involved in its own 
 nature." See too the opening pages of the fifth chapter, pp. 238-9 ; 
 and also (for the bearings of the idea of organic unity on theories of 
 government) the Master of Balliol's Social Philosophy of Comte, p. 246. 
 
INTRODUCTION 25 
 
 this essay may be based, if such is asked for or expected. The 
 conclusions themselves, however, are the results of an in- 
 vestigation of existing facts, and are not deductions from any 
 a priori theory. They must accordingly stand or fall on their 
 own intrinsic merits, and quite apart from the truth or falsity 
 of the philosophical basis on which it has been sought to 
 reconcile them with one of the chief conceptions of modern 
 speculation. 
 
 Many more or less minute analogies might be traced 
 between the growth, structures, functions, and organs of 
 various societies or parts of societies on the one hand, and 
 those of different species of animal life on the other. Mr. 
 Spencer, indeed, has chronicled many of these in rich 
 variety in his Induction of Sociology. Of these the de- 
 velopment from simple to complex, the differentiation of 
 organs and the division of labour may be quoted as notable 
 examples. All such points of similarity are, however, 
 merely analogies — mere coincidences, mayhap — any or all of 
 which might be absent without endangering the truth of 
 the main proposition which is here urged — that society is 
 " organic." It is important that attention should be fixed 
 not upon mere accidental resemblances, but upon those 
 essential characteristics possessed by all States and societies 
 which render the application of the term organic to them 
 not only admissible but necessary. These features may be 
 resolved into one, and may after all be best expressed in 
 the negative form — in the assertion that no community and no 
 body politic can be adequately described in terms of any 
 lower category. No conceptions that are merely quan- 
 titative, or mechanical, or the like, can ever afford a 
 satisfactory foundation upon which to build a theory of the 
 State. 
 
 The features of a purely " natural " or physical organism 
 we have seen to be also iaadequate. The essential char- 
 acteristics in which the body politic differs from these may 
 be reduced to two. In the first place, the end, or destiny, 
 or ideal it exists for is one capable of appealing to the 
 rational nature of the members of the community, and tending 
 to come to clearer self-consciousness with the advance of 
 
26 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 civilization. In the second place, this end is one that the 
 direct efforts of the citizens, as men capable of willing and 
 doing, may help to realize. They may, by their joint or 
 independent action, help forward its fuMment. A purely 
 natural organism, on the other hand, has no knowledge of 
 the type towards which it tends, and is powerless to accelerate 
 or retard its own progress. 
 
 (2) THE SCOPE AND PRACTICAL BEARING OF POLITICAL 
 SCIENCE, OR THE THEORY OF THE STATE. 
 
 The systematic study of political institutions as they are, 
 and as they ought to be, is sometimes called the Theory 
 of the State, and sometimes the Science of Politics or 
 Political Philosophy. The former name is perhaps the best, 
 for three reasons. In the first place, it gives a clear 
 indication of the wide nature of the inq[uiry involved. 
 When the full significance of all that is included within 
 the term " State " is firmly grasped, there is no danger of 
 forming an inadequate conception of the importance or 
 scope of the branch of philosophy that professes to plumb 
 its mysteries. In the second place, the expression "Theory 
 of the State" avoids the necessity of a delicate and intricate 
 discussion as to whether " philosophy " or " science " is the 
 right word to apply. The relations of science to philosophy 
 on the one hand, and to the political arts on the other, 
 cannot be here discussed; and without some such inquiry 
 it is impossible to say how far the investigation now 
 entered upon partakes of the nature of each.^ In the third 
 place, the word "political" has become somewhat belittled 
 by its application to the special needs of party warfare, 
 
 1 This discussion really resolves itself into one of method. The whole 
 question as to how far the methods of philosophy and science are 
 applicable to social and political phenomena is approached from differ- 
 ent points of view in Mackenzie's Introduction to Social Philosophy, 
 pp. 10-45, and in Sheldon Amos' Science of Politics, chapter i. 
 
INTRODUCTION 27 
 
 and ought perhaps to be avoided lest it should suggest a 
 wrong idea of the objects to which it is applied. 
 
 The expression Political Science or Science of Politics, in 
 spite of all these drawbacks, has already taken its place in 
 the English language as the most usual name for the 
 inquiry into the nature of the State with its institutions, 
 government, and laws. The name is of course of little 
 importance so long as it suggests no associations likely to 
 raise prejudices or misconceptions. It must then be clearly 
 understood that "the State" in the widest meaning of the 
 word is the object of this inquiry; and it is equally 
 necessary to gain a clear idea of all that this term includes. 
 
 Political science, in the proper sense, is, in the words of 
 Bluntschli,^ "the science which is concerned with the State, 
 which endeavours to understand and comprehend the State 
 in its conditions, in its essential nature, its various forms or 
 manifestations, its development." It has thus, in spite of the 
 vast extent of the subject, both its beginning and its end 
 within the State. When the science of politics is thus 
 understood to be merely another name for the theory of 
 the State, an important step is already made towards 
 answering the question sometimes asked as to the possi- 
 bility of the existence of such a science at all. If any 
 rational principles can be found to regulate the formation of 
 constitutions, the making of laws, the laying down of the 
 foundations of national institutions on an enduring basis, or 
 the limits within which the State is justified in interfering 
 with the liberties and rights of individuals — and no one 
 seriously doubts that such exist, if we can only discover 
 them — these principles of themselves form a theory of the 
 State progressing from rude beginnings to a complete and 
 systematized branch of knowledge in proportion as such rules 
 are clearly formulated and understood in the full complexity 
 of their mutual relations. 
 
 The phrase "Science of Politics" is indeed doubly un- 
 fortunate, for science is generally associated with rigorous 
 and unbending methods of investigation and experiment 
 appKed to those tangible material objects to which alone 
 * Theory of the State. Introduction, chapter i. 
 
28 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 they are strictly adapted; while the word politics is associ- 
 ated with all that is changeable and contingent in the 
 affairs of a nation rather than with principles of absolute 
 and universal truth; as the two words are ordinarily 
 understood, "science" and "politics" seem opposites and 
 mutually irreconcilable. 
 
 It would be out of place here to discuss how far the 
 adjective " scientific " is justly applicable to any particular 
 methods of investigation for fathoming the nature of social, 
 economic, educational, or political phenomena, or whether 
 "philosophic" might not be the better word to employ; but 
 some explanation seems to be called for as to what is 
 meant by "politics." To men whose acquaintance with the 
 questions of statecraft and the nature of laws and constitu- 
 tions is chiefly confined to their experiences as candidates 
 for parliamentary honours, or in supporting or opposing the 
 claims of those who are, the word " politics " will naturally 
 suggest all that is unstable in the commonwealth. If that 
 word is to be narrowed down to the art of electioneering, 
 to the platform oratory which the constituencies expect, and 
 the making of party programmes ^tted to attract votes, or 
 arouse the enthusiasm of partizans, it is doubtful if any 
 science of politics could exist at all, and certain that it 
 could not claim a place among academic pursuits. 
 
 To most men, indeed, who interest themselves actively 
 in politics, it seems something nobler than this, and they 
 are not without a glimmering of the high issues at stake 
 and the deep foundation on which a nation's institutions 
 must be built. Yet, even to such men the idea of 
 politics as the pursuit of ever varying ends by means 
 equally changing and not always disinterested or even 
 honest, is difficult to discard, and when they talk of the 
 impossibility of a science of politics, they are really 
 influenced by a sordid and ignoble conception of what that 
 phrase means. "Politics" to them is the unstable or dynamic 
 element in a State — an attempt to overthrow its institutions 
 or to defend them from attack — not an investigation of the 
 eternal principles upon which all constitutions rest. It 
 means a conflict of different forces, the effects of which 
 
INTRODUCTION 29 
 
 cannot be calculated beforehand — blind powers that cannot 
 be reduced to any principle of order — producing an unforeseen 
 resultant related often in an apparently accidental manner 
 to all its antecedents. 
 
 Another unfortunate impression conveyed by the name 
 "political science" is that it is merely a study to be entered 
 on as a means to party ends, not as a resolute endeavour 
 to find truth for its own sake — a pursuit subservient to the 
 art of politics, not primarily one in "which the acquisition 
 of knowledge is its own reward. Nothing can be farther 
 from the truth. Political science is not a manual of practical 
 maxims intended to teach statecraft as a profession, any 
 more than political economy aims directly at showing 
 merchants and manufacturers how they may best conduct 
 their private enterprises or secure in trade or commerce a 
 larger share of business than their neighbours. 
 
 It is impossible that these ignoble views of the true scope 
 of "politics" should obscure the vision of scholars trained 
 in the study of antiquity, who can trace the origin of the 
 word from the Greek city-state, through the writings of 
 Plato and Aristotle, dowiij to the present day. Indeed, the 
 idias instinctively suggested to the scholar when a science 
 of politics is mentioned, are so essentially different from those 
 of the practical politician with no tincture of academic culture, 
 that it is difficult for the former to understand the source 
 of error of the latter ; and without comprehension and sym- 
 pathy it is impossible to dispel the difficulties of those who 
 move in a different plane of thought. 
 
 Political science rightly understood deals with the stable 
 elements of the State as well as with the unstable — with 
 the foundations of order as well as the principles of change. 
 In fact, it is the former elements with which it chiefly concerns 
 itself. It treats of the national institutions and the laws, 
 government, and constitution, which may be called the skeleton 
 of a State, since they give to it a definite form and permanent 
 structural characteristics. The momentary variations and 
 currents of "political" life, using the word in its narrower 
 signification, are treated as only of secondary importance, and 
 valuable chiefly with reference to their bearing on the more 
 
30 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 permanent parts. The theory of politics, law, and national 
 institutions would better express its scope, though even that 
 is somewhat too narrow, and no word satisfies the require- 
 ments of the case equally with the simple phrase, "the 
 theory of the State." 
 
 The objections sometimes raised to the possibility of a science 
 of politics, however, are by no means entirely based on a 
 misconception of its nature. Very serious arguments, founded 
 upon the wide scope of the field which it covers and the 
 consequent complexity of its investigations, have to be con- 
 sidered and answered. These objections, however, while they 
 prove that the attempt at a systematic analysis of the 
 principles and the phenomena of the State is subject to 
 serious difficulties, are far from proving that it is impossible.^ 
 If it is true that the higher nature of mankind in all its 
 grandeur and complexity can only be realized through the 
 medium of the State, of which all men are willingly or un- 
 willingly members, it follows that to know that State 
 thoroughly it is necessary to examine the nature of the 
 individual men, their connection with material objects, and 
 also their mutual relations — moral, intellectual, aesthetic, 
 political, legal, and hygienic. It would seem, then, that a 
 complete theory of the State is impossible until all the 
 more restricted sciences and arts are complete too. 
 Finite creatures must, however, be content with limited 
 knowledge, and must not despise the broken rays of light 
 that penetrate to them, because they cannot get at once the 
 full eflFulgence of the truth, which indeed their immature 
 powers of vision are unable to sustain. A complete political 
 science is as yet impossible, and, perhaps, will remain for 
 ever an ideal whereto knowledge approximates rather than 
 an end that has been reached. This, fortunately, does not 
 preclude the possibility of making a beginning, or even of 
 attaining to a considerable degree of proficiency and discover- 
 ing many rays of that eternal truth which cannot change. 
 
 The opponents of political science are at this point ready 
 with another line of attack. Although results of a " specu- 
 
 'Cf. Sheldon Amos, The Science of Politics, pp. 1-20, for a detailed 
 examination of some of these difficulties. 
 
INTRODUCTION 31 
 
 lative interest and abstract value " may be obtained, they 
 allege that these are useless for all every-day purposes. 
 Practical polities are so far removed from such academic dis- 
 cussions that whatever conclusions the so-called science of 
 politics may arrive at, the art of politics will go on its way 
 unheeding and unaffected by the barren discoveries of un- 
 practical men. Unfortunately this estimate is not without 
 its element of truth. There is a gulf between theory and 
 practice, and the blame is chargeable to both sides. Party 
 leaders, in the press and dia of battle, in the urgent neces- 
 sity of obtaining popular support by the most obvious and 
 rapid methods, often spare too little time for approaching 
 the problems that engage them in a broad and academic 
 spirit. On the other hand, philosophers, whether of the 
 synthetic or analytic sort, are too prone to despise and ignore 
 the actual results of what they consider a muddy and ig- 
 noble warfare. They all admit the need of testing their 
 hypotheses by experience; but they too often lay undue 
 stress on the a priori element, basing their theories on an 
 induction from too narrow an observation of phenomena, 
 or upon facts drawn from a different and alien province. 
 Current speculation and current practical politics might 
 be mutual gainers by a closer connection with one another ; 
 but the partial estrangement of the two only proves that 
 practical men neglect the services of a useful ally. It does 
 not follow that that ally is necessarily useless to them. If 
 political science can make good its claim to rank as a 
 branch of systematic knowledge in reality as in name, no 
 statesman, legislator, or politician can wisely neglect its 
 guidance any more than the shipbuilder can ignore the results 
 of applied mechanics or naval architecture. He must as- 
 suredly struggle to keep himself from falling under the 
 dominion of any theories at all, and especially of crude and 
 half-digested ones. Otherwise he will be branded with the 
 fatal adjective doctrinaire, and his place in the esteem of his 
 constituents or party leaders will sink inestimably. This by 
 no means involves that his attitude to all theories of the State 
 ought to be a purely negative one. Indeed, there is only one 
 way to make sure that theories do not master you, and that 
 
32 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 is, to master them. It is not more impossible to live in any 
 district without breathing its air and being affected by its 
 climate than to live in any section of society while preserving 
 a strictly neutral attitude to the theories which pervade it. 
 Consciously or unconsciously men's actions are moulded in 
 conformity with, or in opposition to, the current opinions 
 of the day. The power of erroneous theories cannot be 
 shaken off by simply ignoring them. Ignorance merely 
 increases their power of doing harm. It is the soil in which 
 dangerous half-truths most easily take root. If false theories 
 either of a popular or profoundly scientific character are 
 in the air, they will find adherents among those practical 
 men who are unacquainted with the true principles of the 
 science they caricature. 
 
 To refuse to know the nearest approximation to the truth 
 available in the present state of science is not to shake off 
 the influence of theory, but to be a ready prey to the first 
 erroneous opinion that happens to drift that way. The most 
 casual student of history knows the potent influence of the 
 theories, both false and true, of " mere philosophers " on the 
 destiny of nations. Who can estimate the effects of Eousseau's 
 writings on the course of the French Eevolution, and, indeed,' 
 of European politics generally, or the results of the academic 
 labours of men like Adam Smith and Bentham on the direction 
 taken by legislative change in Britain ? No statesman can 
 be worthy of the name who has not mastered the principles 
 of political science. He cannot counteract the hurtful in- 
 fluence of false theories upon his conduct by simple indiffer- 
 ence or even by ridicule ; for they will hamper him until 
 he is able clearly to refute them. A true political science 
 would be necessary if its only conclusion was this — that 
 all other conclusions are false. "Political science," says Sir 
 Frederick Pollock, '' must and does exist, if it were only for 
 the refutation of absurd political theories and projects."^ 
 
 This practical dependence of the art of politics upon its 
 
 kindred science is the best vindication of the claim of the 
 
 latter to usefulness. There is, however, a wider aspect of 
 
 the subject which must be glanced at. The theory of the 
 
 1 History of the Science of Politics, p. 4. 
 
INTRODUCTION \ 33 
 
 State is not primarily intended as a weapon of party war- 
 fare. In so far as it is a true branch of philosophy or of 
 science, its primary object is truth, not utility. There is 
 little danger of forgetting this when several of the most 
 emphatic forms of its expression have taken rank 
 among the trite commonplaces of literature — when we 
 have the dictum of Bacon on philosophy, that " like a 
 virgin consecrated to God she bears no fruit"; and the 
 advice of Hegel, that philosophy must guard itself against 
 seeking to be edifying, and confine itself to a search for 
 truth. The necessary complement of these axioms, however, 
 must be equally borne in mind, that though the search for 
 information is a delusive pursuit, if undertaken directly for 
 selfish or ulterior ends ; yet truth, once discovered, cannot 
 help being useful in every practical aim of life. This wide 
 aspect of the subject is not special to the study of politics, 
 but is rather the general problem of the relations of the 
 practical arts to science and philosophy as a whole, — too 
 wide a field to be here embraced. 
 
 The specially intimate connection between the art of 
 politics and the theory of the State is best brought out 
 by an examination of the way in which general principles 
 are necessarily involved in every isolated act of states- 
 manship and in every legislative measure. The series of 
 questions seem, however, to emerge in practice in a rotation 
 exactly the reverse of their logical order. The politician 
 is confronted with the concrete individual problem, and it 
 is only in seeking its solution that he is confronted with 
 deeper and deeper groups of questions gradually unfolding 
 themselves. Bold and rapid action is often the one thing 
 needed from the statesman, leaving him little or no 
 time for mature reflection ; yet in every act of statecraft, 
 however hurriedly performed, and though unaccompanied by 
 a single word, a complete theory of government, of society, and 
 of the State — an entire system of philosophy — is implicitly 
 involved, and tacitly, if not expressly, approved. The detailed 
 examination of the grounds of this assertion is worth entering 
 upon, as it will not only show the relations of political science 
 to the arts of legislation and statecraft, but will also explain 
 
 c 
 
34 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the extensive scope and the various divisions of the 
 science. 
 
 Problems usually come up for the decision of the cabinet 
 or the legislature in a simple concrete form. A thousand 
 practical matters present themselves every session, — whether 
 Britain ought to interfere for the protection of the Armenians ; 
 whether to hold the Chinese Government responsible for the 
 massacre of Christian missionaries ; whether to grant a guar- 
 antee to some new railway enterprise, and if so, how to raise 
 the necessary funds; whether to give legislative recognition to 
 the principle of " local veto," or to enforce some compulsory 
 scheme of old-age insurance. These are the apparently 
 isolated individual questions as they arise. It is not difi&cult 
 to show that not a step can be taken towards answering 
 any one of them without assuming the existence of the funda- 
 mental principles of a science of politics. The affairs of a 
 great nation cannot be carried on in a haphazard way. 
 General rules must be formulated and ILnes of conduct laid 
 down by a government for its own guidance to secure some 
 continuity of policy. Deiinite methods of administrative 
 action must be devised. It is still the province of politics 
 as an art rather than as a science to deal with these methods 
 as well as with the individual cases. Yet, to formulate a 
 scientific basis for such rules involves an examination of the 
 machinery through which it is lawful for the executive and 
 legislative authorities to act ; and this is clearly one of the 
 chief duties of political science. The theory of the State 
 must determine under what sort of national institutions the 
 work of government may best be carried on. To examine 
 the rules which regulate the internal workings and mutual 
 relations of such institutions is to theorize upon the best 
 form of constitution ; and this has been, from the time of 
 Plato and Aristotle to the present day, one of the chief 
 objects of the science of politics. 
 
 It soon becomes evident that the inquiry cannot rest here. 
 Before forming an opinion as to how the work of govern- 
 ment may be best performed, it is necessary to know what 
 that work is. This raises the question, What is the proper 
 sphere or province of government ? Only in the present day 
 
INTRODUCTION 35 
 
 is it beginning to be more clearly understood that the former 
 question must be answered before the latter, that we must 
 know clearly the work the government has to do before we 
 can determine under what form of constitution and laws it is 
 best able to do it. Neither a democratic, nor an aristocratic, 
 nor a monarchic form of constitution — neither an entirely 
 representative government, nor a hereditary second chamber, 
 nor a royal veto — is a good thing in itself, but merely in 
 so far as it enables,, government to perform justly and effi- 
 ciently its proper functions in furthering the highest interests 
 of the whole community. 
 
 This consideration has again widened the scope of the 
 inquiry, and brought it to another and deeper issue. In 
 determining what is the proper work or the true sphere of 
 government, it is necessary to ascertain its nature and the 
 ends for which it exists. If it is true that governments 
 exist for the benefit of the nations governed rather than 
 we versa, it follows that their work is to further the well- 
 being of the whole community politically organized into a 
 State. It thus becomes a necessary preliminary to inquire 
 into the origin, nature, and composition of society and the 
 State— to discover the final and ultimate good for which 
 these exist at all. Arrived at this point in the inquiry, it 
 appears that the true well-being and ultimate ideal of the 
 State cannot be determined apart from the examination of 
 the well-being of the individuals of whom it consists, and the 
 destiny of humanity as a whole. Thus there is involved 
 the old and never-ending question of the summum, ionum, or 
 "chief end of man," which in turn cannot be determined 
 without an exhaustive analysis of all ethics and metaphysics 
 — ^in fact of every department of human knowledge, art, 
 history, science, and philosophy. 
 
 The theory of the State, unless it would stretch itself out 
 to be identical with the whole sum of human knowledge, 
 must be satisfied to accept the conclusions of philosophy and 
 of the various more limited sciences, contenting itself with 
 examining them anew in the light of the special aspect in 
 which they are now viewed. 
 
 To attempt to start with absolutely no assumptions, and 
 
36 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 to treat the inquiry from the beginning logically and with 
 absolute thoroughness, it would be necessary to examine 
 man's past history on earth and his future destiny. If to 
 any one " man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy 
 Him for ever," that individual will form totally different 
 conclusions on each successive question of political science 
 from those of the man who takes as his creed that "we 
 must eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." 
 
 However unwilling to admit the influence of theological 
 considerations he may be, no man can shake himself free of 
 them in any branch of speculation. In spite of all his efforts, 
 they colour his whole range of thought and enter into his 
 estimate of the value of every object of human pursuit.^ 
 Suppose then a positive conclusion of some sort is arrived 
 at as to the ultimate goal of humanity, it must still be 
 asked how far the governments of the various States ought 
 to make it their conscious object to help forward humanity 
 towards that goal. Men, it is observed, are banded together 
 into societies, and a series of intricate relations exist between 
 the individual and the State. Each human unit receives 
 certain benefits from his connection with the whole, and also 
 suffers certain restrictions on his liberties. It is understood 
 that some of the interests of the various units are held 
 in common, and are best looked after by the government 
 (or recognized common agents) of the whole community, 
 while other interests are best left for each individual 
 man or woman to push forward on his own account. 
 Thus arises the problem how to determine which of these 
 interests may be safely entrusted to the government, and 
 which ought to be withdrawn from its control. It is necessary 
 to investigate the reasons of the State's existence, and what 
 limits (if any) are to be placed to the sphere of the activity 
 of its authorized agents. If the government of a nation ought 
 to look to its highest and noblest interests, and to aim at the 
 fullest development of man as man, then it would seem as 
 though statesmen were under the necessity of judging in what 
 that fullest development consists. If that is found to include a 
 high standard of moral and spiritual enlightenment, then it 
 ^Cf. Stephen's Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, p. 319. 
 
INTRODUCTION 37 
 
 would seem to be the duty of government directly to enforce 
 such systems of morality and religion as meet with its 
 approval. This would make every cabinet minister not only 
 a professor of theology and moral philosophy, but also an 
 evangelist and a censor of morals. 
 
 A contrary answer may be given, however. It may be 
 said that the State as a State has nothing to do with such 
 things — that these are matters for the individual conscience. 
 A wide sphere is left even then for government action. 
 Many problems would face our rulers, though their province 
 were confined to matters affecting the material prosperity of the 
 nation. Neglecting for the moment the fact of the impos- 
 sibility of separating the temporal and spiritual, there is still 
 to determine in what a nation's highest material good consists. 
 It is necessary to judge between the conflicting systems of 
 rival political economists. 
 
 It is possible, of course, to deny that government should 
 concern itself even with the material progress of a nation. 
 The State, it may be said, should stand aside and allow the 
 economic influences — the laws of supply and demand and the 
 haggling of the market — free play to settle the material 
 prosperity of individuals and of the nation as best they may. 
 This would involve a negative solution to the problem of 
 how far the State should interfere with trade. The conclusion 
 would be, "Do not interfere at all." That may be quite a 
 logical answer, but still it is an answer all the same, before 
 ^ving which the problem must be faced. 
 
 Having satisfied ourselves in some way then (either by 
 thinking out the matter for ourselves, or by jumping at a 
 ready-made conclusion) as to what the true ends and aims of 
 government should be, it is possible now (but not before) to 
 descend another step in the scale of problems, and consider 
 the Tmthods, by which these aims can best be furthered. The 
 preliminary inquiry is a necessary one, because methods 
 must vary with the ends which are sought. To one man 
 the end of government may be foreign conquest and universal 
 dominion over neighbouring States, to another " peace at any 
 price." The holders of these opposite theories of the State 
 will not agree as to either the proper work of government or 
 
38 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the best methods of procedure. As soon, however, as a clear 
 idea is formulated as to what work ought to be done, a more 
 or less elaborate series of rules may be laid down for its 
 accomplishment, and a determination arrived at under what 
 form of institutions this work may be most efi&ciently per- 
 formed. 
 
 If the enforcement of order and the dispensation of justice 
 are among the legitimate objects for which States exist, we 
 can then (but not sooner) discuss the best form of organization 
 for the suppression of violence, and the best means of settling 
 disputes between man and man ; that is to say, we can settle 
 what form the executive and judicial institutions respectively 
 ought to assume. 
 
 Many new questions now suggest themselves. Granted 
 that the State should make laws binding on the whole nation, 
 to whom ought this duty to be entrusted ? What powers 
 should be given to this legislative authority? What re- 
 straints ought to be placed upon their hasty or selfish use ? 
 Again, granted that the State should interest itself in 
 the moral welfare of its citizens, ought it to proceed towards 
 effecting this directly or indirectly ? Should it try to make 
 men good by Act of Parliament, or by enforced education, or 
 how ? Granted that the State should foster and encourage 
 the arts and sciences, ought it to found a Eoyal Academy and 
 museums, and support them out of the public funds as is 
 done in England ? Ought it to endow theatres and opera 
 houses, as is done in Germany? Finally, to take just one 
 more instance from among many, what attitude ought govern- 
 ment to observe towards religion and the question of an 
 Established Church ? These are a few specimens of the 
 practical questions upon which the science of politics may 
 be expected to throw some light. 
 
 In thus tracing the connection of the theory of the State 
 with philosophy on the one hand, and practical politics on 
 the other, some insight has been gained into the various 
 classes of questions with which it deals. These may be 
 grouped broadly under four heads in the order of their 
 logical priority. 
 
 (1) Its first work is the investigation of the true nature 
 
INTRODUCTION 39 
 
 and essence of the State, of the society of individuals who 
 compose it, and of its government, laws, and constitution ; 
 its historical origin and its ultimate destiny ; its end or 
 final cause. (2) In the second place, it has to determine 
 the proper sphere or province of the authorized agents of 
 a State; to decide what government ought to do. (3) In 
 the third place, it has to examine the various forms of national 
 institutions under which that work may be most efficiently 
 performed ; to decide what the constitution ought to be. (4) 
 In the fourth place, although the detailed application of 
 its theoretical results to actual cases is not properly within 
 the scope of the science, it is open for it to lay down general 
 rules for the guidance of practical men in attempting to 
 make such an application. 
 
 It is the third of these inquiries which has usually occu- 
 pied the greater portion of most treatises on political science; 
 while the second, or the inquiry into the proper sphere of 
 government, has been comparatively neglected.^ It is proposed 
 in this essay to reverse this, and to devote the greater 
 portion of its pages to a consideration of the latter question, 
 while the former, which may be found discussed at great 
 length in many volumes, is entirely omitted. The object is 
 to ascertain what the ideal government ought to do, and not 
 what the ideal constitution ought to he. The analysis of 
 the State as a whole is of course as necessary a preliminary 
 of the one inquiry as of the other, while both yield results 
 which may be applied to practical problems. 
 
 Accordingly, this essay falls naturally into three divisions : 
 Part I. investigates the nature, origin, and end of the State, 
 
 ' Almost all systematic writers on Political Science, following the lead 
 of Plato and Aristotle, confine their attention to the Structwe, as opposed 
 to the Functions of Government. Professor Sidgwick, however, recog- 
 nizes the equal importance of both inquiries, and divides Political Science 
 accordingly into two main branches. "The study of Politics," he says 
 {Elements of Politics, p. 12), "has two main divisions, (1) one relating to 
 the Functions of Government, and (2) the other to its Structure or 
 Constitution ; but it also includes — as an important though less extensive 
 division— an inquiry into the relations that ought to exist between 
 government and governed, besides such relations as are already defined 
 in the determination of governmental functions." 
 
40 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 with its laws, government, and constitution. Part II. treats 
 of the sphere of government, and is thus led to attempt to 
 adjudicate upon the respective claims of socialism and in- 
 dividualism as rival schemes seeking the political regeneration 
 of society. Part III. suggests the lines on which some of 
 the theoretical conclusions previously arrived at may be 
 applied in practice, and thus comes near the boundary line 
 separating the science from the art of politics. 
 
PAET I. 
 
 THE STATE: ITS NATURE, ORIGIN, AND END; 
 ITS MEMBERS AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE. 
 
 A PERFECT definition of the State forms the last and 
 crowning achievement of political science rather than its 
 starting point. Every proposition, as it is established in the 
 following pages, will throw more light on the nature of the 
 body politic. Meantime, a State may be defined provision- 
 ally as an i ndependent m^^ajiti?""J iQj^otnj Brief and easily 
 understood as this statement is, it will be found to contain 
 an accurate description of every essential characteristic. Each 
 of its three words, rightly understood, involves a number of 
 intricate considerations. Thus "independence" is hard to 
 define; and it is not easy to determine what measure of 
 freedom from foreign control is indispensable to the realiza- 
 tion of a State. Absolute independence is impossible. The 
 difficulty increases in proportion as we push our inquiries 
 back into the mysteries that enshroud early institutions and 
 the customs of primitive man. Some considerable amount 
 of aolf-fjnfRhip.nny is clearlv nccessary, else the community 
 
 would ceaa p tg form a StR.tR_ _by itself, a nd Bec8me^the 
 
 province or dependency of another. The word "organized" 
 has also intricacies of its own. A liMi di'^^ii c iiP oi^iiiii' i 
 tion is ne ither necessar^nor to be expected in every common- 
 wealth. The merest rudiments only are traceable in some 
 primitive communities ; while in a fully-developed political 
 society there are always involved a complete system of 
 national institutions performing all the recognized functions 
 of government, an elaborate code of laws and conventions, 
 
44 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and a definite form of established constitution. Complete 
 organization involves the embodiment of the idea_ of sover- 
 eignty in a definite and recognized legal form, and the 
 distinction b etween government and governed . However 
 widely organizations may vary in degree and in kind, we 
 cannot imagine a community that has absolutely none. 
 
 A society may indeed become comparatively disorganized 
 without ceasing to be a State; but total absence of organi- 
 zation means anarchy and the disintegration of the whole 
 into its constituent atoms. Sometimes the State is spoken 
 of as though it included merely the " political " organization ; 
 but this is to introduce an untenable restriction. It includes 
 all ties of whatever nature that bind men together and define 
 their mutual positions. 
 ^^ Sometimes it is allowed to embrace all the organizations, 
 
 . j,^while it is made to exclude the individuals who are organized, 
 ^bs" *■' "The State," it has been said,^ "seems to indicate that ex- 
 ternal form which society assumes in consequence of its 
 organization ; it is the body of society, the political mani- 
 festation of its growth." This is true, so far as it goes ; 
 but the State, in its widest and truest sense, includes the 
 society itself as well as its outward form — the mind as well 
 as the body. 
 
 ^^ Lastly, the conception of " society " thus embraced in the 
 provisional definition of a State involves a union more or less 
 intimate of a number of individual men and women, with all 
 their interests and attributes, and the relations that bind 
 them together. Everything that pertains to the nature of 
 its citizens, or of any of their associations and institutions, 
 forms p art also of the body politic. 
 
 fc^' At this point several possible roads of divergency are seen 
 to open up for those who are desirous of framing a more 
 elaborate definition of the State, but who differ as to the 
 essential nature of the individual men who enter into its 
 composition, or the reasons of their forming associations at all. 
 Various ideas may be entertained of what constitutes the 
 essential characteristic of the human beings who are the units 
 of a community; or, again, different views may be expressed as 
 1 W. A. Watt, Outline of Legal Philoiojihy, p. 56. 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 45 
 
 to the presumed purposes for which society is supposed to 
 exist. It is probably a mistake to try to crowd into a short 
 definition of the State any special philosophic theories of man's 
 nature and destiny, or to cast suspicion on the statement of 
 its more essential features by hazarding an opinion as to the 
 aims, conscious or unconscious, that have caused men to band 
 themselves together. It is to attempts in one or other of 
 these directions, however, that we must attribute the extremely 
 complicated and highly controversial nature of most definitions 
 of the body politic contained in treatises of philosophy and 
 political science. 
 
 Thus Kant holds "that the civil constitution is a relation 
 oi free men who live under coercive laws, without prejudicing 
 their liberty otherwise in the whole of their connection with 
 others,"^ and in this way he incorporates with the idea of 
 the State his peculiar theory of Eight as an equality of all 
 men in as complete a freedom as is compatible with the like 
 freedom of others. 
 
 Hegel, again, viewing reason as the essential feature in man, 
 and looking on the will as the practical side of that reason 
 acting as a self-determining principle from within, and so 
 realizing freedom in an external world of other men, has 
 described the State at once as a " manifestation of will " and 
 as " objective freedom." ^ It is evident that such metaphysical 
 subtleties, however valuable as throwing light on the mysteries 
 of human nature, are wanting in the certitude and accuracy 
 so necessary in a technical scientific definition. Writers with 
 an individualistic bias, again, such as John Locke and 
 Kousseau, or, in our own days, Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. 
 Auberon Herbert, laying stress not so much on their pet 
 theories of the nature of men as on their assumption of t he 
 giirposes for which individuals band uhemselves together mf 
 
 ci^ mumllou, dclmc the Stato as " an association for the j^ 
 protection of life and property." )^ 
 
 It is safer and fairer in every way, in framing at anyrate 
 a preliminary definition of the body politic, to throw aside all 
 
 ^ Kant's PrinavpUs of Polities (translated by Prof. Hastie), p. 35. 
 2Cf. T. H. Green's Worlcs, Vol. ii., p. 312, and G. S. Morris, Hegel's 
 Philosophy of the State, pp. 79 to 82. 
 
46 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 theories of every kind as to the nature of men and the 
 presumed purposes of their association, and to keep to estab- 
 lished facts. JXll a priori doctrines seem to be avoided by- 
 defining it as "an independent organized society.''' This 
 formula can be used as a schema into which the various 
 schools of philosophers and politicians may afterwards insert 
 thgjr-- own favourite dogmas whenever they are so disposed. 
 
 Whatever theory is advanced, however, of the nature of 
 the individual men composing society, it is clear that these 
 must not be primarily looked upon as mere animals with 
 bodily capacities and needs, but as spiritual beings endowed 
 with wills and reasons, and knowing good from evil. 
 
 A subsidiary question may indeed arise as to whether the 
 State necessarily includes the property or possessions of its 
 subjects or the territory they inhabit ; but this need not 
 here detain us, since such things are in any case accidentalia 
 not essentialia of a commonwealth. 
 
 It ought to be clearly realized how wide the definition 
 here given really is ; for it makes the State comprise not 
 only all its citizens (without annihilating or absorbing their 
 individuality), but also the infinite series of relations of every 
 kind that unite them to one another and to the central 
 organization. 
 
 It is hard, at first, to grasp all that is involved in this; 
 but the fuU extent of its bearings will gradually emerge 
 throughout the sequel. Meantime, the wide conception here 
 entertained of the State may be contrasted with the view 
 only too current in some quarters at the present day, which 
 would reduce it in theory to a mere abstraction, and in 
 practice to a great power hostile to the welfare of the in- 
 dividual, needing to be jealously watched as an evil tolerated 
 only because of its necessity. 
 
 "It seems indeed," says Dr. Hutchison Stirling,^ "to be 
 the creed of the highest enlightenment nowadays, that 
 what is called a State is but an expensive superfluity; that 
 society, civilization, is nothing but the raising of commodities 
 and the exchange of them, and that no control is required 
 there but that of the policeman to keep the workmen quiet." 
 1 Lectures on the Philosophy of Law, p. 40. 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 47 
 
 It will be the chief object of the following chapters to 
 evolve the whole theory of the State, from its definition as 
 " a society organized and independent," simple as that de- 
 scription at first seems. Before proceeding to this analysis, 
 however, it is necessary to examine some of the more limited 
 theories of the nature of the body politic which would give 
 it a narrower application and a more circumscribed "sphere 
 of iafluence." 
 
 An unfortunate ambiguity lies on the threshold of this 
 inquiry. The word "State," as commonly employed, has two 
 clearly distinct meanings. On the one hand, it is often loosely 
 used indiscriminately with the term " nation." On the other 
 hand, it is often employed as a useful synonym for "govern- 
 ment." It has thus a wider and a narrower signification. 
 The former, it is here contended, is the legitimate meaning 
 of the word, and must be uniformly kept in view throughout 
 this essay. In laying it down as an axiom that t he Stat e 
 is soTnethinff iupstlmahlv widP T than its govern m fin t,, there is 
 no need to enunciate any philological theory as to the primary 
 or derivative meaning of the word, or even as to the signi- 
 fication which in general literature it ought to bear. All 
 that is required is to make clear beyond a doubt what 
 subject is here dealt with under the name "State." The 
 proyiaceof p olitica l science then is co- extensiv e with the body 
 _ politic. _and_comprism _.£he.,ii£uuLa-i3L.a.-Jial±mZj^^ 
 
 character iijtif Pi Tnnf-.nal -j:e.Ia±.iQi3.a— and. .ta.ngi.b].ft-jiQSSP.HRinns.«^ft- 
 
 -ing its government. The fuu dameatal difference betwee n a 
 
 State on the o ne hand, and it s_ajj^hnri7erl agp.nt.R anrl inatif-n- 
 
 tions on the ^her, must be grasped at the very outset, and 
 every step which is taken wiir'OHly emphasize its importance. 
 Sir William Anson ^ has clearly enunciated this ambiguity. 
 "When we talk of the State," he says, "its rights, or its 
 structure, we are necessarily led to the inquiry, What do 
 
 1 The Law amd Custom of the Constitution, Vol. i. , p. 3 . See also for further 
 explanation of this ambiguity Sheldon Amos' Science of Politics, p. 64 j 
 Professor D. G. Eitchie's State Interference, p. 23 (note) ; and Professor 
 A. C. Bra(Hey's Ussay on Aristotlds Conception of the State in Hellenioa, 
 p. 190 (note). 
 
48 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 we mean by the State? The expression is sometimes used as 
 equivalent to an entire community or independent political 
 society; sometimes it is limited to the sovereign body in that 
 society. When we say that a man has deserved well of the 
 State, we generally mean that all persons in the community 
 ought to be grateful to him. When we say that such and 
 such things should be provided or attended to by the State, 
 we mean that, the law-making force of the community, or its 
 administrative force, should require the observance of a 
 certain course of conduct in certain matters." 
 
 Here then we have a tolerably clear statement of both 
 significations.^ The State sometimes means the whole com- 
 munity, and sometimes merely its rulers; but throughout this 
 essay it is exclusively applied to the former, while the word 
 "government" is reserved for the latter. Political science, it 
 must be clearly understood, is a wider thing than constitu- 
 tional law, and treats of all the individuals and all the currents 
 of life and action which make up the State — not merely of 
 its government and laws. 
 
 The habitual application of one substantive, however, to 
 two things of widely different connotations is, to say the 
 least of it, unfortunate. The confusion of language has given 
 occasion to considerable confusion of thought. It has often 
 led hazy theorists to identify the mere machinery of govern- 
 ment with the complex mass of common interests, history, 
 and destiny of that community which includes its government 
 as only one of its factors. As a general rule the word has 
 been used in its wider sense by those who have approached 
 the subject from its speculative or philosophic side, while the 
 narrower signification has found favour with investigators of 
 a practical turn of mind. This has occasioned several bad 
 results. In the first place, when disputes arise, each side 
 misunderstands the other. In the second place, many in- 
 vestigators have been hampered by this confusion of ideas. 
 They have been afraid to rise to a sufficiently broad and 
 
 ' The use of the equivalents in German of these two words helps to 
 emphasize the difference between the two things denoted. Vide the 
 translator's preface to the authorized edition of Bluntschli's Theory of 
 the State, p. 7. 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 49 
 
 noble conception of the nature and destinies of the State, from 
 an unfounded dread that in so doing they were opening the 
 door for a more extended and mischievous action of a meddle- 
 some and "grandmotherly" government. In the third place, 
 if this confusion of nomenclature has an unfortunate effect 
 in belittling our ideas of the State, it has also an equally 
 regrettable tendency towards exaggerating the importance of 
 the government. The conclusions arrived at by theorists as 
 deductions from the nature of the State in its wider and 
 truer signification have been smuggled into practical politics 
 as applicable to the government. Thus, executive officials 
 may be led to meddle in matters beyond their proper sphere 
 from confusing that sphere with the province of the State 
 itself. 
 
 It is probably to a desire to counteract such tendencies as 
 these that we must attribute Mr. Goldwin Smith's disappointing 
 answer to the question, "What is the State?" "People seem 
 to suppose," he says, " that there is something' outside and 
 above the members of the community which answers to this 
 name, and which has duties and a wisdom of its own. But 
 duties can attach only to persons, wisdom can reside only 
 in brains. The State, when you leave abstractions and come 
 to facts, is nothing but the government, which can have no 
 duties but those which the constitution assigns it, nor any 
 wisdom but that which is infused into it by the mode of 
 appointment or election."^ Here we have the conception of 
 the State behttled to an identity with its own officials, to prevent 
 the individual, in an undue reliance upon it as a deiis ex 
 TTMchiTtA, from slackening his own exertions after success. 
 Such an attitude towards the theory of the State is, how- 
 ever, quite unnecessary. The body politic is one thing, and 
 the government another ; and the more distinct these ideas 
 are kept in thought, the less likelihood there is of errors 
 either in theory or practice. 
 
 It must then, in the meantime, be accepted as an axiom 
 that the State, as the term is here employed, is something 
 considerably more than the government, even when the latter 
 is stretched to its widest extent so as to include the legislative, 
 
 ' Goldwin Smith, Questions of the Day, p. 9. 
 D 
 
50 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 executive, and judicial authorities of a country all taken 
 together. 
 
 The significance of all that is embraced in the term will 
 emerge more clearly in the sequel. As the inquiry proceeds, 
 the full extent and variety of its contents will be more 
 apparent. At present it need only be said in justification 
 of this wide use of the word, that it is not at variance with 
 the accepted usage of the English language, and does not run 
 counter to ordinary popular conceptions ; while it is strictly 
 in accord with the technical employment of the term in the 
 department of legal speculation which treats of the relations 
 of States to one another — the important science of International 
 Law. 
 
 Thus the " State of Great Britain and Ireland " means 
 something more than Parliament, the Cabinet, the Law 
 Courts, and the Queen all taken together. It embraces the 
 whole nation or nations, " Teutonic or Celt, or whatever we 
 be," who inhabit the British Isles, to say nothing of the 
 Colonies, along with the entire territory and possessions over 
 which the Queen holds sway. It is a great organized com- 
 munity of millions of men with a common history behind 
 them, a prestige and tradition "handed on from generation 
 to generation," and a great future in front of them. To 
 take another instance, the State of France is more than 
 the present government, more indeed than any or every of 
 the many governments and forms of iiational institutions it 
 has had within the last century. It is a something which 
 retains its identity though constitution after constitution is 
 swept away, and remains one with itself whatever form it 
 assumes of Monarchy, EepubUc, or Empire. 
 
 Even in the confused popular use of words, then, the 
 State means something more than its rulers or its constitu- 
 tion. This conclusion is, as will be shown immediately, 
 amply borne out by the accepted usage of the term in 
 Public Law. 
 
 The extent and variety of the factors that together make 
 up a State constitute only one reason why its definition 
 must be a wide one. The same result follows from the 
 fact that particular States differ from one another radically 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 51 
 
 in their size and importance, in the degree of their internal 
 cohesion, in the form of their constitutions, in the methods 
 of their organization, and in the progress they have made 
 from rude beginnings towards maturity. 
 
 The definition must he comprehensive, since the thing 
 itself grows. It must include the embryo and the perfectly 
 matured specimen along with all partially developed types 
 at every possible stage of the intervening process. It must 
 include aU. the species and varieties that have been differ- 
 entiated within the, genus. 
 
 It is difi&eult to frame one formula sufficiently precise for 
 scientific purposes and yet wide enough to include all the 
 forms at present in existence or known to history though 
 now extinct. Without attempting an exhaustive list of these, 
 the following classes of States may be enumerated: .(a) The 
 germs and undeveloped begiimings, or, at anyrate, the pre- 
 cursors of the State, existing in the family and tribe before 
 any wider organizations of society have been formed;^ (&) 
 Asiatic despotic empires, such as the Persian or the Baby- 
 lonian ; (c) the Jewish theocratic state ; (d) Athens, Sparta, 
 and the other Greek city-states ; (e) the Eoman Kepublic ; 
 (/) The Holy Eoman Empire; (g) the medieval feudal state; 
 (h) simple " unitarian " modern states such as Belgium or 
 Greece ; (i) states like Great Britain, which include as integral 
 portions subject empires such as India, and colonial depend- 
 encies with or without their own laws and institutions in 
 every corner of the globe ; and, lastly, (_;') federal states such 
 as Switzerland or the United States of America, where each 
 member of the whole is, in a sense, an imperivm in im/perio, 
 or rather a semi-independent polity within a larger polity.^ 
 
 All of these are within the proper province of political 
 science, and, therefore, none of them can be excluded from 
 the definition which it adopts of the body politic. 
 
 1 Cf. Prof. Huxley, Natural and Political Rights, reprinted in Method 
 and Remits, p. 352, where he speaks of "this most rudimentary of 
 polities, the family." 
 
 2 Sir J. E. Seeley gives a classification of the various types of State 
 from a different but not inconsistent point of view in his Introduction 
 to Political Science, p. 100. 
 
52 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 It is convenient, however, to begin with the examples 
 which are most familiar — the modern fully developed States 
 — " the great powers " of modern diplomacy and the chief 
 units dealt with by Public Law. 
 
 The conclusions of International Law, scrappy and incom- 
 plete as they often may be, are still the result of an honest 
 induction from experience. An attempt is made to find the 
 essential characteristics of a State as these are observed to exist 
 from an analysis and comparison of the features common 
 to all examples of actual States. This method of research has 
 its dangers, it is true. It is apt to proceed on too narrow 
 a basis of induction. It is prone, too, to be one-sided in 
 neglecting such features in the composition of a State as 
 have a less direct bearing on the limited class of phenomena 
 of which it treats. It looks too exclusively to the external 
 and material sides of a community, for these are, of course, 
 the chief factors in the international relations of peace or 
 war. But one great merit partly balances these defects. 
 International Law escapes the dangers of a too abstract 
 philosophy, with its proneness to trim its definition of such 
 a term as "the State" into harmony with a general 
 theory of the universe. The conclusions of International 
 Law profess to cling closely to experience, whatever other 
 faults they may have. It is well, therefore, to begin with 
 the findings of this branch of law. The units of Interna- 
 tional Law include every community or society which is 
 able to point to certain " necessary marks."^ " The marks," 
 says Professor Hall, "of an independent State are, that the 
 community constituting it is permanently established for a 
 political end, that it possesses a defined territory, and that 
 it is independent of external control."^ 
 
 Evidently " States," as defined by International Law, 
 include whole communities with their territories, and are 
 by no means confined to their constitutions and govern- 
 ments. The word would seem, then, to cover the whole of 
 an organized and independent society, its territory, and 
 every individual under its jurisdiction. If the idea thus 
 obtained of a State in its international or external relations 
 'See Hall's International Law, p. 20. ^ Ibid., p. 1. 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 53 
 
 be a true one, it is clear that it must be equally correct 
 as applied to the same State in its internal affairs — in 
 its relations with its own subjects. International Law 
 and Constitutional Law are both branches of Public Law, 
 and their results ought to be in harmony. For several 
 reasons, however, the definitions used in the former are 
 more reliable on this point than those of the latter. 
 The former concerns itself exclusively with modern States, 
 and so steers clear of the mists of antiquity, and avoids 
 such historical theories as tend to involve the origin of 
 States, with their laws and governments, in mystery. In- 
 ternational Law, further, is not entangled in the disputes 
 of party politics, and thus rises more easily above the 
 influences of prejudice. In Constitutional Law, on the other 
 hand, there is unfortunately much danger of definitions being 
 contorted by zealous partizans on one side or the other to 
 support some special theory of internal politics. As a 
 matter of history, too, the struggles of the constitution take 
 place not between the whole State and any part of it, but 
 between the rulers and the subjects, or between one part 
 of the government and another — between king and people 
 or between Crown and Parliament. Thus the word "State" 
 has rarely been called into use in historical literature in 
 the same wider and more accurate sense in which it is 
 used in the science that deals with international affairs. 
 From all these causes Constitutional Law has thrown a less 
 clear light on the distinction under discussion. The same 
 difference exists, however, in that sphere as in the other. 
 It is evident to the student of the growth of constitutions, 
 that the State is something greater than the mere governing 
 authority. When William III. displaced James II. from 
 the throne, the government for the time being fell, but the 
 State of England remained as before.^ 
 
 Public Law, then, lays down certain definite characteristics 
 
 ^In Aristotle's Politics, lii., 3, 9, a doctrine inconsistent with such 
 an assertion is maintained: "It is evident that the sameness of the 
 State consists chiefly in the sameness of the constitution." In Aristotle's 
 day, however, neither International Law nor international politics in 
 the modern sense existed. Vide Prof. Jowett's Introduction, p. 56. 
 
54 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 as possessed by every State recognized as such by the other 
 powers and by enlightened public opinion. 
 
 In enumerating these "marks" or characteristics, that greatest 
 of authorities on political science, Bluntschli, bases his results 
 on an exhaustive analysis of the features found in all known 
 States. Those which are common to all he regards as essential 
 to the conception of State in general. 
 
 His conclusions are summed up in seven propositions. 
 Some of these will require a word of criticism, but it may 
 be well first simply to repeat them in the order he has chosen, 
 and under, as far as possible, his own forms of expression. 
 The following are, then, in Bluntschli's view, the essentials 
 of a " State ":i 
 
 (1) A considerable number of men — more at least than a 
 mere family. 
 
 (2) A permanent relation of the people to the soU — i.e. 
 a definite territory. 
 
 (3) " The unity of the whole, the cohesion of the nation." 
 
 (4) " In all States we find the distinction between governors 
 and governed." 
 
 (5) The State has an organic nature in being {a) a union 
 of body and soul — of material elements and vital forces, (h) a 
 whole with members, and (c) an existence which develops 
 from within, and has an external growth. 
 
 (6) It has a moral and spiritual nature — a personality. 
 
 (7) " The State is masculine in form as opposed to the 
 Church, which is feminine." 
 
 Uniting all these together he arrives at a final definition, 
 that " the State is a combination or association of men, in the 
 form of government and governed, on a definite territory,' 
 united together into a moral organized masculine personality," 
 or more shortly, it is " the politically organized national person 
 of a definite territory." 
 
 Now, while admitting the substantial accuracy of these 
 definitions, there are several points that call for comment. 
 
 The first question, as to the minimum number of individuals 
 who can form a State, is more of theoretic than practical 
 importance. Even here there is room for dispute. Certainly 
 ^Theory of the State, p. 15. 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 55 
 
 no one being, however great and however isolated from his 
 fellow-men, can ever form a State, but it is sometimes argued 
 that two human beings might together form "a State" if 
 thrown together on a desert island, or otherwise made 
 independent of all control by their fellow-men. This view 
 is becoming more widely received, and has been expressed 
 by writers of widely differing schools. Mr. Wordsworth 
 Donisthorpe, one of the most prominent of modern indi- 
 vidualists, has given it voice. " I will venture to say that 
 the very first State which ever existed was a human family, 
 consisting of a mother and her offspring. With all deference 
 to sociologists, the family is a State and the earliest form of 
 State." ^ The point, however, need not detain us here. Its 
 bearing is important on the theory of origin, but has no direct 
 connection with the nature of a well-developed State like 
 Great Britain or France at the present day. 
 
 The second of the marks mentioned by Bluntschli is a 
 settled territory. Every State whose existence is politically 
 recognized has a territory of some sort ; and, though the logical 
 necessity of this may be open to question, such abstract specu- 
 lations may be meantime dismissed. The third and fourth 
 features may be taken together. They are really both aspects 
 of the same characteristic. 
 
 It is, of course, true that no State can exist without 
 cohesion and unity; but this principle of fusion can only 
 be found in the subjection of all to one government or 
 constitution. It is just the difference between government 
 and governed which welds the society into a State, in forming 
 the basis of the voluntary or enforced acquiescence of the 
 individual in the sovereignty of the whole. The union of 
 Austria and Hungary, for example, into one State, so far as 
 it may be said to have been accomplished at all, consists in 
 their mutual dependence on a common government. For a 
 perfect cohesion in an ideal State much more is required, 
 but the common central authority making itself obeyed is 
 the one essential bond without which the actual State would 
 fly into fragments. Thus the sovereignty of the whole may 
 
 1 Individualism : A System of Politics, p. 2. Compare also the passage 
 from Professor Huxley already cited. 
 
56 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 be taken as the one great feature, implying both the third 
 and the fourth of Bhmtschli's characteristics. This involves, 
 on the one hand, the unity of everything subject to its sway, 
 and, on the other hand, the existence of organized and 
 established machinery for making that sway effective — it 
 implies, that is to say, a government that rules and a governed 
 people that obeys. Both requirements are covered by one 
 word — " organization." 
 
 So far Bluntschli's conclusions — under the modifications 
 already hinted at — are unimpeachable, and agree substantially 
 with the accepted results of Public Law; but, in discussing 
 the next three of his selected characteristics, he passes to more 
 dangerous ground. So far he has kept on the surface of 
 things, but when he goes on to assert that the State has 
 an organic nature of some sort, a statement is made which 
 many will refuse to accept. That this theory is not only 
 correct, but contains the germ of the whole truth of political 
 philosophy, is one of the chief objects of this essay to prove ; 
 but, however true, it is not a conclusion which can be regarded 
 as a self-evident postulate bearing on its face an irrefutable 
 answer to all objections. 
 
 By thrusting the organic conception of society into his 
 definition of the State, Bluntschli strays from the world of 
 facts into that of theories, and so challenges criticism. The 
 danger of thus mixing theories with facts becomes more 
 apparent when he goes on to endow the State with certain 
 fanciful characteristics founded on an erroneous or inadequate 
 view of what the social organism means. 
 
 The organic and personal nature of the State is the root 
 idea of aU Bluntschli's reasoning on political science; but, 
 instead of carrying it out exhaustively to its logical conclusion 
 in every possible direction, he is apt at times unconsciously 
 to caricature its application to social and political phenomena 
 by forcing analogies with these animal organisms of which 
 biology treats.^ It is this tendency that leads him to add 
 a seventh characteristic — " the masculine character of the 
 modern state." ^ 
 
 * Cf . Theory of the State, Translator's Preface, p. 5. 
 2 Theory of the State, p. 22. 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 57 
 
 Dismissing this seventh mark then as a fanciful analogy, 
 we may complete the examination of Bluntschli by taking 
 his fifth and sixth propositions together, noting that by them 
 the State is made not only an organism, but a moral and 
 spiritual organism — a person capable of thought and action, 
 meriting praise or blame. " History," he says, " ascribes to 
 the State a personality which, having spirit and body, possesses 
 and manifests a will of its own." 
 
 These two characteristics are the only part of his definition 
 not borne out by the authority of almost all practical 
 writers on International Law. The others may be reduced 
 to three simple features, viz. : a number of individuals or 
 community, some extent of territory, and an effective 
 sovereignty or established government or constitution. These 
 three are included in the definition of Hall (already quoted^) 
 under words very nearly the same, viz.: "a community or 
 society," " a defined territory," and the fact that the whole 
 " is permanently established for a political end." Hall, as we 
 would expect from so practical a writer, makes no attempt 
 to enter the arena of philosophic speculation by either affirm- 
 ing or denying the organic nature of the State; but he 
 adds one characteristic, as important perhaps as any — " in- 
 dependence of external control." The secret of the strange 
 omission of this important factor from Bluntschli's list is 
 probably to be found in his theory that independence is an 
 integral part of sovereignty.^ However this may be, it is 
 more convenient to emphasize so important a factor and to 
 give it a place to itself. It is evident that for a State to 
 take its place among the recognized nations of the world, 
 it must be able to set at defiance the interference of foreign 
 nations. Independence of the dictation of powers outside 
 its territory is as essential to its existence as is its sovereignty 
 to enforce its will within its own confines. Thus the 
 necessary elements which go to form a fully matured modern 
 State may be shortly given as (1) a group of individuals, 
 (2) a specific territory, (3) an efficient organization giving 
 effect to its sovereignty, and (4) independence. Each of 
 these might be analyzed into two parts. The citizenship of 
 1 Supra, p. 52. ^ Theory of the State, p. 64. 
 
58 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 each individual in the State implies a recognition by him 
 of his obedience to its laws and his allegiance to its authority. 
 The possession of the territory involves rights over it for 
 all purposes of use and enjoyment. Independence implies 
 recognition by foreign nations. Sovereignty may be likewise 
 divided into two elements — power and the consciousness of 
 power. 
 
 Some German theorists have attempted to create an absolute 
 separation between society and the State. Now, while it 
 is possible to separate the two in thought according to the 
 aspect in which the same units composing both are viewed, 
 it should be clearly understood that there can be no absolute 
 separation in fact. No society can exist which is not a 
 State or part of one, and every State is necessarily a society 
 or group of societies. Gneist, in the opinion of Bluntschli,^ 
 " has done a service to political science by accentuating the 
 difference between ' State ' and ' society,' and calling attention 
 to the friction between them." Now, the antithesis is only 
 a relative one. The State, rightly understood, is nothing 
 more than organized society, and, on the other hand, no society 
 can exist without the organization which binds it into a 
 State.^ " Society," says Bluntschli,^ in enforcing its contrast 
 with the State, "is an unorganized mass of individuals"; but 
 an utterly disorganized society can only exist in imagination. 
 Even a mob must have some rudiments of order among its 
 members. Society then, despite the high authority of Gneist 
 and Bluntschli, is merely the State considered without special 
 reference to its organization ; while the State, on the 
 other hand, is society viewed with special reference to that 
 feature. 
 
 To adopt an "algebraic form of definition, the State is 
 equal to society plus a constitution, a body of positive laws, 
 and a regular government. In these three its system of 
 
 ' Theory of the State, p. 104. 
 
 ^ Compare the Master of Balliol, commenting on Comte {Comte's Social 
 Philosophy, p. 41): "There can be no society without a government, 
 any more than there can be a government or effective power among 
 men without society.'' 
 
 3 Theory of the State, p. 103. 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 59 
 
 organization consists.'^ Law, government, and constitution 
 are distinct, although there are points where they seem to" 
 fuse imperceptibly into one another. 
 
 This conception of the State as organized society affords 
 some guidance to the determination of how far it is safe 
 to apply the term to independent groups of utter savages, 
 or of men whose civilization is of a primitive type. The 
 want of proper organization of every sort is the chief 
 characteristic of barbarians. Custom is the early substitute 
 for law — the idea of a constitution could not be under- 
 stood by savages — while their government consists of the 
 application by each individual of such force as he can 
 command. 
 
 The boundaries of a State are fixed by the limits within 
 which its laws and institutions have sway ; that is, it extends 
 as far as its organization has no rival system to interfere 
 with it. Where there are only the undefined and unformu- 
 lated rudiments of an organization, these boundaries must 
 necessarily be extremely vague. The most primitive State 
 is very narrow and its limits indeterminate. It is merely a 
 family or tribe, whose " sphere of influence " cannot be laid 
 down with scientific precision. In its full maturity, on the 
 other hand, the body politic is necessarily very distinct in 
 its boundaries. It then becomes clear how far its jurisdic- 
 tion extends and what individuals owe allegiance to it. The 
 modern commonwealth is usually very wide both in extent 
 and content. 
 
 Whether in its simple or developed form the State may 
 be defined as a system of political organization, together with 
 all the men and all the material things which are subject 
 to its influence — the organization ^lus everything to which 
 its sovereignty extends. There is no difficulty in applying 
 this definition to the great powers of Europe, because 
 everything is therein defined and accurate. It is only in an 
 advanced stage of society, where law is understood and obeyed, 
 and where a government and constitution of some kind exist, 
 that the limits of the several systems become disentangled and 
 each State stands clear of its neighbours. The powers of 
 ^Cf. Professor Ritchie's State Interference, p. 23 (note). 
 
60 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 modem Europe arose from the break-up of the Eoman Empire, 
 and gained independence and distinct individual existence as 
 they gradually shook off the influence of the Church of 
 Eome. 
 
 If all the nations of the globe formed a federal or a still 
 closer union with one another, bringing the whole of humanity 
 under the sway of one system of law, backed by an executive 
 authority as efficient as that which enforces municipal law, 
 political science would require to stretch its definition of a 
 State so as to include the world with all its inhabitants, 
 and all its continents and seas. 
 
 Each State is co-extensive with the sphere throughout 
 which its will is law and its government can enforce obedience. 
 All the individuals within this radius, with aU their interests, 
 pursuits, and possessions, are parts of the body politic. 
 Various ties unite these men to one another and to their 
 governors. These relations are of many kinds — legal, social, 
 political, ethical, economical, aesthetic, physical, and hygienic. 
 The State includes all these, and therefore political science 
 can afford to ignore none of them. Auguste Comte has, 
 according to Sheldon Amos, the merit of being the first to 
 express clearly its full scope and breadth. He taught "that 
 political science was a composite study, and presupposed the 
 complete apprehension of every branch of science, beginning 
 with the physical, such as astronomy, and ending with the 
 moral, such as ethics and sociology."^ 
 
 The science of politics is thus composite because of the 
 complex nature of its object. It is necessary at the oiitset 
 to guard against too narrow an interpretation of the elements 
 that are involved. "The State," to quote again from Amos, 
 "in the modern acceptation of the term, carries with it the 
 ideas of territorial limitation ; of population, past, present, 
 and to come; and of organization for purposes of government."^ 
 
 ' Science of Politics, p. 52. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 65. Compare the well-known passage from Burke's Reflections 
 on the Revolution in France, where he compares the State to a " partner- 
 ship not only between those who are living, but btween those who 
 are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.'' Com- 
 pare also William Cunningham's Politics and Economics, p. 119, as to 
 
THE DEFINITION OF THE STATE 61 
 
 All this is expressed in the simplest and briefest formula 
 possible in the definition already suggested — the State is an 
 "independent organized society." '^ 
 
 the right of posterity to be included in the conception of the common- 
 wealth. 
 
 ^ An excellent definition of the State and a discussion of its leading 
 features are contained in Professor Henry Sidgwick's Elements of 
 Politics (p. 211). " I shall mean by a State what I have also called a 
 Political Society; i.e. a body of human beings deriving its corporate 
 unity from the fact that its members acknowledge permanent obedience 
 to the same government, which represents the society in its collective 
 capacity, and ought to aim in all its actions at the promotion of their 
 common interests." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE STATE. 
 
 The inquiry into the origin of the State is primarily one of 
 speculative interest, though dangerous political tenets and 
 policies have frequently been based upon the conclusions to 
 which false theories have given rise. The simplest form of the 
 question is, " "Why or how does the State exist ? " Now this 
 query, innocent as it looks, conceals an ambiguity. It asks 
 at least two, perhaps four, distinct questions ; and the theore- 
 tical answer given to one is often smuggled into practical 
 politics as though it were an answer to the other. We must 
 realize clearly in which of the four senses following we ask 
 the question : 
 
 (1) What is the process through which any particular 
 State — Great Britain, for example — has come into existence ? 
 History must furnish a reply. The process which gives 
 rise to any State — the record, for example, of the unification 
 of Italy — is simply one branch of ordinary history. 
 
 (2) What is the process through which the State (that is 
 to say, the institution of the State in general) has come into 
 existence? Here again we must look to history for an 
 answer — to universal history proceeding upon a generalization 
 from experience. The only dif&culty involved lies in the 
 impossibility of obtaining correct information of the pre- 
 historic times in which the State took its origin. Aristotle 
 derives it from the family and the tribe. 
 
 (3) The inquiry as to the origin of the State may, how- 
 ever, bear a third and entirely different meaning. What, it 
 
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE STATE 63 
 
 may be meant, is the justification for the existence of any 
 particular State ? What right had Germany or Greece to 
 come into being ? What right has Turkey to continue to 
 exist at all ? This third question, while it must look to 
 philosophy rather than to history for an answer, is yet a 
 perfectly legitimate one ; because the formation of special 
 kingdoms or commonwealths, and the forms that their con- 
 stitutions assume, are subject (partially at least) to human 
 conscious control; and, therefore, motives come into play 
 which may be condemned or approved. 
 
 (4) Lastly, it may be asked, What is the justification of 
 the existence of the State ? This, unless very carefully 
 guarded from misconception, is not a legitimate question ; 
 for it involves an unproved assumption. It assumes that 
 the State is a creation of man. The object of the inquiry, 
 then, is to put the State on its trial and to determine if 
 men did wisely in making an institution which they might 
 have done very well without. 
 
 The utterly unfounded assumption is made that it is optional 
 for men either to have or to want a State. Now, it is true 
 that they may change the form of the government under 
 which they live, or federate two or more communities into 
 one, or emigrate from one body politic to another; but no 
 individual can live except as a member of some State — of a 
 society of some sort. It would be as absurd to ask for 
 the justification of the existence of the individual as of the 
 State. Both exist "by nature," just as the universe itself 
 exists. The origin of both is an integral part of the mystery 
 of the universe that has baffled the endeavours of uninspired 
 finite reason to solve. 
 
 A particular individual, just like a particular State, comes 
 into existence, and maintains his life in accordance with 
 definite laws of nature ; and he ought, perhaps, to be able 
 to justify his own existence on ethical or other grounds. It is 
 not unfair to ask the slothful or vicious man who lives on 
 the labour of others and gives nothing in return to prove 
 his right to exist ; just as a corrupt State like Turkey, which 
 abuses all its powers and acts as a standing menace to the 
 peace of Europe, may be put upon its trial at the bar of public 
 
64 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 opinion. But it is a different thing to ask the reason why 
 either ihe State or the individual exists. To ask a justification 
 of the existence of individuals as a class would be treated as 
 an idle metaphysical quibble, but the same inquiry as to 
 States has frequently been taken seriously, and has led to 
 grievous practical consequences. In the latter case, the 
 assumption is made that the State came into being some- 
 time subsequent to the creation or evolution of individual 
 men, and by means of their conscious or unconscious action ; 
 and fallacious answers are then given either that the 
 mutual fear of men led to a social compact, or that the 
 strong hand established its authority over the weak, by 
 violence, and then justified its assumption of power as best 
 it could. 
 
 The student of political science must eschew all such pre- 
 liminary prejudgments. His only allowable assumption is 
 that involved in the postulate (founded on experience) that 
 "the State is" just as the botanist, for example, assumes 
 that plant life exists without asking its origin or justification. 
 He may then proceed to classify the various species, and 
 trace the process of their development ; or he may analyze 
 them into their constituent factors, and explain the origin 
 of particular States, though not of the State in general. 
 
 It is well, however, to glance at the various theories of 
 the origin and nature of the State, if only to free ourselves 
 from misconceptions involved in false theories that have 
 obtained currency. 
 
 The problem may be stated very briefly. As a matter 
 of experience, the individual man, willing or unwilling, 
 must obey the laws imposed on him by the community 
 to which he belongs; and, go where he will, he can never 
 escape the necessity of being a member of some community. 
 In a word, the individual is forced to obey the State. The 
 problem is to find the ultimate reason for this obedience — 
 the origin and nature (for the two go together) of the 
 existing relation between the man and the State. As 
 Professor G-reen puts the question, "What are the grounds 
 of political obligation ? " ^ If you explain the bond con- 
 iT. H. Green's Worhs, Vol. ii. 
 
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE STATE 65 
 
 neeting individuals into one whole, you explain the very- 
 essence of the State. Two contradictory sets of answers 
 have been given by theorists who are yet agreed in 
 viewing a community as a mere aggregate of unconnected 
 units. Starting from the unconscious assumption that these 
 atoms were originally quite isolated, an attempt is made to 
 explain the origin of the connecting links. One school finds 
 the solution in the idea of a "social contract," the other in 
 the principle of "authority," or force applied from above. 
 The laws, and the State which enforces laws, are in both 
 theories looked on as something thrust upon the mass of 
 Individuals from without. According to Hobbes, the individual 
 man, in his isolated independence, is a product of nature ; 
 while the State is an article of human manufacture, alien to 
 him and added as an afterthought. " By art," he says, " is 
 created that great leviathan called a commonwealth, or 
 State, in Latin civitas, which is but an artificial man, though 
 of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose 
 protection and defence it was intended." Again, "the pacts 
 and covenants by which the parts of this body politic were 
 at first made, set together and united, resemble that fiat, or 
 the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the creation."^ 
 
 Thus it would seem that God made the individual and 
 man made the State. The latter is then a sort of unnecessary 
 addition tagged on by the invention of men to the work of 
 providence. Its formation is due to pact or contract. How 
 this idea of a "social compact," expressed or implied, in- 
 fluenced the course of philosophic thought for a century 
 or more, is too well known to require to be dwelt on 
 here. Even in the nineteenth century it unconsciously, and 
 in a modified form, tinges the theories of those who would 
 be the first to laugh at the crude attire in which its earliest 
 adherents dressed it. That the State is based on contract 
 is the basis of the theories of Locke, Eousseau, and Puffendorf, 
 while even Kant^ is influenced by it. 
 
 To quote only one example: "That which makes the 
 community and brings men out of the low estate of nature 
 
 ^Leviathan (Molesworth's edition, Vol. iii.). Introduction, p. 9. 
 ^Kant's Principles of Politics, p. 33, and again p. 46. 
 
66 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 into one politic society, is the agreement to incorporate, and 
 act as one body, and so be one distinct commonwealth." ^ The 
 theory stated in this crude form has been refuted over and 
 over again so thoroughly that it would be merely waste of 
 time to criticise it further. It has been condemned after a 
 searching criticism by writers of such different types as 
 Hume, Burke, and Bentham, and more recently by Sir Henry 
 Maine and other exponents of the historical method. Sir 
 Frederick Pollock has stigmatized it as one of the most 
 successful and "fatal of political impostures." It is more 
 profitable, perhaps, to extract from it the residuum of truth 
 it contains when properly sifted from its chaff. It is quite 
 true that in an ideal State each man ought to have some 
 influence upon the government — that he should have a 
 voice equally with his fellow-men in passing laws and in 
 moulding the constitution. If this were all that was meant by 
 the theory, no one would object. But it is absurd to maintain 
 that it is open to the individual to decide whether he shall 
 submit to any law at all. This is the root error of the 
 school of " contract " — to imagine that man is by nature 
 free, and assumes the yoke of his own accord. Every 
 man, on the contrary, who comes into the world is born into 
 bondage in one form or another. The restraints which limit 
 the free-play of the evil passions of the savage are different 
 in kind, but perhaps greater in degree, than those that bind 
 the subject of a civilized State. Man is born a member of 
 a community that has a right to place some limits to the 
 exuberance of his individuality, as surely as he is born into 
 dependence on the control of the laws of nature and subject 
 to the restraints imposed on him through the mere necessities 
 of his animal existence. The individualist, in his extremest 
 form, first makes an insoluble difficulty for himself by treat- 
 ing each man as an isolated unit, and then proceeds laboriously 
 to bridge over the gulf which he has thus gratuitously made. 
 Every man is by nature a member of a society. The " State " 
 of the savage is a rude undeveloped one, but still is there 
 in embryo; and its despotism is not likely to be less objection- 
 able because it rests upon no organized basis. The forces 
 1 Locke, Treatise of Civil Government, ii., § 211. 
 
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE STATE 67 
 
 that control civilized peoples are in essence the same — only 
 focussed to a centre, and arranged in proper order hy means 
 of positive laws enforced by an established government. To 
 maintain that all men might to have a share in moulding 
 the form of the constitution of a State is a logical and 
 intelligible position ; but to hold that the individual atoms 
 vote the State itself into existence as the result of a 
 unanimous plebiscite is absurd. It is to ignore the grea,t 
 truth established for all time by Aristotle, that man is 
 hy natv/re a social and political animal, and therefore 
 necessarily the member of some State, however crude. 
 
 As this school of philosophy chooses contract as the 
 basis of society, its opponents select in manner equally 
 arbitrary the idea of force. This theory, in its crudest 
 form, has not come so prominently before the world, because 
 it has lacked exponents as able as those whom its rival 
 found in Locke and Eousseau. All constitutions and systems 
 founded on the idea of authority are really modifications of 
 the theory of force ; and under this guise it has played an 
 important enough rdle in the history of nations. " The divine 
 right of kings," the great foundation of unconstitutional rule 
 in the seventeenth century, in its blind dependence on the 
 powers that be, was simply a deification of established power 
 or force. The king, it is said, is actually seated on his throne 
 and holds the reins of the executive government in his hands. 
 He has power ; therefore that power is derived from God ; 
 therefore he cannot be deprived of it. Many systems of 
 authority have existed, but at bottom they are all based on 
 the actual possession of effective force on the part of the 
 rulers. 
 
 Bluntschli quotes, without citing its source, the following 
 exposition of the theory of force in its crudest form: "The 
 State is the work of violent domination, it is based on the 
 right of the stronger."^ 
 
 Spinoza is perhaps the greatest exponent of the theory 
 
 that would base the State on force. In his Tractatus Politici 
 
 he identifies power {potentia) with right (Jus), and thence 
 
 arrives at the result that the "right" of the community 
 
 1 Theory of the State, p. 274. 
 
68 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 against its individual members is only limited by its 
 "might." Sheer force would thus be at once the origin 
 and the justification of the State. This attempted solution 
 of the problem by the thing called force seems at first sight 
 diametrically opposed to the solution by the thing called 
 contract, involving voluntary consent; but a deeper insight 
 shows how much they have in common. Each stands on 
 an individualistic basis, isolates each man from his fellows, 
 and so makes the same wide and unwarrantable assumption. 
 Each theory next proceeds to explain how units thus separate 
 by nature have come to be bound so tightly together by art. 
 Each looks for an explanation of the bond to something 
 outside . of man's essential nature ; but while one fixes on 
 free and arbitrary contract as the principle of cohesion, 
 the other looks to the compulsion of an external force 
 or authority which keeps men together by sheer brute 
 strength, whether they will or no. The first line of argu- 
 ment carried to extremes would make it impossible for a 
 just State to impose any obligation whatever on an un- 
 willing individual; the latter would justify any brutal and 
 arbitrary violence powerful enough to ensure its own success. 
 Force, indeed, like contract, has its place — and an important 
 place it is — in the fabric of the State. Indeed, in Bluntschli's 
 phrase : " Force shows itself more often in the formation of 
 States than contract."-^ It must never be forgotten that 
 force has always existed, and always will exist, and that 
 the progress of the world has not been towards eliminating 
 might altogether, but towards regulating and refining it. In 
 a highly civilized State force is indeed present, but it may 
 better be described as the force of righteousness than the 
 force of might. Neither contract nor force, however, can 
 afford a full explanation of the problem. The truth is, that 
 both schools of theorists make the solution impossible for 
 themselves by the common postulate with which they un- 
 consciously start, in assuming that the individuality of man 
 is inconsistent with the solidarity of the race. It would 
 be not more false, though more palpably absurd, to begin 
 by assuming the existence of States without citizens, and 
 1 Theory of the State, p. 274. 
 
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE STATE 69 
 
 then go on to discuss how they afterwards became dif- 
 ferentiated into individuals. The true solution is only to 
 be found in a union of force and contract — of freedom and 
 constraint — and in a recognition that the forces which 
 surround and hinder and support each man are in truth a 
 very part of his own nature — ^that the factors which make 
 the individual make also the State. ' 
 
 The basis of the State, indeed, is neither contract nor 
 force; but an element which is involved in both of these — 
 WiU. Contract itself is based on Will; for its essence is 
 the free and intelligent consent of a personality come to 
 maturity and subject to neither constraint nor fraud. 
 Authority again, even such as was founded originally on brute 
 force, depends on Will. It is the Will of the conqueror that 
 has proved itself more efficient than that of the subject; and 
 it is the Will of the latter that has preferred subjection to 
 death on finding itself unable to 'shake the conqueror off. It 
 is Will, then, that is the basis of the State. Arrived at this 
 view, we have passed far beyond a merely individualistic 
 standard; for it is the common will — the volonU gdnArale of 
 Rousseau, and not the mere sum of individual wills — that 
 rules. It is the universal Will or practical reason, which is 
 the same in all men while they are true to the principles of 
 the rational nature that makes them men. Neither the social 
 compact, whereby the governed hand over the whole or part 
 of their natural rights to a sovereign, nor the successful force 
 used by the ruler to coerce his subjects, can form a satisfactory 
 theory of the binding force of law. Only in the universal 
 Will acting on righteous moral principles can a sure foundation 
 be found for it.^ This principle of WiU affords the stable 
 foundation of the body politic that neither force nor contract 
 can give. Force is a dangerous argument even for the tyrant, 
 
 ^This theory of the rational Will or practical reason as the basis 
 of the State is the doctrine of the German idealists, and Hegel is, 
 perhaps, its best known and most systematic exponent. English students 
 of politics of a practical turn of mind, who are not unnaturally 
 repelled by the difficulty and uncouth diction of "the unreadable 
 Germans,'' will find an easily understood and invaluable exposition of 
 the doctrine in the 2nd volume of Professor Green's Works. 
 
70 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 for the same reasoning that justifies his usurpation will justify 
 also his overthrow by a successful rebellion. On the other 
 hand, if the ruler holds his sceptre only because his people 
 have consented, then the consent being withdrawn, the sceptre 
 would go with it. 
 
 It is, however, as unnecessary to account for the origin of 
 the State as for that of the individual man. Man is com- 
 posed of elements derived partly from heredity and partly 
 from environment, and each of these is part of society. The 
 origin of the State and the origin of man, then, must be sought 
 together, and the problem must wait for its answer till all 
 science and all philosophy are complete. The primeval state, 
 like the primeval man, is lawless and arbitrary. It is 
 a chaos from which an ordered world will some day grow. 
 The progress of the State and of the individual go on hand 
 in hand. As man becomes more civilized, society becomes 
 better ordered and developed ; and the ideal State will be 
 possible only when the subjects who compose it have reached 
 perfection too. 
 
 The origin of the State, then, as a separate inquiry from 
 the origin of man, need occupy us no longer. It has always 
 existed since the world was inhabited by men endowed with 
 reason. Its genesis is coeval with the genesis of human 
 intelligence. "The germ of the State must, of course, be 
 looked for and found in that phase of social development 
 known as complete savagery," i' but this is merely the germ, 
 and the full manifestation of the State as "an organic brother- 
 hood of man" has never yet been attained. 
 
 The Greek City, the Eoman Empire, and the modern 
 European State have alike fallen short of this idea in different 
 respects. The first of these failed by curtailing the initiative 
 powers of its citizens and sacrificing individual freedom ; the 
 last, by emphasizing these elements unduly by the prominence 
 given to competition ; while the Eomans never rose above a 
 mechanical theory of the relations of the rulers to the people. 
 
 The works of Hegel contain many criticisms of the imper- 
 fections of both Greek and Eoman ideals, and many suggestions 
 for a more perfect State formed from the union of what was 
 'Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Individualism, p. 2. 
 
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE STATE 71 
 
 best in both. In his conception the Greek State was " a unity 
 of individuals who regarded themselves not as isolated persons, 
 but simply as citizens whose life was in the State, and who 
 had no personality apart from it."^ 
 
 The high attainments of Athens in every art and pursuit 
 were founded on the absorption of the life of every citizen 
 in the life of the State. By this insufficient recognition of 
 the individuality of its members, it fell below the organic 
 ideal. 
 
 It would not be quite accurate to say that Sparta and 
 Athens deliberately and consciously crushed out the in- 
 dividuality of the citizens in order to aggrandize the common- 
 wealth. It would be truer to say that the two conceptions 
 were not yet properly differentiated from one another. The 
 individual, in the modem sense, strange as it may sound, did 
 not exist. Only at a later date in the history of specula- 
 tion was he disintegrated from the State as the subject of 
 specific rights. He became a distinct object of consciousness as 
 a legal entity through the labours of the Eoman jurists in 
 applying the conclusions of the Stoic philosophy to the elucida- 
 tion of jural relations. The elaboration of the doctrine of the 
 persona, implying a legal status and a capacity for rights, was 
 the chief work of the founders of the Civil Law ; and thus, for 
 the first time, the individual as such was given a recognized 
 position within the commonwealth. 
 
 The shortcomings of the Eoman State were different 
 altogether from those of the Greek cities, and due to different 
 causes. In its theories of administration there was necessarily 
 involved, from the smallness of the ruling city and the vastness 
 of the empire, a hard line of demarcation between govern- 
 ment and governed, and thus the fulness of the organic 
 unity was interfered with by the intrusion of purely 
 mechanical factors. " Eome," it has been said, " turned the 
 State from an organic unity of life, which took up into itself 
 the whole being of its citizens, into a dead mechanism of 
 government, externally applied to a powerless mass of sub- 
 jects." ^ In another way, however, it gave, as we have seen, 
 
 > Vide the Master of Balliol's Eegd, p. 36. 
 ^md., p. 32. 
 
72 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 more emphasis to the personality of the individual citizen, by 
 developing an elaborate legal system defining his rights. 
 
 The modern State, while escaping some at least of the 
 imperfections conspicuous in the ancient one, has dangers 
 and weaknesses peculiarly its own. The chief among these 
 has been the tendency to belittle the body politic in the 
 mistaken hope of thereby glorifying the individual. Every 
 philosophy that has had an appreciable direct influence on 
 modern English politics has been framed "on a purely indivi- 
 dualistic basis. Not to speak of the way in which the theories 
 of Locke and Eousseau have permeated society, the doctrines 
 of utilitarians like Bentham and Mill, and the exertions of 
 laissez /aire politicians like Bright and Cobden, have all 
 helped in this direction. These doctrines and these exertions 
 alike have done good service in their day, and they have 
 thus proved themselves to have a relative value when used 
 for the redress of abuses. Consciousness of this relative truth 
 unfortunately blinds men to the fact that, now that the 
 pernicious restraints on liberty have been removed, the 
 same principles that did good before may now do evil, if 
 treated as an absolute and final truth and used to break up 
 the wholesome restraints of society. Eeformers must build 
 up as well as pull down, turning their attention to the 
 integration of the whole as well as to the enfranchisement 
 of the parts. " The reconstruction of society, not the liberties 
 of individuals, is now their most pressing task."i 
 
 The burning need, then, of the present day is not to 
 render the individual independent of the State, nor to 
 enable the latter to crush out his separate existence, nor even 
 to balance one against the other like two antagonistic forces. 
 The real problem is to combine both principles, and so to 
 develop the State to its fullest perfection without annihilat- 
 ing individuality, and, at the same time, to make the 
 most of the citizen without undermining the sovereignty of 
 the whole. Each principle, rightly understood, is the com- 
 plement of the other, and the two must be united into a 
 perfect and harmonious structure. 
 
 To help on the realization of such a union in practical 
 ^ F. C. Montague's Limits of Individual Liberty, p. 16. 
 
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE STATE 73 
 
 politics ought to be the aim of every statesman. To find 
 a speculative solution of the problem was one of the chief 
 objects of Hegel's philosophy. He tried to find a clue 
 to reconcile the sovereignty of the whole with the free 
 existence of every part — to emphasize fully the requirements 
 of both individual and State. To effect this he rejected 
 utterly the mechanical theories of the system of administra- 
 tion of Imperial Eome. 
 
 "Hegel's ideal," it has been well said, "is not that of a 
 machine moved by one string, which communicates motion 
 to all the rest of the endlessly complicated works, but of 
 a social organism in which life is continually streaming from 
 the centre to the extremities, and back again from there 
 to the centre."^ 
 
 The democratic enthusiast may be pardoned for thinking 
 that this ideal will be best realized under a full system of 
 popular or representative government, where no arbitrary 
 line is drawn between the governing class and the governed ; 
 where each man has his right recognized to bring all his 
 influence to bear in a legitimate way on the counsels of 
 the nation. The same enthusiast will do well to remember 
 that the individual is fit to have such high confidence 
 reposed in him in proportion only as he is able to lay 
 aside prejudice and self-interest, to absorb into his own 
 being the fulness of the national existence in all its variety 
 and vigour, and so to find his own interests and life again 
 in a nobler form by merging them in the life and interests 
 of the State. 
 
 ^The Master of Balliol's Hegel, p. 85. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE END OF THE STATE. 
 
 The theory that the State is an organic unity developing 
 from a lower to a higher form, forced upon us by the 
 investigation of its nature and origin, helps also to explain 
 its final end or goal. If the very existence of mankind 
 involves the presence of the State in some form, actual or 
 potential, it is equally true that the ideal polity is that 
 in which men can fully realize the perfection of their 
 individual lives. The individual and the State include one 
 another in every stage of their common development, and 
 so have a common origin and a common destiny. 
 
 N"o theory of the State can be complete which does 
 not make its aim sufficiently wide to include the perfect 
 development of all its citizens in the highest, noblest, and 
 fullest form of social, political, and individual life. This 
 is no new truth. It is implied in the well-known saying 
 of Aristotle, that "the State comes into existence, originat- 
 ing in the bare needs of life and continuing in existence 
 for the sake of a good life."^ Apart from the State, the 
 mere physical existence of man as man is impossible ; but 
 this is its beginning, not its end. It must develop the life 
 it originally makes possible. Its end is only reached with 
 the perfecting of every individual's latent capacities, and this 
 implies the perfecting of its own. The end, then, we are 
 in search of must be a very wide one. It is nothing short 
 of the highest welfare of the individual and of humanity. 
 ' Politics, I., 2, 8, Jowett's translation. 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 75 
 
 It is, in other words, to carry forward towards fulfilment 
 the eternal purpose of the universe. 
 
 More than two centuries ago, John Locke emphatically 
 wrote,^ "the end of government is the good of mankind"; 
 and only a few years ago Professor Huxley ^ declared this 
 "the noblest and at the same time briefest statement of the 
 purpose of government known to me." 
 
 Whether this is really the end of government will be dis- 
 cussed in a later chapteh Here it is merely maintained to 
 be the end of the State. The necessity for so wide a defini- 
 tion will be apparent after a rapid survey of the various 
 inadequate substitutes that have been proposed. 
 
 There are five different directions in which the end of 
 the State's existence has been sought : ^ (1) As something 
 outside and independent of both the commonwealth and its 
 individual members. (2) In the good of a section of the 
 community — of a privileged or ruling class. (3) In the good 
 of all the members considered only as an aggregate of isolated 
 units. (4) In the good of the whole as something entirely 
 distinct from the welfare of the parts. (5) In the union of 
 the two last-mentioned theories, where the State is both an 
 end and a means. 
 
 (1) It is sometimes held that all States, with their various 
 peoples, exist for certaia purposes, natural or divine, in which 
 their own realization has no share. In this view the State 
 is merely a means for the furtherance of something foreign 
 to it. It is the plaything or the tool of some outside power 
 for the benefit of which it exists. This power may be, on 
 the one hand, a blind impersonal process of evolution sweeping 
 
 1 Treatise of Civil Government, ii., § 229. 
 
 2 Method and Results, p. 278 (" Administrative Nihilism "). It must, how- 
 ever, be remembered that this was merely an obiter dictv/m, as it were, of 
 Locke. He has in the same treatise declared (§ 3) that "government 
 has no other end than the preservation of property," and it is in the 
 light of the latter definition that he has endeavoured consistently to 
 develop his system. 
 
 'This chapter may be read in connection with book v. of Bluntschli's 
 Theory of the State and with chapter iv. of Mackenzie's Social Philosophy, 
 from each of which suggestions have been taken. 
 
76 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 onwards on a course that man's exertions may modify or 
 delay, but cannot essentially alter ; or it may be, on the 
 other hand, the will of God, as that is sometimes conceived 
 as something apart altogether from the nature of man. The 
 first alternative is accepted by those who would explain the 
 apparent evidences of a general or special providence, and 
 also of man's free-will, as the resultants of the combination 
 of various forms of material energy. The second alternative 
 is the theocratic theory, that the end of the State is the 
 realization of God's will on earth, on the basis that that will 
 is something altogether external to the world it has created. 
 The Jewish State was a direct embodiment of this last idea. 
 It existed merely to support the Church. More or less 
 extreme forms of the same theory have been frequently put 
 forward in comparatively recent times among European nations. 
 Thus in England in the seventeenth century, according to 
 the late J. K. Green,^ " under the Commonwealth the State 
 was regarded primarily as an instrument for securing through 
 its political and social influences the moral and religious 
 ends of the Church." In this view the civil government 
 would almost cease to have any ends of its own, and exist 
 merely as an instrument to further those of the Church. All 
 the highest objects of human attainment would be withdrawn 
 from its control. 
 
 No theory of the State, however, can be adequate which 
 makes it either the plaything of the blind forces of nature 
 or the handmaid of the Church, without ends and aims of 
 its own. 
 
 (2) It is needless to speculate whether any nation has 
 actually been formed on the basis of a deliberate assertion 
 that it existed for the sake of a privileged minority ; but 
 there is no doubt that, whatever the theory, rulers, in the 
 absence of practical constitutional checks, have always been 
 prone to act as though this were the case. Aristotle's three 
 corrupt forms of constitution are those that exist for the 
 benefit of the governors, and his three good ones those that 
 aim at the well-being of the whole. The opposite theory 
 does not need special refutation, as it is not likely to be 
 1 Shorter History of the English People, p. 588. 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 77 
 
 seriously advanced in the nineteenth century. The only 
 difficulty is to prevent its heing put into practice under the 
 hypocritical cloak of some more respectable doctrine. Any 
 deliberate expressions of this theory that exist are not meant' 
 to be taken seriously. Such is the saying attributed to 
 Voltaire, that " the art of government is to make two-thirds 
 , of a nation pay all they possibly can pay for the benefit 
 of the other third " ; or the cynical hon mot of Colbert, that 
 "the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to 
 procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible 
 amount of hissing." Such opinions are more likely to be put 
 in practice surreptitiously than to be avowed as the basis of 
 a theory of administration. 
 
 (3) While the good of all classes and individuals is admitted 
 to be necessarily implied in every adequate theory of govern- . 
 ment, it is possible to emphasize too much the separation 
 between the units, and so treat the good of the parts as 
 distinct from that of the whole. Lord Macaulay^ enunciates 
 what he calls " the great principle that societies and laws exist 
 only for the purpose of increasing the sum of private happi- 
 ness." In this view, the State has, properly speaking, no end at 
 all. It is a means, not an end — an instrument for forward- 
 ing an aggregate of distinct ends, comprising all those of the 
 various isolated individuals. Such a theory is the outcome 
 of an exaggerated individualistic view of society ; such, for 
 example, as is expressed by John Stuart Mill ^ in the dictum, 
 that " human beings in society have no properties but those 
 which are derived from, and may be resolved into, the laws 
 of nature of individual men." 
 
 (4) The opposite view has not been without its adherents — 
 that the life of the State is the true end, and the individual's 
 life, with its joys and sorrows, only a means. The nations 
 of antiquity, looking on the State as an end in itself, unhesitat^ 
 ingly sacrificed the rights and interests of individuals for the 
 good of the community. The expedient of ostracism, by 
 which Athens cut adrift her foremost citizens on grounds of 
 unproved suspicion, seems unwarranted and unjust to modern 
 
 1" Essay on Machiavelli," ^««ays, "Vol. i., p. 47. 
 2 Mill's System, of Logic, 2nd edition, n., p. 543. 
 
78 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 minds. Undue emphasis was evidently placed on the 
 whole, and the life of each citizen counted for next to 
 nothing. 
 ■* (5) These two last-mentioned theories must be combined. 
 The State is both a means and an end, and the same is 
 true of the individuals. Equal emphasis must be laid on 
 both, factors. The highest end of the one must also be the 
 highest end of the other. "The best life" is the same both 
 for the State and the individual.^ Some form of the organic 
 idea is the only philosophic foundation for such a reconcilia- 
 tion of these two theories. 
 
 The conclusion thus arrived at, that the good of the society 
 and that of its citizens are one and the same, while it affords 
 a valuable clue, by no means closes the discussion. The whole 
 of philosophy is an attempt to find the summum honvmi, or 
 "man's chief end," and for every theory of ethics we may 
 expect a counterpart in political science. To examine all 
 these in detail is impossible, and a bare enumeration of those 
 that have most directly influenced the subject under discussion 
 is all that can be attempted. 
 
 Of these the following are the chief: (1) Order; (2) pro- 
 gress ; (3) constitutional forms by themselves, for example the 
 maintenance of democracy, or aristocracy, or monarchy: (4) 
 liberty ; (5) equality ; (6) fraternity ; (7) a combination of 
 two or more of these ends; (8) happiness; (9) abstract 
 justice; (10) "utility." 
 
 (1) The maintenance of security or order is often postulated 
 as the sole end of government. It is possible, however, to 
 take a broader or a narrower view of what is implied in 
 " security," according as we define the objects to be secured. 
 Thus, according to Locke,^ " the great and chief end of men's 
 uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under 
 government is the preservation of their property." Von 
 Humboldt' lays down the principle, "that the maintenance 
 of security, as well with regard to the attacks of foreign 
 armies as to the danger of internal discord, constitutes 
 
 ■^ Cf. Aristotle's Politics, vii., 1, 13. 
 
 ^ Treatise of Civil Government, il., § 124. 
 
 ' Sphere and Duties of Government, English translation, p. 53. 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 79 
 
 the true end of the State, and must especially occupy it 
 actively." 
 
 This conception is found in the minds of those who ap- 
 proach the subject from very different sides. It is the ' 
 watchword of many a politician of strong conservative 
 instincts, who sees in the retention of the status quo, if 
 not perfection, at least the best to be hoped for in an 
 imperfect world. It is consistent alike with an optimistic 
 belief in the present and a pessimistic dread of the future. 
 An opposite school of politicians comes very near the same 
 conclusion, from the other side, in holding that social welfare 
 is to be best furthered by the government simply standing 
 aside and allowing individual energies free play. The State 
 is asked to preserve order and to leave the rest alone. The 
 latter phase of the opinion is dependent to some extent on 
 the confusion between the ideas of "State" and "government." 
 The former phase is inconsistent with the healthy life of a 
 community at all. To stand still is impossible. To continue 
 to develop is the only means of resisting decay. Cease to 
 grow and decay will immediately set in. Progress is the 
 law of life. The bare maintenance of order, then, is too 
 narrow a goal to absorb the whole energy of the State. 
 
 (2) John Stuart Mill saw this, and made progress the great 
 end of government and State ; and progress, in his view, in- 
 cluded the maintenance of order as a necessary factor. "The 
 requisites of progress," he teUs us,-' " are but the requisites of 
 order in a greater degree." " Conduciveness to progress thus 
 understood includes the whole excellence of a government." 
 This aim, however, is by no means wide enough. Even order 
 and progress together do not suffice. We must know to 
 what we are to move. To say " progress " is to indicate a 
 race to be run, but to say nothing of the direction or the goal. 
 
 (3) A number of other defective theories arise from a 
 confusion of thought between means and end. Practical 
 
 1 Vide Representative Government, p. 24. It would be interesting to 
 test how far the abstract idea of " progress," upon which Mill's Eepre- 
 sentative Oovernment is based (vide pp. 30-33), could be reconciled with 
 the doctrines of the Ussay on Libert;/, where the abstract idea of "free- 
 dom" is accepted as, the only criterion. 
 
80 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 politicians often speak as if the form of a constitution was 
 an end in itself, instead of a "means to an end." Thus, to 
 hold democracy as the ultimate perfection of the State is as 
 misleading as to hold out monarchy as such. It may be true 
 that the national welfare is best gained by democracy, or by 
 monarchy, or by what is called a "mixed constitution"; but 
 that does not make any of these things in itseK the ultimate 
 end to be striven for. 
 
 (4) The idea of the individual liberty of each man, con- 
 sidered as' an isolated and self-sufficing being, is sometimes 
 set up as an absolute end. This thought underlies every 
 page of J. S. Mill's well-known Essay on Liberty. It finds 
 expression in a somewhat different form in the dictum bor- 
 rowed from Kant by Mr. Spencer, that "it is the duty and 
 eventual tendency of society to allow the widest liberty to 
 each of its component individual members compatible with the 
 equal liberty of all." The same idea is to be found in the 
 mind of a writer of so widely different a school of thought as 
 Professor Hearn of Melbourne,^ who says, "The unimpeded 
 exercise of all the faculties of each individual is the true end 
 of government." Now liberty and individuality, however 
 good things in themselves, must not be exaggerated into the 
 sole ends of humanity. We may not be prepared to go as 
 far as the late Mr. Justice Stephen and maintain,^ " To me 
 the question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears 
 as irrational as the question, whether fire is a good or a bad 
 thing. It is both good and bad according to time, place, and 
 circumstance." We may not be prepared to deny that liberty 
 is an end in itself at all, while we repudiate its claim to 
 be the sole end of the national life. 
 
 (5) As " liberty " is sometimes made the sole end of the 
 State's existence by individualists, "equality" is often elevated 
 into that position by socialists. In subsequent chapters an 
 attempt is made to determine in what sense equality is 
 attainable, and how far efforts in that direction are expedient 
 or equitable. It is hardly necessary to prove that although 
 
 1 Government of England, p. 571. 
 ^Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 48, 
 
THE END OF THE STATE , 81 
 
 it may be one of the ends of government, it is not the only 
 one, or that- to which all others are subordinate. 
 
 (6) "Fraternity" is too vague a term to influence practical 
 politics in any definite direction. It points, however, to 
 another aspect of the social ideal, in which society is to be 
 like one great family, where all the "brothers" are regulated 
 by the constant interference of a paternal government. 
 
 (7) An attempt is sometimes made to combine two or 
 more of these ideas in formulating a supreme political aim. 
 The phrase " Liberty, Equality, and Fraterjiity " has played an 
 important rdle in its day, and has been sufficiently disposed 
 of by Sir James F. Stephen. The ideas of liberty and order 
 have sometimes been bracketed together in a somewhat similar 
 manner. " The ideal of a State," it has been said, "is reached 
 in proportion to the individual liberty attained, and the order 
 which is maintained in the commonwealth of a free people."^ 
 By combining two conceptions a resultant is sometimes reached 
 containing more than a mere aggregate of its constituents ; 
 but, making all allowances, such conclusions are too narrow to 
 exhaust the problem. 
 
 (8) None of these theories, perhaps, has formed a nucleus 
 for so much speculation, or has had so great an influence on 
 the aims and methods of legislation as that which postulates 
 happiness as the ultimate end of all well-spent efforts. A 
 separate volume would be required either to examine the 
 arguments that are urged for and against it or to trace the 
 history of its practical results. Indeed, whether right or 
 wrong in theory, there are few ideas that have done better 
 service in the cause of humanity than "the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number." There can be no doubt that the 
 influence of this idea on English legislation has been both 
 extensive and beneficial. It afforded an object for legislative 
 effort easily understood and apparently definite. When carried 
 to extremes, however, it becomes a theory fruitful of more 
 evil than good. Beneath the surface, its apparent definiteness 
 disappears, and it is found both deceptive and inadequate. 
 The greatest happiness of the greatest number as a practical 
 
 1 Vide George Howell's " Liberty for Labour " (published in a Plea 
 fw Liberty), p. 110. 
 
82 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 goal for a community to aim at has been criticised, and 
 indeed pulverized, so often that it would be useless to do 
 more than recapitulate its imperfections very briefly hersw 
 Its first fault is its individualistic assumption. It separates 
 society into its constituent atoms, and looks to the sum of the 
 enjoyments of each separate man instead of the welfare of the 
 whole. Then it fails to see the impossibility of judging what 
 constitutes the happiness of different men, and the absurdity 
 of balancing the feelings of one against those of another, as 
 so many tons of feathers may be weighed against so many 
 poimds of gold. It further would justify the infliction of 
 terrible suffering on one individual (however arbitrarily and 
 unjustly imposed) if outweighed by the sum of the pleasurable 
 sensations enjoyed by the rest of the community. Its in- 
 dividualistic bias and its impracticability, however, are not its 
 only faults ; for happiness itself is a misleading term, and not 
 synonymous with "welfare." It is one ingredient in the national 
 prosperity, but not the whole. Pleasure is not synonymous 
 either with the individual welfare or the public weal. It is 
 only a test or symptom of well-being, and not the only one. 
 It is not a value, but only " a sense of value." ^ It is 
 merely a sensation that leads to the inference (which is often 
 a mistaken one after all) that all is well with the subject 
 experiencing the pleasure. 
 
 (9) The dispensation of abstract justice is sometimes spoken 
 of as the sole legitimate aim for which the State exists. 
 Its claims may be dismissed on two grounds — that it is at 
 once too narrow and too inexact. Apart from the consideration 
 that justice must be tempered with mercy, no conception of 
 the duties of government can be adequate which leaves out 
 of account the feelings and pleasures of the governed. Again, 
 this criterion of abstract righteousness will come too late to 
 be of practical benefit, if we wait till mankind is agreed as 
 to wherein justice consists, and how it may be applied to 
 the actual cases that arise. 
 
 (10) The idea of "utility" may be dismissed in a word — 
 to maintain that utility is the only end of the State is to 
 
 ' Vide Mackenzie's Social Philosophy, pp. 202-227, where an admirable 
 and detailed refutation is given of Hedonism. 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 83 
 
 assert that it must be useful for some purpose without giviag 
 the least indication of what that purpose is. It is merely 
 to hold that the State must have an end of some sort without 
 giving the slightest clue where that end is to be sought. The 
 utilitarian theory, properly so called, never gets beyond the 
 conception of "means," from which it starts. Everything good 
 must be of use, but the great question is, "What use?" Is 
 aU legislation to be useful for maintaining order, for dispensing 
 justice, for establishing a democracy, for making an equal 
 distribution of property, or for advancing the happiness of 
 individuals ? It is usually with the last of these ideas that 
 utilitarianism is associated. The theory — meaningless by 
 itself — acquires some content from its alliance with another 
 idea less empty than itself. 
 
 Every theory thus breaks down if it makes the end sought 
 narrower than the highest welfare of the whole group of 
 citizens as inseparable members " one of another," and as 
 an integral part of the wider fraternity of mankind as a 
 whole. The good of humanity is the end of the State, and 
 this must include all the elements already enumerated in 
 their due sequence and proportion — order, progress, liberty, and 
 the rest. Two of these deserve somewhat further consideration, 
 since by expanding and combining them a wider end may be 
 arrived at indistinguishable from the "good" we are in search of. 
 " Abstract justice " by itself is a conception too empty of con- 
 tent to afford the criterion we need. " The happiness of the 
 citizens " fails on the other side, because it is void of form 
 and indeterminate. By combining the two, a concrete whole 
 is formed fit to answer our purpose. " Eight" is the principle 
 of Kant, " Happiness" that of Bentham and his followers. 
 Each school has laid hold of one half of the truth. 
 
 The complete elaboration of this thought would involve 
 too comprehensive an inquiry. A whole philosophy indeed 
 seems to lie in it. A word or two of explanation may not 
 be out of place. " The welfare of the State as its own highest 
 good," says. Kant,^ "signifies that condition in which the 
 greatest harmony is attained between its constitution and 
 the principles of right — a condition of the State which reason 
 ^Philosophy of Law (Professor Hastie's translation), p. 173. 
 
84 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 by a categorical imperative makes it obligatory upon us to 
 strive after." It is difficult to express in a few words what 
 this principle of right is, but it may be practically identified 
 with an abstract justice which forbids that any one human 
 being should have his liberty interfered with in any way, 
 except in so far as this is necessary to secure an equal 
 freedom to all his fellows. "Eight, therefore," he says,^ 
 "comprehends the whole of the conditions under which the 
 voluntary actions of any one person can be harmonized in 
 reality with the voluntary actions of every other person, 
 according to a universal law of freedom." The welfare of 
 the State would therefore come to mean simply, that every 
 individual should be let alone as much as possible. It 
 would be easy to show that this negative idea of social 
 welfare is already implied in the essentially individualistic 
 basis from which Kant starts. It is more important for our 
 present purpose to notice that it takes the form of an 
 absolutely empty universal — absolutely void of content. As 
 one pure universal is identical with every other, Kant easily 
 deduces from his principle of a negative abstract "right," 
 first an equally negative and abstract " freedom," and then an 
 " equality " of the same meaningless kind. It is only by con- 
 fusing these negative conceptions with the concrete positive 
 things bearing the same names that he gets anywhere at all. 
 Otherwise he would remain for ever in a vacuum encircled 
 by the abstract universals from which he started. 
 
 Kant, then, begins by declaring that " a State {civitas) is the 
 union of a number of men under juridical laws," ^ and reduces 
 its functions to the dispensation of justice according to the 
 somewhat attenuated formula already quoted. The body 
 politic would thus represent an embodiment of a sort of 
 negative version of the golden rule — "Do not unto others 
 what you would not have others do unto you." In the 
 language of modern politics, its only duty would be to enforce 
 a universal regime of laissez faire. The State, in Kant's 
 opinion, must confine itself to its own business — the pro- 
 mulgation and enforcement of laws on a basis of right — and 
 
 ''■Philosophy of Law (Professor Hastie's translation), p. 45. 
 ^Ibid., p. 165. 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 85 
 
 leave individuals free to pursue their own business — the 
 attainment of happiness or virtue, each after the rule of his 
 own being. The English utilitarians take exactly the opposite 
 view, holding that the direct end of legislation is the happiness 
 of the citizens. The criterion of good laws to the Benthamites 
 is not right as an abstract universal, but the sum of millions 
 of particulars involved in the happiness of all men, " each 
 counting for one and no person for more than one." The 
 defects of such a criterion (or rather of such an infinite sum 
 of criteria) have already been in part exposed. 
 
 This theory has been subjected to a trenchant criticism, and 
 its opposition to the doctrine of " right " has been well brought 
 out by Professor Hastie in his preface to the translation of 
 Kant's Principles of Politics. ^ The whole passage is well 
 worth quoting : 
 
 "The traditional political doctrine, that conventional utili- 
 tarianism, which has been the natural child of individual 
 selfishness and the step-mother of socialistic discontent, is no 
 longer capable of satisfying the growing political needs, or 
 of solving the more drastic political problems of the time. 
 As a political theory its formula of 'the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number ' furnishes neither a rational doctrine of 
 government, nor a principle of equal right, nor a criterion 
 of just administration. At the best, happiness is a particular 
 and variable element in individuals, which cannot be secured 
 in a universally satisfying degree by any form of public 
 legislation, or by any political wet-nursing of majorities; and 
 the utmost that a government can really do for the people 
 is to enable every individual to realize his liberty and to 
 seek his happiness in his own way through the actualization 
 of his own rights." 
 
 While rejecting with Professor Hastie the Hedonistic 
 principle as a complete solution of the problem, it is not 
 necessary to acquiesce in the adequacy of the rival formula 
 of Kant. The doctrine of right and the doctrine of happiness 
 are alike incomplete as an explanation of the supreme good 
 of humanity. The two must be combined. How a union 
 is possible between them cannot be here discussed, but it 
 
 ip. 37. 
 
86 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 is confidently asserted that such a combination actually 
 exists. It is a union of a universal with a mass of parti- 
 culars, of form with matter, of a principle of abstract right 
 with the infinitely varied pleasures and interests of individuals. 
 Thus a concrete whole is formed, and constitutes the summum 
 honum — the mark at which all laws and governments should 
 aim — the purpose for which the State exists. This is not 
 abstract but concrete right — not the happiness of isolated 
 units, but the welfare of humanity as an organic whole. 
 The conceptions of right and happiness thus understood are 
 not irreconcilably opposed, but the necessary counterparts of 
 each other. The conflicting claims of individuals in the 
 struggle for enjoyment and existence can only be reconciled 
 by the universal laws of right or justice ; and these laws must 
 manifest themselves in relation to the happiness of the citizens. 
 The citizens, it must be remembered, are rational beings en- 
 dowed with a knowledge of good and evil, and capable of acting 
 upon moral and immoral motives. Finally, these individuals, 
 and the societies and states they compose, are all undergoing 
 a process of development. Thus, the conception of the good 
 as a union of what is right and what is useful for the welfare 
 of men implies also the idea of progress. The final end of 
 the State thus conceived is no empty abstraction, but some- 
 thing tangible and capable of approximate realization. It is 
 not limited to one factor in human life, such as the production 
 of wealth, or the distribution of justice, or the enforcement 
 of contracts, or the protection of property. It includes 
 everything that makes the citizens of the State men and 
 their life worth the living. 
 
 The end of the State is thus seen to be the present 
 welfare and future perfection of all the citizens considered as 
 an integral portion of humanity. This great truth is admitted 
 in principle by many writers who yet refuse to carry out 
 in detail the results logically involved in it. Passages may 
 be cited from authors of all schools in support of it. Even 
 individualists are found among its zealous advocates. Thus, 
 Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe, perhaps the most profound, 
 certainly the most bright and suggestive, among the modern 
 adherents of individualism, in trying to find a more definite 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 87 
 
 and correct test of actions than that given by Bentham, 
 writes as follows of the ultimate criterion of good govern- 
 ment: "What, then, is the test of which we are in search? 
 To any one who has grasped the conception of the group as an 
 organism — as a whole not to be expressed in terms of its 
 component parts, any more than a man can be expressed in 
 terms of the cells of which he is composed — the answer is 
 clear enough: the welfare of the group." ^ Here we have, 
 undet the name of the " group- welfare," the same idea as 
 is expressed in the phrase, " the perfection of the whole com- 
 munity " ; and if, as we must, we consider the community again 
 as an organic part of humanity, we reach the same conclusion 
 as is contained in the criterion proposed by the late Professor 
 Lorimer, "the realization of the idea of humanity."^ Professor 
 F. S. Hoffman expresses this conception with great power and 
 distinctness. After describing the State "as an organism, as 
 a brotherhood of man," he proceeds as follows: "The chief 
 and ultimate end of the State, to which aU other ends must 
 be subordinate, is evidently the perfection of the brotherhood, 
 the bringing of man here upon the earth to the highest 
 degree of civilization of which he is capable. . . . The 
 other ends of the State may properly be regarded as the 
 means for the attainment of this ultimate end."^ 
 
 There is one way of expressing this truth which, though 
 supported by the great name of Bluntschli, seems open to 
 objection. This may be called the purely nationalist theory. 
 In BluntschU's own words, the true end of the State is 
 "the development of the national capacities, the perfecting 
 of the national life, and finally its completion."* He goes 
 on to add as a proviso or after-thought words which really 
 involve an absolute departure from the exclusive principle 
 of nationality which they are used to qualify, "provided of 
 course that the process of moral and political development 
 shall not be opposed to the destiny of humanity." ^ On 
 another page he says: "The life task of every individual is 
 to develop his capacities and to manifest his essence. So, 
 
 ^Individualism, p. 276. ^ Institutes, passim. 
 
 3 The Sphere of the State, p. 16. 
 
 « Theory of the State, p. 300. ^ Ibid., p. 301. 
 
88 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 too, the duty of the State-person is to develop the latent 
 powers of the nation, and to manifest its capabilities." Now, 
 this theory of individual development — maintained in this 
 country with his usual vehemence by Carlyle — if carried to 
 excess would produce two evil tendencies — selfishness and 
 eccentricity. It is not the duty of each man to bring to 
 maturity all the traits of natural depravity or bearishness 
 of manners he may have latent in him. Similarly, in eVery 
 nation there are traits of nationality that are best suppressed, 
 such, for example, as the insular prejudices inherent in most 
 Englishmen, and the intense jealousy and liability to 
 periodic attacks of ungovernable fury of the French. If 
 national tendencies, which are truly rational, require develop- 
 ment, those that are selfish and depraved often need 
 suppression. The idea of nationality is defective if carried 
 too far, and Bluntschli's rider contains, perhaps, a safer 
 principle than his main proposition. 
 
 The end of the State ought to be the development of the 
 group, not so much as a selfish and self-sufficing nation, with all 
 the narrowness and prejudice of merely national aims, but 
 rather as a branch of the wider whole of humanity — a part 
 " of the brotherhood of man." It can, of course, best fulfil the 
 purpose of its being by moving in the line of its natural 
 characteristics ; but this is not the whole truth. A great 
 people must not be selfish as a nation, but be ready to 
 interfere on behalf of humanity even at the sacrifice of its 
 more immediate exclusive interests. There would seem, 
 then, to be no objection to making the full development of 
 the national "self" the ultimate end of the State's existence, 
 provided that a true,, full, and sufficiently noble conception 
 is formed of what that self includes. The truth must be 
 clearly grasped, that in its nature are included intimate 
 relations both to the other States and to its own individual 
 subjects. The national " self " is an organic member of the 
 wider whole of humanity, and is itself the smaller organism 
 of which each citizen is part. In this view, "self-realization" 
 may be taken as comprising the whole duty of a State, 
 just as it is that of an individual. In moving towards this 
 goal it is fulfilling its destiny. It is the rational and not 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 89 
 
 the animal or material self, however, that must be so 
 developed. Thus understood, the highest well-being of the 
 community and its self-realization are seen to be only- 
 different names for the same thing.-' 
 
 It is not difficult to trace the intimate connection between 
 the principle here enunciated as the end of the State and 
 the account previously given of its origin. The good of the 
 community must be determined with reference to the nature 
 of the individuals who compose it as beings endowed with 
 reason and power of will. On the other hand, that will 
 which, acting partly consciously and partly unconsciously, 
 is the foundation of all societies, is bound by the necessities 
 of its nature as practical reason to aim at realizing itself 
 in such a form as will most conduce to the common good. 
 
 It may be urged that the ideal here sketched is too 
 vague and indefinite to afford any practical rule of guidance. 
 The criticism is just, as far as it goes. But it is set up 
 not so much for a practical end to be consciously aimed at 
 as for a philosophic solution of a problem. The statesman and 
 legislator will find in their own commonsense and that of 
 the community, which they partly lead and partly follow, a 
 far safer guide than any speculations of philosophers. The 
 theoretical value of " self-realization " as an ultimate end 
 lies in its very breadth. The welfare of the nation as 
 a developing organism forms an ultimate aim wide enough 
 to include within it all those minor and subordinate 
 aims of which it is composed. It includes the material 
 prosperity of the nation as well as its intellectual in- 
 terests; the bodily health, and happiness, and wealth of its 
 individuals as well as their education and moral worth. 
 The practical statesman must confine himself to practical 
 ends. He will sometimes have one of these in view and 
 sometimes another. He should never press any one of them, 
 
 1 Of. Prof. Kitchie's Natwral Rights, p. 89 : " The conception of evolu- 
 tion, or, more precisely, the theory of natural selection, has at once 
 corrected the errors and vindicated the truth of utilitarian ethics and 
 politics. That is 'good' for any particular society which furthers its 
 success in the struggle for existence with nature and with other 
 societies; that is 'evil' which hinders such success." 
 
90. THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 however, so far as to interfere with the unity of the whole, 
 as seen in the light of that one final aim which it is the 
 duty of philosophy to emphasize and explain. This is the 
 welfare of the nation as a natural unity and as part of 
 the greater unity of humanity, including the highest develop- 
 ment of the humblest individual. 
 
 In truth, the very vagueness of the definition of the 
 end suggested is its greatest merit. ^ The highest philosophy 
 must be concrete, not abstract. It can accept as final 
 no conclusion, which is emptied of all content except 
 one abstract and unreal entity, such as "progress,'' or 
 "justice," or "equality," meaningless except in its relations 
 to other entities. The problem is not to fix upon one 
 competing end among many, but rather to find one which 
 includes all the others as subordinate and auxiliary. 
 
 It is always dangerous to attempt in this world of change 
 to lay down a simple definite formula professing to be good 
 for all times and countries. It may be that the true end 
 of the State is only slowly and partially disclosed as the 
 gradual evolution of the universe reveals the ultimate destiny 
 of mankind. The ideas that men have of the ideal State 
 develop as does the State itself What satisfies one age may 
 fail to meet the requirements of the next. If self-realization 
 is taken as the general formula of progress and the goal of 
 all social and political aims, room is left for future readjust- 
 ment in accordance with any new light that may be thrown 
 upon the true nature of that self which is to be so realized. 
 Meantime, a sufficiently definite criterion is obtained as a 
 partial clue to a permanent solution. It is well at least 
 to occupy the ground that would otherwise be cumbered with 
 inadequate conceptions exerting a hurtful influence. 
 
 The righteous community is under the imperative necessity 
 of endeavouring to fulfil the end here indicated. Some writers 
 would deny the very name of State to any polity which did 
 
 'Cf. Prof. Eitchie's Natural Rights, p. 98: "Professor Sidgwick com- 
 plains that writers, such as Bluntachli, to whom he specially refers, 
 give no definite conception of the ' good of the State ' beyond what a 
 utilitarian can give. But how if the end of human life, individual 
 and social, does not admit of a definite conception?" 
 
THE END OF THE STATE 91 
 
 not consciously or unconsciously tend to realize the common 
 good. Thus, in the words of Professor Green :^ "We only 
 count Eussia a State by a sort of courtesy on the supposition 
 that the power of the Czar, though subject to no constitutional 
 control, is so far exercised in accordance with a recognized 
 tradition of what the public good requires as to be on the 
 whole a sustainer of rights." It is better, however, to 
 incorporate as few theories as possible in. our definitions, and 
 to say that the righteous State must aim at realizing the 
 common good, without denying the title State to any 
 community the policy of whose government does not directly 
 tend in that direction. 
 
 IT. H. Green's "Principles of Political Obligation," Worlcs, ii., p. 443. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SPHEEE OF THE STATE. 
 
 If the purpose for which the State exists is no less than 
 the perfecting of the whole community, it follows that nothing 
 can be excluded from its proper sphere which advances it 
 towards that goal. Thus, by implication, the description of 
 the sphere of the State is contained in the definition of its 
 nature and end. Its province is necessarily a very wide 
 one. If the life of the members is only another aspect of 
 the life of the whole, no factor that enters into the composition 
 of the one can fall outside the other. 
 
 The same conclusion flows logically from that conception 
 of sovereignty which is involved in the efficient organization 
 of every proper State. 
 
 As everything within the territory of a State is subject 
 to its control, it follows that its proper sphere is co-extensive 
 with the range of its dominions. Its province of action in- 
 cludes the sphere of every individual citizen, and this gives 
 it wide powers and wide responsibilities. 
 
 It is impossible, then, to place any limit to the sphere 
 of the State within its own dominions. Wherever its ' will 
 prevails, that is its' normal sphere. This view — though the 
 only one consistent either with the doctrine of sovereignty or 
 with the philosophical theory of organic unity — will probably 
 be regarded as extreme by theorists who fail to bear in mind 
 the distinction between government and State. Even those 
 writers, however, who have fully appreciated this distinction, 
 have shrunk from extending the theoretical sphere of the 
 
THE SPHERE OF THE STATE 93 
 
 State to so extreme a length, and have sought to fence off, 
 more or less absolutely, certain sanctuaries from its inter- 
 ference. It may be instructive to examine a few of these 
 attempts. 
 
 The chief exemptions claimed from the jurisdiction or 
 sphere of the State may be reduced under four heads: (1) 
 the sphere of the individual; (2) family relations and 
 domestic life; (3) ecclesiastical institutions and the religious 
 life of the citizens ; (4) morality, and indeed all relations of 
 whatever sort other than those of an exclusively legal nature. 
 
 (1) It is a favourite device to separate the sphere of the 
 individual from the sphere of the State. Under the name 
 of the "Eights of Man" (a doctrine more fully examined 
 in a later chapter) it is held that each rational creature has 
 certain inherent, inalienable, and absolute rights which no 
 society or authority can in any way infringe. This theory 
 assumes that the nature of each man is something essenti- 
 ally apart from that of society as a whole. When the 
 artificial barrier thus created is broken down,, there falls 
 with it the possibility of carving out of the wide sphere 
 filled by the State a number of smaller spheres from which 
 its influence is excluded. There exists in reality no hard 
 and fast line between the two. Waves of the same life 
 pass from one to the other. The sphere of the State 
 includes the spheres of all its members. 
 
 (2) Failure equally awaits any attempt to exclude the 
 sphere of the family from that of the State. It is 
 thought proper — in all societies except those of an extreme 
 socialistic type — that the law should refrain in certain ways 
 from interference with the domestic relations of its members, 
 leaving the internal administration of each home to be regu- 
 lated, as far as possible, by itself. But the law wiU interfere 
 within even this sacred precinct in all States to prevent and 
 punish crime, in most to regulate the succession to property, 
 and in some to enforce the education of the children ; while 
 the State's abstention from interference in other matters is 
 not a confession of its inability or want of right to act if so 
 disposed. The sphere of the family is one part of the sphere 
 of the State. 
 
94 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (3) The attempt to exclude religion is illustrated by the 
 old medieval conception of the relations between the See 
 of Eome and the Holy Eoman Empire. It was held that 
 the world might be split as by the stroke of a knife into 
 two compartments' — the spiritual and temporal — over which 
 Pope and Emperor should respectively rule. The course 
 of history, with its constant internecine warfare between 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines, is sufficient of itself to prove the 
 fallacy on which this division rested. Philosophy gives an 
 equally clear denial to the possibility of any such absolute 
 dualism.1 Man is a spirit whose religious aspirations are 
 bound up intimately with his temporal necessities. His per- 
 sonality develops through his rights, and these again are 
 dependent on material circumstances, such as the possession 
 of property. Who can say where his spiritual nature ends 
 and his temporal nature begins ? His attitude towards the 
 State is determined even more by his higher than his lower 
 necessities, and the same is true of its attitude to him. Mr. 
 Justice Stephen, in this connection, has well said: "The 
 whole management and direction of human life depends upon 
 the question whether or not there is a God and a further 
 state of human existence." ^ The sphere of the State includes 
 the sphere of the Church and all the spiritual, as well as 
 the temporal, needs of the citizens. 
 
 (4) It may still be asked whether the State's proper 
 sphere includes morality. It is sometimes said that 
 it does not, but several reasons show that it is im- 
 possible for the legislative and administrative authorities 
 utterly to banish all moral considerations from their 
 ken. In the first place, each State must act among other 
 States, and is forced to deal with matters involving questions 
 of morality whether it like it or no. It may, at its peril, 
 consistently ignore the ethical aspects of what it does, or 
 boldly declare its defiance of them, but this refusal to see 
 the light does not evade penal responsibility or avoid the 
 consequences of a violated moral law. In the second place, 
 
 ^Cf. Sir J. F. Stephen's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, chapter iii., 
 for an exhaustive analysis of the distinction. 
 ^Ibid., p. 319. 
 
THE SPHERE OF THE STATE 95 
 
 it is composed of individual men endowed with will-power 
 and a rational nature. Thus it is impossible to disavow its 
 responsibilities as a moral agent, nor can it remain in organic 
 relation to its members without partaking of the essential 
 factor that makes them capable of citizenship. It is by his 
 knowledge of right and wrong that man is distinguished from 
 the brute creation, and the commonwealth as a union of men 
 cannot ignore this basis on which it rests. So far, however, 
 from endeavouring to escape their ethical responsibilities, 
 most highly civilized States are, as a matter of experience, 
 recognizing and acting upon them more consistently every 
 year. Dr. H. D. Traill, speaking of the tendencies that are 
 actually observed to guide the action of the central government 
 of Great Britain,^ says : " We appear in all our legislation to 
 be more and more unreservedly accepting the principle that 
 the physical well-being and the mental and moral training 
 of the community are matters within the special care of 
 the State." The sphere of the State, it would thus seem, is 
 an essentially moral sphere. 
 
 To this doctrine is directly opposed one which asserts the 
 exclusively legal character of the State. The genesis of the 
 theory of the "legal State" is associated with the name of 
 Kant. It owed its origin to a desire to limit the meddlesome 
 action of existing governments. Kant's definition of the State 
 as " the union of a number of men under juridical law " has 
 been already quoted.^ Kant excludes from the sphere of the 
 State all bonds but such as are juridical. The body politic 
 is allowed its own province — a somewhat narrow one — and 
 each citizen has Tiis independent province. The sphere of 
 influence of each is exclusive of that of the other. The 
 State would thus be reduced to an equality with the sum 
 of the strictly legal relations that bind the citizens together, 
 while individuals would be left free to work out their own 
 moral natures without let or hindrance. The State's sphere, 
 it is maintained, is that of law, while each individual regulates 
 his own morality. The State is thus identified with its own 
 laws, as previously we found it identified with its government.^ 
 
 1 Traill, Central Oovernment, p. 160. 
 ^Sv^ra, p. 84. ^ Supra, p. 47. 
 
96 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Now, while it is true that the individual ought not to 
 have his moral spontaneity crushed out and his conscience 
 intentionally violated by the government, this does not 
 imply that his moral nature can possibly find a sphere for 
 its realization outside of the nation. Morality lies without 
 the constitution but within the State. This exclusively legal 
 sphere, so far as it is realizable at all, is to be found in the 
 constitution which is only one part of the State. The con- 
 stitution, however, is a mere logical abstraction depending 
 for its actuality upon its vital connection with the reality 
 called the State, and its citizens with their moral and spiritual 
 energies. Thus the constitution is dependent on the moral 
 worth of the men who supply its vital force. Institutions are 
 dead without the living force of character to move them. 
 Constitutional forms of liberty exist in vain without their 
 counterpart in men trained to turn them to account. 
 Parliamentary forms existed under the Tudors quite uselessly, 
 until backed by the real power which came with the moral 
 force of the Puritans and their religion. The State of England 
 is a greater and more complicated thing than the mere mass of 
 laws and rules which form its constitution. 
 
 The whole fal^ric of the State, indeed, rests on moral con- 
 siderations. All laws depend upon enforcement. Legal rights 
 are useless unless practically enforceable in a court of law. 
 Thus the pivot of the individual's rights, which are secured 
 to him by the most legal of States, depends upon the integrity 
 of the judges. This uprightness is the hinge upon which 
 the whole constitution really hangs, and this rests in turn 
 upon the moral sense of the whole community. 
 
 Every community, and particularly every democracy, depends 
 for its stability upon the education and moral training of the 
 body of the people. If these fall behind, the nation will 
 become corrupt and rotten. Thus, if it is the business of 
 the State to preserve itself from dissolution, the supervision of 
 the morals and intelligence of its people lies, undoubtedly, 
 within its normal sphere. It may, of course, resolve that 
 the best service it can do to morality is simply to secure 
 that the government should let it alone; but even that is a 
 different thing from ignoring it as a factor in the national 
 
THE SPHERE OF THE STATE 97 
 
 life, and, therefore, a part of the legitimate sphere of the 
 State. 
 
 The argument for the exclusion of morality has perhaps 
 never been more powerfully formulated than in the words of 
 Bluntschli.1 "The two powers which determine and condi- 
 tion the moral life, viz. the Spirit of God and the spirit 
 of the individual man, are both outside the control of the 
 State. The domain of morality is far more comprehensive 
 than the domain of politics, and if the State attempts its 
 control it oversteps its proper limits, and exerts a harmful 
 influence upon morality." 
 
 Now, in the first place, the opening portion of the quota- 
 tion is not consistent with its close. Morality, if entirely 
 free from the control of the State, can hardly be influenced by 
 such control either for evil or for good. In the second place, 
 the independence of the spirit of the individual man is incon- 
 sistent with Bluntschli's own theory of the organic nature of 
 the State as a moral and spiritual personality. In the third 
 place, every State which takes any interest in the training 
 of its youth must attempt some control over their moral 
 nature. Lastly, try as hard as it may to leave individuals 
 alone, the community cannot fail to have a powerful influence 
 on the moral development of every member. It is impossible 
 for it to leave morality alone, even if it wished. 
 
 In spite of all its defects, however, the theory of the 
 strictly " legal State " has taken root in many places. This 
 is due partly to the influence of Kant, and partly to the 
 school of political economists who sought a basis for their 
 free-trade doctrines in the general principle of laissez faire. 
 
 In this respect, however, there is a marked difference 
 between the practice of modern States and the prevalent 
 theories.^ Governments are every day more fuUy accepting 
 their moral responsibilities both to their own subjects and 
 to foreign nations. The "legal State" may figure prominently 
 in the schools, but it is the "moral State" which takes its 
 place among the great powers of the world. 
 
 While this restricted view of the State's sphere has never 
 
 1 Theory of the State, p. 299. 
 
 2 Cf. Professor A. C, Bradley, ffellemca, p. 201. 
 
98 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 been consistently applied in practice, signs are not wanting 
 that its influence is on the wane even as a speculative tenet. 
 
 " I hold the principle of laissez faire" says Mr. Goschen/ 
 "to have lost favour, chiefly owing to moral considerations, 
 to the assertion of the claims of other than material interests, 
 and to a growing feeling that it is right deliberately to risk 
 commercial and industrial advantages for the sake of reforming 
 social abuses, and securing social benefits." 
 
 "There is no serious thinker at the present day," says 
 Sheldon Amos,^ "who, if pointedly questioned, would deny 
 the applicability of the terms Eight, Wrong, Duty, Conscience, 
 Morality, and Immorality to the conduct of States and govern- 
 ments as well as to that of individual men and women." 
 
 Lastly, there may be cited the opinion of Hegel, who has not 
 only corrected the one-sided theory of the legal State, but 
 has gone to an extreme in an opposite direction by emphasizing 
 the moral nature of the State as its chief feature. " The 
 Idea," he says,* " is the inner spring of action ; the State is 
 the actually existing, realized moral Life. For it is the unity 
 of the universal essential Will with that of the individual; 
 and this is 'Morality.' The individual living in this unity 
 has a moral life — possesses a value that consists in this 
 substantiality alone." These words contain a refutation of two 
 false doctrines — the individualistic nature of man and the 
 exclusively legal nature of the State. 
 
 The State, indeed, is nothing if not moral. This does 
 not, of course, imply that the State should directly inculcate 
 moral codes or precepts by thrusting the opinions of the 
 rulers or of a majority of the citizens upon the rest. Its 
 control ought to be only indirect. In a sense, the spirit of 
 man is independent of the State— he can die rather than 
 obey coercion — but it is the community generally which 
 affords him a sphere of development, and furnishes him with 
 the particular nourishment that his spirit needs. Thus there 
 is no part of the life of man that can claim to lie outside 
 of the sphere of the State. To prevent the possibility of 
 
 1 Address on " Laisaez faire and State Interference." 
 
 ^Science of Politics, p. 447. 
 
 ' Philosophy of History (Sibree's translation), p. 40. 
 
THE SPHERE OF THE STATE 99 
 
 misconception it;, is well here to repeat that this does not 
 imply that no part of his life lies outside of the legitimate 
 sphere of the interference of executive ofl&cials. The subject 
 under discussion is after all only a theoretical one. The 
 practical question will have to be fully treated in connection 
 with the functions of government. If the State is not the 
 same as the government, it follows that the two spheres do 
 not necessarily coincide. At present no opinion of any kind 
 is expressed as to how far the work of the government 
 should extend; the object at present being to insist on a 
 sufficiently wide conception of the nature of the State. All 
 ignoble notions must be abandoned of " the State shrunken into 
 a Police Office straitened to get its pay,"^ as they form a 
 quite inadequate basis of any satisfactory science of politics. 
 
 ^The phrase is Carlyle's, Sartor Resartus, p. 161. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 The conception of the State as an unity embracing every 
 individual citizen, with every branch of his spiritual, moral, 
 scientific, artistic, and economic spheres of action, is a very 
 wide one ; and it may be urged that it is of such a nature 
 as to furnish a perfectly unworkable foundation for any con- 
 clusions of practical utility. 
 
 Indeed, as so defined, the State is something rather for 
 philosophers to discuss than for lawyers to explain or politicians 
 to quarrel about. The composition of every State, however, 
 must include solid as well as fluid elements. If it embraces 
 embraces also a stable system of laws and a constitution, 
 all the fluctuations of public opinion within its sphere, it 
 Modern States are so vast, both in the extent of territory 
 they cover and in the range of interests they embrace, 
 that their existence is rendered possible only through a 
 most complex organization under a recognized system of 
 rules or laws. The more highly developed forms of animal 
 organism require a proper system of organs, a series of 
 nerves and muscles, and a skeleton. It is the same with 
 highly developed States. They require a skeleton to keep 
 the various members together. That skeleton is called 
 a constitution. Much confusion of thought has resulted from 
 the failure clearly to differentiate the State from that part 
 of it caUed its constitution. Indeed, much of the argument 
 in favour of a purely legal State is based on a confusion 
 between the two. The constitution is a legal entity — a thing 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE 101 
 
 whose whole existence is defined and limited by law — by the 
 positive law of the particular country. The State includes 
 this legal entity along with much more; for example, the 
 whole province of ethics. It is the duty of the expert 
 in public law to expound the rules that go to make up the 
 constitution, and in doing so to avoid entangUng himself in 
 ethical discussions. The whole field is one that a lawyer 
 may explain without going beyond his own proper sphere ; 
 but it is different with the State which includes a thousand 
 elements as well as law. 
 
 " It is only by a constitution,'' says Hegel,^ " that the 
 abstraction — the State — attains life and reality." Now, it is 
 true that no independent community could exist without a 
 constitution of some sort ; but to phrase it as Hegel does is 
 to place the emphasis on the wrong factor.^ The State is 
 the complete reality, and the constitution, the abstraction. 
 The State is a living thing, but the constitution is merely 
 one aspect of it, and incapable of separation except in thought. 
 It is useful to make the distinction as a relative one for 
 the purpose of analysis, but it must always be remembered 
 that the idea of a constitution is merely an abstraction be- 
 coming real through union with the vital forces of the 
 commonwealth. 
 
 The constitution, then, is a rounded whole or sphere within 
 the wider sphere of the State. Yet it is not self-sufficing 
 or complete in itself. It can never assert an independence 
 of its own. Within it, indeed, everything is theoretically 
 complete and regulated by law. Its legal nature is its very 
 essence, and it forms the centre of the judicial system of the 
 nation. Its whole being is wrapt up in law. It is like a 
 point in which all laws are brought to a focus. Everything 
 works within it by legal deduction. In a complete con- 
 stitution everything is provided for. The relations between 
 the general body of law and every part of it are therein 
 
 1 Philosophy of Eistory, p. 45. 
 
 2 It must be remembered, however, that "abstract" is to Hegel an 
 essentially relative term. He regards any conception as abstract when 
 it is used without explicit reference to the rest of the universe as a 
 whole, or to any part of it, however insignificant. 
 
102 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 expressed. The whole law of the country, whether of the 
 nature of private law or public law, depends upon it ; while 
 it in turn depends upon that law. The constitution, then, is 
 the concentrated essence of the legal system of a nation. It 
 defines the judicial rights and duties of each part of the 
 government to every other part and to the subjects governed. 
 It determines who is to make the law, to enforce the law, 
 and to interpret the law. It defines the bounds of the 
 power of kings and lawgivers and judges. It cannot be said 
 to have attained to theoretic completeness until it has obviated 
 every possibility of ambiguity in any such matter. 
 
 While in theory the constitution may thus be made 
 absolutely complete within itself, this is accomplished only by 
 abstracting it from its surroundings. In practice, this small 
 world of law is dependent on the great forces of life that rage 
 around it. From these it draws its vitality, and it may be 
 invaded and overthrown by violence from without. The law- 
 ordered universe rests on rude forces which it cannot always 
 chain. At any moment these may break through the forms of 
 the law, and violently alter the structure of the constitution. 
 Any such forcible invasion of the sphere of law constitutes 
 a revolution. When the reign of positive law is thus dis- 
 turbed by the eruption of other forces from without, the 
 State is not overthrown with the constitution : it survives 
 all changes of form. Revolution takes place within the 
 State without overthrowing the -political sovereignty of the 
 general will, although its particular manifestation in the 
 legal sovereign is annihilated. To rebel against the State 
 is a different thing from rebelling against the constitution. 
 Only the habitual criminal is a rebel against the former. 
 
 " No men or body of men," says Professor Hoffman,'- " can 
 ever have the right of revolution against the State. . . . But 
 the people may easily have the right of revolution against 
 the government." 
 
 Every change of the constitution is not necessarily a revol- 
 ution, for there may be provided within itself perfectly legal 
 methods for its own alteration. England is not a dead 
 unprogressive country like China. Its constitution provides 
 'Hofifinan, Sphere of the State, p. 24. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE 103 
 
 a lawful method whereby it can change itself. Indeed, it is 
 a terribly simple process. An ordinary Act of Parliament 
 will suffice. But this is the only legal method possible. 
 Any other mode is unlawful, and involves an invasion of 
 the rounded legal sphere called the constitution by forces 
 of an alien nature. Even apart from actual revolution, how- 
 ever, the legal constitution of a country can never be in- 
 dependent of the other factors in the State. There is always 
 fhe fear of revolution which influences the use made of the 
 powers confided to individuals, though they still act in a 
 perfectly legal way. Thus every element in the national 
 life has a bearing more or less direct upon the constitution. 
 It is girt about with various lawless powers that act upon it. 
 The world of law is exposed to raging oceans that may break 
 down the dykes and overwhelm it — waves of throbbing 
 human passion that are never still. The blind rage of an 
 angry mob, a victorious army at a general's command, a band 
 of mercenaries hired by the treason of those in power, the 
 hand of the assassin, or the bomb of the dynamitard; all 
 or any of these, or the mere fear of them, may subject the 
 constitution to the influence of forces outside the realm of 
 law. Thus its legal framework is bound up inseparably with 
 the whole sum of the forces which form the nation. 
 
 We must not therefore make absoltite the division between 
 constitutional and other forces. Yet the process by which 
 these legal forces separated themselves from the surrounding 
 disorder and made themselves obeyed, forms the whole history 
 of England. This process took centuries to bring itself to 
 completion, and even its outline cannot here be sketched. 
 A group of constitutional rules and usages, however, gradually 
 formed themselves around the strong central authority of the 
 king, and still more gradually reduced every part of the 
 life of the State beneath the sway of one universal all- 
 pervading law — the last principle conquered being that very 
 authority of the kings from which the reign of law originally 
 took its rise. Thus the constitution gradually formed itself 
 into a rounded sphere, much as the world is sometimes 
 pictured to have formed itself out of chaos. The nation 
 took centuries of growth before it organized itself into a 
 
104 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 fully-matured State, and that organization upon its purely 
 legal side is just another word for its constitution, which 
 is thus the skeleton or backbone of the nation. Sir Wm, 
 Anson has described it as " the working machinery of the 
 State." ^ It is rather the series of rules defining what that 
 machinery shall be. The government does the work — it is 
 the active agent, while the constitution lays down the rules 
 for its regulation. Thus, while on one hand the constitution 
 is the source and essence of all law in the State, on the 
 other hand it is in an especial sense the body of laws that 
 regulate the government. 
 
 The relations between the constitution and the govern- 
 ment are intricate and interesting. The one represents 
 theory — the other practice. The former is therefore above 
 the latter in so far as it lays down the law which the 
 government cannot break ; but beneath it practically, because 
 (in Great Britain at least) one part of the government — the 
 legislature — can change the law and the constitution. While 
 the constitution has its end as well as its beginning within 
 the sphere of law, the executive government must take its 
 place in the world of action, and has to assume some attitude 
 towards every element in the life of the nation. 
 
 If then the " legal State " has any existence in reality at 
 all, it is only when used as a synonym for "constitution," 
 and is thus only one phase or aspect of the real State which 
 embraces the whole nation, with its people and institutions, 
 its spiritual needs and material possessions, as well as its 
 legal machinery or skeleton. 
 
 ' Law and Custom of the Constitution, Vol. i., p. 2. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT AND OTHER AGENTS OF THE 
 
 STATE. 
 
 The first requisite of cohesion in any group of individuals 
 is some central and directing agency. If a community has 
 common aims and interests, some mutual representative must 
 have power to look after them. This central authority or 
 agent in a State is called the government, and must have 
 somewhere within it the supreme legal power in the com- 
 munity for the time being. If no one were authorized to 
 act for the nation, concord and unity of aim would be 
 impossible. Any class or locality might claim to act for the 
 whole. There would be no principle of cohesion. The body 
 politic would fly asunder and resolve itself into its con- 
 stituent elements. A strong guiding hand is needed to keep 
 the whole together. Adherence to a common government is 
 thus an indispensable factor in the existence of a State. It 
 is important then to understand exactly what this govern- 
 ment is. We have already seen that it is often confused 
 with the State itself. Even when this fatal confusion of 
 thought is surmounted, another difficulty remains. Two 
 restricted connotations of the word are common in every-day 
 conversation, and are both inaccurate. In the first place there 
 are such phrases as " a change of government " ; " Her Majesty's 
 government " ; " the Queen reigns but does not govern," all 
 pointing clearly . to administrative or executive functions. 
 Then we find such statements as the following: "England 
 is governed by Queen, Lords, and Commons." Here "the 
 
106 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 government" is used synonymously with the legislature or 
 the " Queen in Parliament." In neither case is the use of 
 the term absolutely incorrect ; but yet it is in both instances 
 incomplete and misleading. Throughout this essay the word 
 is used in its widest meaning to include both of its phases, 
 and to cover in addition the judicial functions of the higher 
 courts of law. 
 
 " Government " then (unless a qualifying adjective is joined 
 to it) is here used to include all the branches of the 
 central organization — legislative, executive, and judicial. 
 
 The central government, thus understood, is the active 
 political principle of cohesion in the State. Subjection to 
 it, or allegiance to its head, marks the right to the claim of 
 citizenship. Every man or thing not subject to its control 
 is " alien." 
 
 This government is, or contains as an integral part of 
 itself, the chief ofiScial recognized agent of the State. All 
 negotiations conducted with foreign nations proceed through 
 its agency. When a criminal rebels against the laws it is 
 the government that acts as the agent of the nation in 
 avenging its outraged majesty. Again, the government is the 
 arm of the community in all important national affairs. If 
 the laws binding on the whole community must be changed, 
 it is the central government that acts through its legislative 
 organ. Lastly, the government through the civil and criminal 
 courts interprets the law, and applies its provisions to in- 
 dividual cases. 
 
 Although the State appoints these various organs of its 
 central government to act as its chief of&cial agents, it is 
 not thereby precluded from nominating other agents — even 
 other official agents. The latter must be more or less under 
 the control of the government or of some part of it, else 
 the seat of the legal sovereignty would be taken from the 
 central authority. Thus the army and navy are agencies 
 of the State, and may involve their principal in serious 
 responsibilities. In Great Britain these are placed under 
 the immediate control of the War Of&ce and the Admiralty ; 
 while the ultimate responsibility is shared with the Cabinet 
 collectively. In like manner established church or churches 
 
AGENTS OF THE STATE 107 
 
 in a nation are undeniably State agencies. Again, all univer- 
 sities empowered to grant degrees, all of Her Majesty's in- 
 spectors of schools or of factories, and all royal commissions, 
 are national institutions and recognized agents of the State, 
 though they cannot be called parts of the central govern- 
 ment. Nor is this all, for every town or county council 
 to which Parliament has delegated rights of taxation and 
 local control, however limited to circumscribed areas, is still 
 a recognized agent of the nation in the exercise of those 
 powers which the laws have given it. Every justice of 
 the peace or notary public acts for the State in every 
 official function he performs. Every policeman and custom- 
 house officer, every government employee, every doctor, 
 druggist, or dentist who is "licensed" to practise under 
 regulations sanctioned by the legislature, — all these are 
 agents of the State. ^ Indeed, every private individual in 
 his most intimate act is an agent, though an unrecognized 
 one, of the nation. The body politic is an organic 
 existence, and therefore whatever is done by one member 
 is done by the whole. If it wishes to free itself from 
 all responsibility for the acts of a subject, it must either 
 cut him adrift by making him an alien or an outlaw, or 
 else prevent him from performing the acts complained of 
 Thus each member of a community is an agent in some 
 measure of the commonwealth, and the consequences of his 
 act must be borne by the whole of which he is a part. 
 This may seem an extreme doctrine, but it is amply sup- 
 ported by facts; and the actual rules and usage of International 
 Law have given it authoritative recognition. One well- 
 known instance wiU prove this. On 29th July, 1862, the 
 "Alabama" left Liverpool wholly unarmed. At Terceira she 
 received guns and ammunition which had been previously 
 brought from England in two separate ships. When these 
 were safely on board she became a fully equipped man-of-war, 
 
 ^E.g. any doctor giving a certificate in terms of the Lunacy Act, 
 1890, if acting bona fide and with reasonable care is, under section 330, 
 free from responsibility. The load thus lifted from his shoulders 
 must be borne by his principal, the State, whose will authorized the 
 provisions of the statute that shield him. 
 
108 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and as such inflicted damage upon merchant ships sailing 
 under the flag of the United States of America. The recog- 
 nized authorities of Great Britain had no knowledge of the 
 matter. The "Alabama" was not built, nor were her guns and 
 ammunition manufactured or supplied, by the government, 
 which had indeed no knowledge that anything of the kind 
 was in contemplation. It was entirely the work of private 
 individuals having no ofiicial connection with the nation or 
 authority to involve the community in responsibility for their 
 actions. Yet the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva found 
 the State of Great Britain liable for the whole damage that 
 had been caused. This is, of course, an extreme example 
 of the principle that a State is liable for every act com- 
 mitted within its jurisdiction which it has failed to prevent 
 being performed. It may be modified by future decisions; 
 but the general doctrine that neutral States are liable for 
 every act performed by private individuals within their 
 boundaries in breach of neutrality is not likely to be changed. 
 The whole doctrine is a striking illustration of the position 
 here maintained that every individual subject is to some 
 extent an agent of the State, however much that State dis- 
 approves and disclaims his misdeeds. 
 
 The State, then, must accept responsibility for every 
 influence at work within it which it does not suppress. The 
 official expression of its opinions comes from legislative 
 enactments, from the decrees of its judges, and from the 
 mouths of its recognized diplomatic representatives. The 
 civil and criminal law of the land, and the lines of foreign 
 and domestic policy pursued by the Ministry of the day 
 are the chief organs of the country, but it is also responsible, 
 though in a diminishing degree, for the views expressed by 
 either House of Parliament, for the sentiments of the press, 
 for the resolutions of public meetings, and even for the 
 stray words of private citizens, all of which go to make up 
 the great whole called public opinion. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NATUEE AND OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 If the government is the chief agent or servant of the State, 
 its raison d'Stre is easily deducible. It exists solely to fulfil 
 as well as possible whatever duties are entrusted to it by its 
 principal — the State. The doctrine that governments exist 
 for the good of the governed — or rather of the whole com- 
 munity, including both rulers and ruled — ^is as old as Aristotle, 
 who based upon it his famous classification of the various, 
 forms of constitution. Monarchy, aristocracy, and polity 
 are, according to him, the three normal or beneficent types,, 
 because they look to the good of the whole ; while the 
 three contrasted forms of tyranny, oligarchy, and extreme 
 democracy are respectively their perversions, because they seek 
 exclusively the good of the rulers. Governments are now held 
 to exist " for the public good," and not for that of the persons 
 in power, and the chief end of all administrative action 
 would seem to be, simply to forward the ends of the State,, 
 according to instructions received. 
 
 It is sometimes said that the sole object of the government 
 is to make the State possible. Now this is indeed one object 
 though not that ultimate end to which all others are sub- 
 servient. It is true, of course, that no State could exist as. 
 such without a central government to hold it together 
 against aU disintegrating tendencies. To make the State 
 possible is, however, rather the beginning than the final 
 goal of government. Such an achievement is perhaps its 
 lowest use, rather than its highest — its minimum of attain- 
 
110 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 ment, not its maximum. It remains to be asked whether 
 it ought not to broaden out its aims as the State itself 
 expands, and go on to make perfect what it has first made 
 possible, or at least, so arrange things that the individual 
 members may attain perfection for themselves. 
 
 This question is for the State itself to decide; but, how- 
 ever limited may be the powers entrusted to a government, 
 and however restricted by tacit understanding, or express 
 enactment, may be the ends for which these powers are to 
 be employed, these must include the duty of enforcing such 
 law and order as are necessary for the continued existence 
 of the whole. The commonwealth cannot refrain from 
 endowing the government with powers for the task of pre- 
 serving the existence of the State ; because to bestow less 
 would be to vote its own annihilation. Organized communi- 
 ties always, either directly or indirectly, authorize their 
 rulers as a minimum of business to make their continued 
 existence possible, however little additional authority they 
 may be disposed to bestow. 
 
 In any case it is for the will of the society to decide 
 the extent and nature of all authority exercised over its 
 members. This will must be expressed by means of the 
 constitutional machinery prescribed by the laws of each State. 
 When we have satisfied ourselves that the end of the govern- 
 ment is just to do what it is told to do, we have not 
 exhausted the inquiry. We have still to ask what instruc- 
 tions that master ought to give. This question again divides 
 itself chiefly into two. What extent of authority ought the 
 legislature to have ? and what ought the executive to have ? 
 The general answer seems to flow from the fact that the 
 State exists for the perfecting of its "brotherhood of man," 
 and ought therefore to entrust to its rulers whatever extent 
 of power seems most likely to further that end. The 
 wisdom of the community may conclude that its highest 
 interests will be served by making its rulers absolute despots, 
 and then leaving them with an unobstructed hand to do 
 what they choose in the interest of all. If, on the other 
 hand, the community judges that it will prosper best by 
 restricting the powers of its rulers within the narrowest 
 
NATURE AND OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT HI 
 
 bounds consistent with its continued existence, then it should 
 make its government a mere machine for preserving order. 
 It is all a question of expediency. "Granted," a community- 
 should say, "that our final goal is so and so, we have to 
 •determine how far government can help us to get there, and 
 how far it can hinder. Let us extend or limit its functions 
 accordingly." 
 
 It is simply a matter of judgment in which each nation 
 must think for itself, and about which many different 
 conclusions may be reached — about which, indeed, perfect 
 wisdom would reach different conclusions concerning even the 
 same State at different stages of its development. On this 
 point no philosopher need thrust his views upon the world. 
 Thus when Mr. Herbert Spencer insists that the restraining 
 of wrong-doers is the only just object of government, he is 
 passing from the sphere of the philosopher to that of the 
 statesman. It is for the latter to determine how far the 
 welfare of the State can, consistently with the present state 
 of society, be furthered by extending or limiting the objects 
 entrusted to the care of government. No abstract theorist 
 ought to attempt to dictate one course of conduct as suit- 
 able for every possible situation and emergency. 
 
 While the end of the State would be held by a religious 
 man to depend on the will of God, and by a scientific man 
 on the laws of nature ; the end of goverrnmrd, both would 
 agree, is a thing dependent on the will of man. The question, 
 how far the will and conscious efforts of men can mould 
 the constitution, has received much attention from specu- 
 lative writers. The same inquiry may be expressed in several 
 forms. It may be asked, for example, whether the con- 
 stitution is a product or a growth; whether it is natural or 
 artificial; or how far men can alter it at pleasure. 
 
 There is a danger that such discussions may end in mere 
 verbalism, and, iadeed, in one sense the distiaction is entirely 
 meaningless. Man himself is a product of nature, and there- 
 fore whatever is made by man is made by nature. Yet 
 there is another sense in which the question is not only a 
 legitimate one but has an important and direct bearing upon 
 practical politics. Everything in the world is indeed "natural" 
 
112 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 as being subject to physical, economical, and social laws ; 
 yet all objects fall into two clearly differentiated classes, to 
 one of which " artificial " as opposed to natural may be 
 appropriately applied. 
 
 A mountain, a tree, or the fruits of the earth, all fall 
 within the latter; while a house, a railway, or the clothes 
 a man wears are familiar instances of the former. The labour 
 of man may, indeed, play a certain subordinate part in the 
 production of some of the fruits of the earth, while no process 
 of manufacture is entirely independent of the forces of nature. 
 Nevertheless a clear distinction exists, one class being on the 
 whole the product of nature, and the other of the conscious 
 action of man. In this light the question of the naturalness 
 or artificiality of the State and its government acquires a new 
 and real significance. It may be quite legitimate to ask, Do 
 these entities belong to the former or the latter class ? Does 
 the constitution of England, for example, participate more 
 in the nature of a house that has been built, or in that 
 of a cave hollowed by the action of the waves ? It 
 may well be said that it belongs exclusively to neither class; 
 but it cannot be maintained any longer that the saying, 
 when thus expressed, is meaningless or absurd. John Stuart 
 Mill in a well-known and often-quoted passage has fairly 
 stated the points at issue, though his answer is somewhat 
 one-sided and unsatisfactory. He explains the two conflicting 
 theories under their most extreme aspects as follows : 
 
 (a) Forms of government are "regarded as wholly an 
 affair of invention and contrivance. Being made by man it 
 is assumed that man has the choice either to make them 
 or not, and how and on what pattern they shall be made. 
 Government, according to this conception, is a problem to be 
 worked like any other question of business. The first step 
 is to define the purposes which governments are required to 
 promote. The next is to inquire what form of government 
 is best fitted to fulfil these purposes."^ This theory makes 
 government a machine. (&) " To these stand opposed another 
 kind of political reasoners who are so far from assimilating 
 a form of government to a machine that they regard it as 
 "^Representative Oovernment, p. 3. 
 
NATURE AND OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT 113 
 
 a spontaneous product, and the science of government as a 
 branch (so to speak) of natural history. According to them, 
 forms of government are not a matter of choice. We must 
 take them in the main as we find them. Governments can- 
 not be constructed by premeditated design. They ' are not 
 made but grow.' The fundamental political institutions of a 
 people are considered by this school as a sort of organic 
 growth from the nature and life of the people." 
 
 Both doctrines, according to Mill, are equally absurd when 
 pushed to these extremes ; yet he ends by virtually siding 
 with the former almost without qualification. Within certain 
 limits, he concludes, "institutions and forms of government 
 are a matter of choice." He thus gives the full weight of 
 his authority to the first theory (though not absolutely 
 in its most crude form) that constitutions are rather artificial 
 products than natural growths — more like machiues than 
 trees. 
 
 In an often quoted passage he ridicules the thought that 
 political institutions " resemble trees, which, once planted, 
 are ' aye growing,' while men ' are sleeping.' In every stage 
 of their existence they are made what they are by human 
 voluntary agency."^ 
 
 This is, of course, true; but is it not possible that this 
 " human voluntary agency " is itself included in the whole 
 which grows ? The commonwealth is, in some respects, 
 like " a tree," but yet each of its members has free-will 
 , and an independent rational existence of its own. The idea 
 of " growth," if applied to society, must be modified in much 
 the same way as was seen to be necessary in applying the 
 organic idea itself. 
 
 It is true that to declare that the government has nothing 
 of the nature of a " growth " about it, does not absolutely 
 contradict the organic theory of society. It might quite 
 well be that while the State was itself an organism, its 
 agent, the government, was merely a machine, having no 
 intimate connection with the life of the community. Thus it 
 is not absolutely necessary for the vindication of the organic 
 theory, to refute the doctrine maintained in the Essay on 
 ^Representative Oovernment, p. 4. 
 
114 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Representative Government. Still, there undoubtedly is a con- 
 nection between the two, and it is not difficult to show 
 that Mill's position is based on a misconception. When he 
 asserts that our national institutions are rather machines that 
 can be easily adjusted at pleasure, than growths rooted in 
 the national life, he is influenced in forming this opinion 
 chiefly by his wish to remove the possibihty of a spirit of 
 fatalism in politics that would make men content to shelter 
 themselves from the trouble of remedying existing evils 
 under the mistaken idea that these were due to the action 
 of laws of nature, over which men have no control. There 
 are few who will not share to the full with Mill the desire 
 to free men's minds from so degrading and so benumbing a 
 superstition. Free-will, and not fatalism, is the rule of 
 guidance in all modern politics outside of Turkey. In 
 denying strenuously that the constitution is an organism, 
 Mill is simply desirous of asserting that it is more or less 
 amenable to the action of men directed towards altering its 
 form nearer to an ideal perfection. It is not only quite 
 possible, however, but absolutely necessary, to maintain this 
 very truth in conjunction with the organic theory of the 
 State's existence, and Mill's hostility to the latter theory 
 proceeds chiefly from a misconception. Its supporters have no 
 desire (as Mill assumes that they have, in his statement 
 of the views he supposes them to hold) to narrow down the 
 organic nature of the State, so as to eaxlude man's free-wiU 
 and conscious action from its range. On the contrary, the 
 true view incorporates the individual men with all their 
 thoughts and actions, and the objects of their endeavours in 
 the organism called the State. To make the constitution, 
 then, a necessary part of the life of a people, by no means 
 withdraws it from the influence of that people's actions. 
 On the contrary, it is only to show more clearly how inti- 
 mate, subtle, and innumerable are the ways in which the 
 individual, through every channel of his daily life, influences, 
 consciously and unconsciously, the forms under which he 
 is ruled. 
 
 The organic theory is thus the best friend, so far from 
 being the enemy of Mill's contention, that by conscious 
 
NATURE AND OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT 115 
 
 effort men can mould their institutions to keep pace with 
 their changing needs. In comparing national institutions 
 to machinery he makes two mistakes. In the first place, 
 he creates an absolute distinction between governors and 
 governed, which does not hold in modern States, or in such 
 of them, at any rate, as are under popular institutions. The 
 government is not a machine coercing from without. Great 
 Britain appoints its own real rulers, or acquiesces, at least, 
 in their right to rule. In the action of the government the 
 people recognize the expression of their own will through 
 the legitimate channels they have themselves authorized. 
 It is not a machine which rules them, but bone of their 
 bone and flesh of their flesh. In the second place, whether 
 a machine or no, it is a factor without which no society can exist. 
 In a rude state of nature men may have very little govern- 
 ment, and that of a shifty, arbitrary, and bad quality ; 
 but some rudiments must always exist. It is thus wrong 
 to speak of all government as the product of human energy 
 consciously shaping itself towards a goal. Government of 
 some sort is bound up in man's nature as a social being. 
 He cannot escape from it. It is true, however, that the structure 
 of that government is moulded during the course of its 
 development, partly, at least, by " human voluntary agency." 
 In other words, while government itself (like the State which 
 it makes possible) comes by nature, and cannot be shaken off 
 by man; the form of that government and much of its 
 development are the products of man's energy and will. 
 
 A people, then, can never develop themselves out of the 
 necessity of aU government whatever, but they may help 
 to mould the particular form of constitution under which 
 they live ; and in this limited sense it is correct to say that 
 governments are artificial and subject to human control. 
 Even here, however, there are natural limits through which 
 man's energy cannot break. Even Mill allows that this is 
 so. His limits are given under three heads — the people for 
 whom the institutions are intended must be willing (1) to 
 accept them; (2) to do or suffer whatever is necessary to keep 
 them going; and (3) to make whatever exertion or sacrifice is 
 needed to enable them to fulfil their purposes. 
 
116 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 The admission of these three conditions, by which man is 
 chained to the existing elements of the national life at its 
 given stage of development, goes far to prove that the institu- 
 tions of a State are part of the wider organic whole; but it 
 does not go far enough. A survey of English history tends to 
 show how small a share the conscious efforts of men have had 
 in shaping our time-honoured constitution into its present 
 mould. A good illustration is furnished by the genesis of 
 the Cabinet system of government — that central pivot on 
 which the whole modern constitution turns ; that mysterious 
 hinge connecting legislature and executive together. The 
 advent of the Cabinet finally set at rest the problem which 
 the whole seventeenth century had failed to solve. Yet who 
 could lay claim to its discovery or invention ? What man 
 or group of men could say that it was the product of their 
 brain or will, or that their conscious action had helped it 
 towards fulfilment in ever so small a degree ? The truth 
 is, that every man who brought deliberate action to bear on 
 the matter tried strenuously to oppose the development of 
 the modern Cabinet. Sir William Temple's scheme for the re- 
 organization of the Privy Council took its origin in an attempt 
 to crush the rising power of the Cabinet. Two clauses in 
 the Act of Settlement itself were consciously directed against 
 it. Even now — at the close of the nineteenth century — though 
 the Cabinet has struggled into the most prominent place in 
 our polity, it has never obtained proper legislative recognition. 
 So far, indeed, from having been consciously created by man, 
 it seeins to have come into being and into power to meet a 
 natural want, and under pressure of what we can with 
 difficulty discriminate from a blind, unconscious law of neces- 
 sity realizing itself, not because of, but in spite of all the 
 recognized legal and political agencies of the day. The in- 
 fiuence of human will was felt upon it undoubtedly ; but it 
 was the unconscious rather than the conscious actions of 
 men that produced it. 
 
 Other instances might be given, all tending to show that 
 Mill seems altogether to exaggerate the ability of men 
 to determine the forms of their institutions. Govern- 
 ment is, however, although not a product exclusively of the 
 
NATURE AND OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT 117 
 
 conscious efforts of men, still a product of the sum of all such 
 efforts, whether conscious or unconscious, working in harmony 
 with the other manifestations of the common organic life of 
 the whole, and under close dependence on the laws of nature. 
 The political institutions reflect the national characteristics, 
 and in turn react on the national hfe. British institutions 
 are influenced more — inestimably more — by the unreasoning 
 feelings, prejudices, and hereditary predispositions of the mass 
 of ordinary John Bull Englishmen, and by the modes of life 
 and feeling into which such men unthinkingly drift, than by 
 the ratiocinations and conscious efforts of brilliant theorists 
 like John Stuart Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer, or even of 
 commanding practical statesmen like Mr. Gladstone and the 
 late Lord Beaconsfield. Doctrines of government have, of 
 course, a very important bearing upon current politics, but 
 only such among them as the masses are ripe for, produce 
 far-reaching effects. Those theories are most influential which 
 explain existing prejudices by the light of reason, making the 
 hitherto unspoken tendencies of the national life articulate 
 in the mouth of its spokesman. Cohstitutions cannot be 
 built from architects' plans like houses. Unless a scheme of 
 government is suited to the national life and needs — and even 
 faults and prejudices — it will remain a mere dead letter, and 
 no amount of arguing will make it work. France has had 
 a long and humiliating experience in constitution-building. 
 America, it might be said, has fared better ; but the framers 
 of the constitution of the United States were fortunate in 
 having merely to adapt the existing types of Anglo-Saxon 
 institutions to meet the needs of a new Anglo-Saxon nation. 
 They succeeded because they merely made explicit what was 
 already implicit in the people. Nor must it be forgotten 
 that their success was but partial after all. The way in 
 which the constitutional provisions for the formation of an 
 Electoral College to appoint the President work in practice 
 shows that national tendencies are too strong for legal forms 
 when the two come into conflict. 
 
 While remembering, however, that there are barriers througU 
 which the will of man can never penetrate — that "there's a 
 Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we 
 
118 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 may " — ^it must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that the 
 conscious endeavours of men form one element (and an im- 
 portant one) in the process whereby the world-spirit works 
 towards its goal. 
 
 Human will is one factor in shaping the constitution — and 
 therefore in moulding society and the State. Thus, to return 
 to Mill's illustrations, systems of government are essentially 
 different from both " trees " on the one hand, and " machines " 
 on the other. They do not " grow " like the former, nor are 
 they " made " like the latter. In Professor Eitchie's phrase 
 they have "the remarkable property of making themselves."* 
 Society is an organism of a very special type, to which such 
 a verb as " grow " can be applied only in a special sense. 
 M. Alfred Fouille has described it as a " contractual organism," 
 and again as " an organism which realizes itself in conceiving 
 and willing itself"^ The government may indeed be the 
 product of man's energy on the one hand, and yet a mere 
 manifestation of a developing organism on the other. Thus 
 understood, it is both the creation of the State and an integral 
 part of it. Constitutions make themselves ; they are not 
 made, and they do not grow. 
 
 Whatever its origin and history may have been, most poli- 
 ticians will agree that government must be the servant, not the 
 master of the community. It exists to carry into execution 
 the commands of the State. 
 
 There only remains to ask, In what way are these orders 
 to be conveyed ? What marks do they possess of authen- 
 ticity ? The answer which a properly organized common- 
 wealth makes to this question must be contained in its 
 constitution. If the laws do not speak clearly on this head, 
 there is a serious danger to the public peace. 
 
 The government must not obey the behests of the mob or 
 the merely numerical majority. Its duty is not to attend 
 ^ State Interference, p. 49. 
 
 ^ia Science Sociale Contemporaine, pp. 114, 115, quoted by Professor 
 Eitchie, State Interference, p. 49. Cf. S. E. Gardiner's History of the 
 Great Civil War, Vol. i., p. 9. "The laws by which the progress of 
 human society is governed work not irrespective of human agency, 
 but by the influence of surrounding conditions upon human wills, 
 whereby the activity of these wills is roused to react upon the conditions." 
 
NATURE AND OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT 119 
 
 to those voices of selfishness and greed that cry most loudly 
 for what they need. It is not what the words of a modern 
 statesman would make it, " an organization to carry out the 
 wishes, interests, and desires of every class and section of 
 the community,"^ but only to carry out the rational will of 
 the whole. The administration of the day must obey the 
 wiU of the people only when that will is legally expressed 
 in accordance with the terms of the constitution. 
 
 These terms, of course, difter with peoples and times. It 
 is the business of the constitutional lawyers of the various 
 nations to give an answer according to the positive law 
 actually existing at the time the question is asked. 
 
 ^ These words are attributed to Mr. Asquith, and are cited in Prof. 
 Hastie's Introdwstion .to Kants Principles of Politics, p. 39. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF THE VAEIOUS FUNCTIONS OF 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The functions which every central government performs for 
 the good of the whole community are usually arranged under 
 three heads — the executive or administrative, the legislative, 
 and the judicial. Although all three are so closely related 
 that they frequently in practice encroach on one another, 
 yet in most modern States not only is the theoretical dis- 
 tinction between them well established, but an effort is 
 made to prevent the three sets of powers falling into the 
 same hands. In rude nations this differentiation is not 
 found except in a very incomplete form ; and the three main 
 functions of government, in so far as they exist ■ at all, are 
 vested in one ruler. In half-savage communities, indeed, the 
 necessity, or even the possibility of changing the laws or the 
 customs (and the latter have all the binding force of laws) is 
 not realized, and such judicial decisions as are pronounced 
 proceed upon the circumstances peculiar to each case. The 
 executive power is the only authority that is absolutely 
 indispensable. It is impossible to discover any tribe or 
 people without an executive of some sort. No nation can 
 exist as a State without some principle able to make itself 
 obeyed, and forming the cohesive force which keeps the atoms 
 from flying apart. 
 
 Physical power in varying degrees is bound up in every 
 living creature. If each individual is allowed to regulate 
 the use he makes of this power at his own caprice. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT 121 
 
 anarchy results. A primary function of government is to 
 allow no force except its own to be used with impunity 
 against its members. It acts as the ultimate director and 
 appUer of the force of the community, and is thus the 
 sole executive. If this power of coercion is taken away or 
 set at defiance, all government is for the time being at an 
 end, till the old order is re-established, or a new one is 
 strong enough to take its place and make good its claim 
 to the ultimate right of coercion. 
 
 Upon coercion, and therefore upon the executive authority, 
 all the functions of government ultimately depend. The 
 legislature would be no better than a debating society in the 
 absence of an executive power to enforce its laws; and the 
 judges' decrees would have only a speculative value if not 
 backed by force. 
 
 This truth will become clearer after an examination of the 
 various duties actually discharged by the governments of 
 civilized communities. These may be arranged as follows, viz.: 
 
 (1) When the necessity for action of any kind arises, some 
 authority must be entrusted with the duty of deciding what 
 should be done. Some one must have a right to determine 
 the policy to be pursued by the nation. Otherwise nothing 
 will be done at all, or else conflicting schemes will struggle 
 for the mastery. To avoid a deadlock, there must always 
 be a supreme authority somewhere. Whoever has vested 
 in him this right or duty (for it is both) performs the 
 deliberative function. It may well be that in different 
 provinces this power is placed in different hands ; but on 
 every case that can possibly occur there ought to be some 
 authority vested with the right to say the last word. In 
 England the seat of this power is not always easy to ex- 
 plain in theory, though no serious practical difficulty is 
 likely to arise. Omitting, for the sake of simplicity, all 
 reference to the wide measure of initiative power (subject, 
 of course, to an ultimate control) allowed to local authorities, 
 the deliberative function in Great Britain may be said to 
 be vested by the constitution in the hands of the members 
 of the Cabinet as ministers of the Grown. It is their duty 
 to determine (within the limits prescribed by law) what 
 
122 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 steps are necessary to maintain order at home, and to pro- 
 tect the nation's interests abroad. 
 
 The Ministry of the day is responsible for all the nation's 
 official dealings with foreign States. It has to look after 
 the interests of its subjects who happen to be abroad ; to 
 decide when to act, and when to let alone ; whether to 
 declare war or maintain peace ; what steps to take to pre- 
 vent the possibility of invasion — in fine, to deliberate and 
 resolve on all matters of home and foreign policy. 
 
 (2) To enforce, or see enforced, the results of these 
 deliberations, is a separate function of government. When a 
 certain course has been resolved on by those who have a 
 right to decide — that is, by the supreme deliberative authority 
 of which we have just been speaking — it must be the duty 
 of some one to see it carried into effect. No interests of 
 any disaffected individual or class must be allowed to stand 
 in its way. All opposition must be borne down by sheer 
 force if required. The necessary coercive powers must be 
 vested somewhere. The constitution must determine the 
 depositary of this great trust — the function of carrying out 
 its deliberations by brute force if need be. 
 
 (3) The legislative function in modern progressive States 
 is the most important of all. In stationary countries, such 
 as China, everything is regulated by unvarying custom. 
 What has been must still be. In nations like the great 
 powers of Europe at the present day, the necessity for alter- 
 ing the old laws to meet rapidly changing circumstances is 
 constantly felt. The constitutions of such nations must 
 define the depositaries of this power to change the laws. 
 This legislative function (as it is called) has two chief 
 branches — the regulation of criminal and of civil law. In 
 any alterations in either of these departments of law the 
 rights of individuals are necessarily modified or interfered 
 with. To make an action criminal which was not so before, 
 is to restrict the freedom of individuals. To alter the laws 
 that define the civil rights of citizens, is either to contract 
 or to extend these rights. 
 
 (4) Next comes for consideration the duty of enforcing 
 these laws when once they have been made. It is not the 
 
FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT 123 
 
 province of the power that makes them to see them carried 
 into effect. Yet, if a new law is to take effect, some one 
 must be responsible for its enforcement, and be armed with 
 power to strike down all who resist. It is necessary, too, 
 to make provision that every convicted criminal be duly 
 punished. All laws, in fine, must be executed, and this 
 again implies coercion if need be. 
 
 (5) The fifth function of government (according to our 
 present classification) lies in expounding and applying the 
 laws (whether common law or statute) and in settling, 
 when appealed to, the rights in dispute between two indi- 
 viduals thus defined. Such duties are performed by the 
 law courts. Hardly any theorist would be bold enough to 
 deny that it is the duty of the State to provide proper 
 tribunals for the settlement of such disputes instead of 
 leaving them to be determined by voluntary arbitration. 
 Judicial procedure differs from arbitration in this, that either 
 party may be coerced by the whole might of the State to 
 submit his rights to the jurisdiction of the proper tribunal 
 even against his will. 
 
 (6) The sixth function of the government is to enforce (if 
 necessary) those decrees delivered by its judges. If the 
 individual does not, of his own accord, fulfil the finding of 
 the court, diligence will be used against him. His goods 
 will be distrained and sold to meet the sum decerned for ; 
 and if he forcibly resist he will he imprisoned. Here, again, 
 is the principle of coercion in its most emphatic form. 
 
 (7) The government, however, does more than enforce the 
 results of its own deliberations, the provisions of its laws, 
 and the decisions of its judges. It undertakes to enforce 
 every private contract between two or more of its subjects, 
 which is not illegal. When an agreement has been once 
 entered into with such formalities (if any) as may be required 
 by law, neither party is at liberty to resile from his bargain. 
 If he tries to do so the State, through the agency of the 
 government, brings its whole weight to bear upon him, and 
 crushes him till he comply. Here, again, is coercion. The 
 enforcement of the decrees of arbiters against parties who 
 have voluntarily agreed to submit their claims to such decision 
 
124 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 is also undertaken by the State, but is only one phase of its 
 general readiness to enforce all private contracts. The 
 doctrine of contract has been extended to include what are 
 called quasi-contracts or agreements which an individual 
 is assumed to have tacitly made by acting in a certain way. 
 
 These are, then, the seven normal functions of government. 
 The first is the deliberative — the duty of determining what 
 should be done in name of the State as a whole. The 
 third is legislation — the duty of changing the laws. The 
 fifth is the judicial duty of applying laws and settling 
 disputes. The second, fourth, sixth, and seventh may all 
 be classed together as executive duties — the enforcement of 
 the results of deliberations upon foreign or domestic affairs, 
 of the provisions of laws, civil and criminal, of the judges' 
 decrees, and the terms of private compacts. Thus all 
 functions of government depend ultimately upon the executive, 
 and therefore upon coercion. 
 
 It need only be added that in most States, and Great 
 Britain is among the number, the supreme deliberative power 
 and the supreme executive power are placed in the same 
 hands. Under the law of England the Queen in Council 
 (or the Queen acting through and by advice of her responsible 
 ministers) possesses both the deliberative and executive 
 authorities combined ; while the Queen in Parliament is the 
 supreme legislature, and the law courts discharge the judicial 
 function. It is perhaps more correct to talk of the adminis- 
 trative function of government when the executive and the 
 supreme deliberative powers are combined. 
 
 (8) We have not yet, however, exhausted the list of the 
 various duties actually performed by governments. A number 
 of miscellaneous duties remain for consideration, and may 
 best be grouped together under an eighth and final head. 
 There is, on the whole, unanimity of opinion as to the 
 functions already discussed. All schools (except Nihilists 
 or Anarchists) agree that it is the clear duty of every 
 State to see that its institutions perform all the normal 
 duties of government, including legislation, administration, 
 and the dispensation of justice, together with the enforcement 
 of such measure of coercion as all these necessarily iq,volve. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT 125 
 
 There are, however, many^ubsidiary duties which some States 
 are in the habit of performing for their subjects, and about 
 which very grave differences of opinion exist. These are both 
 numerous and varied, and will be discussed more in detail in 
 a later chapter. Here a few well-known instances must 
 suffice. Thus, for example, in England the government acts 
 as a builder of ships of war, and as a manufacturer of 
 ammunition. Among some foreign nations — Switzerland is 
 a well-known instance — the government is an owner and 
 regulator of railways. In most countries, including our own, 
 the post office and telegraph systems are under State manage- 
 ment, while there are innumerable duties of a miscellaneous 
 nature which the central government undertakes for the benefit 
 of its subjects, such as the coining of money, the fixing of 
 standards for weights and measures, and the collection of 
 statistics relating to trade. These are merely instances taken 
 at random from among many. Differences are to be found in 
 regard to these between every two nations. Thus, while in 
 Great Britain the post office regulates the telegraph service 
 in addition to the carrying of letters, in the United States of 
 America the former duty is left to private enterprise. 
 
 There is one point of similarity among all these examples of 
 State action. No necessary logical connection exists between 
 them and the essential work of government, nor is- there 
 any practical reason to make it impossible . for all or any of 
 them to be left to private enterprise. It may be expedient 
 that an administrative department should carry letters and 
 build ships, but no one can say that no government could 
 possibly exist without directly performing such duties. They 
 are all abnormal functions of government, things undertaken 
 by it in addition to its more pressing duties, in order to 
 facilitate the work of the administrative departments, or to 
 benefit individual subjects. There is another respect in which 
 they are all similar. They all fall within the sphere of 
 the executive. Some administrative department is charged 
 with the additional labour of superintending each new 
 burden that the government has taken upon its shoulders. 
 Thus, when it was decided that the government should carry 
 at fixed rates every parcel under a certain size and weight 
 
126 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 entrusted to it, new duties wer& laid upon the post office, 
 and upon the administrative officer, called the Post-Master 
 General, with whom the final responsibility rests. Every new 
 duty, then, performed by the State adds to the work of the 
 executive. 
 
 It is necessary to form a clear conception of the distinctions 
 between these various functions performed by existing govern- 
 ments, in order to be able to judge, when the question is 
 afterwards raised, which among them are legitimate and which 
 are spurious, and so to avoid misconceptions arising from want 
 of a proper discrimination between things essentially different. 
 It is not sufficient to say that a certain matter lies beyond 
 the proper province of " government." It is necessary to 
 specify whether its legislative, its executive, its judicial, or 
 its deliberative function is specially referred to. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY. 
 
 " Sovereignty " is one of the essential characteristics of 
 every independent State which has attained to a complete 
 and permanent organization. No term used in political 
 science has given rise to more discussion, or is indeed of 
 such intrinsic difficulty, for there are at least three meanings 
 of the word "sovereign." (1) In the phrase, "our gracious 
 sovereign Queen Victoria," the formal or nominal sovereign 
 of Great Britain is referred to. It is here implied that the 
 Queen is the head of the constitution. It is Twt meant that 
 Her Majesty is "sovereign" or supreme in the sense that 
 she can by herself make such laws and legally do such 
 acts as please her, nor that from her personal decisions there 
 is no appeal. It is equally clear that the phrase does not 
 mean that the entire effective force of the State — or even 
 the commanding majority of it — is centred in the person 
 who, for the time being, occupies the throne. All that is 
 meant is that Great Britain is a kingdom, and that the Queen 
 is formal or titular sovereign — that all actions of government 
 and laws proceed in Her Majesty's name. 
 
 (2) "The sovereignty of Parliament" is a well-known 
 expression, which illustrates a second meaning of the word 
 under discussion. "Parliament" (or rather the "Queen in 
 Parliament,'' for with lawyers the two are synonymous) is 
 the "legal sovereign." As the supreme legislative power it 
 can change all laws, and is therefore above all laws. Its 
 formal decisions embodied in statutes are legally irre- 
 
128 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 sponsible, irresistible, and irreversible — except by Parliament 
 itself. 
 
 (3) Those who talk of "the sovereign people" generally 
 use the expression loosely. Yet there is a sense in which, 
 subject to certain modifications, it is strictly accurate. The 
 supreme power in the State is obviously the resultant of 
 the forces of all its parts multiplied into one another. The 
 effective force of a nation remains with the whole body of 
 its members, whatever forms of expression or outlet it may 
 find, and whatever agents may be legally empowered to act 
 or think for it. The real or " political " sovereignty lies in the 
 will of the people. The sanction that enforces this third 
 species of sovereignty is not legal, but partly physical and 
 partly moral. ^ 
 
 Endless wrangling and misconception have arisen from the 
 failure to preserve clearly enough the distinction between 
 these three ' uses of the same word. Serious confusion 
 between the first and second of these is not indeed likely 
 to occur in future. There was a time in English history 
 when the monarch was legal as well as titular sovereign ; or 
 at any rate grasped the lion's share of the former. 
 
 When the two Houses of Parliament had shaken off their 
 complete dependence on the Crown, under the shadow of 
 which they had been once only too glad to find shelter, they 
 began to lay claim first to a share, and then to the whole 
 of the legal sovereignty. The House of Commons and the 
 King set up rival claims to represent the nation. Each 
 refused to recognize the sovereignty of the other. When 
 the Long Parliament met in 1640, where, it may be asked, 
 was the legal sovereignty in England ? The only answer 
 is, that it was equally or unequally divided between two 
 conflicting powers. After 1689, the supremacy clearly rested 
 with the legislature, and not with the King as head of the 
 executive, though accuracy requires us to add that the 
 monarch was still included as an integral portion of the 
 legislative body. 
 
 Long after the facts had changed, the old theory lingered, 
 
 1 Cf. Dicey, Law of the Constitution, p. 69 and p. 352 ; and Eitchie, 
 State Interference, Appendix B. 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 129 
 
 though no longer applicable. Conservative instincts and 
 loyalty to the occupants of the throne kept up the old 
 tradition, no longer borne out by facts, that the legal and 
 titular sovereigns were still the same. This is the fallacy 
 of an " ambiguous middle," that vitiates much of the reason- 
 ing of both Kant and Bluntschli, — not to mention less im- 
 portant names, — in treating of British institutions. 
 
 Within recent years many lucid expositions of the 
 distinction have been given, and the honour of dealing the 
 death-blow to so dangerous a confusion of ideas is probably 
 due to Professor Dicey and his luminous exposition of the 
 seat of the legal sovereignty in Great Britain. 
 
 There is, perhaps, more danger for the future of mistakes 
 arising from want of a clear differentiation between the con- 
 ceptions of " legal " and " political " supremacy. The difference 
 between these is of so great importance that it is necessary 
 to explain it with some fulness. 
 
 The nature of the political sovereignty must first be 
 analyzed. It forms the very essence and prerequisite of a 
 State, and its conception was involved in the definition 
 with which this Essay started. It is negatively implied 
 in the independence of a State, for where there is effective 
 foreign intervention the sovereignty lies outside, the community. 
 It is implied positively in its efficient organization ; for the 
 laws and -government are useless if the citizens professedly 
 subject to them are able with impunity to set them at de- 
 fiance. It is true that when the institutions are rudimentary 
 and imperfect, it is difficult to see where this idea of sover- 
 eignty finds a place.^ Yet the embryo must be there, however 
 hard to discover. In civilized communities the connection is 
 more obvious. 
 
 Sovereignty implies the right to command and the power 
 to enforce obedience. If it is to be a reality it must be 
 able to crush rebellion. On its practical side it represents 
 the power of the whole over every part — of the State over 
 
 1 Sir H. S. Maine in his Early EiMory of Institutions (p. 349), and 
 Professor T. H. Green, in his Principles of Political Obligation ( Worhs 
 II., p. 399), have shown the difficulties of applying Austin's conception 
 of sovereignty to primitive communities. 
 
 I 
 
130 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the individual with all his associations, institutions, and 
 relations. The effective political sovereignty would thus in- 
 volve the aggregate of the forces of every kind that really 
 coerce or persuade the people into ohedience. It is, however, 
 not so much the sum as the resultant (or, better still, the 
 organic compound) which includes the forces 6f every man 
 and of every agency made or directed by human skill and 
 intelligence within the society. Viewed in this light it is 
 difficult to distinguish it from the State itself. Further, if 
 it is the resultant of all, evidently none of the included 
 forces can escape its sway. "It follows," says Professor 
 Huxley, "that no limit is, or can be, theoretically set to 
 State interference."^ This kind of supremacy — unlike the 
 legal sovereignty — cannot be lost unless the State itself is 
 annihilated. The political sovereignty is the concentrated 
 essence of the national life, majesty, and power focussed to 
 a point, and so rendered most intense and irresistible. 
 Now, the men and women whose united powers it thus includes 
 are rational beings, and therefore the ultimate nature of all 
 their forces must be sought in that same practical reason 
 or will, which we already saw to be the true source of the 
 State itself. Sovereignty is thus built up of the wills or 
 moral forces of the citizens, and must always, in a sense, 
 reside with "the people." It rests, however, with the com- 
 munity considered not as an aggregate of equal units, but 
 as a composite organism gathered round an estabUshed 
 constitution. It is the outcome of the common will — not 
 the sum of the isolated wills of individuals — the volonU 
 giniraU, not the volonU de tons — and is thus (though demo- 
 cratic in a sense) by no means the creature of the mob, or 
 
 1 It is necessary to remember, however, that this sovereignty is 
 not omnipotent. While Professor Huxley is right in denying that any 
 limit can be placed .upon it by anything within the State, it is still 
 subject to two important restrictions. In the first place, it may be 
 controlled not only by its own incapacity to subject the forces of 
 nature to its will, but by the alien influence of other States. In 
 the second place, it is subject to the mandates laid upon it by its own 
 rational nature. It must obey what may, in the phraseology of Kant, 
 be termed the "categorical imperative" inherent in itself, commanding 
 it to act only for the common good. 
 
THE Conception of sovereignty 131 
 
 the instrument of a bare numerical majority of votes. In 
 a word, it is organic and not mechanical. " This sovereignty 
 of the people," says Professor Eitchie, " this general will, 
 is only an idea, it will be said. It is an idea; but not 
 therefore unreal. It is real as the human spirit is real, 
 because it is this very spirit striving for objective mani- 
 festation. It lives and grows and becomes conscious of itself. 
 It realizes itself in different forms, in the family, the clan, 
 the city, the nation, perhaps some day in the federation of 
 the world." ^ To determine all about this political sovereignty 
 is the province of philosophers. They may differ, but truth 
 cannot vary. There is one truth which all aim after. 
 
 Now that we have ascertained the nature of the political 
 sovereignty, we are in a position to examine the legal 
 sovereignty which forms its expression or embodiment. 
 The supreme political power popularly alluded to as " the 
 people," and here described as the will of the community, is 
 evidently too vague a thing for practical purposes. It is a useful 
 philosophical conception ; but the practical sovereignty must 
 be embodied in some determinate person or institution avail- 
 able for the ordinary purposes of government and patent to 
 all who are called on to obey. In other words, the common 
 will or supreme political power in the State must find some 
 recognized constitutional method of expressing itself. This 
 embodiment or manifestation is the legal sovereign or the 
 principal part of the government. It is the chief business 
 of the constitution to define the seat of this legal power. 
 
 The legal sovereign is, then, the authorized embodiment of 
 the political one. The whole constitutional history of a 
 nation is a record of the efforts made by the general will, 
 which is the source of law, to realize itself in an external 
 form. The will of the people is blindly and instinctively 
 groping about to find adequate expression in a suitable ruler 
 or organization. The simplest plan adopted in the early 
 history of most, if not aU, States, is the election of a king, 
 who is at once the titular and the legal sovereign. The 
 difference between the two, indeed, has not yet been evolved. 
 The imperfections of such an arrangement soon suggest them- 
 ^ State Interference, p. 69. 
 
f 
 
 132 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 selves. Checks are placed on the royal power, and complex 
 constitutions arise, resulting generally in the gradual trans- 
 ference of the legal sovereignty to national assemblies more 
 or less independent of the king's control. The theoretical 
 title of all rulers, whether monarchic, aristocratic, or demo- 
 cratic, is derived, in the view of philosophy, from the fact 
 that they represent the general will, and act for the common 
 welfare. 
 
 To quote again from Professor Eitchie,^ " The Czar of all 
 the Eussias rules by the will of the people as much as does 
 the executive of the Swiss Federation. The belief in the 
 Czar's divine right is the source of his power and the ground 
 of their obedience. The difference between two such cases 
 is, that the general will has found a more adequate way of 
 expressing itself in the one instance than in the other. The 
 general will expresses itself by opinion in speaking and 
 writing, as well as by electing representatives. When pre- 
 vented from such means of utterance it expresses itself by 
 prostration before a God upon earth, or by assassination, 
 both of which are very inadequate ways." 
 
 While the political sovereign, then, is the intangible source 
 of all government, the legal sovereign is simply that part 
 of the actual machinery of government which is superior to 
 the other parts, having legal control over the rest, and being 
 itself subject to none. The latter is only a particular and 
 perhaps temporary embodiment of the former which is 
 perpetual and inalienable. 
 
 The legal sovereign may be changed without interrupting 
 the continuity of the national life. It varies with the 
 changes in the laws and customs of the land, and the 
 currents of opinion that act and react upon them ; but, 
 however it alters its form or its seat, it must exist some- 
 where within the government. This truth was fully grasped 
 as far back as the middle of the fifteenth century by Jean 
 Bodin, and clearly enunciated in his treatise Be Bepvblica. 
 He arrived at his conclusion as a result of an actual analysis 
 of the observed phenomena of existing governments. He 
 satisfied himself that in every form of constitution, if you 
 ^ State Interference, p. 68. 
 
« 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 133 
 
 go deep enough, you arrive at some ultimate part of the 
 governmeiit which is supreme within it, and therefore so 
 long as it lasts, supreme within the whole State. The seat 
 of this power must, in Bodin's view, be above the law 
 itself — must be the source of law, giving actuality to all 
 positive enactments, and enforcing their execution.^ This is 
 the seat of legal sovereignty within each State, and the first 
 problem for the student of each constitution is to find it. 
 Although it is the invariable rule that this sovereignty lies 
 somewhere inside the organs of the central government, it 
 is not always easy to lay a finger exactly on the spot. To 
 determine where, is the province of the constitutional lawyer, 
 not of the philosopher. The legal sovereign is different in 
 every State. The problem is to discover in what person or 
 organ the laws of a country place the right to say the last 
 word in event of a dispute between the other parts. All 
 doubt as to where the sovereignty rests in regard to practical 
 matters must be removed. Where there is no legally 
 appointed sovereign, different men or powers will fight for 
 the supremacy. The constitution ought to provide means 
 whereby all battles of contending interests may be fought 
 out bloodlessly within itself in open debate in the national 
 assembly or at the council table by vote or otherwise. If 
 it does not do so, the battle will be fought outside of the 
 constitution with deadlier weapons. Sometimes an originally 
 good constitution suffers change through sympathy with the 
 altered political condition of the nation, and so ceases to 
 providfe such a safety valve. Sometimes two parts of it 
 break asunder, and each claims the supremacy. Such a 
 contingency might happen any day in England in conse- 
 quence of a serious divergence of opinion between Lords 
 and Commons, if it were not for the existence of a series 
 of mysterious rules that are not exactly laws, but are 
 called " conventions of the constitution," which make pro- 
 
 'Cf. S. R Gardiner, History of England, Vol. in., p. 22. "In every 
 constitution there must be some fundamental power the authority of 
 which is received as binding without dispute. In our days that 
 authority is lodged in the constituencies. In the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century it was lodged in the king." 
 
134 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 vision for reconciling such conflicts. A more important and 
 more fatal divergence showed itself in the seventeenth century, 
 when the old constitutional organ, called the Concilium, 
 ordinarivmi, had ceased to act as a reconciling medium 
 between king and Parliament ; because it had lost its inde- 
 pendence and been absorbed within the sphere of the personal 
 prerogative of the Crown. King and Parliament each set up 
 a title to embody the will of the nation. Each claimed to 
 be sovereign. There was no proper machinery provided by 
 the constitution for determining this dispute ; and so when 
 the sentimental bonds of sympathy that had kept Elizabeth 
 and her Parliaments at one, in spite of lovers' quarrels, had 
 been broken by the Stuarts' pride and insincerity on one 
 side, and by the stubborn spirit of the Puritans on the other, 
 the possession of the sovereignty was made the occasion of 
 an actual civil war. Both parties fought for legal supremacy, 
 since the laws had proved insufficient to determine where 
 this really lay. 
 
 Thus every perfect, even every tolerable constitution must 
 place the legal sovereignty somewhere beyond the reach of 
 dispute. 
 
 One important question still remains, and is by no means 
 free from difficulty. 
 
 Must we maintain, with John Austin, that the sovereign 
 is necessarily a " determinate " person or persons ? Must we 
 further agree with him that these are always at all times 
 and in all circumstances .the same individuals ? 
 
 "The notions of sovereignty and independent political 
 society," says Austin, in a well-known passage, "may be 
 expressed concisely thus. If a determinate human superior, 
 not in a habit of obedience to a like superior, receive habitual 
 obedience from the bulk of a given society, that determinate 
 superior is sovereign in that society, and the society (including 
 the superior) is a society political and independent. . . . 
 In order that a given society may form a society political 
 and independent, the two distinguishing marks which I have 
 mentioned above must unite. The generality of the given 
 society must be in a habit of obedience to a determinate and 
 common superior; whilst the determinate person or deter- 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 135 
 
 minate body of persons must not be habitually obedient to 
 a determinate person or body."^ 
 
 A detailed criticism of this exposition of the theory of 
 sovereignty is unnecessary. The subject, indeed, is a some- 
 what hackneyed one, exhaustively treated in many easily 
 accessible volumes.^ One or two observations, however, on 
 some of its more conspicuous features may help to elucidate 
 the real nature of the legal sovereignty and its relations to 
 the political one. At the outset, it must be noticed that 
 Austin introduces a gratuitous element of difificulty into the 
 whole investigation by failing to preserve clearly enough the 
 crucial distinction between the two kinds of supremacy. 
 When he substitutes the electors for the House of Commons 
 among those determinate persons who share the sovereignty, 
 he is clearly going beyond the conception of legal to that 
 of political sovereignty.* This confusion of thought suffici- 
 ently explains, perhaps, the defect of Austin's theory as 
 applied to the government of Great Britain. More serious 
 difficulties occur when an attempt is made to reconcile 
 it with the phenomena of the constitution of the United 
 States of America. Considered as an explanation of the 
 working of the machinery of government in Federal States, 
 the theory breaks down. The error, however, does not lie in 
 declaring that the seat of the legal sovereignty is necessarily 
 a " determinate person or persons," but rather in the corollary 
 that these must always be the same for all classes of acts. 
 The latter propbsition is difficult to reconcile with the doctrine 
 of the division of powers, which is the basis of all the public 
 institutions of America. The object of those who framed the 
 constitution of the United States was precisely to prevent 
 any one set of " determinate persons " from usurping the legal 
 sovereignty. Their desire was to make each organ of govern- 
 ment act as a check on the other, and so produce an 
 exactly balanced whole, in which no part had an absolute 
 supremacy over the rest. They perhaps failed in this effort; 
 
 1 Lectures on Jwisprvdence, Vol. i., p. 227. 
 
 ^E.g. in T. H. Green's Principles of Political Obligation and Professor 
 Sidgwick's Elements of Polities, p. 15 seq. 
 3Cf. A. V. Dicey, Law of the Constitution, pp. 67-70. 
 
136 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 but, at any rate, they seem to have so far disguised the 
 whereabouts of the ultimate "monarch" as effectually to 
 puzzle the analytic genius of Austin. Professor Green's 
 weighty opinion may be here quoted : " In the United States, 
 with a written constitution, it required all Austin's subtilty 
 to detect where sovereignty lay, and he places it where pro- 
 bably no ordinary citizen of the United States had ever thought 
 of it as residing, viz. ' In the States' Governments as forming 
 one aggregate body : meaning by a State's government, not 
 its ordinary legislature, but the body of citizens which appoints 
 its ordinary legislature, and which, the union apart, is properly 
 sovereign therein.' He bases this view on the provisions in the 
 constitution, according to which amendments to it are only 
 valid ' when ratified by the legislature in three-fourths of 
 the several States, or by convention in three-fourths thereof.' 
 But no ordinary citizen of the United States probably ever 
 thought of sovereignty except as residing either in the govern- 
 ment of his State or in the Federal Government consisting 
 of congress and president, or sometimes in one way, some- 
 times in the other."'' 
 
 To find the definite seat of the supreme legal power, at 
 any given moment, in a federal nation like the United 
 States is, indeed, a difficult task ; and it becomes, perhaps, 
 an impossible one when it is maintained that for all the 
 acts and functions of government, and in all times and 
 circumstances, this seat of power is necessarily the same. 
 
 A brief glance at the complicated provisions of the 
 American constitution explains the difficulty of the prob- 
 lem that Austin set himself to solve in looking for one 
 uniform and permanent depositary of the legal sover- 
 eignty. 
 
 The two Houses of Congress share the right to initiate 
 all laws, but the executive head of the nation has rights of 
 veto. The President appoints public officials and makes 
 treaties, but the concurrence of a two-thirds majority of the 
 
 ' T. H. Green's Worlcs, ii., p. 410. The remarks of A. V. Dicey 
 {Jjaw of the Constitution, p. 139) on the seat of the sovereignty in the 
 United States may be profitably compared with the passage here 
 quoted. 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 137 
 
 upper of the two legislative chambers is here required. The 
 President, again, may declare war; but Congress is entitled 
 to refuse the necessary supplies. The legislature is able to 
 enact only such laws as the constitution allows, and the 
 judges are bound to refuse to enforce those that are for- 
 bidden in their opinion by its fundamental principles. 
 Finally, elaborate provisions are framed for the purpose of 
 altering the constitution when necessary. Where, then, 
 within the various organs of the government of the United 
 States, is the sovereignty to be found ? Does it lie with the 
 President, who can command neither money nor legislative 
 support ? Or with Congress, whose laws may be blocked by 
 the President or disallowed by the Federal Courts ? Does it 
 lie with the Federal Courts, which, to some extent, act as 
 umpires between President and Congress, and have power 
 to set aside as "unconstitutional," laws in which the Senate, 
 the House of Eepresentatives and the Executive Government 
 have all warmly concurred ? Lastly, does the legal sovereignty 
 lie with that dead body of rules called the constitution itself, 
 or with the living piece of machinery endowed with the rights 
 of a constituent assembly, to alter this code when necessary ? 
 It is the duty of the expounders of American constitutional 
 law to solve this difficult problem. The present purpose is 
 served, without answering it, by merely showing how difficult 
 it is to find an answer at all. 
 
 Whether the determinate group of persons in whom the 
 legal sovereignty is vested is always the same, or varies 
 with the act in question, three propositions seem beyond the 
 reach of doubt. (1) The legal sovereignty must always 
 exist somewhere within the " government," using that word 
 in its most extended sense. (2) The legal sovereign, whether 
 in the form of a monarchy, or aristocracy, or democracy, 
 while forming the ultimate source of law and government 
 beyond which the lawyer qud lawyer cannot go, must justify 
 its position of supremacy in the eyes of the philosopher by 
 its success in affording a true manifestation of the will of 
 the people, the true political sovereign. (3) This will of 
 the people must never be identified with the blind passions 
 of the mob or the mere- mechanical majority of unenlightened 
 
138 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 voters. Only a rational will acting disinterestedly for the 
 common good can claim the right to appoint the magistrates 
 and national assemblies in whom legal powers are vested, 
 and so to regulate the destinies of the commonwealth. 
 " That which generalizes the will," to quote from Eousseau,"- 
 "is not so much the number of voices as the common 
 interest which unites them." 
 
 ' Contrat Social, ii. iv. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SEAT OF THE LEGAL SOVEREIGNTY IN GEEAT 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 National characteristics vary as do those of individuals. No 
 two nations are alike. The customs and habits by which one 
 people is distinguished from another, result from differences 
 of soil and climate, of race, of past history and traditions, 
 and of a thousand influences sometimes too subtle to admit 
 of exact analysis. It follows that the constitutions and 
 governments of the various groups of men must change 
 with all alterations in the common life of which they form 
 the outward manifestations. Just as the mind and body 
 of the individual act and react on one another — as the 
 developing character and the past deeds of a man write 
 their tale on his face and frame, while in turn the physical 
 changes and sufferings he has undergone sharpen or deaden 
 his mental faculties and readjust their mutual relations — 
 so it is with nations. 
 
 Everything that affects the circumstances of a people — 
 increase of material prosperity, extension of territory, changes 
 of climate, alteration in religious or moral sentiments or in 
 the mode of living — all these ultimately influence in some 
 degree the form of the national institutions — the skeleton 
 of the State. We are thus prepared, on a priori grounds, 
 to find no two constitutions alike. This is simply another 
 way of stating that the national will, or common conscious- 
 ness of a community of rational beings, embodies itself in 
 different forms — that though the political sovereignty is 
 
140 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 always the same, the seat of the legal sovereignty is dis- 
 tinct for each community. Great Britain in particular 
 possesses outstanding characteristics which distinguish it from 
 all others. It would be out of place to attempt here an ex- 
 haustive analysis of the British constitution ; but it is necessary 
 to indicate the seat of the legal sovereignty, since this is the 
 leading feature which stamps the character of the whole. The 
 great first principle of the British constitution is what Professor 
 Dicey calls " the legislative sovereignty of Parliament." ^ It 
 is often more graphically though less accurately termed the 
 Omnipotence of Parliament. The true sovereignty of Great 
 Britain is vested in the legislature, and not in the Queen 
 as the head of the executive. Whatever may be true of the 
 constitution of other nations, in England the legislature has 
 made good its supremacy over the executive. It is Parlia- 
 ment that controls the Cabinet, and not vice versa. The 
 legislative sovereignty of Parliament is the one great truth 
 which cannot be overthrown.^ Parliament is the sole legis- 
 lative organ of the central government. This is not a theory. 
 " Its existence is a legal fact, fully recognized by the law of 
 England." "The sovereignty of Parliament is (from a legal 
 point of view) the dominant characteristic of our political 
 institutions." ^ 
 
 One important explanation (already hinted at) must here 
 be made, and made emphatically. When the word "Parlia- 
 ment" is used synonymously with the legislature as a whole, 
 it invariably means not only the Upper and Lower Houses, 
 but also the Monarch who summons them to deliberate 
 together, who dissolves them when their duties are done, 
 and without whose assent formally expressed no bill ban 
 become a law. The sovereignty of Parliament means then 
 that the Queen in Parliament is supreme in Great Britain, 
 and can alter any part of the law of the land. 
 
 This truth has been insisted on by every theoretical writer 
 since De Lolme, and by every practical lawyer since Black- 
 stone. It is now recognized as the very keystone of the 
 whole fabric. Every opposing principle must give way before 
 
 ' A. V. Dicey, Law of the Constitution, p. 34. 
 2 Ibid., Part i. ^ ibid., p. 37. 
 
LEGAL SOVEREIGNTY IN GREAT BRITAIN 141 
 
 the supremacy of an Act of Parliament. There are no 
 " fundamental laws " it cannot change, no " inalienable " or 
 "guaranteed" rights of individuals it may not invade. The 
 entire constitution — indeed the State itself — and every in- 
 dividual citizen, are legally at the mercy of the enactments 
 of the legislature. There is no privileged class, principle, 
 or power within these islands so exalted, and no place so 
 sacred or so secluded, as to claim or make good exemption 
 from its sway. No other legislative body can compete with 
 the exclusive right of Parliament, and no executive or judicial 
 power can ignore or set aside a law which has once been 
 made. In the well-known words of De Lolme, quoted perhaps 
 by every man who has since written on the powers of 
 Parliament : " It is a fundamental principle with English 
 lawyers that Parhament can do everything but make a woman 
 a man, and a man a woman." 
 
 This is what is meant then by the " omnipotence " of 
 Parliament — not an absolute omnipotence, of course, but per- 
 haps approaching as near to it as any human institution can. 
 The sphere of the State itself has already been seen to be 
 in theory extremely wide, and it now appears that practical 
 lawyers in expounding the actual law of England find that 
 that wide political sovereignty of the State has been embodied 
 in a correspondingly wide legal sovereignty, and conferred 
 unreservedly upon Parliament. 
 
 It seems, then, that a simple and complete answer can be 
 made to the question : In what part of the government of 
 Great Britain does the supreme legal power rest ? It is found 
 in Parliament. This is definite and satisfactory. A little 
 deeper thought, however, shows that this "Parliament" is a 
 complex body, and therefore that the solution of the problem 
 is not so simple in a limited monarchy like England as 
 under a despotism where sovereignty is absolutely vested in 
 one individual. To say that the man who holds a sceptre in 
 his hand and sits on a throne is a supreme monarch, whose 
 will is above all restraints of law, is to end the discussion. 
 Not so when a body like Parliament is found to be the 
 supreme source of law. The former is a single individual; 
 the latter is an extremely complex body. Parliament consists 
 
142 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 of the Queen, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, 
 acting all conjointly and under recognized rules as to the 
 relations that exist among them. The more closely this seat 
 of the ultimate sovereignty is analyzed, the more intricate 
 it becomes. Thus the House of Commons consists of 670 
 members elected by the constituencies, which thus have a 
 share in the composition of an integral part of the supreme 
 power. Immediately before a general election there is no 
 lower Chamber in existence at all. The share of sovereignty 
 to be exercised by the House of Commons after election must 
 therefore immediately before that event be held to be diffused 
 throughout the constituencies, since it can flow only into such 
 individuals as they choose to appoint. The House of Lords 
 is another integral part, and hence arise new complications, 
 for it is made up of princes of the blood royal, of archbishops, 
 dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, bishops, and barons of 
 England, the representative peers of Ireland and Scotland, and 
 certain Lords of Appeal. Here we have, in the first place, 
 the hereditary principle pure and simple, and again modifica- 
 tions of it by the principle of election. In the second place, 
 we have the admission of the dignitaries of the Church ; in 
 the third place, the professional element is represented by 
 the law lords ; while in the fourth place, the right of the 
 Crown to elect new members introduces still another element 
 of complexity. The place held by the Queen in the sovereign 
 legislature is still more difficult to estimate, for Her Majesty's 
 legal rights are in practice hedged round with a whole 
 mass of rules which are not " laws " in the strict sense, but 
 only " conventions of the constitution." Some of these rules 
 practically forbid the monarch ever to reject any bill passed 
 by both Houses ; while others regulate the rights of the 
 Crown in the summoning and dissolving of Parliament, requir- 
 ing that such steps should only be taken on the advice of 
 responsible Ministers. This results in giving the Cabinet 
 Council and the Privy Council an indirect share in the control 
 of the legislature, and therefore of that sovereignty which is 
 embodied in it. Lastly, there exist also other " conventions " 
 or constitutional rules, which require, under certain circum- 
 stances, that the Upper House of Parliament should lay aside 
 
LEGAL SOVEREIGNTY IN GREAT BRITAIN 143 
 
 its own share of legislative rights, and act more or less at 
 the dictation of the House of Commons. Thus all these 
 conventions or rules, which define the relations existing be- 
 tween the various component parts of Parliament, must be 
 considered almost as parts of Parliament, and so included 
 within the sovereign legislature. 
 
 The supreme Parliament, then, may be said to admit within 
 itself, in one way or another, almost every holder of any share, 
 however small, of political power in the realm. It cannot 
 act without collecting these scattered fractions of power 
 together into one focus in their due proportions, and subject 
 to the laws and other rules as to their relative weight and 
 influence. Without these powers being reduced to a unity 
 and acting in harmony, no law can be passed at all. If the 
 chief constituent parts of the legislature (in especial the Upper 
 and the Lower Houses) fail to agree, no Act of Parlia- 
 ment can be passed, and the existing body of laws would 
 thus remain unchanged for ever. In other words, as the 
 sovereign power is composite, an absolute legislative deadlock 
 might in practice ensue, unless a concord of opinion were 
 willingly arrived at or forced upon the various factors. A 
 simple example occurs when either House refuses to pass a 
 bill approved by the other. The peculiarity of our constitution 
 is that positive law makes no provision at all for reconciling 
 the conflicts that may arise within this composite sovereign 
 Parliament. It is unnecessary to show here in detail how 
 the possibility of such a deadlock is practically prevented 
 by the existence of that mysterious body of rules, before 
 alluded to, called "conventions," which share to some extent 
 the binding force of laws, and yet are not laws in the ordinary 
 sense in which the practical lawyer uses the word.^ The 
 first important point to be borne in mind is that, whenever 
 unanimity is arrived at (however this may be effected) nothing 
 can resist the resulting act of joint sovereignty. An enact- 
 ment of Parliament sweeps everything before it. The second 
 important point is that the constitution does provide within 
 itself practical expedients for securing harmony. Within the 
 
 ^ The reader who wishes fuller information on this important subject 
 is referred to the works of Dicey, Anson, Hearn, and Walter Bagehot. 
 
144 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 supreme legislature it is thus necessary to search for a still 
 more intimate supreme principle. There are various ways 
 of explaining this ultimate principle of harmony. It may 
 be said, on the one hand, that the supreme constitutional 
 power lies with a newly-elected House of Commons, or, on 
 the other hand, that the supreme political power lies with 
 the constituencies when an election is pending. 
 
 This is the sphere of the constitutional theorist, and need 
 not detain us here. It is sufficient for the general purposes 
 of this Essay to accept the sovereignty of Parliament as 
 absolute and final in the domain of law without attempting 
 any further analysis. 
 
 The legal supremacy of the Queen, when acting along with 
 a duly constituted Parliament, over every other part of the 
 government, executive or judicial, over every individual and 
 class, and over the State as a whole, is the first axiom which 
 both the theorist and the practical man must learn in treating 
 of the constitution of Great Britain. 
 
 There is no legal means of avoiding the effects of an Act 
 of Parliament except by a subsequent Act. It may be 
 unjust or inexpedient, or both, but it must be lawful, and is 
 indeed the essence of positive law. There is no avenue of 
 escape short of revolution. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE IDEAL STATE AND THE STATE UNIVEESAL. 
 
 An ideal State would be one which had already attained 
 the end of its existence by realizing to the full the common 
 good, in accordance with universal principles of right, and 
 so securing to all its members their highest well-being, and 
 such measure of happiness as is possible for men. To dis- 
 cover all that is involved in this Utopia, and, if possible, the 
 direction in which the world must travel to get there, it is 
 necessary to return to the definition already given of a State, 
 as "a society organized and independent." A perfect State 
 would, on this basis, be a perfect society, perfectly organized 
 and perfectly independent. This implies (a) the perfection 
 of all its members as rational beings possessed of an essentially 
 moral nature, and the perfection of the union between them ; 
 (6) the perfection of all the institutions, laws, and systems of 
 government regarded as the external expression of the moral 
 progress of mankind, and as supplying the material through 
 which the inner morality of the citizens must be realized ; and 
 (c) perfect freedom from all foreign or external interference. 
 
 The last of these conditions in particular demands our 
 close attention. No single nation, considered as one power 
 among others which have equal rights, has ever attained to 
 such independence, or ever can. Thus no State, as that word 
 is most commonly used at present — France or England, for 
 example — can ever become " perfect," if that implies the 
 absence of all foreign control. In some respects, indeed. States 
 are more independent of one another now-a-days than they 
 
146 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 were in the Middle Ages; but in other respects — and these 
 undoubtedly the most important — they are less so. In the 
 future, in all probability, the various nations of the globe 
 will become still more vitally connected with one another. 
 The only hope of a perfectly independent State, then, must 
 be sought in the conception of a world-empire where all are 
 absorbed into one. 
 
 The same conclusion seems to be reached when the prob- 
 lem is approached from the side of the individual. The 
 wider man's sphere becomes, the higher the stage of develop- 
 ment he attains. To shun society is to narrow that sphere, 
 and so to starve or mutilate the mind. No individual can 
 shake off his nature as a social and political being; but he 
 may thwart and contort and stunt it, if he will, by depriv- 
 ing it of nutriment and a fitting environment. Man cannot 
 become his true self or develop the end of his destiny apart 
 from his fellow-men. There has been implanted in him an 
 impulse leading him in the direction of association with 
 others. This instinctive and vague prompting of nature is 
 a guide from heaven not to be lightly thwarted, but to be 
 made conscious and determinate. If the family is the highest 
 form of community which, at a given stage in the history 
 of civilization, has attained to organization and a recognized 
 existence, then the family for that epoch contains the whole 
 life of man. Other and higher interests lie beyond the 
 domestic circle, however, and to take advantage of these and 
 make them part of himself, the individual must grow beyond 
 the family in forming ties with the wider world outside. This 
 greater whole, forming a tribe or village community, gradually 
 takes definite shape as the family had previously done. A 
 fitting organization is evolved to give it a definite and per- 
 manent existence. 
 
 The aims and pursuits of the individual man are now 
 circumscribed by the life of the tribe in place of that of 
 the family. The old domestic life is not left behind, how- 
 ever, but included in a wider whole. Soon the needs of his 
 expanding nature swell beyond what the tribe can supply, 
 and the City-state is founded. With many forward and 
 backward movements the process of evolution sweeps slowly 
 
THE STATE UNIVERSAL 147 
 
 onwards. Highly complex modern States are at last evolved, 
 giving within their confines room for full and varied mani- 
 festations of character and life. The exclusively national 
 State has, for many centuries, marked the extreme limit 
 hitherto attained by individual men in their efforts to make 
 explicit and embody in suitable institutions and laws that 
 solidarity of mankind which is vaguely implied in the rudest 
 consciousness even of savage man. 
 
 To one who has marked that the progress of individual 
 men in science, art, and ethics, has kept pace with the 
 growth in size of the organized community from the tribe 
 to the modern national State, two questions can hardly fail 
 to present themselves. First, is the State as it at present 
 exists the highest unity capable of attaining recognized exist- 
 ence in a permanent political form ? Secondly, is the nature 
 of the individual man fully matured before he becomes 
 in reality "a citizen of the world"? N"o dream of world- 
 empire has yet realized itself, but experience cannot be taken 
 in an unmodified form from a lower stage of evolution and 
 applied to a higher. No new civilization can hope to thrive if 
 it is not built upon the results of those which it is destined 
 to supersede. The higher form of life must include the lower. 
 No "federation of the world" is possible which is not founded 
 on a desire to strengthen rather than to weaken the lower forms 
 of organization. True cosmopolitanism can only be achieved 
 by the man who combines it with true patriotism. The 
 former is too often assumed as a watchword by those who 
 wish to exchange the strict code of conduct and the definite 
 duties they owe to their country for the looser morality and the 
 vaguer obligations of a wider whole. Similarly, any attempt 
 to bind mankind together under one constitution, set of 
 laws, and government, thus realizing a universal State or 
 world-empire, must not seek to proceed by loosening the 
 obligations, and undermining the foundations of the govern- 
 ments that exist in localities and nations. It must proceed 
 gradually by building itself upon the solid foundations of the 
 past. 
 
 This idea of a universal State may never be realized ; but, 
 undoubtedly, it is the ultimate ideal short of which perfec- 
 
148 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 tion cannot be attained. Plato and Aristotle placed the 
 limits of the perfect State at some 4000 inhabitants. The 
 niodern European nations have out-distanced that conception, 
 and the great republic of America has realized on democratic 
 principles a vast extent of empire — such as even a few cen- 
 turies ago would have been held impossible; while the cry 
 for Imperial federation, if far from being realized, seems at 
 last within measurable distance of the sphere of practical 
 politics. 
 
 There are elements of imperfection, however, in every State 
 which does not embrace the whole territories of the world 
 and include all races of mankind. The modern Utopia may 
 long — indeed for ever — remain unrealized, but it cannot afford 
 to stop short of " the Parliament of man, the federation of 
 the world," and even federation ought in time to give way 
 to a closer form of constitutional bond.^ 
 
 There are numerous aspects in which the modern State is 
 dependent upon its neighbours. A few of the most prominent 
 of these may be briefly noticed. 
 
 (1) International law may not possess the full charac- 
 teristics of ordinary law, but so far as it has force at all, 
 its requirements place limits on every nation from without. 
 
 (2) Then brute force may be brought to bear by other 
 powers upon any so-called independent State. Even the 
 fear of war is a form of dependence. 
 
 (3) No State is self-sufficing, but depends for its food 
 supplies, or at least for many articles of daily use in its 
 ordinary life, upon foreign lands and peoples. 
 
 (4) There are many miscellaneous forms of outside 
 influences that practically demonstrate to each State its 
 close connection with its neighbours. Thus the spread of 
 cholera or of any other infectious disease may make one 
 nation suffer for the want of proper sanitary precautions 
 within the confines of another. 
 
 ^ Cf. Bluntschli, Theory of the State, p. 25. " The perfect State is, as 
 it were, the visible body of humanity. . . . Merely national States 
 have only a relative truth." In another part of his first volume (p. 77), 
 he laments that "mankind has not yet found a collective organization 
 in a world-empire.'' 
 
THE STATE UNIVERSAL 149 
 
 (5) New ideas, systems of philosophy or spiritual forces, 
 having their seat in one country, may benefit or hurt all 
 the peoples of the world. England was for centuries sub- 
 ject, in many ways, to the influence of Eome, while 
 the effects of Luther's opinions and course of policy in 
 Grermany shook many of the constitutions of other European 
 powers to their foundations. 
 
 (6) The binding force of international thotoI obligations 
 is being more and more clearly recognized. The ethical 
 isolation of each State from its neighbours, so prominent a 
 feature of all ancient civilizations, whether Jewish, or Grecian, 
 or Asiatic, has been replaced by the recognition of the 
 solidarity of all branches of humanity. The moral sense of 
 one nation is brought directly to bear upon foreign States. 
 On this subject no writer has expressed himself with more 
 point than Sheldon Amos.^ "The difference lately brought 
 about is that, owing to the closer approximation in thought, 
 speech, habits of life, and, above all, in forms of government, 
 of the populations of different States, cojapled with the 
 increased influence of these populations on their several 
 governments, the relations of States to each other are found 
 to be much more numerous and important than was at any 
 previous time imagined. It is disclosed that not only are the 
 large sections of humanity, personated by the different States, 
 morally bound to concern themselves actively in each other's 
 welfare and progress, but that, economically, the advance of 
 each is the advance of all; and, politically, disorder or retro- 
 gression, existing anywhere, tends to diffuse itself everywhere. 
 It is being found less and less possible for a State, however 
 signal its geographical advantages in separation from its 
 neighbours, to venture to ask whether it is its brother's 
 keeper. . . . Thus the notion of the independence of a 
 State no longer means exemption from moral responsibility 
 to other States any more than it has meant, since the days 
 of G-rotius, the exemption from legal responsibility. The 
 conception of moral relationship of a distinct and positive 
 kind, reaching far beyond the rights and duties alone recog- 
 nized by international law, has been much fortified of late 
 
 ■ Soience of Politics, p. 348. 
 
150 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 years — and will probably be still more so in the future — by the 
 inducements to commercial .and industrial co-operation which 
 increasingly prevail." 
 
 For many reasons, therefore, no State can reach perfect 
 independence until all are joined in one. Before the goal 
 of humanity is attained all nations must unite in the bonds 
 of love. Hitherto, the force inspiring alliances has rather 
 been hate than charity — common enmity to a common foe. 
 
 Many schools of philosophy declare this conception of 
 a World-state owning obedience to one government and 
 substituting the decision of the law courts for the horrors 
 of war to be an impossible ideal ; and, indeed, it seems 
 one not likely soon to be realized. Still, no ideal is 
 impossible merely because it is extremely difficult to attain. 
 Bluntschli^ brings forward several arguments in opposition 
 to the views of Vinet, Laurent, and others who deny the 
 possibility of a universal State ; but the chief argument he 
 omits to give. It is simply this, that such a State actually 
 exists already, though in an imperfect and unsatisfactory 
 form. A State is a society of human beings 'plus a political 
 organization including common institutions, constitution, laws, 
 and government. Now, the world considered as a whole 
 has not yet any one of these four elements of organization 
 fully developed, but it has the germs of each. Let us take 
 them in succession. It is the province of jurisprudence to 
 determine the exact nature of international law. This body of 
 rules and maxims has partly grown up as a generalization 
 made by theorists, from the observed practice of nations in 
 their mutual relations of peace and war, and is partly the 
 result of conferences and treaties between the Great Powers, 
 and embraces likewise the decisions of arbiters or of the 
 national courts of individual States. Many people are in- 
 clined to deny the name of law to this code observed by 
 the comity of nations, alleging various reasons, but in 
 especial, that it does not possess a binding force. Indeed, 
 the chief defect in its title to rank as law seems to lie in 
 the want of an adequate and constitutional sanction to en- 
 force its decrees. The vagueness of many of its provisions, 
 ^ Thewy of the State, p. 32. 
 
THE STATE UNIVERSAL 151 
 
 and the refusal of certain nations over which it professes 
 to hold sway to admit its decisions, are also among its short- 
 comings. There is no doubt that these defects are sufficient 
 to differentiate international law from the positive law which 
 prevails within the confines of any highly developed and 
 properly organized State; but the difficulty disappears in 
 great part when we apply the idea of evolution to the 
 history of law. The difference is then seen to be one 
 rather of degree than of kind, marking merely a stage in 
 development, not an insuperable barrier to advance. Inter- 
 national law has not reached maturity, and therefore cannot 
 claim the full dignity of the title ; but it is fast developing 
 towards it. Further, we can see that the stage it has 
 already reached is part of the life-progress of all law — 
 whether municipal or constitutional. Ail early law was 
 defective in those very respects that mark the shortcomings 
 of the international law of to-day. Among primitive peoples 
 we find want of precision in the details of law, a tendency 
 to deny its authority, and, above all, the absence of a proper 
 sanction to enforce it. It is only as a nation becomes 
 organized that swift retribution follows on the breach of 
 law. The condition of English constitutional law, amid the 
 feudal anarchy of the reign of Eufus or the reign of Stephen, 
 is no bad analogy of the condition of international law to-day. 
 The rules protecting the rights of individuals and regulating 
 the powers of government possessed few of the characteristics 
 of proper law as we now understand that term, but yet 
 contained the germs from which the constitution of to-day 
 has grown. Most of the objections that are urged against 
 the provisions of the treaty of Paris, or of Berlin being 
 ranked as laws, might with equal justice have been used 
 against the articles of Magna Carta. So far as these stipula- 
 tions were meant to bind the king they could only be en- 
 forced by armed resistance — by what has been called " a 
 limited right of rebellion " ; just as the sanction of inter- 
 national laws depends to-day upon the right to declare war 
 where they are infringed. Even in the Great Britain of the 
 nineteenth century' we cannot say that law has obtained a 
 complete triumph until it is impossible that any law should 
 
152 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 ever be broken, or at least that such breach should ever go 
 unpunished. Now, England many centuries ago obtained a 
 proper government and constitution for the guaranteeing 
 and enforcing of her law within her own territories ; while 
 the rules of international law have still to seek such an 
 organization, without which they can never be complete. 
 International law can never attain maturity apart from the 
 realization of its necessary complements, an international 
 government, international institutions, and a body of rules 
 for their regulation, forming an international constitution, and 
 defining the legal seat of the international sovereignty. 
 
 The rudiments of such a government already exist. Thus 
 when two powers appoint arbitrators to decide a disputed 
 point, the tribunal thus constituted performs in a sense the 
 judicial functions of an international government. Unfortu- 
 nately, however, it forms tnerely the rudiments of a court 
 of law, and that for the following among other reasons : 
 (1) The tribunal does not sit permanently. (2) It has 
 jurisdiction only where and so far as both parties are agreed. 
 The plaintiff State cannot force an unwilling defendant to 
 appear in court. Its jurisdiction depends on contract. (3) 
 It has no executive arm at its back to enforce its decrees 
 if the unsuccessful party should repudiate them. 
 
 With all their defects, however, such courts of arbitration 
 form the germs of an international judicatory. The rudiments of 
 a central legislative body again are met with in such meetings 
 of Plenipotentiaries as those that led to the treaties of Paris 
 or Berlin ; and the provisions of these treaties bear a close 
 analogy to statutes effecting a change in existing customary 
 law. This legislative chamber for the world (or for Europe 
 at all events) has not only no fixed times of meeting, but 
 no recognized rules exist to determine the method of 'its 
 summons, its composition, and procedure. Lastly, the only 
 rudiments of an international executive lie in the armies and 
 navies of the separate nations which own, of course, no 
 directing voice of the assembled powers as a whole. Each 
 military agency is at the disposal only of its own home, 
 government. Brute force has been shown to be an essential 
 factor in all executive functions, and therefore in all govern- 
 
THE STATE UNIVERSAL 153 
 
 ments ; but if anarchy is to be successfully opposed, this 
 brute force must obey the voice of the central authority. 
 Indeed, government within a State comes to mean that when- 
 ever an appeal to force is necessary, the coercion of the 
 whole must prevail over the coercion of the part. 
 
 Here, then, it is possible to lay a finger on the very 
 essence of the difference between the loose ties that bind 
 together independent States, and the close ties that subject 
 the citizens of one nation to its common will. There is no 
 central authority in international politics authorized to direct 
 the ultimate application of brute force. Before the nations 
 of Europe or of the world can form one organized whole, 
 the first essential is a central executive government. The 
 first step towards the making of a united English nation 
 was taken when William the Conqueror established an 
 almost despotic central government, able by sheer force to 
 curb the anarchy of the barons' misrule, and the chaotic 
 powers of feudalism. The shortest road to the organization 
 of humanity into one universal State would seem to demand 
 a world-conqueror whose iron rule would crush out all 
 absolute dualisms and all rebellions against his sovereign 
 power. It may be that the dream of a universal empire 
 under some new Caesar Augustus or Napoleon must be 
 realized before the nations are welded into one, and that a 
 universal despotism of one man is a necessary precursor of 
 the ideal democratic State whose citizens number all races, 
 colours, and classes of humanity. 
 
 The process of the growth of a World-state may, however, 
 take quite a different direction. Everything leads us to 
 suppose, indeed, that if an organized polity for the whole 
 earth is ever accomplished, men must look for a precedent to 
 the consolidation of the States of America into a united 
 nation, though starting as a loose confederation or aggregate of 
 almost isolated powers. Whatever the process, no material 
 progress can be made without the establishment of a central 
 government with a common executive organ, which will take 
 its directions from a deliberative or legislative sovereign, ready 
 to use its powers in a recognized and legal way. The place 
 filled by physical force in the universe must never be ignored. 
 
154 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and every law or government or constitution will be a sham 
 unless it has behind it or within it a supply of actual coercive 
 power to enable it successfully to contend with the un- 
 systematized forces opposing it. 
 
 The necessity of actual force must never be forgotten in 
 any scheme of world-organization. But this involves no 
 stigma ; it merely means the triumph of a systematic, orderly, 
 and legitimate coercion over the unruly, tyrannic, and anarchic 
 one which would otherwise prevail. 
 
 Coercion is necessary to keep effectively together any 
 State or federation already formed; and it may be both 
 expedient and just to compel outside powers to join the 
 confederacy. As within the territory of Britain it is at 
 present considered the duty of the government to compel 
 every body of evil-doers to join the community of law-abiding 
 citizens, or to punish them if they refuse, so it would be 
 the duty of an international federation to compel the obedience 
 of any barbarous nation which defied the provisions of inter- 
 national law, or of the common code of humanity embodied in 
 the admitted private law of all civilized States. 
 
 The great powers of Europe do not yet form a federation in 
 name, but they all own adherence to the same general rules 
 of international law, and to the same elementary code of 
 morality. It is their duty to compel such nations as Turkey 
 to join them in adhering to the laws, of humanity and of 
 international usage, and to punish them if they refuse. Turkey 
 ought to be coerced to join the federation of mankind, or 
 to be swept out of existence as a State. 
 
 To those, then, who maintain that it is impossible that 
 all the races of humanity should be joined into one empire, 
 under one government and constitution, we may answer that 
 this has been already done, but that the cohesion of the 
 parts is still imperfect because of the imperfection of the 
 machinery that connects them. The World-state is there 
 already, but it is just emerging from a condition of anarchy, 
 and struggling slowly and painfully towards a more highly 
 developed life. It lacks proper organization. 
 
 There is no absolute bar to the realization of this dream 
 in the fact that the various nations of the world are at 
 
THE STATE UNIVERSAL 155 
 
 different stages of civilization, though this undoubtedly is a 
 great and serious difficulty, which may retard its consumma- 
 tion for many ages. Yet, in the first place, all nations seem 
 progressing towards the same ideal, and in time the more back- 
 ward may make up to some extent on the more advanced. In 
 the second place, the increase of facilities for travel and the 
 growth of international commerce help to diffuse ideas more 
 equally over the globe. Lastly, in a World-state, it does not 
 seem necessary that all nations and races (at first, at least) 
 should stand upon a level. The more backward may be 
 coerced by the more civilized for the common good. Coercion, 
 of course, in which the conquered cannot ultimately be brought 
 willingly to acquiesce, must never be a final ideal, only a 
 necessary preliminary that will lead to better things. 
 
 The ultimate ideal union must be a very close one — must 
 be, in fact, organic in its nature. The "federation of the 
 world," or the federation of civilized nations, and the subjuga- 
 tion of barbarous ones, would thus be only a beginning. A 
 perfect union would involve a constitution which gradually 
 bound the originally separate States more and more together 
 until they became one nation, one commonwealth, one State.''^ 
 
 It is impossible to forecast the exact way in which this 
 organized commonwealth of mankind will be brought to pass, 
 or even to prophesy that it will ever be a reality. It 
 seems, however, quite within the province of the political 
 theorist to maintain that there are no insuperable difficulties 
 which render it impossible. 
 
 This world-empire of love cannot become perfect until 
 every part is perfect too. Every division must be, both in 
 
 1 Cf . Kant's Principles of Politics (Hastie's translation), p. 24, where he 
 declares that the States of our Continent " are beginning to arrange for 
 a great future political body, such as the world has never yet seen. 
 Although this political body may as yet exist only in a rough outline, 
 nevertheless a feeling begins, as it were, to stir in all its members, each 
 of which has a common interest in the maintenance of the whole. And 
 this may well inspire the hope that after many political revolutions and 
 transformations, the highest purpose of Nature will be at last realized in 
 the establishment of a universal Cosmopolitical Institution, in the bosom 
 of which all the original capacities and endowments of the human species 
 will be unfolded and developed." 
 
156 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 legal constitution and in its heart and life, in touch with 
 every other, and each individual must have his political rights 
 assigned to him in the constitution of the whole, and must 
 freely share in the common interests and life. Thus the ideal 
 would involve a perfect adjustment of that nice balance 
 between individual freedom and the sovereignty of the whole, 
 which is the essence of the organic conception as applied to any 
 State. The life of the part and the life of the whole would re- 
 quire to pass into one another, and so find their fullest and most 
 perfect realization in this organized community of humanity. 
 
PAET II. 
 
 THE PROVINCE OF LAW AND GOVERNMENT. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE PEOBLEM OF THE PEOVINCE OF GOVEENMENT. 
 
 Political speculation of former centuries centred round 
 the problem of the ideal form of constitution, to the neglect 
 of the equally important inquiry as to the limits that 
 should be placed to government interference. Plato and 
 Aristotle laid the foundations of the science which attempts 
 the study of constitutions in comparison with one another. 
 It is only within the present century, on the contrary, that 
 serious attempts have been made towards a systematic solu- 
 tion of the other great question of political science : What 
 is the proper sphere of the government's activity ? Indeed, 
 until comparatively recent years, no one seems to have been 
 conscious of the difficulty which the inquiry involves. 
 Particular governments went on doing whatever happened 
 to lie to their hand, without stopping to ask whether they 
 were going beyond their legitimate province. Not only did 
 the question of the best form of constitution divert all 
 attention from that of the proper work of government, but 
 it is on the answers given to the former that every acknow- 
 ledged system of party politics has been based. It is the 
 only ground for the division of politicians into two great 
 opposing camps of Liberals and Conservatives. It has thus 
 made possible in Great Britain that " standing wonder " of 
 the English Constitution, described by Walter Bagehot ^ as 
 " government by a puhlic meeting — by a club " — for so he 
 characterizes the predominance of the House of Commons 
 1 The English Constitution, p. 139. 
 
160 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 within the sovereignty of Parliament. There is only one 
 way in which such a government can work at all, and that 
 is by having the cumbrous assembly of 670 individuals 
 organized on party lines. 
 
 Hitherto in the history of party government the principle 
 of classification has always been mainly the form of the 
 constitution — whether the present institutions should be 
 maintained intact, or, if not, what extent of change should 
 be effected upon them, and in what direction. This is the 
 basis of the separation between Petitioners and Abhorrers, 
 between Whigs and Tories, between Conservatives and Eadi- 
 cals, and even between Unionists and Home Eulers. 
 
 With the advent of practical democracy, however (in the 
 sense that the influence of the people as a whole is now 
 the chief factor in moulding the nation's destinies, whatever 
 be the nominal form of government), the line of demarcation 
 between party and party is less clearly defined than formerly ; 
 and there are those who prognosticate that the old basis 
 of division is almost played out and a new one needed to 
 take its place. 
 
 Now, behind the question of what is the best form of 
 constitution lies the problem of determining the proper sphere 
 of the work of government. The latter inquiry indeed lies 
 deeper than the former, and ought in strict logical sequence 
 to be answered first. It is becoming clear to many minds 
 that it is necessary to determine what the government ought 
 to perform before deciding what shape it should assume in 
 order to perform it. 
 
 It is possible and even probable, then, that the line of 
 cleavage in party politics in the future will be determined 
 by the answers which men give to the question : " What 
 ought the State to do ? " According as they hold that 
 more ought to be done or less than at present, politicians 
 may come to range themselves into two great classes 
 adopting the watchwords of Socialism and Individualism 
 respectively, using these words in their broadest meanings. 
 Here, then, is a new possible line on which distinctions of 
 party in the future may be based. The politicians of the 
 past have confined their conscious exertions to moulding the 
 
THE PROVINCE OF GOVERNMENT 161 
 
 structure, of the government. Those of the future will look 
 more to its province or sphere of action. 
 
 Without prophesying for the future, however, it becomes 
 increasingly apparent in the present century that, underlying 
 the division of Liberal and Conservative, or of Home Euler 
 and Unionist, another principle of classification is showing 
 itself. In addition to openly avowed Socialists holding opin- 
 ions more or less extreme, there are many statesmen of even 
 cabinet rank in both camps whose policy involves principles 
 essentially socialistic, if carried out to their legitimate logical 
 conclusions, though many of them would indignantly repu- 
 diate the name. This fact has been insisted on by Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer with his accustomed vigour — not to say 
 violence — in his well-known Essays on The New Toryism, 
 and The Coming Slavery} He assumes rather than proves 
 the principle that increased interference by the State means 
 necessarily a proportionate decrease in the liberty of the 
 individual; and then goes on to show that Liberals of the 
 new school, in joining with Tories to extend the province 
 of government interference, are pushing the nation head- 
 long towards a system of State Socialism, which is for him 
 synonymous with slavery. " The coming slavery " is thus 
 Socialism; while "the new Toryism" denounced, by Mr. Spencer 
 is simply the supposed anti-individualistic tendency of the 
 modern school of Liberals. Thus the foes as well as the 
 friends of Socialism recognize the important place its doctrines 
 hold in present politics, and the likelihood that this will 
 increase in the future. A clear idea of the issues at stake 
 is as yet confined to theorists ; but the opposition between 
 practical politicians exists although not yet clearly defined. 
 
 One party holds consciously or unconsciously that the 
 State ought through its government directly to interfere in 
 the affairs of its subjects, with the view of ameliorating the 
 material lot, and advancing the spiritual interests of the 
 people. It is urged, for example, that the government should 
 undertake the management of the railways, and go further 
 in the direction of providing free education, literature, and 
 art, along with increased material comfort in the form of 
 
 ^Vide The Man versus the State. 
 L 
 
162 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 poor-law relief or compulsory insurance. Others hold that the 
 subjects, in their private capacity, are the best judges of what 
 they want, and best able to obtain it when least troubled by 
 the meddlesome legislation of a government whose sole duty 
 ought to be the protection of society from crime and from 
 foreign interference. 
 
 On every hand evidence is forthcoming that, both in the 
 world of speculation and in that of practical politics, the 
 question of the limits of government interference is pushing 
 rapidly to the front. 
 
 "Now for the first time," says Sheldon Amos,^ "govern- 
 ment is put upon its trial, and required to justify its 
 retention of a hold upon any part of human activity — and 
 to justify it on exactly such grounds as would supply a logical 
 test of the justice of any other usurpation on human liberty." 
 
 Two strong currents of feeling are running in opposite 
 directions; and their frequent collisions seem to call for a 
 systematic attempt to find some principle by which they 
 may be reconciled, or at least some criterion in the light of 
 which they may be judged. On the one hand is the tendency 
 to question the right of the State to interfere with vested 
 interests or individual rights or inclinations. On the other 
 is the tendency of every distressed class or industry to cry, 
 not " Can you help us ? " or " Ought you to help us ? " but 
 " What help are you bringing us ? " — assuming that govern- 
 ment must and will do something. "The extension of 
 State-action," says Mr. Goschen,^ "to new and vast fields 
 of business is not the most striking feature. What is of 
 far deeper import is its growing interference with the relations 
 between classes, its increased control over vast categories of 
 transactions between individuals, and the substitution in 
 many of the dealings of trade and manufacture, of the 
 aggregate conscience and moral sense of the nation for the 
 conscience and moral sense of men as units. The parent 
 in dealing with his child, the employer in dealing with his 
 workmen, the shipbuilder in the construction of his ships, 
 the shipowner in the treatment of his sailors, the houseowner 
 
 1 Science of Politics, p. 380. 
 
 ^ Address on Laissez faire and State Interference. 
 
THE PROVINCE OF GOVERNMENT 163 
 
 in the management of his house property, the landowner in 
 his contracts with his tenants, have been notified by public 
 opinion or by actual law that the time has gone by 
 when the cry of Zaissez-nous /aire would be answered in the 
 affirmative." 
 
 Each of these comparatively new departures in the inter- 
 vention of government thus indicated by Mr. Goschen is 
 subjected to the closest scrutiny and criticism. Some urge 
 that it has gone too far. Others that it has not gone 
 nearly far enough. Most agree, however, that the line 
 should be drawn somewhere; and the difficult problem for 
 all such is to show where. 
 
 Thus John Stuart Mill'^ thought that the great problem 
 was to discover exactly where to place the boundary " between 
 individual independence and social control." This is sub- 
 stantially the same ground which Wilhelm von Humboldt 
 had previously taken up in his great work on the sphere 
 of government, in which the problem is viewed as one 
 of balancing security against freedom, like two forces that 
 tend to act in opposite directions. 
 
 The answer to this question as to the proper province of 
 government must obviously depend to some extent upon the 
 view taken of the nature of the State. If the latter, for 
 example, is held to have no connection whatever with the 
 morality of its subjects, the government could not consistently 
 claim to act with the object of regulating their ethical 
 relations to one another. The converse, however, does not 
 necessarily hold ; for the State may include much within 
 its own sphere which it does not deem expedient or just 
 to confide to the care of government. The sphere of the 
 State is fixed and unchangeable ; but the province of 
 government is alterable, and may be changed as expediency 
 requires, and that even in an arbitrary or capricious fashion. 
 It is for the State itself, by its sovereign legislature, to 
 map out the respective provinces of its various institutions. 
 It is quite possible — and indeed probable — that what is a 
 proper subject of interference in one nation or race is im- 
 proper in another, and even that what is suited for any 
 '^ Essay on lAherty, p. 18. 
 
164 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 community at one stage of its development may be unsuit- 
 able for the same community at another. The determination 
 of the province of government, then, is eminently a practical 
 matter, and is usually settled on grounds of expediency. 
 
 Modern theories of both sorts — those which would restrict 
 the limits of government action and those which would 
 extend them — usually spring from the purest motives. The 
 most obstinate optimist cannot shut his eyes to the exist- 
 ence of evils which are at least relatively and temporarily 
 real, even if capable of absorption in an ultimate and 
 eternal good. Suffering and discomfort, unhappiness and 
 want, are seen on every hand. Some of these are undoubt- 
 edly inseparable from the imperfections of human nature as 
 it exists in its present fallen or undeveloped phase. Yet 
 conscious action of individuals may do much to increase or 
 lessen particular evils. If such action cannot be proved to 
 alter their sum materially, it does often move part of the 
 burden from one shoulder to another. The government, 
 acting in the name and with the united power of the whole 
 community, has a hundredfold more ability to grapple 
 with such evils than the simple citizen ever can have. 
 It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the conduct of 
 governments, whether in acting or in letting alone, is largely 
 responsible for the existence, or at any rate, the distribution, 
 of most of the suffering that exists in the world. If this 
 is so, the great problem of the statesman ought to be to 
 frame rules of action, by adherence to which the government 
 may be enabled to do the utmost that is possible to alleviate 
 existing evils ; or, at lowest (if State-action is found in the 
 last analysis to be not a source of direct good, but merely 
 a necessary evil), to do the least possible amount of harm. 
 
 It is thus a genuine desire to benefit humanity which 
 leads most men consciously to enter upon this discussion. 
 They ask, What attitude must the government adopt towards 
 the suffering and sorrow, the distress and poverty that every- 
 where abound ? Many different answers are given to this 
 question; but all of them may be reduced under five heads. 
 
 (1) The first answer is that government, in the discharge of 
 both its legislative -and its administrative duties, ought simply 
 
THE PROVINCE OF GOVERNMENT 165 
 
 to go on as it is doing at present. Evils should be dealt with 
 piecemeal as they arise. In this view all systems are misleading. 
 The only guide is common-sense. There is no use of making 
 generalizations at all, for each evil has its own special causes, 
 and must be considered by itself. Government is working 
 well enough on the whole on its present basis. It cannot 
 cure everything, and does its best when any social distress 
 becomes unbearable. This is the attitude of the " practical 
 politician," who is nothing more than practical. He waits 
 till evils show themselves and then tinkers them one by 
 one as they arise. This attitude has its dangers, however, 
 apart altogether from its want of a scientific basis. To 
 wait till the various troubles raise themselves to the surface, 
 and then give them just sufficient treatment to cause them 
 to hide themselves in their ordinary lurking-places again, is 
 both heartless and absurd. It is the policy of a superficial 
 doctor who attacks the symptoms instead of the root of the 
 disease ; and is more likely to throw the illness inwards to 
 a vital part than to effect a cure. The " practical politician " — 
 that object of Mr. Spencer's scorn — is apt to alter the seat 
 of a social evil rather than to root it out. He is apt to 
 cause ten new evils to come into existence, each worse than 
 the one he sought to cure. His theory, or rather lack of a 
 theory, may be called the opportunist solution of the problem. 
 (2) The second answer to the question is that of the 
 Socialist — let the government step in boldly and undertake 
 far more than it does at present — let it, in fact (say extreme 
 votaries of this doctrine), regulate everything. The evils com- 
 plained of are due in great measure to the free play of the 
 unrestrained evil passions of individuals. Government ought, 
 by force, if necessary, to hold these in check, and it 
 would then become a kind of terrestrial Providence, 
 whose duty would be to remedy every ill that flesh is heir 
 to. It would in particular supersede the evils of com- 
 petition and the unequal distribution of wealth, by regulating 
 all trade and industry by a central system of control. It 
 would own all land, railways, machinery, and, in short, aU 
 property of every kind — leaving only the rights of use to the 
 private citizen. 
 
166 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (3) A third opinion is the direct opposite of this. Exist- 
 ing evils which are by their nature remedial, so far from 
 being curable by government intervention, are directly caused 
 by it. Government has no business to meddle with things 
 outside its proper province, and that is at best a very 
 narrow one. In whatever direction the State carries its 
 well-meant but fussy interference with private interests, it 
 does harm. So far from seeking to extend its province, its 
 only wise policy is to recede as quickly as possible from 
 the abnormal functions it has already undertaken, and so 
 allow nature and the free play of individual interests to 
 restore a healthy tone to the community disordered by the 
 intrusion of artificial restraints. Few advocates of this doctrine 
 have the courage to carry it to an extreme equal to that of the 
 Socialists on the opposite side. Few of them hold — as, to be 
 consistent, they ought to hold — that government should never 
 interfere by force at all ; for this would be practically to 
 reject government altogether. Many of them think that it 
 should do nothing further than what is, in their opinion, 
 absolutely necessary for the preservation of an organized 
 society in which men's rights are safe from violent invasion. 
 This is the individualistic solution. 
 
 (4) The fourth view tries to distinguish between the pro- 
 vinces of the individual and of the State. The latter lies 
 (as it were) round the centre of the circle, while each social 
 atom has his individual sphere somewhere near the circum- 
 ference. Thus the respective fields of State-action and of 
 individual-action are mutually exclusive. To say that any- 
 thing is a matter for the individual to decide, is (in this 
 view) equivalent to saying that the government has no right 
 or (at any rate) no business to interfere. A hard and fast 
 boundary line exists somewhere, and the problem is to dis- 
 cover it. Government may therefore sin either by excess or 
 by defect. It approaches perfection according as it correctly 
 estimates the whereabouts of this boundary and acts accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 When men attempt to draw this line even in theory, how- 
 ever, a thousand disagreements spring up. No two authors 
 of any note agree as to its exact position. The practical 
 
THE PROVINCE OF GOVERNMENT 167 
 
 difficulty is even greater than the theoretical one. This 
 doctrine of compromise acquires more importance from the 
 fact that it is adopted in practice by almost all of those 
 who are professed Individualists in theory. Few of them 
 are ready to abolish government interference altogether, 
 however they may narrow it down. They usually allow 
 some small province in which it is both right and expedient 
 that the wiU of the State should overrule that of the 
 particular citizen. Mill would fix the limit at "self- 
 protection," and Mr. Spencer at "negative as opposed to 
 positive coercion." Each of these so-called Individualists 
 makes some concession to socialistic tendencies, and so falls 
 short of absolute Individualism pure and simple. Each 
 attempts to draw his line somewhere, so as to bind up 
 government's right of action within a limited circle. All 
 practical Individualists have thus something in common with 
 this fourth school, which may be called the school of com- 
 promise. Unfortunately, however, no such line exists by 
 nature. It is artificial and arbitrary in every case; and 
 this is proved alike by the logical impossibility of any such 
 absolute dualism existing in nature, and by the practical 
 failure of any two theorists to agree as to its actual where- 
 abouts. 
 
 (5) There is yet another solution which rejects aU these views 
 equally. It may be held that, while extreme Socialism and 
 extreme Individualism are equally impossible in practice and 
 unsound in theory, because each ignores the essential factor 
 in human nature exaggerated by the other, all compromise 
 between them is also impossible and unsound, in starting from 
 a false antithesis between the individual and the State. A 
 fifth theory, then, asserts that no province can be found 
 which is absolutely that of the State, in the sense of excluding 
 individual action, while equally there is no province of the 
 isolated subject which absolutely excludes the government. 
 The individual finds his sphere to be no narrower than the 
 State itself, while the sphere of the government may be 
 logically extended to embrace all the interests and actions 
 of every man and woman. This is the theory of organic 
 unity, which holds it absurd to draw a line between two 
 
168 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 things whose essential nature lies in their connection with 
 each other. 
 
 This may seem merely a theoretical answer to the problem, 
 but it prepares the way for the only solution that will work 
 in practice. No absolute barrier of any kind can be set up 
 anywhere to the action of the government, which has both 
 a right and a duty to do everything the State entrusts 
 it with ; and the State must insist on government under- 
 taking everything which will further its ultimate end, or any 
 of its more immediate aims legitimate in themselves and con- 
 sistent with the final goal. The actual province of any 
 government, then, is just whatever is entrusted to it by the 
 sovereign legislature as the source of positive law. The ideal 
 province is that which is best fitted to fulfil the final destiny 
 (or, what is the same thing, to realize the highest welfare) 
 of the nation as a branch of the family of mankind. Its 
 limits may thus shift from time to time, and from country 
 to country. No absolute boundaries or rules can be laid 
 down a ■priori. Granted the final goal of humanity and end 
 of the State, the province of government must be mapped 
 out on the ordinary lines of justice and expediency. It must 
 advance or retire with the changing requirements of circum- 
 stances and affairs. The justification of interference is in 
 each case a matter of degree. The government ought to 
 interfere in any place to which the sovereignty of the State 
 extends, if the good it thus effects outweighs on the whole 
 the evil. But in estimating such evil and good, reference 
 must be made to remote contingencies, as well as near ones — 
 a broad statesmanlike view must be taken, founded on a 
 wide experience of affairs and on the principles of human 
 nature as laid down by the most advanced science of the day. 
 
 This fifth solution of the problem, which is here taken to 
 be the only sound one, differs from all the others. It differs 
 from the first in condemning the policy of mere drifting with 
 the current, without formulating principles of guidance and 
 without listening to the voice of stjience. It condemns the 
 treatment of each case as an isolated problem, and the 
 see-saw inconsistent policy that results — one thing straggling 
 in one direction, while its fellow drifts in the other. Every 
 
THE PROVINCE OF GOVERNMENT 169 
 
 act of policy must be ultimately judged by the final end of 
 the State itself, and by those approved minor ends which 
 political science has declared to be for the time consistent 
 with and conducive to that higher goal. Thus a principle 
 of order is introduced. 
 
 It differs also from the socialistic plan. For, though it 
 concedes that the government vtiay be lawfully and justly en- 
 dowed with powers to do everything, it admits no absolute 
 presumption in favour of community of property or of 
 government interference as opposed to private initiative. 
 
 It dififers from Individualism in refusing to admit the truth 
 of any philosophy which would find man's highest good apart 
 from his fellow-men, and because it refuses to admit any 
 absolute limits to the action of the central authority acting 
 for the good of the whole. 
 
 It differs from those who would effect a compromise between 
 the last two theories, because it cannot admit any distinct 
 province of the man apart from the State. It does not 
 look on the government and the subject as two unconnected 
 principles' which approach each other from opposite sides, 
 and it does not try to allocate the sum of human interests 
 between them, settling by a contract or compromise that every- 
 thing on this side of an imaginary line goes to the one 
 party and everything on that side to the other. 
 
 It vindicates the claims of science over the haphazard 
 policy and caprice of opportunist politicians ; the claims of 
 individual liberty against the cramping bondage of a State- 
 regulated Socialism; the claims of the sovereignty of the 
 community against the pretentions to an absolute independence 
 of any class or person within it; the claims of the final 
 goal of humanity to prevail over every more restricted good ; 
 the claims of the subject to share the full free life of the 
 commonwealth ; and the claims of practical expediency not 
 to be set aside by any " doctrinaire " theory made up of hard 
 and fast rules, which it cannot bend to its own wUl. 
 
 Dangers attend all extreme theories, and without some 
 knowledge of their nature and some rule of guidance it is 
 impossible to steer a clear course in their midst. Sheldon 
 Amos well expresses the evils on either hand : " The advocate 
 
170 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 of over-government only succeeds in his ends by sacrificing 
 personal freedom, by weakening private and public energy, 
 and by substituting machinery for life. The advocate of 
 doctrines which would restrict government to the mere 
 functions of defending property and order, must account it 
 a success when the convenience, the health, the morality, and 
 the prosperity of the innumerable weak and poor are placed 
 under the irresponsible control of the limited number of 
 strong and rich."^ 
 
 According as men lean to one side or the other they may 
 be classed as Socialists or Individualists, and their respective 
 solutions of our problem call for detailed examination. 
 
 ^Science of Politics, p. 125. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION. 
 
 The word Socialism covers almost as many systems of 
 thought as the word philosophy itself. There are theorists 
 of a hundred different shades of opinion, and politicians he- 
 longing to every party and country, who yet agree in heing 
 proud to call themselves SociaHsts. Further, there are men 
 of all complexions, from Eadicals to Tory Eeactionaries, who 
 would equally unite in an indignant repudiation of any con- 
 nection with Socialism, while all the time their whole practical 
 influence as voters and as legislators, or even as Cabinet 
 Ministers, is unconsciously exerted towards giving an impetus 
 to the existing tendencies that make for Collectivism. Thus 
 Socialists differ among themselves widely in kind, as well as 
 infinitely in degree. There are thorough-going Communists 
 who consciously hold the principles of the sect, and would 
 boldly and consistently apply them to every phase of human 
 life. Others own the name with equal pride, but would 
 put limitations more or less wide on the range of topics to 
 which it may safely be applied. Others, again, are only 
 unconsciously Socialists, stumbling, as it were, blindly in its 
 direction in their efforts to remove specific economic or 
 political evils, or in trying generally to advance mankind. 
 In practice and theory, then. Socialism assumes a thousand 
 forms. 
 
 From this very wealth of material comes the chief diffi- 
 culty of the student. He is baffled in trying to grasp its 
 essential characteristics, to describe what it really is, and 
 
172 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 to estimate its merits and defects. It is hard to find what 
 is really common or necessary to every one of its phases. 
 It is harder to state a criticism that applies to all. To one 
 who praises the methods or raises objections to the tendencies 
 of any known form of Communism or Collectivism, the 
 rejoinder is simple — that the criticism does not apply to 
 Socialism generally, but merely to that warped manifestation 
 of it which has been arbitrarily selected for eulogy or 
 attack. 
 
 The difficulties of stating the essentials of Socialism, so as to 
 satisfy all its votaries, are increased from the variety of motives 
 which lead different individuals to adopt its tenets. Some seek 
 it as the only remedy for the wide-spread misery caused by the 
 excessive inequality of the distribution of wealth. They cry 
 to the State to step in and prevent this inequality (by force 
 if need be). Such people again are of many classes. Some 
 are merely the idle refuse of the population, who wish a 
 share of the prosperity which their own laziness or vice has 
 prevented them from gaining honestly for themselves. Others 
 are rich men, acting from motives of the highest and most 
 disinterested philanthropy. Between these two extremes are 
 many varying shades of men and principles, agreeing yet 
 in this, that the primary object of their aspirations is a 
 more equal distribution of property. Socialism is, by many 
 of its adherents, looked upon chiefly as a system of 
 joint-ownership. Other consequences may be logically and 
 practically involved, but its primary object is to attack the 
 institution of private property. All possessions should, in 
 this view, be merged in the community. Socialism thus to 
 many comes to mean State ownership of property.^ Even 
 here, however, there are minor differences of motive and 
 degree. Some content themselves with the State-ownership 
 of land ; others think that all mills, factories, and machinery 
 should also be held in common by the State. Some would 
 
 ' Cf. the late Mr. Bradlaugh's definition cited by Professor Flint, 
 Socialism, p. 16 : " Socialism denies individual private property, and 
 affirms that society organized as the State should own all wealth, 
 direct all labour, and compel the equal distribution of all produce." 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 173 
 
 simply confiscate,^ while others would allow compensation. 
 To annex to the use of the State all incomes above a certain 
 amount ; to limit the rights of bequest and succession, are all 
 phases of Socialism, or at least of theories that would set 
 bounds to unrestricted Individualism. Some would have a 
 yearly or weekly redivision, while others would boldly abolish 
 aU rights of individual property at once and for ever. Other 
 types of men, again, are led to Socialism by quite different 
 roads. By the doctrine of original sin all men are naturally 
 wicked. Indeed apart from all theological dogmas, it is easy 
 to see how evil passions run wild if left to themselves. Ten- 
 dencies to all forms of depravity are rooted in man's nature, 
 and need only fit occasion to ripen and bear bad fruit. 
 Individual men, if left to themselves, will work for their 
 own selfish interests. Thence will follow their own moral 
 degradation on the one hand, and injury to the temporal 
 and eternal welfare of their neighbours on the other. The 
 strong arm of the civil law, or the intervention of the 
 spiritual power equipped with book and bell, is needed to 
 restrain these evil passions. Man needs guidance. Both 
 the State and the Church ought therefore, it is said, to 
 interfere to protect him from himself as well as from others. 
 Such an attitude of mind leads men to regard liberty 
 almost as something evil in itself, because likely to be 
 abused. Authority is thus invoked; and so those who 
 call for it are led consciously or unconsciously in the 
 direction of Socialism. Under this aspect, Communism may 
 be organized under the wing of the Church as well as of 
 the State. Traces of it indeed may be found in the claims 
 constantly put forth by the Eoman Catholic Church. Many 
 tendencies of a similar nature are found in civil institutions 
 both ancient and modern, and in the programmes of each of 
 the rival political parties of the present day. Thus Local 
 Option would authorize the community to step in and 
 save the individual in spite of himself from the tempta- 
 tion which his moral nature is unable to resist, while 
 compulsory insurance against old age makes the State 
 the forcible guardian of each man against the effects of his 
 'See Mr. Henry George's Progress and Poverty. 
 
174 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 own improvidence. It is from this point of view that 
 Mr. Hyndman,^ in his historic debate with Mr. Bradlaugh, 
 defined Socialism as "an endeavour to substitute for the 
 anarchical struggle or fight for existence an organized co- 
 operation for existence." 
 
 Amid so much diversity of motive, form, and degree, 
 where are we to look for the constant and essential feat- 
 ures of Socialism, most comprehensively considered ? What 
 is the one test which may be applied to all systems alike 
 as a sure criterion ? Such a test is to be found in the 
 undue subordination of individuality to the community, in 
 the triumph more or less complete of the State over the 
 man. 
 
 In determining the relations between the State and the 
 Individual, all systems of Socialism, however they may differ 
 in methods or aims, place the chief emphasis on the former 
 to the detriment of the latter.^ 
 
 The trouble experienced by some writers in deciding 
 whether Socialism is primarily a social or a political scheme, 
 is only one phase of the initial difficulty of definition. The 
 truth is that it is necessarily both ; but the place where 
 the emphasis is laid varies with the point of view. Those 
 who look primarily to the end to be obtained, picture 
 Socialism as a reorganization of society, especially in its 
 economic aspects, while those who concern themselves more 
 with the means of realization — on a universal scale and a 
 compulsory basis, at any rate — regard it as a political system. 
 
 Thus men whose kind hearts sicken at the misery and 
 poverty of the proletariat and who expect some alleviation 
 from a more equal distribution of material wealth and of 
 the enjoyment it brings, desire a new organization of society, 
 and to this they give the name of Socialism. When they 
 
 ^ Cited in Professor Flint's Socialism, p. 15. 
 
 2 Cf. Professor Flint, Socialism, p. 17. " Socialism, as I understand it, 
 is any theory of social organization which sacrifices the legitimate liber- 
 ties of individuals to the will and interests of the community." The word 
 " legitimate " indicates an individualistic bias ; but if such an adjective as 
 " selfish" or "aggressive" were substituted, the definition would probably 
 be accepted by Socialists. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 175 
 
 seek a practical means of realizing their dream, they find 
 that, apart from small select communities founded on a 
 voluntary basis, the only effective agency is the coercive 
 power of the State. The name comes then to be transferred 
 from the aim to the machinery which effects the aim. It 
 becomes now a system of regulation by the government, or 
 what Professor Huxley calls " regimentation." 
 ~ Thus Socialism in its ends is a social scheme, and in its 
 means a political system. 
 
 Socialism is usually divided into two branches — Com- 
 munism and Collectivism. The main difference is that the 
 former tries to attain its ends on a voluntary or contractual 
 basis, and is consequently only possible upon a limited 
 scale ; while the latter ^ seeks to make its principles universal 
 and compulsory through the legislative and executive powers 
 of the State. 
 
 The idea of political organization is naturally more closely 
 associated with the latter; but even in a small community 
 voluntarily practising socialistic principles, some system of 
 " government " is essential. The element of " control " is 
 present, though willingly submitted to. All socialistic aims 
 require a regime of regimentation to enforce them; while all 
 regimentation tends in the direction of Socialism. They are 
 always closely combined in practice, though logically distinct. 
 
 The essential characteristics of Socialism may then be 
 roughly given as two — one social or economic and the other 
 political. " In the first place," says M. Ed. de Laveleye,^ 
 " every Socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality 
 into social conditions ; and secondly, it tries to realize these 
 reforms by the action of the law or the State." 
 
 The essence of all such schemes is the absorption of the 
 individual in the community — of his rights in the rights 
 
 iCf. Professor Mint's definition of Collectivism {Socialism, p. 63) as 
 "Society organized as the State intervening in all the industrial and 
 economic arrangements of life, possessing almost everything, and so 
 controlling and directing its members that private and personal enter- 
 prises and interests are absorbed in those which are public and 
 collective." 
 
 ^Socialism of To*day, p. 15. 
 
176 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 of all, of his property iu the property of the State. The 
 more logically and thoroughly the doctrines of the sect 
 are held, the more readily this is perceived, and the more 
 complete the disappearance of the unit in the mass becomes. 
 Its opponents say that its ultimate goal is slavery. This 
 annihilation of the individual is, however, the feature most 
 strenuously denied by most of its advocates. While it is 
 usually admitted that some sacrifice of liberty, or perhaps 
 rather of caprice, is involved, it is at the same time main- 
 tained that so small an offering should be willingly made 
 to gain so much happiness for oneself and for humanity. 
 In some systems this feature is less prominent than in 
 others, but that is only because less of the essence of 
 Socialism is there realized. Look on it as we may. 
 Collectivism always means the triumph of coercion over 
 freedom, of authority over rights of private men, of the 
 condition of status over that of contract. It is not to be 
 assumed that therefore Socialism stands condemned, or that 
 coercion is always an evil. Proof is required before this is 
 taken for granted. There is no benefit to be gained, however, 
 by denying the necessary connection between Socialism and a 
 severe regime of government control.^ This control may be 
 of various kinds. It may be such as the individual gladly 
 welcomes, or an aggressive authority thrust on him from 
 without. His acquiescence or resistance will naturally make 
 a difference in the extent to which he feels the weight of 
 the yoke. His attitude will be influenced further by the 
 nature of the sanction or penalty by which this control is 
 enforced, and also by the nature of the authority wielding 
 the coercive powers, which may be either an irresponsible 
 monarch or a representative assembly. While all such 
 systems absorb the rights of the individual in the com- 
 munity at large, the form called Collectivism or State 
 Socialism — Government Socialism would be a better word 
 — seeks to place everything under the direct management 
 of the ordinary civil authorities. It is a sacrifice of each 
 individual self to the exigencies of the government. It 
 
 ' Infra, p. 198, the question is discussed how iar the benefits of 
 Socialism can be obtained under voluntary association. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 177 
 
 is true that on the organic theory of , society each man 
 must lose himself in the State; but that State becomes 
 for him an outer or second self. He finds there his own 
 life "writ large." It is a losing of a lower self to find a 
 higher one — "a dying to live." To be dragged into the 
 mechanism of a bureaucratic administrative system is a very 
 different matter. Such a government is a cold dead thiag, 
 and if the separate lives of the citizens are swallowed up 
 in it, this means the end of life altogether. Man's life is 
 only realizable in the society of other men ; but it becomes 
 unbearable and impossible if absorbed absolutely in the 
 government. 
 
 Thus the old distinction between State and government 
 comes to the surface again. To say that the individual life 
 ought to be absorbed in the former, may be termed philosophic 
 Socialism, and is quite true in a sense of every community, 
 though only one half of the truth, but to absorb it in the 
 latter is a practical Socialism, as untenable in theory as it 
 would be deplorable in practice. The union between the 
 whole and its members, between the Sovereign and the sub- 
 jects, must be organic and not mechanical. Socialism, like 
 Individualism, is a relative truth. Both must be taken 
 together. No travesty of a healthy State is more deplorable 
 than a practical Socialism in the form of an absolute govern- 
 ment directing with inquisitorial and irresistible sway every 
 detail of human life. 
 
 Socialism has been described ^ as " a political organization 
 in which the individual is sacrificed to society." In a sense 
 this is true of every society. The individual's selfish 
 interests must give way to those of the community when a 
 conflict of interests arises ; but on the other hand he is a 
 member of that society to which he subordinates his own 
 petty aims, and the true good of the whole must include 
 what is best for him. Extreme forms of Socialism might 
 perhaps better be described as a sacrifice of the good of 
 the individual to the exigencies of government; while the 
 organic theory requires merely a subordination of what is 
 evil in the citizens to the welfare of the State. 
 
 ^By M. Lerouse, cited by Professor Flint, Socialism, p. 17. 
 
 SI 
 
178 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 For reasons already stated, it is difficult to select any 
 one writer as a type of the whole school. For the purpose 
 of obtaining a rough and ready statement of the aims and 
 uses of Socialism from the point of view of its average warm 
 advocate, no better choice can perhaps be made than the expo- 
 sition contained in Merrie Englarid. The great popularity which 
 has greeted this book, particularly among the working classes, 
 testifies to the degree of accuracy with which it has caught 
 the special aspects of Socialism floating lq the air and likely 
 to appeal to the mind of the British voter of average edu- 
 cation and iutelligence. Mr. Blatchford's book aims at being 
 practical, and avoids to a great extent extremes of all kinds 
 both in style and matter. It is right to state, however, 
 that it is specially referred to here by no means because it 
 is the best or strongest exposition of the case for Socialism 
 — though it is by no means the worst — but because from 
 its very mediocrity it represents accurately enough the 
 common ground occupied by all. Mr. Blatchford begins by 
 dividing Socialism into practical and ideal. 
 
 " Practical Socialism," he says,^ " is so simple that a child 
 may understand it. It is a kind of national scheme of co- 
 operation managed by the State. Its programme consists 
 essentially of one demand, that the land and other instru- 
 ments of production shall be the property of the people, 
 and shall be used and governed by the people for the 
 people. Make the land and all the instruments of pro- 
 duction State property ; put all farms, mines, mills, ships, 
 railways, and shops under State control, as you have already 
 put the postal and telegraphic services under State control, 
 and Practical Socialism is accomplished. . . . Socialists 
 point out that if all the industries of the nation were put 
 under State control, all the profit, which now goes into the 
 hands of a few idle men, would go into the coffers of the 
 State — which means that the people would enjoy the benefits 
 of all the wealth they create. This then is the basis of 
 Socialism, that England should be owned by the English 
 and managed for the benefit of the English instead of being 
 owned by a few rich idlers and mismanaged by them for 
 '^Merrie England, p. 100. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 179 
 
 the benefit of themselves. But Socialism means more than 
 the mere transference of the wealth of the nation to the 
 nation. Socialism would not endure competition. Where 
 it found two factories engaged in under-cutting each other 
 at the price of long hours and low wages to the workers, 
 it would step in and fuse the two concerns into one, save 
 an immense sum in cost of working, and finally produce 
 more goods and better goods at a lower figure than were 
 produced before. . . . But Practical Socialism would do 
 more than that, it would educate the people. It would 
 provide cheap and pure food. It would extend and elevate 
 the means of study and amusement. It would foster 
 literature and science and art. It would encourage and 
 reward genius and industry. It would abolish sweating and 
 jerry work. It would demolish the slums and would erect 
 good and handsome dwellings. It would compel all men to 
 do some kind of useful work. It would recreate and 
 nourish the craftsman's pride in his craft. It would pro- 
 tect women and children. ' It would raise health and 
 morality; and it would take the sting out of pauperism 
 by paying pensions to honest workers no longer able to 
 work. , , . 
 
 " Under Ideal Socialism there would be no money at all, 
 and no wages. The industry of the country would be 
 organized and managed by the State much as the Post 
 Office now is ; goods of all kinds would be produced and 
 distributed for use, and not for sale, in such quantities as 
 were needed; hours of labour would be fixed; and every 
 citizen would take what he or she desired from the common 
 stock. Food, clothing, lodging, fuel, transit, amusements, and 
 aU other things, would be absolutely free, and the only 
 difference between a prime minister and a collier would be 
 the difference of rank and occupation. 
 
 "1 have now given you," Mr. Blatchford concludes, "a 
 clear idea of what Socialism is. If I wrote another 
 hundred pages I could tell you no more." 
 
 Much of this description is vague and unsatisfactory, but 
 it gives on the whole a clear enough conception both of the 
 scheme of reform of the ordinary practical Socialist and 
 
180 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 also of his motives for desiring the change. A formal 
 analysis of so informal an exposition of the doctrine would 
 be out of place; but the following elements among others 
 seem to be involved in the system of. government here pro- 
 posed : (1) Co-operation upon a gigantic and national scale. 
 (2) State ownership of all land and of all instruments of 
 production. (3) Enforced labour for those who do not wish 
 to starve. (4) No competition, and therefore no private 
 enterprise in trade or commerce. (5) Prosperity and plenty 
 for every one. (6) A complete system of government con- 
 trol over every form of industry. (7) Social and economic 
 equality. 
 
 "Without attempting to show how far some of these 
 elements are mere unattainable ideals, it is sufficient for the 
 present to emphasize the fact that they all (so far as 
 realizable at all) may be reduced under two heads : the 
 attempt to effect an approximation, at any rate, to material 
 equality by the abolition or limitation of private property ; 
 and an increase of government intervention. 
 
 The first of these is insisted on in every socialistic 
 pamphlet that one can open. Thus Dr. Schaffle^ declares 
 that "the alpha and omega of socialism is the transforma- 
 tion of private and competing capitals into a united 
 collective capital." Similar terms are used in the joint 
 official manifesto issued by the representatives of three of 
 the leading communistic societies of England, viz. the 
 Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation, and the 
 Hammersmith Socialistic Society. " On these points," runs 
 the document,^ " all Socialists agree. Our aim, one and all, 
 is to obtain for the whole community complete ownership 
 and control of the means of transport, and the means of 
 manufacture, the mines, and the land. Thus we look to 
 put an end for ever to the wage system, to sweep away all 
 distinction of class, and eventually to establish national and 
 international communism on a sound basis." 
 
 The other essential — the agency by which all this is 
 brought about — is usually kept more out of sight. A system 
 
 1 QuintesseTice of Socialism, p. 20. 
 
 2 Cited by Professor Flint, Socialigm, p. 93. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 181 
 
 of grinding coercion under the heel of an all-powerful govern- 
 ment with its graded hierarchy of officials is (its opponents 
 say) the only means of crushing out competition and enforcing 
 universal co-operation in a common organization of industry 
 embracing every individual in the nation. 
 
 In each of these leading characteristics it is directly opposed 
 to Individualism as ordinarily understood,^ the aims of which 
 are (first) to reduce to a minimum the interference of the 
 government and of the community with the free play of 
 individual wUls, and (secondly) thus to allow each man to 
 heap up for himself such wealth and social distinctions and 
 pleasures as he may, regardless of the unequal lot of his 
 poorer brethren, except in respect of such charities as he may 
 voluntarily bestow. Collectivism is best understood as directly 
 the reverse of the system of laissez /aire. 
 
 Such then is Socialism, and such are its general aims and 
 methods. It remains to be seen what elements of truth or 
 falsehood its ideals contain, how far they are logically self- 
 consistent, and how far they are capable of realization, and, 
 lastly, whether they can be justified on a scientific or philo- 
 sophical basis. 
 
 Its ideals are lofty ; and if it could realize them, only an 
 ignoble few would be content to remain its opponents. The 
 accomplishment of all its high aims, granting for a moment 
 that these could be made consistent with one another and 
 with the world of reality, would supersede any need for a 
 detailed statement of its merits. It professes (1) to remove 
 the inequality of men's lots and all the misery and injustice 
 therein involved, and (2) by the, aid of mutual help and for- 
 bearance to abolish free competition and the struggle for 
 existence, with the material waste and moral degradation 
 they bring in their train. These are high aims with which 
 every right-minded man is ready to sympathize. Who would 
 not, if he could, abolish the misery of grinding poverty and 
 the need for overtaxing muscles and brain to gain a bare 
 
 1 One phase of Individualism, however, by emphasizing the equality of 
 individuals rather than their liberty, seems in practice to pass over into 
 ■that very Socialism which is theoretically its opposite. Of. Prof. J. S. 
 Mackenzie's Social Philosophy, p. 250, and authorities there cited. 
 
182 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 subsistence ? The evils of unbridled and unscrupulous com- 
 petition are hardly less obvious : " Enormous power spent in 
 securing mean objects, energy cancelled by conflicting energy, 
 weakness trampled under the feet of strength, and strength 
 dissolved in the triumph of its own victory : all these things 
 are of the very essence of unqualified competition, and these 
 are the very things which must revolt the lover of the ideal, 
 so that in his eyes much of our vaunted progress seems 
 altogether futile."^ 
 
 If Socialism can remove these evils, then God speed its 
 advent ! Before embracing this creed, however, the prudent 
 man will ask two questions : Is it really able to remove 
 these evils, or does it promise what it cannot fulfil ? In 
 the second place, what price must be paid for its benefits ? 
 Has the picture no dark side at all ? Its opponents have, 
 at least, a right to a dispassionate hearing. 
 
 The arguments against it may be ranged under five heads : 
 
 (1) The whole system, it is said, is based on bad philosophy, 
 and ignores the fundamental principles of human nature and 
 society. The State and the Individual — government action 
 and self action — are two things inseparable. You cannot 
 hurt one so that the other remains unaffected. Socialism, 
 its enemies say, ignores and degrades and blots almost out of 
 existence the principle of individuality, and in doing so it 
 cripples the State as well. It is founded on a one-sided 
 philosophy that exaggerates one factor at the expense of 
 another, whereas the two can only live and thrive together. 
 Their true health lies in the maintenance of a proper and 
 free interchange of life between them, and it is false to 
 hold that what one loses the other gains. If the hand or 
 foot is hurt, the whole body suffers. A true theory of the 
 State must be socialistic and individualistic at once; and it 
 is a false science which finds place for only one of these. 
 
 This is the central argument from philosophy, with which 
 the various special lines of attack are more or less clearly 
 connected. Thus Socialists are said to run counter to the 
 laws of nature. Man may use the forces of the material 
 universe for his own ends, it is true, by directing their course, 
 * F. C. Montague, lAmits of Individual Liberty, p. 6. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 183 
 
 but he cannot run counter to their unalterable laws. If he 
 attempts this, nature will sooner or later avenge itself bitterly 
 for the indignity. It is maintained, then, that all schemes 
 of an essentially socialistic origin run in the teeth of many 
 of these laws. If this is not actual sin, nature, at any 
 rate, wiU punish its outraged majesty as if it were. You 
 may keep back the rising tide by mud walls for a while, 
 but ultimately it will break through all such insignificant 
 restraints. The longer you hold out and the more apparent 
 success you meet with, the greater is the force arrayed against 
 you when the catastrophe occurs, and the more utter will 
 be your overthrow. The operation of the old English system 
 of Poor Law is always pointed to in this connection. All 
 systems for the relief of paupers by State aid are socialistic 
 in their bearings, and the old system in vogue prior to 1832 
 was especially so. Yet this only carried, it is urged, the 
 principles underlying all poor relief to their legitimate logical 
 conclusions, though in doing so it accentuated the evils inher- 
 ent in aU such systems to such an extent that the most casual 
 observer could no longer refuse to see them. It proceeded 
 on an entire ignorance or wilful neglect of the laws of supply 
 and demand that regulated and still regulate labour, like every 
 other marketable commodity. This deliberate defiance of 
 nature continued for a long period, and being intensified as it 
 progressed, plunged the whole country into penury, and brought 
 Great Britain to the verge of national bankruptcy. Nature 
 took in the long run a terrible revenge for the apparent success 
 with which for a time its laws seemed to have been resisted. 
 No candid investigator can deny the deplorable condition to 
 which all commerce, trade, and finance were reduced prior 
 to 1832, nor the existence of the relation of- cause and 
 effect between the system of poor relief then discarded and 
 the universally prevalent distress. Socialists, however, have 
 one line of defence open to them. They may admit that the 
 old system was opposed to nature, and therefore productive 
 of bad results, but deny that the opposition arose from 
 its socialistic basis. They may argue that it failed because 
 it was an ill-considered system. Wise Socialism is not 
 responsible for the misdeeds of stupid Socialism, and increased 
 
184 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 knowledge may enable its votaries in the future to avoid 
 the errors of its pioneers. Mr. Herbert Spencer and other 
 thinkers of his school would, however, refuse to accept this 
 vindication, holding that all socialistic schemes for poor relief 
 are intrinsically hurtful. Here the argument must be left 
 in the meantime at a point where the two sides directly 
 disagree. The sequel may throw light on the points in dis- 
 pute. Meantime the two facts certain are that the system 
 of relief administered under the old Poor Laws utterly broke 
 down, and that that system was more or less based on 
 socialistic principles. 
 
 This is only one instance, however, of many such specific 
 accusations made against Socialists of running in the teeth of 
 nature. It is urged that all schemes that aim at the abolition 
 of private property, or at its more extended distribution, are 
 founded on mistaken doctrines of equality. This idea is at 
 the root of all communistic theories; whereas inequality 
 is the fundamental basis of human nature and therefore of 
 society. Again, it is sometimes maintained that in society, 
 as at present constituted, all progress is afifected by the 
 strivings of men actuated by motives of personal aggrandise- 
 ment. " Take away," it is said, " the right of the individual 
 to accumulate the produce of his labour for his own use, and 
 you make an end of all progress in destroying the incentive 
 of gain." " The aspirant for a newly wrought material and 
 artificial equality," says Sheldon Amos,^ "annihilates the sources 
 of production by withdrawing the stimulus to accumulate 
 capital, and only substitutes general poverty for unevenly 
 but widely distributed wealth." If this incentive is an 
 essential factor in human progress, the Socialism which 
 abolished all property would undoubtedly run counter to a 
 
 ^ Science of Politics, p. 125. See also W. H. Mallock, Labour and 
 Popula/r Welfare, p. 291 : "Socialism, regarded as a reasoned body of 
 doctrine, rests altogether on a peculiar theory of production, . . . 
 according to which the faculties of men are so equal that one man 
 produces as much wealth as another ; or if any man produces more, 
 he is so entirely indifferent as to whether he enjoys what he produces 
 or no that he would go on producing it just the same, if he knew that 
 the largest part would at once be taken away from him." 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 185 
 
 law of nature ; but then most Socialists deny the truth of 
 the assumption. It is useless to blink the fact, however, 
 that as society is at present constituted, and until human 
 nature has attained a higher level than at present, self- 
 interest is not only one, but perhaps the chief factor in 
 human progress. A few noble souls may, from absolutely 
 disinterested motives, devote themselves to the cause of 
 humanity in general; but the great majority are ready to 
 exert to the utmost their powers of brain and muscle to 
 benefit themselves and those dear to them, when they would 
 be too lazy, careless, or indifferent to do more than what 
 necessity compelled, from a vague enthusiasm of humanity, 
 and in furtherance of an aim so remote as to be completely 
 out of sight. 
 
 The Socialist must find a place, however circumscribed, 
 within his system for individual interests, and even for 
 individual selfishness, if he wishes to realize his dreams on 
 earth. Every philosophic system is false and incapable of 
 being put in practice, if it magnifies "that great leviathan 
 called a commonwealth," and crushes out the spontaneous 
 energy of the individual man. 
 
 (2) The second line of argument adopted by the opponents 
 of Socialism is that which is weU known — perhaps too well 
 known — in all branches of politics, "as the thin end of the 
 wedge." The fact that this controversial weapon has been 
 frequently used unfairly in debate has so discredited it in 
 public estimation that it is usually dismissed summarily with 
 a sneer which is often undeserved, since no argument is more 
 valid or more potent where it is applicable. Unfortunately 
 it is only too easy to employ it with oratorical effect where 
 its use is manifestly unfair. It may, indeed, be brought 
 forward as an objection to every reform that can possibly be 
 proposed, and it is too often the last resort when all other 
 pleas have failed. Hence come the disrepute and ridicule 
 with which it often meets. The frequent abuse of a par- 
 ticular line of argument, however, while it may justly excite 
 an attitude of more searching criticism, by no means vitiates 
 the argument in itself Whether conclusive or not, the use 
 made of it by Mr. Herbert Spencer against Socialism in 
 
186 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 The Coming Slavery is certainly not irrelevant. It forms, 
 indeed, the chief part of his heavy indictment against the 
 intervention of government beyond what he considers its 
 legitimate sphere. Briefly stated it amounts to this. All parts 
 of Socialism hang together. One measure of government 
 interference leads to another, and both together make neces- 
 sary a third ; and so, the course once fairly entered on, 
 there is little possibility of turning back. The nation is 
 rushing headlong with an ever-increasing momentum towards 
 Socialism; and Socialism to Mr. Spencer is just another name 
 for slavery. 
 
 There are men who would gladly welcome the regulation 
 by government of one class of affairs, but would reject its 
 interference in another. Perhaps no individual is absolutely 
 without socialistic leanings in one or more directions, and 
 scarcely any one would welcome government interference in 
 everything. A would have the telegraphs managed by the 
 State, but would leave the railways to private enterprise; 
 B would have just the reverse ; C (probably a Liberal) would 
 allow the State to provide free secular, but not religious 
 education ; whereas D (an old-fashioned Conservative) would 
 maintain an Established Church, while insisting on each man 
 paying for his own children's secular training ; E would have 
 the government regulate the sale of drink; F would have 
 compulsory State insurance for old age ; and so on. Each 
 man has his own special object that he wishes the State to 
 effect for him ; but he would not approve of the schemes 
 of the others. Such men are not thorough-going Socialists, 
 and it is to them that the present argument specially appeals. 
 It says, in effect : " In helping forward your own end, you 
 are helping forward all the others — in iuAdting the government 
 to control and oust individual effort in one case you invite 
 it to interfere in all. Before you know where you are, you 
 will have a complete system of Socialism established where 
 you only wished a remedy for one comparatively small evil. 
 You cannot stop the train you have put in motion. If the 
 State interferes in one place, it produces consequences which 
 would not ptherwise have existed, and for which it is 
 therefore responsible. In dealing with these, a further set 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 187 
 
 of effects are produced, and the province of the executive 
 is increased without limit." 
 
 The man who maintains that all things should be 
 owned and managed by the government, may not wish to 
 interfere with personal liberty and individuality or with the 
 sanctity of family life. It is pointed out to him, however, 
 that government cannot regulate property without regulating 
 wages; nor can it pay these without satisfying itself that 
 work has been duly done. The government becomes the 
 sole employer of labour in the country, and dictates to each 
 man how much work he is to do, and of what kind it must 
 be. Each individual finds himself compelled to work at 
 an appointed task or starve, and to surrender entirely the 
 fruit of his labours to the State, his master. 
 
 Property is the natural medium through which the in- 
 dividual develops to a full maturity. When private property 
 is struck at, then personality suffers too. The CoUectivist 
 cannot systematically attack the one without the other. The 
 Socialist will naturally refuse to admit any more of this 
 argument than suits himself It is incumbent upon him, 
 however, to point out clearly to what extent he proposes 
 ultimately to carry out his principles of State intervention, 
 and to show how it is possible to go so far without going 
 further. If he stops short of the ideal of Plato, where 
 marriage is abolished and children are reared by the State 
 in entire isolation from their parents, he must show how he 
 proposes to abolish property and yet maintain the family 
 intact.^ 
 
 Upon him — as the would-be innovator — rests the (mus of 
 meeting the argument of the " thin end of the wedge " by 
 proving to the satisfaction of the half-converted proselyte 
 that it is possible to go a certain length with Socialists 
 without being compelled to go beyond what his reason can 
 justify or his conscience approve. 
 
 (3) With a third important class of arguments, the theory 
 of the State is only indirectly interested — those drawn from 
 
 ' For proof of the assertion that abolition of private property involves 
 the abolition of the family, vide W. E. H. Lecky, Demoaraey and Liberty, 
 p. 206, and the authorities there cited. 
 
188 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 political economy. To estimate their value the entire range 
 of economics would require to be exhausted. A thorough- 
 going Socialism must take into its own hands the regulation 
 of the laws of supply and demand. Government would 
 require to interfere in trade and commerce not only here 
 and there, but all along the line. This would mean an entire 
 upheaval of the existing science of political economy which 
 rests, as every one knows, on a systematic application of 
 the principle of Iwksez fain. Socialism and Free Trade, what- 
 ever may be their relative merits, are necessarily opposed to 
 one another. The universally accepted axioms of economics 
 are all built on the principle that government (except in 
 certain abnormal circumstances) does more harm than good 
 by meddling. Socialism, on the contrary, requires the State 
 to take all land, capital, and machinery into its own hands, 
 and to regulate everything. The present conclusions of 
 economics may be wrong of course, however widely accepted, 
 but Socialists are under the necessity of formulating an 
 entirely different science of economics, and of satisfying 
 themselves that it will work in practice. Individualists hold 
 that this is not only a gigantic task, but one impossible 
 of fulfilment. They say that no central authority can ever 
 regulate production so as to meet the constantly varying 
 demands of every part of a great nation. They hold that 
 its calculations will constantly be upset — that even if it 
 had all-embracing wisdom to adjust everything perfectly to 
 begin with, the mere operations of nature on the population 
 through births and deaths would upset the scheme before 
 it had even begun to work. Unless it could take nature 
 itself, and the keys of life and death, under its control, it 
 would necessarily fail. Only nature can adjust itself to the 
 needs of nature infinitely varying through time and space. 
 If government removes all artificial restraints and steps aside 
 (say the opponents of State intervention) things will adjust 
 themselves of their own accord. But government can never 
 take the place of an omniscient and omnipotent providence 
 controlling nature. It may do infinite harm, but not infinite 
 good. 
 
 Political science must depend on the results of economics, 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 189 
 
 upon which it bases its own conclusions. It , is not called 
 upon to verify these economic data any more than to examine 
 the truth of any dogma of medicine which it accepts as a. 
 basis for its doctrine of State-action in relation to health.^ It 
 must be prepared, however, to accept new discoveries in the 
 other sciences, and to alter its own conclusions accordingly 
 when these demand it. As soon as Sociahsts have formulated 
 a coherent political economy consistent with the schemes 
 they advocate, the theory of the State must reconsider its 
 main positions with reference to them. Meantime the In- 
 dividualists hold the field, and political science cannot he 
 blamed for refusing to follow socialistic theories until their 
 advocates have squared them with existing facts. 
 
 (4) It is necessary for completeness to give a separate 
 notice to what is perhaps merely another form of the argu- 
 ments already referred to, namely, that the scheme is utterly 
 vmpracticahle. Granting that the Socialist's ideals are sound 
 and consistent with themselves, they cannot, for aU that, it 
 is urged, be put in practice. They are just as absurd as all 
 the other fine schemes professing to hasten on the millennium, 
 or to create a heaven upon earth. Indeed all socialistic 
 paradises, from Plato's BepMic to Mr. Bellamy's Looking 
 Backward, make a strange omission. They draw aUuring 
 pictures of a world where the traveller will find all pleasures 
 and blessings in rich store, but they fail to instruct him how 
 to get there. They draw alluring ideals, but spend no time 
 in showing how to realize them or even to draw nearer to 
 such realization. Even Mr. Blatchford, a man of practical 
 leanings as he is, makes no secret of his difficulty in this 
 respect. 
 
 " The establishment and organization," he says, " of a 
 socialistic State are the two branches of the work to which 
 I have given least attention." ^ This is the case with most 
 of them. They are so busy writing in praise of the charms 
 of their ideals, that they have little time for studying 
 how to attain them. On this point, however, the author 
 
 ^ E.g. political science may vindicate compulsory vaccination without 
 investigating the scientific data on which it rests. 
 2 Merrie England, p. 104. 
 
190 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 of Merrie EnglaTbd is more sensible than many. He holds 
 that " Socialism will not come by means of a sudden cov/p. 
 It will grow up naturally out of our surroundings, and 
 will develop naturally and by degrees. But its growth 
 and its development may be materially hastened. . . . We 
 have begun long ago. Nearly all law is more or less 
 socialistic, for nearly all law implies the right of the State 
 to control individuals for the benefit of the nation. But of 
 late years the law has been steadily becoming more and more 
 socialistic." 1 This language of one of the warmest friends of 
 Socialism is strangely in accord with that of its strongest 
 modern enemy, Mr. Spencer. In his opinion we are rapidly 
 drifting towards Socialism. "Many concurrent causes," he says, 
 "threaten continually to accelerate the transformation now 
 going on. . . . Influences of various kinds conspire to 
 increase corporate action, and decrease individual action. . . . 
 The numerous socialistic changes made by Act of Parliament, 
 joined with the numerous others presently to be made, will 
 by and by be all merged in State Socialism — swallowed in 
 the vast wave which they have little by little raised." - 
 
 If all this is true — if Great Britain is steadily and 
 almost inevitably drifting towards universal Socialism — no 
 further vindication of its practicability is needed. Men may 
 endeavour to hasten or retard its progress according as they 
 welcome its results or fear them, but they cannot prevent 
 the inevitable. 
 
 In spite of the high testimony of Mr. Spencer, however, 
 there is reason to doubt the truth of the prediction that a 
 simple continuance of the present trend of politics will bring 
 Socialism to pass. Opinions of a contrary kind are also 
 to be found among both its supporters and its enemies. 
 Thus "the Socialist of the street," so far from believing 
 that his pet schemes are slowly and beneficently producing 
 themselves in a natural manner, thinks that only dynamite 
 is strong enough to help them towards fulfilment. His 
 methods of realizing his ideals are summary and violent. 
 Looking on the present structure of society and the State 
 as hurtful to progress, and utterly hateful, he holds that 
 
 '^Merrie England, p. 105. ^The Man versus the State, p. 33. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 191 
 
 his first duty is to shatter the whole fabric completely 
 and irrevocably, and he assumes that when the artificial 
 barriers which prop up social and economic abuses have thus 
 been removed, a better condition of things will somehow get 
 itself into being. Such men certainly do not think that the 
 trend of the century is inevitably towards Socialism. Indeed 
 a majority of thinkers on both sides consider that the 
 modern State (unlike the old Greek cities) is founded on an 
 essentially individualistic basis, which becomes only more 
 pronounced as the world progresses. Mr. Wordsworth Donis- 
 thorpe, whose individualistic views are not less emphatically 
 expressed than Mr. Spencer's own, differs from him entirely 
 in his reading of the present trend of society and legislation. 
 He does not deny the undoubted fact that many sociahstic 
 items of government activity are showing themselves, but he 
 is satisfied that these are isolated instances of back eddies, 
 while the main strong current of Individualism is sweeping 
 onwards with greater and greater power. On the whole, the 
 course of events, he holds, is towards increasing freedom. 
 There may be, here and there, relapses into Socialism, but 
 the true principles of Individualism are bound to triumph 
 in the long run. " This, then, is the observed fact," says Mr. 
 Donisthorpe, "that as civilization advances, the State tends 
 to throw off one claim after another to interfere with the 
 free action of its members, while at the same time it becomes 
 stronger, more regular, speedier, and more certain in perform- 
 ing the functions that remain to it. Where it interferes, it 
 interferes thoroughly. At the present time the tendency is 
 one of throwing off certain forms of State control."^ 
 
 It is by no means, then, a settled point that Socialism is 
 gradually approaching of its own accord. On the contrary, 
 the balance of opinion is decidedly the other way. The 
 problem of its practicability or the reverse must be worked 
 out on other Mnes. 
 
 (5) Finally, it is urged against Socialism that, even if 
 
 possible, the ideal would be a most undesirable one when 
 
 actually realized. The sum and crown of all its evils may 
 
 be put in one word — slavery. All Socialism, it is said, is 
 
 ^ Indimdhunlism, p. 300. 
 
192 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 slavery. " Each member of the community as an individual 
 would be a slave of the community as a whole."'- 
 
 It is perhaps useless to follow in detail all the charges which 
 are brought against Sociahsm. All the evils that slavery 
 brings are said to be bound up within it. Thus whatever 
 view we take of the ultimate end of the State (unless we 
 limit that end to the function of maintaining order at any 
 cost), it is said that Collectivism fails to attain it. Such a 
 system is another name for despotism. For if all industry 
 and commerce must be managed from a central authority 
 which has to calculate and regulate everything, it follows 
 that all deviations from the appointed and expected routine 
 on which these calculations are based must be strenuously 
 put down. The order of things established by the State 
 must be maintained at all costs, and all opposing individual 
 interests, wishes, or aspirations must be remorselessly brushed 
 aside. Social, domestic, and individual life would lose all their 
 elasticity and buoyancy were they robbed of all powers of 
 initiation. Existence would become humdrum and monoton- 
 ous, with all its spontaneity crushed out. With the elimina- 
 tion of the element of chance and also of the possibility of 
 bettering one's material lot by one's own exertions, all h(ype 
 and ambition would be eradicated as well. The State would 
 sink to the level of an excellently managed boarding-school 
 or poor-house, where the officials of the State would hand 
 round with absolute impartiality as many material comforts 
 as possible to each. All the bustle, joy, and excitement of 
 an active life where each man could make or mar his 
 fortunes according to his ability and luck, would be blotted 
 out. The monotony and fixity of everything would become 
 unendurable. Men would cry out again for the old order 
 of things with all its risks and difficulties. All excessive 
 interference of the government in the national life tends to 
 produce a uniformity in the governed masses. It substitutes 
 State-help for self-help and so suppresses all spontaneous 
 activity and initiative effort, and finally even all wish for such. 
 Thus it brings in its train results disastrous to the moral 
 character of the individual. He feels that the strong arm 
 ' The Man versus the State, p. 39. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 193 
 
 of the government undertakes the duty of protecting and 
 feeding him, and looking after his interests and those of 
 others. He loses all feeling of responsibility for his 
 own lot or his neighbour's. He becomes careless of himself 
 and callous towards others. Individuality is crushed out 
 by the greater power of the State narrowing the sphere 
 of personal effort till no space is left to move or breathe. 
 The free, spontaneous, healthy life of the citizen is sapped 
 and absorbed into the bureaus and functionaries of the 
 central government where it becomes hard and dead and 
 petrified. All its vital energy is sucked out of the mass 
 of the nation, and becomes stagnant and inert in the veiiis 
 of an all-devouring government. The greatness and life- 
 energy of the individual and the nation are poisoned at their 
 sources. 
 
 So far we have looked chiefly to the condition of the 
 subjects under a socialistic regime. It is still necessary 
 to inquire into the condition of the regulators or governors. 
 It will probably be said that in a democratic State — it is 
 assumed that Socialism and Democracy will go hand in 
 hand — the governed and the government are one. The 
 fallacy here is, however, very easy of detection. It is 
 hidden in part under the ambiguity occasioned by the several 
 meanings of the word "government" and partly under the 
 confusion between actual administration and indirect control. 
 No form of Democracy, of a practical nature, can possibly 
 mean that each individual is equally free to act as the 
 recognized agent of the State in every kind of work. That 
 would be Anarchy not Democracy. The Democracy must 
 appoint officials to act for it. These may be one or many. 
 They may be mutually independent or arranged in an ordered 
 line from highest to lowest. They may be appointed for 
 longer or shorter periods, or for life, and their spheres of 
 action may be more or less extended, while the conditions 
 and restraints placed upon them may vary in effectiveness. 
 The control of the people may be intermittent or constant; 
 but however thorough-going the Democracy may be — however 
 narrowly it watches its servants and scrutinizes their minutest 
 actions — however mercilessly it punishes their faults or 
 
194 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 omissions, it can never dispense with agents altogether. It 
 might, if it were foolish enough so to cripple its own 
 powers of action, appoint new agents every week and bind 
 them by laws and conditions so tightly that they could hardly 
 move at all, even during their short tenure of office ; still, 
 agents of some kind it must have. Further, the more 
 numerous the duties which the government undertakes, the 
 more officials it requires : the more important these duties, 
 the more powers it must bestow if it wishes them well 
 executed. Thus democratic forms in no degree obviate that 
 necessity for a host of government officials which is inherent 
 in Socialism. Indeed their effect is just the reverse. It 
 is not the Democracy itself that acts, but its servants : thus 
 the checks afforded by a popular resistance are much weakened. 
 When the executive were truly servants of the monarch, the 
 people devised checks to fetter the arbitrary action of Ministers 
 of the crown. When the Ministers become the servants of 
 the people, these checks disappear. An enormous increase of 
 officials and officialdom is thus inherent in Collectivism. These 
 servants of the State, when increasing duties and consequently 
 extended powers are thrust upon them, will more and more 
 become its masters. To prevent collisions they must be arranged 
 in due subordination to one another as in all well-organized 
 institutions, whether commercial, military, or governmental. 
 The lowest grades or privates are under captains, and 
 the captains under majors ; over all stands the commander- 
 in-chief. Thus we reach the conception of a regular official 
 aristocracy where rank and power depend on the position 
 held in the hierarchy of government employees. Those left 
 outside the ranks count for nothing or very little ; within, 
 each man is valued according to his grade. Here, then, is 
 a regularly organized army of officials, ruling all under 
 them with despotic sway, and each obeying the orders of 
 his immediate superior officer. The highest official would 
 be a despotic commander-in-chief. 
 
 This is what was meant by Professor Huxley when he spoke 
 of " regimentation " and defined it as a " quasi-military 
 organization of society for the purpose of conquering the 
 general welfare by means of that enforced apparent equality 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 195 
 
 which brings about the hugest of real inequalities."^ Nothing 
 short of " a quasi-military organization " could crush out 
 competition and individual self-seeking ; and the aim at a 
 perfect equality would defeat itself through the officers of 
 this social army becoming the masters of all the private 
 citizens and the creatures of the commander-in-chief. 
 
 One of the principal errors of Socialism, indeed, seems to 
 be the unfounded belief that a host of officials, acting 
 professedly for the good of all, will do better in the long run 
 for the common good than if each man were allowed free 
 play to act for himself and those dear to him. In the 
 necessary distinction, however, between those who are officials 
 and those who are not, class prejudices and interests would 
 necessarily clash with the rights of individuals. The officials 
 would be tempted to act for their own advancement. Only 
 within the charmed circle of government employees would 
 there exist possibilities of improving one's position by ability, 
 or by sycophancy to those higher in rank. Each man within 
 the official army would naturally wish to ascend the scale : 
 many of those excluded would seek admittance. Thus would 
 quickly disappear that boasted equality which (whether a 
 good or a bad thing) is claimed by Socialists as one great 
 merit of their system. If private property was abolished 
 with the social inequalities which come in its train, a new 
 principle of grading society would take its place, closely 
 following the various ranks of the official phalanx. Increased 
 wealth being no longer attainable by industry or skill, official 
 advancement would absorb the energies of all who had a 
 chance of promotion. 
 
 These five lines of argument, taken together, have a weight 
 which no one can afford to despise. Those drawn from political 
 economy, in particular, if not unanswerable, have at least not 
 yet been answered. Until a serious and successful attempt is 
 made to formulate a system of socialistic economies, moderate 
 men can hardly be expected to embark on a hazardous voyage 
 with all their old lighthouses destroyed, and their compasses 
 thrown overboard. 
 
 Weighty as these reasons are, however, the great test of 
 1 Natwrcd and Political Rights {Method and Results), p. 418. 
 
196 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Socialism, as of every other system, is actual experience. 
 Before forming an opinion one way or another, it is necessary 
 to examine the phenomena connected with all societies or 
 nations which profess to include socialistic factors in their 
 composition. Theories are all very well, but the politician 
 not unnaturally asks, how the scheme has actually worked 
 in practice. 
 
 The historical aspect of the subject thus presents itself. 
 What are the schemes which have been formulated ? and, 
 still more, what are those which have actually been put 
 in practice ? This branch of the inquiry arranges itself 
 under four heads: (1) paper constitutions and Utopias of a 
 coUectivist tendency ; (2) the Greek States formed, or said 
 to have been formed, on a socialistic basis ; (3) small vol- 
 untary societies professing communistic principles ; (4) the 
 socialistic elements actually at work in the fabric of large, 
 well-developed modern commonwealths, which are still par- 
 tially influenced by individualistic tendencies as well. 
 
 This is a wide field, and the survey must be of the briefest. 
 (1) The paper Utopias have already been alluded to, and their 
 examination belongs more to the theoretical than to the 
 practical side of the question. The study of their contents 
 and historical context is however a duty incumbent on 
 every one who wishes to exhaust the merits and demerits 
 of Socialism. They, of course, differ widely from one another 
 in every conceivable way : in the extent to which they go, 
 in their self-consistency, in their aims, in their religious 
 leanings, in their varying prejudices and sympathies, and 
 in the literary ability and style and methods of treatment 
 of their various authors. A refutation of one is by no means 
 a refutation of the others. Each must be tried on its own 
 individual merits. 
 
 They have, however, many features in common. An attentive 
 survey leads to the conclusion that a consensus of socialistic 
 opinion holds certain radical changes in the constitution of 
 social and family life to be necessary in order to bring these 
 institutions into line with the new system of government. 
 These changes, good or bad, must be tried on their own 
 merits. If they are thought to be evil, they must be 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 197 
 
 balanced against the expected good to be found in Socialism 
 as a whole. It is by no means a self-evident truth that 
 a community of property must be condemned because it 
 interferes with the purity of the family. Every one has 
 a right, however, to have explained to him the ulterior 
 consequences of a system before he is asked to counten- 
 ance it. 
 
 An examination of these various schemes, even on paper, 
 will do much to make the benefits as well as the faults of 
 Socialism familiar to the mind of one who is able to separate 
 their essential from their merely accidental features. This 
 inquiry cannot be attempted here. 
 
 (2) A still more fruitful field for observation is found when 
 we pass beyond mere speculation to those actual experiments 
 in Socialism, of which history has kept the record. The 
 organized life of such commonwealths as those of Athens 
 and Sparta is full of interest and replete with suggestions to 
 the modem Communist, though for many reasons he would 
 neither wish to follow in their footsteps, nor could he do 
 so if he would. Varying in many ways from one another, 
 all the Greek City-States had strong elements of Socialism 
 in their composition ; but of a Socialism intuitive rather 
 than self-conscious. State intervention regulated the whole 
 life of the Greek cities because the divorce between public 
 and private interests had not yet been effected. Organ- 
 ization was necessarily bound up with their civilization, but 
 that organization had never been clearly split into different 
 branches, such as legal, political, and social. Government 
 interfered as freely with private as with public interests. In 
 the best times of Athens the body of the citizens in their 
 popular assemblies were at once rulers and subjects. They 
 decided all causes brought before them, and in doing so 
 mixed up ethical with legal considerations, and thus invaded 
 domestic life, and imparted an element of instability to 
 individual rights. Early Socialism was unconscious and 
 immature, and existed because the processes of differentiation 
 had not yet been fully developed. Modern Socialism may 
 copy and incorporate in itself many of the features of the old, 
 but it can never exactly reproduce it, even if it would, any 
 
198 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 more than an old man can make himself young again. The 
 special features in the constitutions of all the Greek States 
 marked out their civilization as in many ways precocious, 
 depending on conditions merely transitory and exceptional, 
 specially favourable and sheltered, and never likely to repeat 
 themselves. These conditions were chiefly two — the small 
 extent of area covered rendering it possible for the whole 
 community to be present, and so to share personally in the 
 entire life of the State in its every current ; and the exist- 
 ence of a large slave population, outside the pale of the law, 
 mere chattels finding no place whatever in the common life, 
 and by their exertions giving their masters leisure to attend 
 to the affairs of the commonwealth, and to acquire the 
 needed culture. Thus, if the modern Socialist points to the 
 high place in the world's history attained by Athens under 
 a regime of State control, it is open to the Individualist to 
 retort that the high development of the few was founded on 
 the degradation of the many. The Individualist may add 
 that the modern socialistic State would be as bad, since scope 
 for individual effort and development within it would be 
 confined to the regiment of functionaries, while the mass 
 of unofficial citizens became the slaves. 
 
 (3) Passing over the traces of Socialism scattered through 
 the Middle Ages — the whole feudal system, indeed, was in 
 some aspects a vast scheme of Collectivism — we find that 
 within the last two centuries various attempts have been 
 made to produce socialistic communities on the basis of 
 voluntary association. Such experiments have been generally 
 confined to a comparatively small number of men and 
 women specially chosen by a skilful leader, like the choice 
 spirits of a pioneer band, among whom, in addition, a strong 
 current of religious enthusiasm has usually prevailed to 
 give vigour and stability to the movement. America has 
 been the home of most of the experiments of this kind 
 which in recent years have endured for any length of time 
 or met with any special measure of success. Among such 
 associations may be instanced the Shaker Community, the 
 Ebenezer Community, the Skeneateles Community, the Jan- 
 son Community, and — most important of all, perhaps — the 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 199 
 
 famous Oneida Community. ^ Each of these has features 
 peculiar to itself, but it is instructive to note one or two 
 of the most important characteristics which all of them possess. 
 These communities are all based upon the principle 
 of voluntary association, and thus essentially differ from 
 every system of universal and compulsory State Socialism. 
 The minor elements of difference hence resulting include at 
 least one that makes the task before them harder of fulfil- 
 ment, and several that are specially favourable to their success. 
 The chief element of weakness in the voluntary principle is 
 easily seen. The communities are not independent States, 
 and therefore their members can appeal for protection against 
 their decisions to the wider community without. Hence a 
 tendency to disruption is a constant menace to their stability. 
 The various members have voluntarily banded themselves 
 together, and they are free to break up by voluntary consent. 
 Their origin was " a social compact," and this is the source 
 of all the characteristics in which they differ from States. 
 If an independent nation ceased to exist, either anarchy 
 or foreign conquest would be inevitable. If, however, a 
 community founded by contract is dissolved, its members are 
 quietly absorbed in the wider community of the nation. 
 The copartnery is at an end, and each man is free to go 
 his own way. Thus many such societies have broken up 
 almost of unanimous consent ; while in almost all a majority 
 has continually to fight against the disaffection of individuals 
 who are desirous of seceding. The great difficulty, then, 
 for such an organization is to keep itself together. The 
 cohesive forces which restrain the atoms from flying apart 
 are usually two — religious enthusiasm, and the power of 
 some dominating personality whose will and prestige overawe 
 the rest into submission. Such a man is often the high 
 priest and founder of a sect. Special and perhaps fortuitous 
 circumstances are thus required to keep these associations 
 together for any length of time. From this source of weak- 
 ness a compulsory scheme of Socialism established by an 
 
 ^ An interesting and impartial account and criticism of these societies 
 is contained in an essay by Mr. Goldwin Smith, upon " Communism in 
 the United States," forming an Appendix to Questions of the Day, p. 338. 
 
200 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 independent State would be entirely free. On the other 
 hand, the voluntary communities possess counterbalancing 
 advantages sufficient to make their prospects of success 
 greater than those of States. While a universal 
 scheme of State Socialism would compel the unwilling to 
 submit to its control, a voluntary association includes only 
 such as believe in the doctrines on which the association 
 rests. At the inauguration of the experiment at least, the 
 members are all more or less enthusiasts. Those who 
 originally organize the adventure have it in their option to 
 choose only such applicants for admission as seem suited 
 to contribute to its success by their personal qualifications, 
 or by the property they are willing to place at the disposal 
 of the community. The rabble and riff-raff are excluded, 
 and so is avoided the need to deal with the lapsed masses, 
 whose existence is the worst problem to be faced by exist- 
 ing governments — the problem in the attempted solution of 
 which Socialism has its best apology. Close corporations, 
 like the Oneida community, are formed exclusively of picked 
 men and women. Various principles of selection may be 
 adopted, but the right to exclude undesirable members is 
 always insisted on ; and, as a matter of actual observation, 
 no such society has ever thrown open its doors to all who 
 chose to come. In most cases, indeed, the community has 
 given an eager attention to the securing of wealthy members, 
 or of men specially skilled in such arts as are likely to be 
 useful to them. Only those communities have thrived whose 
 members have been carefully selected. The difficulties of the 
 ruling and directing power are thus made comparatively easy. 
 The government of a great State has to make arrange- 
 ments for men of every variety inhabiting territories that 
 lie widely apart. These small communities, on the con- 
 trary, have only to deal with men who, from the very fact 
 of their membership, are of somewhat similar tastes and 
 leanings. There is a uniformity of material which makes 
 an orderly system of paternal government comparatively 
 easy. A further aid is found in the limited extent of the 
 field of operations. Such societies are small in number 
 to begin with, and new members are afterwards admitted 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 201 
 
 only with the greatest caution and circumspection. The 
 extent of territory to which their operations are confined is 
 a material factor in the question, and many further points 
 of difference might easily be noticed. 
 
 In this light it is clearly impossible to argue even from 
 the complete success of such small bodies practising a 
 doctrine of all things in common, in favour of a national 
 scheme of compulsory Communism under coercion by the 
 State. Complete success, however, has rarely, if ever, crowned 
 the efforts of any one of these societies which has kept its 
 socialistic principles intact. Many of them have suffered 
 disintegration by a natural process of decay, and many have 
 only continued to exist by departing in practice, if not in 
 theory, from the doctrine to which they owed their origin. 
 Even where success has been achieved, this has been due 
 to specially favouring circumstances, and to the employment 
 of means that would utterly scandalize many of those who 
 are ready to support Socialism on other grounds. The sup- 
 pression of the institution of the family may not be a logical 
 necessity of the principles of Communism, but in practice 
 it has been invariably found that such societies have only 
 flourished on the ruins of family life and purity. 
 
 " That which is at once common," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, 
 " to all the successful communities, and peculiar to them, is 
 the rejection of marriage, whereby in the first place they 
 are exempted from the disuniting influence of the separate 
 family, and in the second place they are enabled to ac- 
 cumulate wealth in a way which would be impossible if 
 they had children to maintain. . . . The members of 
 Beizell's community are strict celibates ; so are the Shakers ; 
 so are the Kappites ; so are the Snowbergers." ^ In the 
 Oneida community, in the opinion of the same writer, " we 
 have again the too familiar and simple conditions of success, 
 exemption from the disuniting influence of the separate 
 family, and the facility for the accumulation of wealth 
 attendant on the absence or paucity of children. Com- 
 munism, in fine, can be rendered practicable only by a 
 standing defiance of morality and nature." ^ 
 
 ^Queitions of the Bay, p. 347. '^Ihid., p. 352. 
 
202 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Not only is the social life of the community made to 
 take the place of the domestic life of the family, hut the 
 latter as an institution is utterly crushed out of existence. 
 The extinction of the family removes the chief pillar 
 on which both social and political institutions at present 
 rest. It involves an entire reversal of our ordinary 
 morality and current modes of thought, as well as a radical 
 reorganization of society and of individual and domestic 
 life. These changes, however undesirable, are possible in a 
 small society of devotees who voluntarily adopt principles 
 abhorrent to the average man or woman, but they could 
 never be forced upon a whole nation. The law of succession 
 and the principles on which capital is distributed depend 
 likewise on the constitution of the family. It is equally 
 clear that the entire questions of marriage and population 
 are also involved, though these are topics which cannot be 
 fully discussed with decency outside of a modern society 
 novel. It is enough to note the fact that the family is 
 suppressed in these socialistic societies of the nineteenth 
 century as thoroughly as was proposed by Plato in his ideal 
 republic of the fourth century before the Christian era. In 
 this way only can Socialists rid themselves of the growth of 
 separate interests tending to break up the community of 
 property on which they rest. 
 
 By the same expedient the numbers of the community 
 are kept down to a normal level. New members are 
 admitted from without only when they can contribute to 
 the selfish interests of the existing corporation by their 
 wealth or otherwise, while the natural increase of population 
 is suppressed or regulated. Thus almost invariably a 
 gradual decrease in numbers takes place. The exclusive- 
 ness of all successful communities is indeed well worthy of 
 careful notice. While within the charmed circle (the right 
 of admission to which is so carefully guarded) the relations 
 of the members are based on principles of all things in 
 common, the attitude of the group towards the outside world 
 exhibits all the worst features of the most selfish form of 
 Individualism. Having carefully excluded all paupers from 
 their midst to begin with, the community aim at the 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 203 
 
 aggrandisement of themselves as a close corporation, regard- 
 less of the poverty-stricken masses around them. But while 
 they neglect their duties towards the outside world, they 
 are willing to take such benefits from it as they can 
 absorb. The socialistic corporation is not a self-sufficing 
 independent society in itself; but merely an association 
 enjoying the protection of a State which secures it from 
 unlawful interference, while allowing it to carry its principles 
 into practice. Each community becomes more and more a 
 capitalist, and lives on the interest of the money which it 
 lends to outsiders. Thus it stands related to the outside 
 world as capitalist to labourer, or as lender to borrower. 
 The principle of Communism is adopted in so far as it 
 benefits the selfish interests of the community, and rejected 
 whenever it is found not to pay. Such one-sided adher- 
 ence to socialistic principles is not unlike the way in 
 which free-trade is sometimes advocated by manufacturers 
 who possess mills in Britain and in America, and who 
 believe in free-trade here and protection there. The rich 
 communistic societies have no desire to have anything in 
 common with their poorer neighbours. A good example of 
 this position towards the outside world is afforded by the 
 Eappites, as this famous community is described by Mr. 
 Goldwin Smith : " The Eappites, a set of enthusiasts who 
 expected the speedy advent of the millennium, called their 
 first two settlements Harmony. Their third, by a signifi- 
 cant change of name, they called Economy. They are not 
 only wealthy, but millionaires of the first order. We are 
 not surprised to learn that they do not proselytize, though 
 converts enough might undoubtedly be found to a doctrine 
 even more extravagant than Eappism, if it were endowed 
 with twenty millions. The Silver Islet Company would be 
 about as likely to desire proselytes. Those who have 
 visited the community report that all its members are 
 advanced in years. The end of Eapp's millennium is in 
 fact a tontine, which will terminate in a Eappite Astor."^ 
 
 Communities such as this cannot be considered as apostles 
 of a creed for equalizing national wealth and eradicating 
 > Goldwin Smith, Questiom of the Day, p. 349. 
 
204 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 poverty from the world. On the contrary, they carefully wall 
 themselves round from contaminating influences, shutting all 
 poverty outside, and thus contrive to succeed not by defying 
 the laws of political economy, but by eliminating the elements 
 of society which make these difficult of application, and by 
 adopting within their own narrow circle extreme remedies, 
 such as the suppression of marriage — remedies difficult to 
 enforce even under favouring circumstances, and absolutely 
 impracticable in a larger and more heterogeneous society. 
 Communists succeed only because they are inconsistent with 
 their own principles in their dealings with outsiders, and 
 because within their own dominions they do violence to 
 human nature in its most sacred development — the family. 
 The objections raised by political economists are not over- 
 come. They simply do not apply. 
 
 (4) There only remain to be considered the socialistic 
 elements and tendencies actually at work in the institutions 
 of modern nations. It has been said already that every 
 society must contain factors of two sorts, individualistic and 
 socialistic. Thus it is not surprising that the extreme votaries 
 of either system, looking chiefly upon such tendencies as 
 work in the opposite direction to what they desire, find much 
 they cannot approve in the methods of procedure adopted by 
 the government they are forced to obey. Many Individualists, 
 shutting their eyes to the factors that make for freedom, 
 neglecting all contradictory evidence, and looking only on 
 such phases of modern politics as seem to increase the scope 
 of the government's solicitude for the positive welfare of 
 its citizens, declare that our system of policy is already 
 socialistic, and tends to become more so. 
 
 Without stopping to criticise the one-sidedness of this 
 line of argument, it is sufficient to admit its validity so 
 far as to allow that society as at present constituted does 
 contain many traits pointing in the direction indicated. To 
 examine these exhaustively would involve a survey of the 
 institutions of every country in the world. In England 
 itself, for example, very many such features could readily be 
 found. It is more instructive, however, to select for examina- 
 tion some country where coUectivist ideals have obtained a 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 205 
 
 greater measure of practical recognition. In this way the 
 benefits and the evils of the system — assuming that, like all 
 human inventions, it has both — may be more clearly observed. 
 Many agencies which are seen tentatively and timidly at 
 work in the mother-country have made bold strides in the 
 colonies. In new countries there is less inertia to be over- 
 come before advanced theories can receive a fitting embodi- 
 ment. Many schemes have been put to the test of experience 
 in the colonies, and there brought to complete success or signal 
 failure, while in Great Britain itself they have not even entered 
 the arena of practical politics at all. It is in respect of social- 
 istic tendencies that Australia is most clearly seen to be " in 
 advance " of the mother country. Victoria, in especial, is a 
 particularly favourable field of observation ; because there 
 these various socialistic tendencies are all to be found in 
 an exaggerated form. " In Victoria State Socialism has 
 completely triumphed." Such was the opinion of Sir 
 Charles Dilke,^ after his visit to the antipodes. In one 
 of our chief Australian colonies, then, in the opinion of 
 an acute observer, Socialism had not only been established 
 by the Colonial Legislature, but had signally succeeded. Sir 
 Charles Dilke, however, wrote before the financial disasters 
 of the last four or five years had swept over Australia, 
 making their devastating influence most cruelly felt just in 
 these colonies where socialistic ideals and methods had been 
 most uncompromisingly adopted. There may be room for 
 doubt how far a consistent Collectivism was really established 
 by the Victorian Legislature, but no one can deny that its 
 whole tenor was clearly in that direction, and that Melbourne 
 put to the test of experiment, in an exaggerated form, every 
 socialistic tendency that can be traced in the mother country. 
 It is equally clear that, whether established or not, Victorian 
 Socialism cannot now (in 1896) be said to have "completely 
 triumphed." Australia, and in especial Melbourne, has not 
 only engulfed itself in general bankruptcy, but has brought 
 wide-spread ruin among thousands .of English and Scottish 
 investors who have embarked their savings in colonial banks 
 and mortgage companies. The natural complexity of social 
 ^Problems of Greater Britain, I., p. 185. 
 
206 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and political phenomena renders it extremely difficult to con- 
 nect any two facts together as cause and effect ; but if it 
 is ever possible to arrive at any definite conclusions within 
 this sphere, Individualists have every justification for blaming 
 socialistic principles as the cause of the financial upheaval 
 that has dislocated the commerce of the world. 
 
 Before attempting to draw conclusions, however, it is well 
 to state, as clearly as may be, the undisputed facts of the 
 case. Two propositions are generally admitted. In the first 
 place, the theory of legislation, and the entire methods of 
 administration throughout the Australian Colonies, and in 
 especial in Victoria, were based upon coUectivist rather than 
 individualistic ideals, although it may be incorrect to say 
 that a complete and consistent system of Socialism was 
 actually established. In the second place, whatever may 
 have been the cause, the methods of government prevalent 
 in Victoria have not " completely triumphed," but have 
 upon the contrary brought about (or at least failed to avert) 
 disasters, involving in a wide-spread ruin not only the 
 entire colony, but also its creditors in every part of the 
 world. These seem to be the outstanding facts ; but it 
 does not follow, without further proof, that the two are 
 connected together. While both parties admit that govern- 
 ment interfered to secure, by positive legislation and a 
 regime of regulation, the material welfare of its subjects, 
 it is yet possible to deny that this policy was directly 
 responsible for the misery that seemed to result. Other 
 evil factors, such as extravagance, were at work, to which 
 part of the blame may be due. How far are the social- 
 istic methods directly connected with the economic 
 failure ? How far (if at all) are they responsible for the 
 borrowing and extravagance which have brought (tardily, 
 it is true, but surely) in their train, such wide-spread 
 ruin ? To answer these questions fully would be to write 
 the history of the colony, but a few salient facts may 
 be briefly mentioned. Before Victoria and the other colonies 
 obtained constitutions and responsible governments of their 
 own, the Colonial Of&ce at home had indicated the lines 
 on which the development of Australia was in future to 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 207 
 
 proceed. With the annexation of that continent to the 
 British Crown a vast extent of unoccupied land had been 
 placed in its hands to be distributed among claimants, or to 
 be kept for the use of the settlers as a whole. Govern- 
 ment became a great landowner, and so Socialism in one of 
 its chief features was a fact accomplished. Other socialistic 
 features naturally resulted. A tendency to throw the 
 burden of the development of the country on the State 
 as the greatest landowner was established, and the sphere 
 of government activity was rapidly enlarged. The habit of 
 dependence upon government was in part also the result 
 of the transportation of criminals to Botany Bay, and the 
 consequent treatment of the whole of New South Wales as 
 a convict settlement. The only labour obtainable was penal 
 labour. This was necessarily directed by government; and 
 the works of various sorts thus constructed naturally con- 
 tinued under the management of the central authorities by 
 whose commands and under whose direction they had been 
 made. 
 
 In 1855, Tasmania and Victoria became self-governing, 
 and next year New South Wales and South Australia 
 followed;^ but the new colonial authorities succeeded to the 
 methods as well as the powers of the home government. 
 The principle of State intervention was continued, and indeed 
 received a new impetus. The sale of land to new immi- 
 grants supplied for a time great riches to the colonial 
 governments, and money was spent freely in developing the 
 country by means of harbours, railways, and public build- 
 ings, aU belonging to and managed by the executive, and 
 paid for from the public purse. The results of this policy 
 were two-fold — the extension of the sphere of government 
 action in initiating and maintaining works of every kind, and 
 the habit of liberal or even extravagant methods of expending 
 public money. The habit thus acquired by government of 
 lavishly sinking capital ia railways and harbours continued long 
 after the original source of revenue had dried up, with the 
 exhaustion of the more desirable portions of unappropriated 
 
 1 Vide Alpheus Todd's Parliamentary Government in the Colonies (2nd 
 Edition), p. 84. 
 
208 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 land. It was soon found, however, that want of money need 
 not hamper the benevolent care of government for the rapid 
 development of the colony and the improvement of the 
 condition of its people of every grade and class. A plethora 
 of capital existed in the mother country seeking investment, 
 and this was readily diverted to Australia in the form of 
 loans granted upon terms which every year became more 
 favourable to the borrower. New public libraries and 
 museums continued to be built by the colonial governments 
 out of money supplied by English capitalists. As long as 
 new loans flowed in there was no difliculty in paying the 
 interest on the old ones, while a good balance was left 
 with which further to advance the welfare of the colonists. 
 The Socialism of New South Wales and Victoria was thus 
 founded on borrowed English gold — on money which had 
 been made in Britain on the principles of economics there 
 acted on — free trade and laissez faire and the individualistic 
 haggling of' the market-place. 
 
 No more than the communistic voluntary societies of 
 America could this Australian Collectivism be called self- 
 dependent. It rested at first on the sale of unappropriated 
 land, and afterwards upon the borrowed money which it 
 succeeded in attracting, but which it was quite unable to 
 repay. The time for meeting this debt arrived when the 
 credit of the Colonies — the flimsy support upon which the 
 whole socialistic fabric rested — began to be called in question. 
 Only then did Victoria realize that she had still to pay the 
 heavy bill incurred by her socialistic tendencies or else own 
 herself bankrupt. The easy doctrine of repudiation is fortu- 
 nately repugnant to the public conscience of the Colonies. 
 An honest attempt is being made to meet the burdens 
 brought about by their own extravagance, and this has caused 
 the present acute distress at the Antipodes. That colony 
 where Collectivism has gone furthest, where State Socialism 
 was said to have " completely triumphed," is the one where 
 the financial panic has been sharpest, and where the resulting 
 distress has been most severe. Melbourne is the city which 
 has suffered most, and which has entailed misery on the 
 greatest number of creditors in Britain. 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 209 
 
 The particular directions taken by socialistic legislation in 
 the various colonies, and the measure of success (permanent 
 or temporary) met with in each, supply fertile fields for 
 investigation to students of such phenomena, but we must 
 confine our attention to one of these. The eight hours' system 
 — ^that central plank in the labour platform, and the object 
 of so much discussion in this country — has actually been 
 established by the Victorian Legislature. 
 
 That the basis of all such legislation is socialistic requires 
 no explanation. If the State does not interfere, the hours of 
 employment' will regulate themselves according to the con- 
 tracts made between capitalists in need of men and labourers 
 in need of work. Hours of labour will, therefore, vary accord- 
 ing to individual and local circumstances. Under the eight 
 hours' system the government steps in and lays down one 
 hard and fast rule for all its subjects. No one, however 
 willing, may work more than eight hours a day. This forcible 
 regulation of labour runs directly counter to all principles of 
 laissez faire. Advocates of a similar measure in this country 
 have often pointed triumphantly to Victoria as a colony 
 where all alleged difficulties had been successfully overcome, 
 and where the system might be seen actually at work to 
 the entire satisfaction of all concerned. 
 
 Such rose-coloured estimates of its success are not likely 
 to find advocates at the present day among those who see 
 that the eight hours' system, as established in Victoria, was 
 an integral part of the socialistic methods of government there 
 put in practice, the complete and dismal failure of which 
 we have just been tracing. Those who boasted of its com- 
 plete triumph five years ago may have seen cause by this 
 time materially to modify their views. Indeed, before the 
 financial break-down of the colonies, many observers ques- 
 tioned even the temporary success which for a time seemed 
 to be achieved. Thus, before the catastrophe had occurred, 
 Mr. Charles Fairfield^ had expressed the opinion that the 
 scheme was at all practicable only because of the abnormal 
 and specially favourable conditions under which the experi- 
 ment was tried. 
 
 J A Plea for Liberty, p. 163. 
 o 
 
210 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 These conditions of a spurious success, as he gives them, 
 are chiefly four: (1) A protective tariff; (2) the absence 
 of such keen competition for work as has to be faced in 
 the home market ; (3) the employment of labour on State- 
 owned railways and other undertakings ; and (4) a process 
 of unlimited borrowing from creditors outside the colony. 
 These four conditions, then, represent the price which Victoria 
 had to pay in order to effect the apparent success — provisional 
 as it has after all turned out to be — of the eight hours' system. 
 
 Much food for reflection is suggested by the whole of Mr. 
 Fairfield's essay upon State Socialism in the antipodes, al- 
 though the force of many of his arguments will be weakened 
 upon those who have greatest need to listen to them by the 
 bitterly partisan tone which pervades it. When due allow- 
 ance is made for the bias of the writer, there is still much 
 truth contained in the picture which he draws of the working 
 of Collectivism in Victoria. 
 
 " Colonial State Socialism," he says,^ " revolves in a sort of 
 circle, and the same sequence appears to present itself at 
 whatever point we inspect it. Politicians sanction and float 
 loans to provide employment for their patrons on pleasant 
 terms, local banks and credit institutions make use of the 
 proceeds of State borrowing to ' finance ' building societies, 
 importers, manufacturers, tradesmen, and private speculators, 
 who in turn give credit to working men for goods, or for land 
 and houses bought by them at inflation prices out of their 
 savings. Neither shop debts, interest, nor instalments on 
 purchases of land and houses can be paid unless wages are 
 good, and work on political railways and ' useful public works ' 
 plenty. These pleasant practices grow upon the community 
 like opium-eating. Ministers therefore dare not now hold 
 their hand, calculate ways and means closely, or stop borrow- 
 ing, lest the whole top-heavy fabric of State Socialism should 
 come toppling down about their ears." .• . . And again, " State 
 Socialism to-day in the Antipodes seems to me to preach to 
 willing disciples the despicable gospel of shirking laziness, 
 mendicancy, and moral cowardice. The further consciousness 
 among all classes there, that triumphant and popidar State 
 ^ A Plea for Liherty, p. 166, 
 
SOCIALISTIC SOLUTION 211 
 
 Socialism depends for its existence on absorbing money from 
 abroad, without reasonable prospect of ever being able to 
 repay it, seems to me bad also."^ 
 
 It is possible to accept the undoubted truth of much of 
 what Mr. Fairfield has here so graphically expressed without 
 entirely sharing his sentiments or approving the forcible lan- 
 guage in which he conveys them. The most casual reader can 
 hardly fail to be struck by the forcible comment on his 
 criticism, furnished by the disasters which have overwhelmed 
 Australia since he wrote. Wherever the boasted success of 
 Socialism was greatest, there the crash has been correspond- 
 ingly severe. If the eoUectivist experiment of which 
 Melbourne was the headquarters has not conclusively proved 
 the impracticability of the economic basis of Socialism, 
 it has certainly done nothing to make good its claims. It 
 is, of course, open to its adherents to urge that it failed so 
 utterly not because it went too far, but because it did not 
 go far enough. 
 
 The result of the entire inquiry, then, would seem to be 
 that history has furnished absolutely no evidence that Socialism 
 as a scheme of government is either practicable or desirable, 
 while on a priori grounds there are strong reasons to show 
 that it is inadequate as a complete solution of the problem 
 it has set itself. 
 
 The questions at issue between Socialists and the defenders 
 of the present organization of society are vital ones. It is 
 remarkable indeed that the two institutions which Socialists 
 are forced by the logic of their position to attack most un- 
 compromisingly — to wit, property and the family — are the very 
 factors in modem civilization which all " orthodox " writers on 
 social and poKtical subjects combine to praise. Conservatives 
 see in them twin pillars of stability, while Liberals count 
 them among the most effective engines of further progress. 
 
 If we turn to any one of the old-fashioned school of 
 political writers, we shall find the two institutions of property 
 and marriage, in the exact forms sanctioned by existing law, 
 spoken of as the chief prerequisites, not only of all govern- 
 ment, but of all morality as well. Sir James Mackintosh, 
 ' A Flea for Liberty, p. 198. 
 
212 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 for example, in his once famous essay on the " Law of 
 Nature and Nations,"^ declares that "Almost all the 
 relations and duties of human life will be found more 
 immediately, or more remotely, to arise out of the two 
 great institutions of property and marriage. They constitute, 
 preserve, and improve society. Upon their gradual improve- 
 ment depends the progressive civilization of mankind, in them 
 rests the whole order of civil life. . . . Around these 
 institutions all our social duties will be found at various 
 distances to range themselves." 
 
 The vital nature of the warfare waged by Socialists 
 against the foundations of existing society is thus brought 
 into clear consciousness when it is realized that these two 
 central institutions are the special objects of their attacks. 
 Their hostility to all rights of private property is openly 
 avowed as their chief merit ; while willingly or unwillingly 
 all communistic schemes have come into violent collision 
 with the family. 
 
 ^Miscellaneous Works, Vol. i., p. 372. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 INDIVIDUALISTIC SOLUTION CONSIDERED GENERALLY. 
 
 The broad ground of distinction between ancient and modern 
 States is frequently expressed by saying that the former 
 were essentially sociaKstic and the latter individualistic. 
 The same principle of contrast is perhaps involved in the 
 formula of the late Sir Henry Sumner Maine, that " society 
 progresses from status to contract." In the earlier stages of 
 civilization a man's rank and mode of life are determined 
 chiefly by forces over which he has no control. Caste and 
 custom regulate everything. Among modern nations, on the 
 contrary, every individual has wide opportunities of bettering 
 his lot or of making it worse, according to his ability and 
 perseverance. Within certain limits his position in life is 
 just what he has made it. In other words, he determines 
 his own lot by the contracts, express or implied, into which 
 he voluntarily enters. It is still a third way of expressing 
 the same truth to say that " regulation " was the watchword 
 of the old world and " free competition " of the new, or 
 that, as Mr. Herbert Spencer puts it, we have passed from 
 the " militant " to the "industrial" type of social organiza- 
 tion, and from the system of " compulsory co-operation " to 
 that of " voluntary co-operation." ^ 
 
 This statement of the law of progress will probably be found 
 
 somewhat one-sided and inadequate, for there are integrating as 
 
 well as disintegrating forces at work in all stages of the 
 
 world's development. New forms of compulsion and regu- 
 
 ^ The Man versus the State, p. 1. 
 
214 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 lation take the places left vacant by the old ones, though, 
 fortunately, they leave within themselves more scope for 
 the free play of individual liberty. It is untrue to repre- 
 sent the whole trend of history as sweeping uninterruptedly 
 from State coercion to individual freedom. It is an un- 
 founded and false assumption that these are necessarily 
 opposed to each other. 
 
 It is possible to hold that they may yet be combined 
 in a less imperfect future organization; and that society 
 may yet escape the limitations that hampered both past 
 and present States in so far as they favoured one element 
 at the expense of the other. Progress has not followed 
 any one straight line — as for example, that leading from 
 bondage to freedom — but has been (as Mr. Spencer himself 
 frequently insists in other connections) a combination of in- 
 tegration and differentiation by which the homogeneous and 
 simple has become the heterogeneous and complex. Coercion 
 and liberty have existed in close relations at every stage 
 of this process. While it is true that sometimes one 
 and sometimes the other has been chiefly emphasized, neither 
 of them has ever entirely vanquished the other. Subject to 
 this explanation, however, it is undoubtedly correct to hold 
 that in the ancient State the individual on the whole 
 suffered ; while in modern theories at least the powers of 
 State control have been comparatively curtailed. 
 
 If it be true, then, that our present civilization is founded 
 on an essentially individualistic basis, this fact may explain 
 to some extent why the word " Individualism " is less familiar 
 than " Socialism." A thing of every-day use is little noticed, 
 while a change attracts attention. Doctrines long received 
 pass unchallenged, unnoticed, and unnamed, while a hizarre 
 opinion by its very uncouthness will ensure a fuller criticism 
 and a closer attention. It may be because the mass of 
 modern men are all Individualists together that they find it 
 unnecessary to adopt a special name to call attention to the 
 circumstance. Whatever the explanation, it is an undoubted 
 fact that while the name Socialist is one commonly in use, 
 its opposite, Individualist, is rarely heard in ordinary con- 
 versation and would convey no definite meaning to the 
 
INDIVIDUALISTIC SOLUTION 215 
 
 average mind. Socialism is a creed with which certain tangible 
 ideas are closely and familiarly associated ; while Individualism 
 is a term known only to theorists. Yet every man who is out 
 and out opposed to Socialism — and there are many such — is 
 an Individualist, whether aware of the fact or not. 
 
 Other influences work in the same direction. Socialism 
 is constructive — the creed of the enthusiast " in the street " 
 is not here spoken of — while its rival is destructive. The 
 one would build up a complex fabric of State control ; the 
 other would reduce it to its narrowest limits. The theo- 
 retical Socialist is under the necessity of creatiag ideal 
 pictures or architects' plans of the building he proposes to 
 erect; and thus definite Utopias are created to catch the 
 public eye. This gives rise to comment and notoriety. The 
 Individualist, on the contrary, has no simple universal pana- 
 cea to offer for inspection. 
 
 This difference of method is, however, not altogether adverse 
 to Individualists. If the creation of Utopias attracts admira- 
 tion, it also invites criticism. If government is to regulate 
 property and trade and commerce, it is incumbent on those 
 who wish this, to show that it is practicable. They are not 
 allowed to rest content after simply demolishing existing 
 institutions. Individualists, on the other hand, do not profess 
 to lay before their constituents any legislative measures 
 guaranteed to cure all the ailments of society. On the 
 contrary, they declaim against the interference of laws and 
 legislation in these matters altogether. The height of human 
 wisdom in their view is to let nature alone, for it knows its 
 work better than man ever can. Thus, when you ask such 
 a theorist for a sample of his wares, and insist on an 
 explanation of his own scheme which he would substitute for 
 the present social organization, he is free to answer: "I have 
 no system. I would substitute nothing. It is the business 
 of nature to work out its own destiny through its own laws. 
 All I can do is to remove the artificial barriers that inter- 
 rupt its course and warp its handiwork. I cannot even 
 trace exactly what that course will be. I can only trust 
 that all will go well, and am sure at least that the meddling 
 of government will only make things worse." 
 
216 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Such an attitude of mind explains naturally enough why 
 no individualistic News from Nowhere or Looking Backward has 
 been given to the world. What is more important, it shdws 
 why it is more difficult to point out the errors of the Indi- 
 vidualist. It is impossible to know where to have him. He 
 is always busy waging war in the enemy's country against 
 existing institutions, and moves so rapidly from point to 
 point that he exposes little surface on which he may be 
 attacked himself. 
 
 The popularity of Socialism is increased from the fact that 
 its adherents hold forth an almost immediate prospect of benefit 
 from its adoption. The CoUectivist believes that a government 
 thoroughly imbued with socialistic theories, and above all with 
 the socialistic interpretation of the laws of justice, will have 
 sufficient power to overcome most of the economic evils of the 
 present system and wisdom enough rightly to direct that 
 enormous power. Human agency is to do everything by a 
 strong system of regulation and control working outwards from 
 a central sovereignty. If it can do this at all, why should 
 it not begin at once? Thus near, if not immediate, 
 prospects of relief are held out to the sufferers from present 
 evils or to philanthropists who are willing to join its ranks. 
 Most Individualists, on the other hand, are more modest in 
 their expectations and less impatient of delay. Their en- 
 thusiasm for the curative power of nature — acting through 
 its " laws of evolution," " survival of the fittest," " supply 
 and demand," or what not — is alloyed by the knowledge 
 that her operations require a long expanse of time. Centuries 
 perhaps must pass before evolution, acting on natural lines, 
 can do much to alleviate present distress. "Slow but sure," 
 is their motto ; but the hope that future generations may 
 be better off is cold comfort to the man whose soul is 
 wrung by the present sufferings of humanity, or to him 
 whose wishes are directed to the immediate bettering of his 
 own condition and who cares nothing for posterity. 
 
 There are, of course, many different degrees and phases 
 of Individualism as well as of Socialism, varying from a 
 praiseworthy but ill-defined desire to protect the liberty of 
 the subject from unnecessary interference on the part of a 
 
INDIVIDUALISTIC SOLUTION 217 
 
 fussy bureaucracy, to a deliberate attempt to abolish govern- 
 ment and even the State itself altogether. While a few of 
 the most extreme and least enlightened among the latter 
 class demand its immediate, abolition, most of them are 
 content to enter upon a course of policy with that object 
 in view which will require several generations to mature. 
 Even Anarchists themselves admit of degrees of intensity 
 within their councils. " The abolition of the external State," 
 says Victor Yarros,^ " must be preceded by the decay of 
 the notions which breathe life and vigour into that clumsy 
 monster, in other words, it is only when the people learn to 
 value liberty, and to understand the truths of the Anarchist 
 philosophy, that the question of practically abolishing the 
 State looms up and acquires significance." 
 
 It is unnecessary to point out that it is as impossible to 
 abolish " the State " as that term has been here defined, as 
 to abolish the Individual, for it is clearly the government that 
 is alluded to and not the State at all. In addition to 
 those Individualists or Anarchists who are willing to wait 
 until the masses are educated to their views before they 
 seek to abolish all systems of national organization, many 
 disclaim all intention of uprooting either the legislative, 
 the administrative, or the judicial functions of the central 
 authority, and propose merely to confine the organs that 
 respectively exercise them to their normal spheres. Moderate 
 Individualists desire only to decrease the limits of the 
 State's active interference with the rights of its members. 
 The advance in democracy, which during the last half-century 
 has been a prominent feature in the history of all progres- 
 sive nations, has given a fresh impetus to every form of 
 government activity, and it is to a natural reaction from 
 this socialistic spirit of interference that the renewed agitation 
 in an opposite direction is due. The nobles and people in 
 earlier ages set strict limits on the prerogatives of the 
 monarch when he enjoyed the power as well as the name 
 of sovereign and personally directed the administrations of 
 his realm. With the advent of the impersonal sovereignty 
 of parliament, the democracy has now no master but itself, 
 ^CSted in A Flea for Liberty, p. 67. 
 
218 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and in this is seen a new and more deadly menace to 
 individual liberty. "It will be a wise precaution," says Mr. 
 Wordsworth Donisthorpe, in emphasizing the danger of this 
 tendency, "to guard democracy from its own defects by 
 limiting the powers of the State however constituted, and 
 to enact, while yet it is day, that all interference of govern- 
 ment in matters outside its normal duties shall be a violation 
 of the constitution." ^ 
 
 Here we have, then, a clear statement of the aims of 
 Individualism by one of its most moderate and enlightened 
 exponents. Apart from the opinions we may hold of the 
 desirability of the end thus proposed, two difficulties in its 
 accomplishment readily suggest themselves, of which one is 
 theoretical and the other practical. It is necessary in the 
 first place to define wherein the " normal " duties of the State 
 consist; and this we shall find to be an impossible task, for 
 what is abnormal in one age or country may be indispensable 
 in another. Even if such a criterion could be found, it would 
 be necessary in the second place to devise an expedient 
 whereby the sovereign and all-embracing State covld " limit " 
 its own powers or suffer them to be limited, and yet remain 
 a State. This would be to place political restrictions upon the 
 political sovereign — which is, by definition, impossible, so long 
 as it remains independent. Parliament, which is the legal 
 sovereign, might, of course, place legal restriction upon itself, 
 but this could be done only by abrogating its sovereignty and 
 placing the sceptre in another's hand. It is impossible "to 
 enact " that the legislative activity of government be subject 
 to any restraint without altering the central principle of the 
 British constitution. Before advising this, Mr. Donisthorpe 
 must suggest some new constitution to take its place, and 
 be prepared to show how this will be better able to keep 
 government to its " normal duties " — whatever these may be 
 — than the old one. 
 
 Parliament has on several occasions — notably in framing 
 
 the Acts of Union with Scotland and Ireland respectively — 
 
 sought to set limits to the powers of future Parliaments, and 
 
 has signally failed. The statutory enactments and the public 
 
 1 Individiudigm., p. 70. 
 
INDIVIDUALISTIC SOLUTION 219 
 
 opinion of a calm to-day afford no protection against the 
 over-government of a passionate to-morrow. Even moderate 
 Individualists thus set themselves a problem that can never 
 be solved. It is impossible to do what John Stuart Mill 
 asserts to be necessary, viz. to limit the power of the people 
 over themselves. Society cannot effectively do what he says 
 it must do — guard itself against " the tyranny of the 
 majority." ^ 
 
 If individualistic friends of liberty are wise, they will con- 
 fine their efforts to more practicable schemes. There are two 
 ways in which they may guard against encroachments on 
 freedom. (1) They may take care that reforming zeal does 
 not remove the wholesome restraints placed by existing con- 
 stitutional law upon the arbitrary power of executive officials ; 
 (2) though without altering the fundamental principles of the 
 constitution they cannot fetter the legislative powers of Parlia- 
 ment, they may effectually provide against the hasty or unfair 
 use of these powers. Those who apply the maxim " Let 
 alone " to the restriction of undue interference with individual 
 rights ought to increase the checks on the despotism of a bare 
 parliamentary majority by the addition of a third legislative 
 chamber, rather than join in any attempt to abolish the some- 
 what weakened bulwark at present afforded by the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 There are dangers on both sides, however ; for if you render 
 difficult or impossible all legislative interference with the 
 existing order of things — whether that order rest upon a 
 eoUectivist or an individualistic basis — you increase the 
 likelihood of revolution. It is dangerous to block up the 
 legitimate channels through which the will of the nation may 
 legally force its way, but it is impossible to limit that will 
 itself 
 
 All Individualists, however they differ in methods and ia 
 degree, are resolved to cut down government interference to 
 some extent. They are far, as yet, from agreement as to 
 what constitutes this " government interference " to which 
 they object. They are equally far from unanimity as to the 
 extent to which they are prepared to go. Indeed by piecing 
 1 Mill, On Liberty, p. 12. 
 
220 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 together the various functions and duties of government that 
 one or other of the most enlightened among Individualists 
 would tolerate or even encourage, a whole might be con- 
 structed comprising a fairly thorough-going system of govern- 
 menb control. All Individualists agree in assuming an 
 absolute antithesis between the powers of government and 
 the liberty of the subject, and also in the opinion that 
 where these are likely to collide, there is a strong a priori 
 presumption in favour of the latter. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 INDIVIDUALISTIC SOLUTION— ARGUMENT FEOM 
 ABSTRACT EIGHTS. 
 
 The ground common to all Individualists is the necessity 
 of putting some limits to the sphere of the government's 
 activity. All aim at protecting the individual from the 
 State. Their arguments fall naturally into two great divi- 
 sions according to the line of attack adopted. It is main- 
 tained, on the one hand, that there are certain spheres 
 marked off by nature or justice into which government has 
 absolutely no right to intrude. Such interference is objected 
 to on the ground that it would violate certain abstract 
 principles or natural rights which are so sacred and absolute 
 that no State has a justifiable warrant to infringe them. 
 On the other hand, it is urged alternatively that, whether 
 or not the government can justify such powers on a 
 speculative basis, it is always inexpedient for it to employ 
 them. It always does harm where it seeks to do good by 
 extending its functions beyond their normal limits. The 
 problem, then, is to define the proper sphere of activity, 
 beyond which it is inexpedient and wrong for government 
 to step. Many of its votaries adopt both lines of argument ; 
 but, though these may be consistently held by one man, 
 they are essentially different, and will accordingly be treated 
 here in separate chapters. The essence of the argument 
 from natural rights lies in the supposed existence of some 
 abstract principle of justice — of some abstract rights — which 
 
222 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 are outside of and greater than the State. Certain hard 
 and fast barriers are constructed in imagination, and it is 
 said that the State cannot, without doing violence to itself 
 and to its duties, climb over these. It is not merely that 
 it is inexpedient for the State to allow its officials to inter- 
 fere in this or that direction. Something more than mere 
 good policy is at stake. Eternal principles, absolute and 
 fundamental rights, are assailed if the government dare to 
 go beyond its appointed sphere. " The violation of the 
 rights of a single individual," it has been forcibly said, " is 
 an act of treason — is an act of war against humanity."^ 
 
 Too often the issues are confused by jumbling the two 
 lines of argument together. The harm wrought by such 
 and such a law working in a certain way is first referred 
 to. Insistence is laid on its stupidity and its maladroitness, 
 and how worse evils are caused by it than those which it 
 sought to remedy. Then, when a successful defence has 
 been made on those same grounds of expediency, the attack 
 is suddenly shifted. The emphasis is now laid on the in- 
 justice and the violation of natural rights of property or of 
 freedom, caused by the statute complained of. The double 
 line of attack is not, of course, in itself unfair, but it may 
 be used (and often is used) in a manner most unfair. 
 
 For a clear understanding of the points in dispute, then, it 
 is necessary to make — provisionally at any rate — a distinct 
 separation between the two lines of argument. The question 
 asked in the present chapter is a very simple one. Are there 
 any absolute principles or rights which the government acting 
 under proper authority from the State cannot invade ? Are 
 there a%y rights inherent in any persons or groups of 
 persons within the State which may be called absolute ? Is 
 there a%y limit at all to the right of the State to do any- 
 thing whatsoever, if that course is advisable for the welfare 
 of itself as an organic unity comprising all of its members 
 as component parts ? The answer here given is equally 
 simple. There is no such absolute, indefeasible, iuviol- 
 able right which can justly defy the State acting for the 
 common good. Such a right would be inconsistent with the 
 1 See Justiae for 29th August, 1885. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 223 
 
 sovereignty of the whole, and would render the efficient 
 organization of the State impossible. An absolute right 
 would introduce a dualism — a second sovereign power equal 
 in dignity to the State itself or superior to it. There is no 
 so-called fundamental right so intimate or sacred that the 
 law cannot invade it if only the need is proportionately 
 great. For example, to take an extreme case, if the con- 
 tinued existence of the nation were threatened by invasion 
 of a barbarous power, to repel such an enemy every right 
 of the individual, the family,, and the locality might be 
 trampled under foot. All houses might be burned, and every 
 citizen forced by a universal conscription to abandon his 
 entire liberty and fight against the invaders, even although 
 his conscience disapproved of war. This is an extreme 
 case justifying extreme remedies ; but it is all a matter of 
 degree. Less violent infringements of so-called natural rights 
 of freedom are justified by less pressing emergencies. If 
 the evil to be so avoided is only proportionately great, 
 the government is not only justified, but is morally bound 
 to make such encroachment as the public welfare needs. It 
 is, further, in every case, the right of the State to judge 
 for itself when such occasion has arisen, and what amount 
 of interference with private rights or vested interests is 
 necessary. It cannot wait to take the opinion of the 
 individual who suffers, or of the section of the community 
 whose rights are invaded. 
 
 No member of the body politic can be allowed to arrogate 
 to himself the right of private judgment as to the duties of 
 the State. If the interests of the community conflict with 
 those of any private citizen, and if the rule of right as to 
 their relations admits of different interpretations, the opinion 
 of the individual must give way before that of the society of 
 which he forms part. It is for the State itself to judge 
 what is just and what is unjust, and in making this estimate 
 it must balance the good of one factor with that of another, 
 and see that each is kept subordinate to the good of the 
 whole. No part can be allowed selfishly to set up its self- 
 arrogated rights so as to wrong the whole. 
 
 If Mr. Spencer is not the sole living exponent of the 
 
224 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 doctrine of natural rights which are absolutely valid against 
 the State, he is at least its best known and most brilliant 
 adherent. " Has the individual," he asks,^ " some rights which 
 are valid against the community?" In his opinion, the indi- 
 vidual has such rights. 
 
 In the Social Statics he speaks of the "right of the indi- 
 vidual to ignore the State," a phrase sounding like a reductio 
 ad absurdvm, of the entire doctrine. The inherent absurdity 
 is, however, deftly concealed in the more recent exposition 
 of the objection contained in The Man versus the State. Here 
 the theory makes what is (it is to be hoped) its last stand 
 on British soil. At the outset, Mr. Spencer clearly acknow- 
 ledges the fact that in England there is a complete consensus 
 of opinion against him both of statesmen and of lawyers, and 
 he quotes in particular from Stanley Jevons and Matthew 
 Arnold.^ He might have added the names of writers of 
 such widely differing schools as Sheldon Amos, Sir Frederick 
 Pollock, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Professor Eitchie, and Mr. 
 Donisthorpe. He consoles himself, however, with the thought 
 that his view is borne out by the whole current of German 
 opinion as embodied in the doctrine of Naturrecht. That this 
 consolation is founded on an entire misunderstanding, is the 
 universal verdict of his friends and adversaries alike. Mr. 
 Wordsworth Donisthorpe, himself an Individualist, and in 
 some respects Mr. Spencer's own disciple, declares that in 
 no recognized sense of the German word Naturrecht "is 
 there any resemblance to the natural rights championed by 
 Mr. Spencer, who is, of course, aware that although ' Eecht ' 
 may be translated by 'droit' or 'jus,' it cannot be translated 
 into English by the term ' right ' or ' rights,' or any other 
 single word; and furthermore, that although 'Eecht' and 
 ' droit ' are fairly synonymous, ' Naturrecht,' on the other 
 hand, cannot be rendered into French as ' droit naturel.' Mr. 
 Spencer's natural rights are the ' droit naturel ' of Eousseau, 
 the 'jus naturale' of Ulpian, the inalienable right of 'every 
 man born into the world' of Mr. Henry George ;. but not the 
 ' Naturrecht ' of Savigny. So that the appeal to the root 
 idea of German jurisprudence (which is, above all, historical 
 
 1 JTie Man versus t/ie State, p. 83. ^ Ibid., p. 87. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 225 
 
 in method) to shore up the justly discredited card castle of 
 'natural rights,' is, to say the least of it, unfortunate."^ 
 
 A still graver difficulty meets him when he descends to 
 particulars, and endeavours to draw out a list of assumed 
 natural rights that are "valid" against the State. He is 
 forced to the somewhat extraordinary device of reviving the 
 ghost or shadow of the exploded social compact theory of 
 Locke and Eousseau. The contract, with Mr. Spencer, is no 
 longer (it is true) an actual one, but only a tacit or implied 
 agreement. Now every contract must contain specific pro- 
 visions, which are binding on all the parties to it, and the 
 clear inference is that no other conditions are binding at all. 
 Thus if you are only careful enough in the manufacture of 
 your imaginary contract, you can triumphantly draw out of 
 it one by one in the form of imaginary clauses the various 
 pet themes which previously you have stealthily smuggled 
 into it, just as a conjurer brings eggs out of an empty 
 hat. While, with Hobbes, the contract led logically to an 
 absolute tyranny, with Locke it pointed to a mixed monarchy 
 limited by strong aristocratic influences with a dash of mild 
 democracy thrown in, assuming the exact form of the Whig 
 doctrine of the Eevolution Settlement of 1689. Under the 
 skilful legerdemain of Eousseau it became the most powerful 
 support of an unrestrained democracy. It is scarcely to be 
 wondered at, then, that a dialectician of Mr. Spencer's ex- 
 perience, once forced to resort to such a weapon, uses it 
 with deadly effect to prove exactly what he wants. He 
 compares the body pohtic to an association incorporated for 
 the purpose of effecting certain specific objects, capable of 
 definite enunciation. All that is required is to find exactly 
 what objects were included in this incorporation, and the 
 inquirer knows at once beyond a doubt the exact sphere 
 and duties of government. When the great unfounded 
 assumptions involved in this premiss of an actual incorpora- 
 tion of society for specific purposes have once been swallowed, 
 
 1 Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Individualwm, p. 270. See also Professor 
 D. G. Eitchie's State Interference (pp. 33 to 35) for his criticism of 
 what he calls " this quaint invocation of the wisdom of the Germans " ; 
 and also Sir Frederick Pollock's Science of Politics. 
 
 p 
 
226 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 it is comparatively easy to convince ourselves that all other 
 objects are beyond its proper sphere. "The members of an 
 incorporated body are bound severally to submit to the will 
 of the majority in all matters concerning the fulfilment of the 
 objects for which they are incorporated, but in no others. 
 And I contend that this holds of an incorporated nation as 
 much as of an incorporated Company."^ This position is 
 perfectly unassailable if the nation is incorporated, that 
 is to say, if the exploded social contract theory is founded 
 on fact. "When an imaginary incorporation is postulated, 
 imaginary articles of association follow as a matter of course. 
 Mr. Spencer, after declaring that there is no actual deed 
 specifying the purpose of incorporation, goes on to supply 
 this defect by a series of rules framed by himself in accord- 
 ance with his general philosophy, specifying what such a 
 deed would have been if it had existed. We need hardly be 
 surprised, then, when we find those imaginary articles contain 
 all his favourite tenets, and prove his entire case beyond any 
 shadow of doubt. For example, to cite only one of these a 
 priori articles, " In the absence of an agreement the supremacy 
 of a majority over a minority does not exist at all." An 
 imaginary' agreement to this effect is, it seems, embodied in 
 the imaginary deed of incorporation ; but under certain 
 important limitations. The power of the majority is only 
 warranted for certain specific purposes, and these turn out 
 to be exactly such as suit Mr. Spencer's theories and 
 prejudices. Thus " subordination of minority to majority is 
 legitimate" only for (1) "defence of society as a whole 
 against external invaders," and (2) "defence of each citizen 
 against internal invaders," because these ends are "obviously" 
 desired by every one except the criminal. " Such subordina- 
 tion is not legitimate beyond this." ^ 
 
 The natural rights of each man, then, would seem to 
 preclude all interference of law and government, except on 
 the plea of defending against invasion the natural rights of 
 other men. To prove his case, however, Mr. Spencer has to 
 prop up the universally discredited theory of absolute indi- 
 vidual rights by the equally exploded doctrine of the social 
 " The Man versus the State, p. 83. '^Ibid., p. 103. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 227 
 
 contract. "The original contract was slain by Hume, and 
 trampled upon by Burke," ^ and with it have fallen all 
 natural rights of man to defy society.^ 
 
 No theory, however, is harder to kill outright. The 
 doctrine of natural rights tends to reappear in a new phase 
 immediately it has been rebutted in its old one. A few of its 
 best known forms must be briefly enumerated, and, if possible, 
 refuted. Absolute claims to exemption from the control of 
 government have been set up on behalf of (1) rights of indi- 
 vidual liberty, (2) rights of conscience, (3) contractual and 
 proprietary rights, (4) rights of the church, the family, and 
 the voluntary association, (5) rights of subject nationalities, 
 and (6) " the rights of man " considered generally. 
 
 (1) Individual freedom is the first of these principles for which 
 Individualists demand exemption from the province of law. 
 Mill is the apostle of liberty, and it is in that sacred name 
 that he wishes to thrust aside all outside restraints that 
 tend to fetter the development of every citizen. He wishes 
 to protect man from social as well as political tyranny — from 
 public opinion as well as from law and government. 
 
 Liberty is to be fenced about from the invasion of other 
 forces as well as from the interference of government. With 
 these motives he institutes an inquiry into " Civil or Social 
 Liberty, the nature and limits of the power which can be 
 legitimately exercised by society over the individual."^ The 
 problem is (still in his own words) where to draw the line 
 " between individual independence and social control."* His 
 conclusion appears on the face of it a very simple one. Only 
 one aim, he finds, can ever justify such interference either 
 by the State or by the various forces of society, and that 
 aim is " self-protection." The sphere of the government, then, 
 is just so much territory as can be fenced off on the plea 
 of self-defence. 
 
 It would be difficult to improve on the clearness and force 
 
 iFi'rfe Sir F. Pollock, Science of Politics, p. 113. 
 
 2 With the criticism of Mr. Spencer, which is here hazarded, may be 
 compared that of Mr. Donisthorpe (Individualism, pp. 260-275), who 
 views the subject, however, from a different stand-point. 
 
 3 Mill, On Liberty, p. 7. *Ibid., p. 16. 
 
228 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 of the actual words in which he has explained his own prin- 
 ciple. "The sole end for which mankind are warranted 
 individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty 
 of action of any of their number is self-protection. The only 
 purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any 
 member of a civilized community, against his will, is to 
 prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or 
 moral, is not sufficient warrant. The only part of the con- 
 duct of any one for which he is amenable to society, is that 
 which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns 
 himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, 
 over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."^ 
 
 In these sentences is contained Mill's complete solution of 
 the problem he set himself in his Essay on Liberty, namely, 
 to find a definite settled principle of government action 
 a,pplicable to all circumstances, times, and countries. He 
 professes to find the absolute criterion he is in search 
 of in " self-protection." If the motive of any action of 
 society or of any law which restricts freedom can be shown 
 to be the desire to protect, it is justified. If not, no other 
 plea will be sustained. Now this seems at first sight to 
 possess the qualities of certainty and simplicity — the two 
 things needed in a good working criterion. On closer examin- 
 ation both of these quickly vanish. It breaks down when 
 applied to any of the difficult questions that arise in practice. 
 The best way to watch its collapse is to follow Mill himself 
 in its application to a few practical cases. We are surprised 
 to find that this " one very simple principle," which we are 
 told in one page is " entitled to govern absolutely the dealings 
 of society with the individual," ^ is declared in the very next 
 page not to apply at all to a numerous and important class 
 of cases. "It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this 
 doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the 
 maturity of their faculties."^ The simplicity of the one principle 
 has already vanished, and the certainty is following fast ; 
 for it is extremely difficult to determine what " maturity of 
 faculties " means, and still more difficult to judge in whom 
 it resides. Children are of course excluded. But who are 
 'Mill, Oil Uherty, p. 27. '^Ihid., p. 22. ^ Ibid., p. 23. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 229 
 
 children ? Positive law in this country terminates minority 
 at twenty-one, but this is merely an arbitrary provision made 
 for purposes of practical convenience. Even allowing that 
 all under twenty-one are children, what principle is to apply 
 to them ? Are those who are not of age to have no protection 
 against society at all?^ Maturity is a thing gradually reached, * 
 and not suddenly jumped into at an age which society fixes 
 beforehand. Further, one individual reaches it sooner than 
 another. Children, however, are not the only class excluded. 
 The criterion does not, it seems, apply to barbarians either. • 
 " Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing 
 with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and 
 the means justified by actually effecting that end." The 
 introduction of these two provisos still further increases the 
 complexity. But the vagueness of the test is a worse fault, 
 than its failure in simplicity. The criterion becomes utterly 
 useless, for who is a barbarian ? A second test is needed to 
 point out those men whose faculties are mature. Who is 
 judge ? Are the Zulus barbarians ? Are the Boers ? Have the 
 millions of India come to maturity, or only some of them ? No 
 nation or individual is safe from the imputation of immaturity 
 being pled by enemies who wish to justify undue interference. 
 Some men would question whether the inhabitants of Ireland 
 or the Highlands of Scotland had come to their majority. John 
 Stuart Mill might have looked on Collectivists as barbarians, 
 while they might have invaded his rights under a similar plea. 
 The complexities only increase when the inquirer passes 
 from a consideration of the various classes of individuals to 
 whom the rule applies, to an enumeration of the kinds of 
 actions which it regulates. The application of the criterion 
 of self-protection leads to the rule that neither the society 
 nor the State has a right to interfere as long as a man's 
 " conduct affects the interests of no person besides himself "^ 
 A new difficulty here presents itself, which Mill clearly 
 enough perceived. " The distinction here pointed out," he 
 
 1 Apparently not ; for, in another part of his essay, Mill says, " Society 
 has had absolute power over them during all the early portions of their 
 existence " (Mill, Liberty, p. 147). 
 
 2 Ihid., p. 140. 
 
230 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 says, "between the part of a person's life which concerns 
 only himself, and that which concerns others many persons 
 will refuse to admit."^ He states the difiBculty fairly enough ; 
 but never answers it. He merely confuses the issue by 
 making a distinction between " actual " and " constructive in- 
 juries," the latter of which do not count. This is only to 
 create a need for still another criterion to decide what actions 
 are merely "constructive." 
 
 Indeed, there is no part of a man's life which concerns only 
 himself: with every advance in science comes a deepening 
 sense of the solidarity of the race to strengthen the con- 
 viction that there is no action, however private, of any man 
 which exclusively affects himself No one can even breathe 
 without affecting currents of air which may bear germs of 
 disease fraught with death to others. To be perfectly safe 
 from hurt by our neighbours is impossible. Any measure 
 might be justified on the ground of self-protection. 
 
 It is, however, in its application to special cases that the 
 arbitrary nature of the principle shows. It is necessary 
 either to abandon it altogether or to twist it backwards and 
 forwards to make it tally with observed facts. 
 
 Mill's one simple principle of action then turns out to 
 involve a whole series of other principles, even when applied 
 to such specially favourable cases as he actually chooses. 
 It breaks down even more completely before a more thorough- 
 going analysis of existing society.^ In one sense the criterion 
 includes too much, and in another too httle. If the life of 
 the individual is only possible in that of the State — if man 
 is a ■KoKiTiKov Xpiov — then the State does more for him 
 than merely protect him from his neighbours. It gives 
 him a field for development and supplies him with every- 
 thing that distinguishes him from the brutes. Thus to 
 reduce the relations between them to the thin limit of 
 Mill's criterion, is to give a wrong imprassion altogether. 
 Government may best help a man by leaving him to help 
 
 ^Mill, Liberty, p. 143. 
 
 2 Individualists themselves admit that it fails to work. Thus Mr. 
 Wordsworth Donisthorpe {Plea far Liberty, p. 71) sums up his examina- 
 tion : " On the whole, Mill's test will not do." 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 231 
 
 himself; but surely if it mm, help forward his highest 
 interests it ought to do so. There is no inherent absurdity 
 in the State doing more than protecting him. On the other 
 hand, self-protection leaves too wide an opportunity for State 
 interference, because any act can be justified on the grounds 
 of self-defence. In Mill's own words, "It is one of the un- 
 disputed functions of government to take precautions against 
 crime before it has been committed, as well as to detect 
 and punish it afterwards." There is no arbitrary measure 
 of the executive government; no harsh and repressive 
 criminal law ; no interference with the liberty and rights of 
 the subject; no invasion of the privacy and sanctity of 
 family life ; which cannot be justified on the ground of self- 
 protection. Not to multiply instances unnecessarily, was it 
 not in the name of self-protection or of the public safety 
 that the worst crimes of the French Eevolution were 
 perpetrated? 
 
 Thus Mill's criterion signally and utterly breaks down. It 
 cannot fulfil its professed purpose of supplying one test which 
 supersedes all others. An almost parallel course of reasoning 
 would show that all other tests proposed are equally delusive. 
 Indeed, the pursuit of such a principle is a hopeless task. 
 No such criterion exists. Neither " self-protection " nor any 
 other principle of division can define the exact extent to which 
 the natural right of liberty can justly defy the government, 
 for the simple reason that no such natural right exists at all. 
 Freedom is possible only within the law, and not against 
 the law. 
 
 (2) Eights of conscience are the most sacred possession of the 
 individual man. Here, at least, it may be said, neither the 
 living agents of the State nor its laws can intrude. The 
 influence of the State is at once so powerful and so penetrating, 
 however, that it is not safe to jump to any such conclusion. 
 A preliminary inquiry into the nature of these rights is 
 necessary. The question arises. What makes any opinion a 
 right of conscience ? Two answers are possible, {a) It 
 may be said that each man must be the sole interpreter 
 for himself of his own conscience. No earthly adviser, no 
 church, and no State can stand between him and his Maker. 
 
232 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (6) On the other hand, no man can be allowed, on the plea 
 of conscientious scruples, to set aside the law of the land. 
 Even if the legislature laid down the rule that no statute 
 was to be allowed to invade " rights of conscience " — granting 
 for the moment that any Parliament could so far neglect 
 its duty as to use so vague a phrase — even then, if a dispute 
 arose as to what constituted such rights, the determination 
 would lie with the State by the mouth of its Courts of Law, 
 and not with the individual. Such rights of conscience, then, 
 as are an effective bar to the interference of the government 
 must be granted by the State itself. From the legal stand- 
 point it is the State that determines rights of conscience ; 
 while from the moral side (as we have already seen) each 
 must judge for himself. The final and complete answer 
 must probably combine both elements, but its solution lies 
 beyond the scope of this Essay. The important point is 
 that, in a question between the individual and the State, 
 the final decision lies with the latter. 
 
 The individual conscience, then, if it would escape the 
 pressure of State law, must conform itself to that law. Eights 
 of conscience, like all other rights, are subject to legal 
 control. Conscience is in one sense absolutely dependent 
 on the community, in spite of the fact that it is in another 
 sense free ; for it is moulded by the sentiments of sur- 
 rounding society and the laws of the State. Heredity, 
 education, and environment all have their bearing upon it. 
 As long as the individual is so closely bound up in society 
 his conscience cannot shake itself clear of trammels. When 
 a State, then, recoils from violating such rights, it is not 
 because it recognizes in them some principle equally or more 
 powerful than its own sovereignty, whose precincts it 
 dare not invade. No ; its abstention arises from quite 
 different reasons. These are chiefly two. In the first place, 
 it judges, in the special cases where it abstains, that it 
 would be inexpedient or unjust to interfere ; and, in the 
 second place, in the innermost sanctuary of conscience 
 it cannot interfere. It may compel a man to perform 
 evil acts. It may stigmatize and punish him as a criminal 
 when he is a saint, but it cannot by compulsion make his 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 233 
 
 conscience alter its judgment between right and wrong. There 
 is a last resort of freedom where despotism can never intrude. 
 In this sense there is an absolute and inviolable right of 
 conscience ; but this is not the sense in which the phrase 
 is used by those who wish to restrict the province of govern- 
 ment. The State is powerless to make the meanest slave 
 believe that wrong is right against his own conscience, as it is 
 powerless to make him believe that night is day, -or that two 
 and two make five. Outside of this its power is irresistible. 
 It can withhold the necessaries of life from those who 
 refuse to subscribe to its tenets. It can reduce man almost 
 to the level of the brute. It can, finally, put the individual 
 conscience at rest, as far as this world is concerned, by putting 
 the individual to death for refusing to accept the interpreta- 
 tion of religious dogmas promulgated by its authority. 
 When its duty calls it to determine on a line of conduct 
 involving a breach of what are said to be rights of conscience, 
 it approaches this consideration just as it would approach any 
 other question. It is all a matter of degree. The pressing 
 nature of the occasion varies, and therefore the solicitude for 
 the preservation of rights of conscience must vary too. A 
 man's conscience may demand " peace at any price," but 
 this cannot exempt him from the payment of a war tax. 
 A still greater necessity may demand a forced conscription. 
 This violates his conscience even more vitally. Here a new 
 element of the problem comes to light. Eights of conscience 
 seem to vary in degree, and it is possible to do greater violence 
 to them in one way than in another. In fact, a close survey 
 shows that rights of conscience, in so far as they affect the 
 relations between the man and the State, are simply one aspect 
 of the general rights of man. To infringe rights of conscience 
 comes to mean simply to infringe other rights, such as 
 property, liberty, or life. Thus, while on the one side a 
 subject could justify every act of rebellion against the govern- 
 ment by pleading that he acted in defence of what is a 
 right of conscience on his own interpretation ; on the other 
 hand, government can hardly take a single step, pass a 
 single law, or impose a single tax without outraging the 
 religious or moral scruples of some of its subjects. 
 
234 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 From all this reasoning three principles emerge : (i.) It 
 is difi&cult to determine what are " rights of conscience," and 
 still more wherein their violation consists. They are not 
 sui generis, but only aspects of ordinary rights, and differ 
 from one another in degree, (ii.) It is the State and not 
 the individual which must finally pronounce judgment on 
 what are and what are not such rights, (iii.) Even if it 
 admits a right of conscience, it does not bind itself to re- 
 gard that as absolute against itself in all possible contingencies, 
 for such rights are essentially relative in their nature. 
 
 Individual rights of conscience, then, are no exception to 
 the general rule. They cannot fence themselves in security 
 from invasion by the State. The oppressed individual has 
 only one resort — that of martyrs in all ages — he can die 
 for conscience' sake. He cannot set up the law of his moral 
 nature as a sanctuary from which to defy the majesty of 
 the State. 
 
 (3) Similar claims are often made on behalf of contractual and 
 proprietary rights. " Freedom of contract " is often spoken 
 of as a principle of such sanctity that it is unholy, if not 
 unlawful, for the legislature to interfere with it. The Factory 
 Acts, the Bank Holiday Acts, the Crofters' Acts, and the 
 Employers' Liability Acts, are all frequently condemned 
 because they place limits to the right to make and to enforce 
 certain classes of contracts. The American Constitution has 
 so far accepted this theory of the sacred inviolability of con- 
 tracts as to prohibit all interference with them on the part 
 of the various States now federated together. The Parliament 
 of Great Britain, however, has shown itself of recent years 
 more and more disposed to restrict contractual rights. 
 
 The subject of rights of property is of even more vital 
 interest. The cry that vested interests are at stake is often 
 raised by men who would reject any natural rights of liberty, 
 though of late years the two interests have been brought 
 into somewhat unusual contact under the auspices of the 
 Liberty and Property Defence League, whose object is, gener- 
 ally, to protect personal freedom and proprietary rights against 
 socialistic legislation. 
 
 The case against " vested interests " is admirably put by 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 235 
 
 Prof. Hoffman.^ " The doctrine of the inviolability of vested 
 rights rests on a false conception of the State, and before 
 the true conception has no foundation whatever. The true 
 State will never allow any individual, or collection of indi- 
 viduals, to hold and use any given property any longer than 
 such holding contributes to the common good. The moment 
 it ceases to do so, that moment the vested right becomes 
 violable. The government of one generation can never un- 
 alterably bind a future generation as to its use of property. 
 It can never grant a franchise for the use of property that 
 a future generation cannot annul, or make a contract that 
 a future generation cannot break. The word 'forever' in 
 any document concerning the possession and use of property 
 is a fiction. The sooner it is read out of court the better. 
 Because a government has once allowed corporations to be 
 formed for the investment and use of property is no reason 
 why they should be continued in existence when they cease 
 to promote the public welfare. It is not only the right, 
 but the duty of the State to legislate them out of existence 
 when it becomes clear that some other method of holding 
 and using property will better further the well-being of the 
 people. The laws concerning the use of property are just 
 as subject to change as those concerning the acquisition of 
 property, and it is the duty of the State through its govern- 
 ment to have them changed whenever it is evident that 
 the good of the organism as a whole requires it." 
 
 All rights and interests are only relative ; but this by no 
 means prevents them possessing a certain weight which must 
 be estimated with reference to the good of the whole. In the 
 interests of order, permanence, and stability, great, perhaps 
 paramount, importance should be placed upon the protection 
 of the property of individuals. When vested interests are 
 invaded, compensation should always be given, assuming that 
 what is infringed is really a right ; but the State must 
 emphatically deny all assumption of an absolute inviolability 
 for any personal or property right. 
 
 (4) Natural rights of an inalienable kind have also been de- 
 manded on behalf of the Church, the family, and the voluntary 
 ' Hoffman, Sphere of the State, p. 60. 
 
236 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 association. It is claimed, in particular, by churchmen of 
 almost every denomination that the exclusive care of spiritual 
 affairs belongs to the Church, while the civil government 
 must confine itself to temporal matters. 
 
 Though the two theories have much in common, this claim 
 is not a mere repetition of the doctrine of the absolute rights 
 of conscience, because the Church has too often shown itself 
 the most intolerant infringer of those rights. The State has 
 very often had to exercise its powers of sovereignty over the 
 Church to prevent the invasion of the " natural" rights of 
 individuals. No such claims of the Church can be admitted. 
 
 (5) One form of abstract rights yet calls for brief con- 
 sideration. It is interesting, if only as showing how hydra- 
 headed and hard to kill the monster is. It is brought up 
 by Bluntschli in defence of the claims of different nation- 
 alities where more " nations " than one are included within the 
 same State. Two instances will explain the difference between 
 a Nation and a State, as it presents itself to Bluntschli. 
 Austria and Hungary are separate in race, language, and 
 traditions, and yet both are bound together into the Austrian 
 Empire by subjection to a common sovereign. Ireland, 
 again, although inhabited by a different race with different 
 sympathies, is bound into one state with England and Scotland, 
 and finding itself in a minority, must often submit to measures 
 of which it disapproves. It is on behalf of such nationalities 
 as Hungary and Ireland that Bluntschli sets up the plea of 
 abstract rights. The chief among these rights is the title to 
 existence as a nation.^ From this source flow a number 
 of derivative rights : (i.) The State cannot deny a nationality 
 its language, or prohibit its literature ; (ii.) a people has a 
 right to its own customs; (iii.) to its own laws; (iv.) also to its 
 own moral and intellectual life. " Man," it seems, " can have 
 no juster cause for resistance to tyranny than defence of 
 nationality." It might be sufficient answer to those theories 
 to show (as could easily be done) that Bluntschli admits 
 important exceptions to each of his own rules in other 
 portions of the same valuable treatise in which he 
 propounds them. But this would be merely an argu- 
 1 Theory of the State, p. 89. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 237 
 
 ment ad, liominem after all. The real ground of objection 
 holds good as before. When he says that the State " cannot 
 deny a nationality its language," the word " cannot " is not 
 only confused with the meaning " ought not," but even " ought 
 not " will not apply, for the State ought to do everything to 
 further its highest end, in acting for the common good. If 
 that is best served by a separation between two nationalities, 
 a repeal of the union ought to be insisted on, but not other- 
 wise. It is the whole nation, however, and not the seceding 
 part, which must decide ; and as long as the two nations form 
 one State, the sovereign will must be absolute within its every 
 corner. 
 
 (6) The last form of this claim set up for the individual 
 which needs consideration is the most general of all. It 
 came into prominence in the eighteenth century, under the 
 name of the Eights of Man. The phrase has a history of 
 its own : it has played an important part in helping more 
 than one revolution to alter the destinies of the human 
 race, but its career cannot here be traced.^ Its importance 
 culminated when it was embodied in the principles of 1789 
 by the French Constituent Assembly, and formed the founda- 
 tion upon which its members attempted to build their new 
 constitution. The doctrine of the Rights of Man obtained 
 a great impulse from Eousseau's system of political science, 
 and received a solemn endorsement by the assembly entrusted 
 with the sovereignty of the French State, when it was made 
 the foundation of the whole fabric. Thirteen years before, 
 the same doctrine had formed the basis of the American 
 Declaration of Independence, adopted by Congress on the 
 4th of July, 1776 ; and almost a century earlier it had 
 occupied a prominent place in the discussions of the English 
 Convention Parliament, preliminary to the framing of the 
 Bill of Eights, though fortunately the builders of that last 
 of the three great bulwarks of our constitutional liberties 
 were too shrewd and practical men to endanger its stability 
 by basing it on any theory, however fashionable at the time. 
 They built on history and precedent, and not on vague 
 philosophic platitudes. 
 
 1 See Prof. Ritchie's Natwal Rights, chapter i., for a detailed account. 
 
238 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 What is this theory of the Eights of Man which has played 
 so distinguished a r6le in English, French, and American 
 national progress ? It naturally assumed various forms 
 according to the times and places of its appearance ; hut 
 its essential feature is everywhere the same. Man as man 
 has certain rights which no State or government dare attack. 
 Every man, because of his own separate individuality, has 
 these rights. 
 
 Catalogues of these naturally vary, but they usually include 
 freedom of thought, speech, and action; rights of public 
 meeting, of combination, and freedom of the press, and so 
 on. All of them are excellent things in their proper places. 
 Nor is there the least objection to calling them " natural 
 rights " if any good purpose is thereby served ; though it is 
 incumbent on those using the term to explain exactly what 
 they mean. Danger arises only when they are spoken of as 
 " absolute " rights. 
 
 All these so-called Eights of Man found their extravagant 
 demands on the assumption that they were prior to the 
 existence of the State, and therefore above and beyond its 
 proper jurisdiction. They are overthrown when the fallacy of 
 the social contract is exposed. 
 
 The conclusion of the whole inquiry then is that the 
 argument for inalienable and absolute rights valid against 
 the State cannot stand in any one of its many forms. 
 Whatever is included in the State is subject to its political 
 sovereignty, and therefore can ground no claim to any rights 
 which are absolute. Further, it can have no legal rights even 
 against the legal sovereign or chief part of the existing 
 government. Parliament is legally above association and 
 family and church and individual. 
 
 The State is absolutely (as well as legally) above them all. 
 In determining the proper functions of government, " the 
 first step," said the late Professor Jevons,^ " must be to rid 
 our minds of the idea that there are any such things in 
 social matters as abstract rights, absolute principles, inde- 
 feasible laws, inalterable rules, or anything whatever of an 
 eternal and inflexible nature." Man has assuredly rights, 
 ^ Stanley Jevons, The State in Relation to Lahow, p. 6. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND ABSTRACT RIGHTS 239 
 
 but a true doctrine of these rights must regard them as 
 existing only in and through the State, and never apart 
 from or against it. They must be based upon the sovereignty 
 of the body politic. This is at once the most immovable 
 foundation on which they can rest, and a guarantee that they 
 will not be carried to excess and so pass into wrongs. Law, 
 as defined by a perfect State, cannot clash with the individual 
 rights of any of its subjects when their differences are 
 reconciled in the light of a truly organic theory of mankind. 
 " Individual and private rights," as has been forcibly said, 
 " have their root in a social authority; the individual possesses 
 his rights, not because of any divine and eternal claim to them, 
 but because they have been given to him and confirmed to 
 him by the State. . . . The rights of man give no actual 
 vantage for urging a claim, but the rights of an Englishman 
 born are clear and defined against encroachment, because he is 
 not merely a man, but a man born to the freedom for which 
 his forefathers struggled." ^ Man's rights become actualities 
 only through the State, and the legitimate sphere of the 
 individual is also the legitimate sphere of the government. 
 The truth is that the whole discussion is at bottom — as 
 is, unfortunately, too often the case with such discussions — 
 a mere battle of definitions. There are several senses — too 
 obvious to need to be dwelt upon — of the words "natural 
 rights '' which every one would admit — rights which most 
 men actually have; rights which they ought to have in a 
 perfect world ; and so forth.^ The one important question is : 
 Are these rights absolute, ? If we once admit (and how can 
 we help admitting ?) that there are emergencies under 
 pressure of which the community is justified in invading 
 these, we have admitted all that is required. To this the 
 Individualist may answer: " If that is all you want you have 
 it, because no one would deny this for a moment. Every 
 
 ^ William Cunningham, Politics and Economics, p. 137. 
 
 2 The various ambiguities with which the expression " natural rights " 
 is positively bristling are admirably explained in Prof. Ritchie's most 
 recently published work, especially in chapter ii., where the different 
 meanings of "natural" are explained, and in chapter v., where the 
 various meanings of "Rights" are given. 
 
240 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Individualist admits that necessity has no law, and that 
 in extreme circumstances, where absolutely necessary, you 
 may infringe an absolute right." Such an admission, indeed, 
 involves all that is contended for ; but what is wanted is 
 not a bald acquiescence in an evident truism, but that the 
 varied aspects of truth which it contains should be under- 
 stood and acted on. Unfortunately the same Individualist 
 who makes the admission on one page appears on the next, 
 and argues away as if he had never admitted anything. 
 The dogma of absolute rights is hard to kiU. 
 
 The conclusion has been well expressed by Prof. Hoffman.^ 
 " It is easy to see the falsity of the doctrine of ' inalienable 
 rights.' The signers of the Declaration of Independence 
 declare that ' life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ' are 
 such rights. They are, to be sure, the natural rights of 
 every individual ; but a natural right is not of necessity an 
 absolute right." 
 
 The common fallacy is to prove the existence of a " natural 
 right " in the sense of a relative right, and then assume that 
 it is therefore inviolable and inalienable. Man, however, is 
 by nature a social and political being ; therefore his natural 
 rights must have a reference to the State, the need for which 
 is included in his nature. His rights in particular come to 
 him only in and through the State. He has " natural " 
 rights at all only because his nature binds him to the State 
 which makes their realization possible. 
 
 ^ Hoflfmaii, The Sphere of the State, p. 6. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 INDIVIDUALISTIC SOLUTION— ARGUMENTS FROM THE 
 FUTILITY AND INEXPEDIENCY OF OVER-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 To dispose of the argument from natural rights is only to 
 reject half of the Individualist's case. Indeed, Mr. Words- 
 worth Donisthorpe has not only discarded all connection 
 with absolute rights, but has with incisive and unanswerable 
 logic annihilated this argument with overwhelming vehemence. 
 This always interesting, and at times brilliant exponent of 
 Individualism tries to found his system on inductions from 
 experience. The substance of his argument is that all 
 government action beyond its own normal functions is inex- 
 pedient and hurtful, and defeats its ends either by failing in 
 the object aimed at or by producing worse evils in room of 
 those removed. This line of argument is, of course, by no 
 means confined to him. All Individualists hold to the same 
 central principle just enunciated ; but most of them use it 
 in conjunction with the untenable argument from absolute 
 rights already discussed and found wanting. 
 
 Simply stated, the argument is this, that (whether just 
 or unjust), over-government is always futile or inexpedient 
 or both — that to extend law or administration beyond their 
 normal limits is necessarily to hurt both national and 
 individual welfare.^ If it can be proved that government 
 
 ij. S. Mill states the argument from inexpediency more moderately 
 and modestly. Interference may, in his opinion, be inexpedient on 
 three grounds, viz. : (1) Many things are better done by private 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 always does harm when it so interferes, and is always 
 entirely wrong, no stronger ground can be occupied. The 
 Individualist, for example, tries to prove from history that 
 every law passed by Parliament to regulate trade, to co- 
 ordinate supply and demand, or to make a debased coinage 
 legal tender,' has been a blunder and source of distress 
 even to those whom it sought to benefit. Having amassed 
 as great a number of favourable instances as possible, he 
 draws the sweeping conclusion that Parliament ought newr 
 to interfere with any branch of trade. Several difficulties 
 suggest themselves, however, inherent in the nature of such 
 an argument. In the first place, it is extremely difficult to 
 make a sufficiently wide collection of data to work upon. 
 The position is only secure when the consequences of all laws 
 have been examined, and this is quite an impossible task. 
 In the second place, in making an induction from so wide a 
 field, with the desire to prove a position already taken up, 
 it is almost impossible to avoid the fallacy of neglecting 
 contradictory evidence. In the third place, even if the 
 generalization has been successfully and fairly made, and has 
 satisfactorily proved the position for the past, it is liable to 
 be overthrown in the future whenever new circumstances 
 arise. If the objection to a certain kind of government 
 action is merely that it is generally inexpedient, it is open 
 for its advocate to offer to show that the present instance 
 is an exception to the general rule. If he can do this, the 
 argument from expediency is his. Thus Individualists who 
 rely only on such considerations can never feel their position 
 impregnable. They are liable to new attacks at any moment, 
 and from every side. 
 
 individual action than by the government ; (2) power of initiation 
 and action unfettered by authority is the best education for the 
 people ; and (3) if government officials have a hand in everything, 
 the State becomes stereotyped and fossilized — a rampant bureaucracy 
 tyrannizes over a stagnant nation. See Essay on Liberty, p. 196. These 
 are indeed weighty reasons ; but we may allow them their full force 
 without becoming Individualists. They warn us against the abuse of 
 Government interference in all spheres ; but do not exclude it from its 
 proper place in any one sphere. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 243 
 
 " Never " is difficult to prove, and when the Individualist 
 seeks to show that government can never do any good hy 
 meddling, he undertakes a gigantic task. If the doctrine 
 of absolute rights, however, deserts him, this is the only 
 ground left him by the logic of the position. He tries in 
 various ways to make the burden lighter, with what success we 
 must see. He usually hedges the full difficulty of his position 
 in three ways. In the first place, ultimate results, he says, 
 must be looked to as well as immediate ones. Even if those 
 nearest effects which we can see are good and practicable for 
 the State to accomplish, still there are ultimate consequences 
 which are evil. " The practical politician," says Mr. Spencer ^ 
 (he is never tired of showering abuse on this inoffensive gentle- 
 man), " who goes on thinking only of proximate results, 
 naturally never thinks of results still more remote, still more 
 general, and stiU more important than those just at hand." 
 When it is remembered that the ultimate results of the 
 simplest act of every private individual, as well as of every 
 State official, have absolutely no limit at all, the boldest man 
 will hesitate to assert that no evil has ever resulted from 
 any one given action. No one ought, of course, to effect a 
 small present good at the expense of a great future evU. 
 Even the " practical politician " who has read of Esau and his 
 mess of pottage is not entirely ignorant of this truism. He 
 would call it in plain English "short-sighted policy," and this is 
 just the same thing which Mr. Spencer prefers to call by longer 
 names. Unfortunately the appeal from immediate to ultimate 
 effects may operate both ways. The Socialist may say that 
 when the Individualist objects to a small proximate evil 
 resulting from government action, he is stupid not to see the 
 ultimate results which are good to an extent quite out of 
 proportion with the present evil. 
 
 In the second place, Mr. Spencer and others of his school 
 would argue that although no evil (direct or indirect) can 
 be shown to result from the particular act of government 
 intervention, yet this action wUl form a precedent for other 
 things which will lead to evil. This contention, however, if 
 pushed to its logical conclusion, involves the doctrine that 
 1 The Man versus the State, p. 25. 
 
244 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the State can never do anything for any one without doing 
 everything for every one, which is a manifest absurdity. 
 
 In the third place. Individualists — most of them at any 
 rate, for Mr. Auberon Herbert is a notable exception — would 
 admit that government has a legitimate sphere and legitimate 
 functions of its own. Thus the task is made still easier. It 
 has only to be proved that a balance of benefits (ultimate 
 and proximate) never results from the extension of govern- 
 ment intervention beyond this sphere. 
 
 The Anarchist, indeed, is the only consistent Individualist, 
 for he alone follows where the logic of his position leads him. 
 To admit that government has any province of its own at all, 
 wherein it may absolutely control the individual, involves a 
 complete departure from the purely individualistic stand-point. 
 Such an admission is essentially of the nature of a compromise 
 with Socialism. " You keep on your side of the fence, and 
 I shall keep on mine," the individual seems to say to the 
 State. It is true that he places the fence to suit his own 
 theories, very far away from the abstraction to which he 
 reduces himself, and very near that other abstraction to which 
 he reduces the State. Still the compromise is there, though 
 it is one which is all in favour of the individual. 
 
 Here we come within sight of the problem of Individualism. 
 There is a definite province, it seems, for government inter- 
 vention. There is also a province for self-government, into 
 which the State has no right to intrude. If, then, there 
 are two spheres of influence thus mutually exclusive for 
 all practical purposes, some scientific frontier must be con- 
 structed between their alien territories. Individualists have 
 not failed to see the need of such a careful delimitation, and 
 each of them has attempted to supply it. Unfortunately 
 no two of them have been able exactly to agree as to the 
 lines it ought to follow. 
 
 The most noteworthy efforts in this direction are those of 
 Von Humboldt, John Stuart Mill, and Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
 
 Von Humboldt's guiding principle^ for mapping out the 
 proper province of the government is " the security of others." 
 
 ^ Von Humboldt, Sphere and Duties of Government, translated by- 
 Joseph Coultard, p. 19. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 24,5 
 
 The object of his essay upon the Sphere and Duties of 
 Government is to show that the State has no concern with 
 the " positive welfare " of its members. " A State, then," he 
 says, " has one of two ends in view ; it designs either to 
 promote happiness or simply to prevent evil; and in this 
 latter case, the evil may be that which arises from natural 
 causes, or that which springs from man's disregard for his 
 neighbour's rights. If it restricts its solicitude to the second 
 of those objects ; it aims merely at security ; and I would 
 here oppose this term security to every possible end of State 
 agency, and comprise these last under the general head of 
 positive welfare." 
 
 To look after their own comfort and well-being is the 
 province of the individual citizens. The government has no 
 right directly to promote happiness, and no right to try to 
 counteract the evils springing from natural sources. Its sole 
 function is to see that each man has security from his neigh- 
 bours, and to force him to allow the like to them. Here, 
 then, is a clear antithesis between the province of the State 
 and that of the individual, and the former is narrowed down 
 to play a very inferior rSle. The individual has apparently 
 a right to object to all interference with him or his affairs 
 of whatever kind, unless the security of others demands it. 
 Even his own security is no warrant for meddling with 
 him, still less the desire for his advancement. 
 
 Von Humboldt's chief follower and exponent in this country 
 was John Stuart Mill, whose strong personality, colouring 
 every theory that passed through the medium of his mind, 
 gave to the Essay on Liherty a distinct individuality of its 
 own, though the general point of view is the same as that of 
 Von Humboldt. 
 
 How Mill's attempt to sketch the exact limits of indi- 
 vidual liberty by means of "self-protection" utterly breaks 
 down, has been already explained in criticising the doctrine 
 of natural rights. Mr. Spencer's efforts are equally unsuc- 
 cessful. Sometimes he declares that defence against internal 
 and external invasion is the only guide; sometimes he 
 contends that while the State has a right to coerce each 
 subject " negatively " it cannot coerce him " positively." 
 
246 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 It would be most instructive to ascertain how far the 
 detailed conclusions founded on these two principles of 
 delimitation coincide. It is also open to question if it is 
 really possible to discriminate between negative and positive 
 coercion, or if the one does not rather shade into the 
 other imperceptibly. Meantime, it is sufficient to notice 
 that Mr. Spencer's second definition restricts the sphere of 
 the State to whatever it can do by negative compulsion alone 
 without resorting to positive compulsion. In plain language, 
 it can compel no man, but only forbid or prevent. There 
 are thus at least four competing principles in the field, each 
 professing to be what Mill calls " a settled principle of action " 
 to guide the government in knowing its own province and 
 mapping it off from that of its private citizens. Von Hum- 
 boldt states it as security from the evils " which spring from 
 man's disregard for his neighbours' right " ; Mill, as " self- 
 protection '' ; Mr. Herbert Spencer, as " defence against 
 external and internal invaders," and again as " whatever can 
 be done without positive compulsion." 
 
 Now each Individualist is only responsible for his own 
 principle ; he has only to protect from attack by the State 
 the bulwarks with which he has surrounded the exclusively 
 individual sphere as marked off by himself Thus the fact 
 that each of them has fenced off a differently bounded territory 
 is no argument against him ; yet it shows that there is a total 
 want of consensus of opinion in the Individualists' camp 
 as to first principles. What is more, not one of these 
 principles is sufficient to accomplish what it professes. Each 
 of them, when examined and applied to particular cases, turns 
 out to be too vague to be of any practical use ; while again 
 it is at once too narrow and too wide to square either with 
 philosophical principles or with observed facts. 
 
 Individualists have, indeed, set themselves an impossible 
 task by first assuming a division which does not exist 
 between the whole and its members, and then trying to find 
 where it is. They all agree that it is on their own principles 
 theoretically necessary to fix a hard and fast line, and the 
 more candid (who are usually the most clear-sighted as well) 
 admit that this is practically impossible. Two quotations will 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 24,1 
 
 show the existence of this logical inconsistency in the individ- 
 ualistic position. 
 
 The Earl of Pembroke — the founder of the Liberty and 
 Property Defence League — expresses this theoretical necessity 
 as follows : ^ " There must be some sort of promise or com- 
 pact existing between the individual and the society, and 
 that compact must contain the principle, if such a principle 
 there be." Here is the recogitition of the need of a hard 
 and fast line of demarcation. The practical impossibility 
 of fulfilling his lordship's own condition is well expressed by 
 him in the same pamphlet : " We must make up our 
 minds to give up the idea of discovering any single principle 
 that will enable us in all cases to set the proper boundaries 
 to State action, and protect the province of individual 
 freedom." 
 
 Mr. Donisthorpe finds the same impossibility of squaring 
 practice with the logical requirements of his individualistic 
 position. " The problem is," he says,^ " What are the proper 
 limits of liberty ? and if these cannot be properly theoretically 
 defined, what rules should be adopted for our practical 
 guidance? . . . Where in theory shall we draw the line, which 
 in practice we have to draw somewhere?" After showing in 
 detail the fallacies of all attempted principles of division, he 
 gives his own view : " We cannot draw a hard and fast 
 line between the proper field of State interference and the 
 field sacred to individual freedom. There is no principle 
 whereby the effective majority can decide whether to inter- 
 fere or not."* 
 
 His conclusion is perfectly true, but it carries with it a 
 deeper meaning than he- would admit. It sweeps away the 
 logical basis of abstract Individualism altogether. The reason 
 why we cannot fence off the " field of State interference " from 
 the "field sacred to individual liberty," as we can fence off 
 two actual fields containing different breeds of sheep, is simply 
 because no such separate fields exist. Every part of the 
 " field " of the one is a proper " field " for the other. Indi- 
 viduals have 710 field sacred from the State, and the State 
 
 * Liberty and Sodaliam, p. 57. ^ In the Plea for Liberty, p. 70. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 74. 
 
248 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 necessarily interferes with everything and everybody within it, 
 though it need not do so in a |stupid or unjust or arbitrary 
 manner, or by means of meddlesome ofi&cials. Thus the 
 reasoning of Lord Pembroke and Mr. Donisthorpe (and others 
 might be quoted to the same effect) contains a tacit ad- 
 mission that they have built their theories on a false 
 philosophy. 
 
 CoUectivists declaim against existing institutions on the 
 ground that they are too individualistic, but Mr. Spencer 
 and his friends attack them on the opposite ground, that 
 they are too socialistic. It will help to a clearer under- 
 standing of their stand-point, to mention the chief objections 
 set forth in The Man versus the State against the existing 
 social and political system. 
 
 (1) Mr. Spencer's first charge may be dismissed as hardly 
 a serious one — that all Liberals who countenance State inter- 
 ference are Tories in disguise. This is the doctrine of "the 
 new Toryism." Stripped of all unnecessary verbiage it simply 
 means that Tory and Socialist are identical, while every 
 Liberal is necessarily an Individualist if he is consistent 
 with himself, — which is simply absurd. As this argument is 
 practically an appeal to Liberals, he assumes of course that 
 all Toryism is bad. It is strange in this light to read (as one 
 sometimes does) that Mr. Spencer is himself the most deadly 
 enemy of modern Eadicalism, and therefore the staunchest of 
 Tories.-^ 
 
 (2) The second argument is drawn from the inherent 
 stupidity of legislators, which is indeed only a necessary 
 inference from the imperfection of human nature — though the 
 legislator seems to absorb a greater share of folly than his 
 fellow-men. Nature, if only let alone, knows better than man. 
 Many instances are given of the mistaken principles upon 
 which lawgivers have interfered with freedom, and the in- 
 ference is drawn, not that these legislators were specially 
 stupid or rash, but that all legislators are necessarily equally 
 bad. This is the doctrine of " The sins of legislators." ^ 
 
 ^Cf. Ritchie's State Interference, p. 3. "Mr. Spencer is perhaps the 
 most formidable foe with -whom the New Badicalism has to reckon.'' 
 2 The Man versus the State, p. 44. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 249 
 
 (3) Then follow a number of special applications of this 
 doctrine affording particular instances of the harm done by 
 government action. Some of these are appalling enough. 
 The list is a long one and not exhilarating reading. But the 
 conclusions are quite unwarranted. For example, government 
 interference, it seems, is at variance with all the recognized 
 doctrines of political economy. " Interferences with the 
 connection between supply and demand, given up in certain 
 fields after immense mischiefs had been done during many 
 centuries, are now taking place in other fields," " Supply 
 of houses for the poor'' is instanced.^ 
 
 (4) All unnecessary government action is unjust, it is 
 urged, because the persons who pay for it are not those 
 who reap the benefit. It is unjust to tax A (who never 
 reads) to provide free libraries, where B may pollute his 
 mind with novels of which A does not approve; or to tax 
 C, whose small income keeps him a bachelor, to provide free 
 education for D's twelve children. This argument deserves 
 very serious consideration. Its force, however, may be modi- 
 fied by the thought that no tax can be absolutely just to 
 every one. Yet no individual (except Mr. Auberon Herbert) 
 would on that account abolish all taxes together. Some 
 government functions are necessary and yet cannot be 
 supported by voluntary subscriptions like a charity school. 
 The statesmen who are responsible for spending and levying 
 the taxes should be as just as possible. It may turn out 
 that taxation for certain objects is unfair, but no sweeping 
 application of the principle to all payments from the public 
 purse can be allowed. 
 
 (5) " Every extension," says Mr. Spencer, " of the 
 regulative policy involves an addition to the regulative 
 agents — a further growth of officialism and an increasing 
 power of the organization formed of officials."^ This is true, 
 so far as it goes. It merely amounts to this, however, 
 that a tendency to excess should be avoided, because there 
 may be too much of anything — good as well as bad. 
 
 (6) In increasing the powers and duties of officialism and 
 bureaucracy, habits of self-help and personal responsibility 
 
 ' The Man versus the State, p. 51. ^Ibid., p. 29. 
 
250 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 are weakened. " Increasing power of a growing administrative 
 organization is accompanied by decreasing power of the 
 rest of the society to resist its further growth and control." 
 This is true, but only shows once more that excessive 
 government action is mischievous, not that all of it is bad. 
 (7) Progressive government action, it is further urged, means 
 reckless expenditure of public money. This fact, combined 
 with those above enumerated, tends to pauperize the nation, 
 and leads to national bankruptcy. All free gifts given to 
 the people, whether by the State or by wealthy individuals, 
 are of the nature of alms. "Whether the charity takes the 
 form of money, or of food and clothing, or of free educa- 
 tion or free libraries, or free concerts, it is charity all the 
 same. Alms are evil when a private man gives them. Still 
 no one can object. They are doubly evil, Mr. Spencer holds, 
 when given by the State under forced taxation, wrung from 
 the pockets of the unwilling. To give alms at all is to sin 
 against the Eicardian law of wages, as it is virtually an 
 attempt to raise wages artificially above their normal level, 
 which is as impossible as to raise the level of the sea. 
 Sooner or later the old level is restored, and the amount of 
 the charity ultimately finds it way into the pockets of the 
 employers of labour in the form of increased profits. It 
 does not relieve distress; it adds to the luxury of those who 
 have already too much. Such is the result of the Eicardian 
 law of wages, as interpreted by both Individualists and Socialists. 
 The latter would cure it by abolishing property altogether ; 
 the former by abolishing, as far as possible, government inter- 
 ference. Now there is much truth in the Individualist's 
 contention : whenever the State does interfere by giving 
 charity, it undoubtedly does tend to pauperize the nation. It 
 does not follow, however, that therefore the State should 
 never do anything for fear that it may be so entrapped into 
 virtually giving alms to some one. If free education is alms- 
 giving, it is inconsistent with received political economy. 
 But that is just the point in dispute. Is it almsgiving ? 
 A similar question might be asked of each of the other acts 
 complained of. 
 
 ^ The Man versus the State, p. 33. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 251 
 
 These last five heads are all instances of the application 
 to special cases of the doctrine of " the sins of legislators." 
 
 (8) Then there is the cumulative argument (already referred 
 to). The amount of government action increases like a rolling 
 snowball, or rather like an avalanche. The fatal course once 
 begun, no power on earth can stop it. We have started 
 already, it would seem, on a journey which must end in 
 State Socialism. The principle of " political momentum " 
 shows that escape is hardly possible. This is the doctrine 
 of "the Coming Slavery."^ 
 
 (9) The last argument of Mr. Spencer that need here be 
 given is that Parliament has no right to pass statutes author- 
 izing government interference in certain cases at all. Mr. 
 Spencer puts to himself the question: "Is Parliament omni- 
 potent ? " and answers it with an emphatic " No." The 
 divine right of "Parliaments means the divine right of 
 majorities," and there is no such right, he adds, because, it 
 seems, individuals have never acquiesced in it. This is, of 
 course, simply a return to the old doctrine of absolute natural 
 rights from the other side. Parliament cannot invade the 
 rights of man. To take this view is to deny both the 
 political sovereignty of the State itself and the legal sove- 
 reignty of Parliament. The former doctrine is the basis of 
 every system of public law, and of every science of politics, 
 while the latter is the theory laid down with unanimity in 
 every legal treatise on the constitution, both ancient and 
 modern, from De Lolme and Blackstone to Mr. Dicey and Sir 
 "William Anson. Mr. Spencer, in stoutly denying it, is in a 
 minority of one. He refuses to accept the lawyers' dictum 
 as to what is the law of England on this point. When 
 statutes and decisions of our law courts are referred to, he 
 replies by producing his imaginary deed of incorporation of 
 the English nation, of which he as the inventor alone holds 
 the key. This consensus of opinion against him, which single- 
 handed he defies, is what he calls the doctrine of " the great 
 political superstition." * 
 
 These nine lines of argument, then, are the chief pleas put 
 forward by counsel for the plaintiff in the great case of 
 ^The Man versus the State, p. 19. ^Ihid., p. 78. 
 
262 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 " The Man versus the State." They are urged with vehemence 
 and fertility of resource; and as the appearance in court of 
 witnesses for the defence is strictly forbidden, the first effect 
 produced on the impartial mind is apt to be an overpowering 
 one. A second perusal of the evidence modifies, in some 
 measure, the effect of these arguments upon the reader. Some 
 of the considerations which tend to break their force have 
 already been adduced, and more will follow in their proper 
 place. 
 
 When all is said, however, great weight must still be 
 allowed to them. If they do not prove that all government 
 intervention is bad, they sound at least a salutary note of 
 warning against the dangers of an extreme or ill-devised 
 system of Collectivism. They discredit Socialism if they fail 
 to establish Individualism. 
 
 If it be true that Parliament is at present prone to indulge 
 in meddlesome and mischievous legislation in some directions — 
 and there is ground for the belief — then the protest of the 
 Individualist is surely not without its value. The legislature 
 has done much harm in the past, and will probably do more 
 in the future. Free discussion of the principles on which 
 it ought to work cannot possibly do evil, and may do good ; 
 and Mr. Spencer's contribution to the debate is certainly of 
 the highest value. In defending us from one extreme, how- 
 ever, he is hurried toward principles which logically land us 
 in the other. While many of the lines of argument followed 
 in " The Man versus the State " deserve consideration, and may 
 well give pause to those who are consciously rushing or 
 unconsciously drifting in the trend of Socialism, such, brief 
 criticism of them as has been already given tends to show 
 that their force is effective against the abuse of government 
 in every sphere, not against its proper use in any sphere — that 
 while they teach us that Socialism is wrong, they fail to prove 
 that Individualism is right. Certain general considerations 
 modify the strength of Mr. Spencer's exposition of Individualism, 
 considered as a consistent system of politics. Three lines 
 of defence against the indictment of government interference 
 may briefly be suggested. 
 
 (1) The field of observation, from a survey of which con- 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 253 
 
 elusions antagonistic to State control are drawn, is too narrow. 
 It is exclusively based on economic considerations. Now, 
 political economy is a useful branch of knowledge, but it is 
 only one restricted science after all. It rests on an abstrac- 
 tion .which is only relatively true, and if pushed to excess 
 becomes an untruth. It considers the world aiid man 
 exclusively from the point of view of material wealth. In 
 the eyes of economic science man is merely a being who 
 produces and consumes. The " dismal science " looks only 
 at the material side of man as a producing and produce- 
 devouring machine. Man has, indeed, hands to work with 
 and a mouth to feed, but he has more. The philosopher 
 and the statesman dare not neglect the other factors in his 
 composition. Hence there are other aspects of human life and 
 other phases of the mutual relations of men which must be 
 taken into account as well as the economic ones, and spiritual 
 needs frequently outweigh material interests. In the world 
 of reality all kinds of relations are inextricably bound up 
 with one another, and it is true to say that you can never 
 have a state of things whence economic conditions have been 
 eliminated. Though always there, however, they may be of 
 comparatively little importance alongside of other relations, 
 moral, hygienic, or domestic. When principles, founded on 
 an induction from exclusively industrial phenomena, are 
 applied to questions of an entirely different nature, careful 
 examination is required to see if they hold good in the new 
 field as well as in the old. Individualists too often neglect 
 this distinction. 
 
 (2) Even in purely economic considerations many im- 
 portant exceptions from the principle of non-intervention are 
 insisted on by authorities of an individualistic bias. John 
 Stuart MUl, in the fifth book of his Political Economy, after 
 instancing and denouncing several forms of government 
 interference founded on erroneous theories (such as the 
 protection of native industries and the repression of usury), 
 goes on to argue that none of the grounds of laissez /aire 
 apply to six classes of cases which he there specifies. 
 These are briefly as foUows: (a) Things in which the public 
 as consumers are not the best judges, e.g. education; (6) 
 
254 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 cases of infancy, idiotcy, the labour of children, and cruelty 
 to animals ; (c) cases of contracts for a prolonged period, 
 z.g. marriage ; (3) things which would otherwise fall to be 
 controlled by joint-stock companies ought to be regulated 
 by the State; (e) cases where one man cannot take the initi- 
 ative unless government enforces the same course on all: this 
 would justify compulsory early closing of shops ; and (/) 
 actions performed by one set of people to benefit another.^ 
 
 These exceptions to the province of laissez /aire are very 
 wide and sweeping. Indeed many moderate Socialists could 
 build their systems upon them without asking wider con- 
 cessions. It would be extremely instructive to analyze 
 each of these exceptions in detail, to discover the under- 
 lying principles and to test how far their consistently 
 logical extension would carry us. Even at a glance it 
 is evident that the doctrine of Mill on Political Economy 
 gives government far wider powers than that of Mill on 
 Liberty, which has been already discussed. It might 
 further be shown that each of these differs from the doctrine 
 of Mill on Eepresentative Government. Mill's mind was 
 essentially analytical. He selected one abstract principle, such 
 as Utility or Liberty, as the basis of each of his works, and 
 kept that principle exclusively in sight throughout. Thus 
 he rendered a priceless service to everything he touched. 
 But unfortunately he left each abstract principle by itself, 
 never performing the complementary task of synthesis, which 
 is the chief duty of philosophy in reaching its ultimate 
 goal by "thinking things together." As a consequence 
 Mill too often puts abstractions in place of realities, while the 
 conclusions founded on one isolated principle are at variance 
 with those based upon another. The government, for example, 
 eould do many things under the principles of the Political 
 JEconomy which it could not under those of the Essay on 
 Liberty. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer is not, of course, liable for the 
 opinions of his fellow Individualist, Mill ; but it would be 
 interesting to ask how far he agrees to the specific excep- 
 tions allowed in the Political Economy to the doctrine of 
 'Mill's Political Economy, chapters x. and xi. 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 255 
 
 laissez /aire ; and, where he does not, how he proposes to 
 get over the difficulties which Mill recognized when he frankly 
 made so many wide concessions. 
 
 (3) A third line of defence is competent against the 
 Individualist. Mr. Spencer, it may be urged, is not 
 sufficiently explicit as to the enemy he attacks under the 
 names of " over-government," " State coercion," " Socialism," 
 "corporate action," and "compulsory co-operation." He is 
 not content with making temperate and specific charges 
 against definite agencies, but confuses the issues by launch- 
 ing his thunderbolts at all the structures and organizations 
 upheld by our present system of polity. " Over-government " 
 is accused indiscriminately of every existing evil. His position 
 seems to be that all existing evils of society are due to 
 government interference; but he fails to distinguish between 
 some eleven or twelve different senses in which that term 
 may be used. 
 
 His arguments may be effectually met, or, at any 
 rate, their force may be considerably broken by the reply 
 that many of the evils complained of are not due to 
 government action at all ; and that others are caused by 
 the abuse of administrative authority or by the use of 
 defective and foolish methods capable of improvement in the 
 future. The great complexity of the phenomena dealt with 
 by political science makes it dangerous to point dogmatically 
 to any one factor as the cause of the evil in an event 
 which is the resultant of so many agencies. It is difficult 
 to apportion accurately the shares of blame attaching to the 
 forces of nature, to the actions of individual men, and to 
 the conscious intervention of government respectively, in 
 regard to a social evil to which each has contributed 
 something. It is not fair for the man to blame the State 
 for misfortunes inseparable from his earthly lot. The 
 Socialist is equally unjust, though he accuses not over- 
 government, but laissez /aire for every form of evil. 
 
 Mr. Spencer, though he falls into a similar mistake on 
 the other side, is keen enough in detecting the weakness 
 of the Socialist. "There is a notion," he says,^ "always 
 ^The Man versus the State, p. 19. 
 
256 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 more or less prevalent and just now vociferously expressed 
 that all social suffering is removable "; but while he laughs 
 at pretensions of Socialism to remove these social ulcers, 
 it seems at times as though he thought that Individualism 
 could. "Over-government" is made the scapegoat for the 
 effects of its own misdeeds along with those resulting from 
 the unlicensed acts of individuals and the operation of natural 
 laws. It is as foolish for the Individualist to blame govern- 
 ment control for causing those social sores which are nature's 
 handiwork, as for the Socialist to believe that government 
 control can cure them. 
 
 In estimating the force of the indictment against "over- 
 government," the difference between legitimate government 
 action and its abuse must further be kept in mind. The 
 blunders of a foolish ruler, and the persecutions of a cruel 
 one, do not prove all governors bad. Imperfect tools must 
 be retained with all their dangers till better ones are invented 
 to take their place. Some of "the sins of legislators" have 
 been caused by the adoption of the crude doctrines of con- 
 temporary science. Parliaments in the past relied on the 
 skilled opinion of the experts of their day, and caused often 
 wide-spread misery. "Who was to blame for this ? The 
 physician who employs all his skill in the light of the 
 defective medical science of his day may cause his patient's 
 death; and yet no one will accuse him of manslaughter. 
 Society cannot do without doctors, and must not blame them 
 because science is not yet perfectly matured. No more can 
 government action be dispensed with, though it cannot 
 always act on perfect knowledge. If experience proves its 
 theories wrong, it is necessary to discard the theories, not 
 the government that has adopted them. It is an encouraging 
 fact rather than otherwise that this course has often been 
 promptly followed, as, for example, in the reversal of the Poor 
 Law administration subsequent to the failure of the allowance 
 system as in force prior to 1832. The break-down did 
 not prove that the relief of the poor lay outside the normal 
 functions of government, but only that its methods had been 
 wrong and wrongly directed. 
 
 Before we condemn " over-government " for all the current 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 257 
 
 troubles of the age, we must deduct the share of guilt of other 
 agencies. When this has been done, it is still necessary to 
 inquire exactly what is meant by " government " and what 
 constitutes its excess. There are at least eleven different 
 meanings or shades of meaning in which the phrase " over- 
 government " may be used. 
 
 (1) It often means an undue extension of the province of 
 authority, and therefore (since this doctrine is commonly 
 accompanied by a dualistic view of things), a corresponding 
 diminution in the legitimate province of liberty.^ It signifies 
 then, in the first instance, an invasion of what is considered 
 the proper domain of " freedom." 
 
 (2) The same phrase may be applied to a country where 
 there are thought to be too many laws. It would thus be 
 equivalent to " over-legislation." The number of statutes 
 passed would here be the chief object of attention, and " over- 
 government " would be least felt in primitive tribes where 
 everything was regulated by unchanging custom. 
 
 (3) It is possible to emphasize rather the quality than the 
 quantity of laws, and while still identifying over-government 
 with over-legislation, to define the latter not so much as 
 an excessive number of changes in the statute law, but 
 as a system of meddlesome interference by Parliament with 
 matters better let alone. It now means "inquisitorial legis- 
 lation " rather than " too much legislation." 
 
 (4) Over-government again may signify " too much State 
 management" in place of State control. Many who would 
 object to all trade and commerce being taken from the 
 sphere of competition and private enterprise, and placed 
 under various administrative departments, would gladly see 
 the control of the central government tightened upon limited 
 companies, and especially upon their most recent develop- 
 ment called "trusts," which for want of proper regulation 
 dislocate from time to time the entire economic well-being of 
 the United States. Such heightened indirect control would be 
 stigmatized as " over-government " by all fraudulent company 
 promoters, and by those who enrich themselves through 
 
 ^ This is the sense in which it is used by Sir John Seeley, Introduction 
 to Political Science, p. 120. 
 
258 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 " trusts " ; while others would reserve the term for the actual 
 ahsorption of all such corporations by the State and their 
 subsequent direct management by executive officials. 
 
 (5) The name may be reserved for government monopolies 
 like the post office, by men who would not object to a fair 
 competition with private letter-carriers. 
 
 (6) A coUectivist scheme for the appropriation of land and 
 capital by the State, and the abolition of the rights of private 
 property might be, with more or less propriety, called " over- 
 government," which would thus mean State ownership as 
 opposed to private ownership. 
 
 (7) It might again mean nationalization as opposed to 
 municipalization of such necessaries of modern life as roads 
 and bridges. 
 
 (8) Even this does not complete the list. This much-used 
 word " over-government " sometimes means centralization — 
 that local government has been elbowed out by bureaucracy, 
 or has sunk into undue insignificance. 
 
 The logic of the Individualist would seem to hold equally 
 against local government as against central government. Now 
 there are many things which each locality is best able to do 
 for itself For example, cities like Manchester, Glasgow, or 
 Birmingham should be left to make and enforce regulations 
 for paving and lighting their own streets, unmolested by 
 Parliament, as long as they break no law of the land. These 
 things would never be done at all upon any uniform plan, 
 unless the municipal authorities enforced compliance with 
 their wishes. Here, to many minds, municipal action is 
 good, but national action bad ; yet from the point of view 
 of individual liberty it matters little whether the power 
 which compels a man to keep his house to the line of the 
 street is a Corporation bye-law or a statute of Parliament. 
 In each case the principles of Individualism are set at 
 defiance. 
 
 (9) Another use of the word is perhaps merely another 
 aspect of bureaucracy. It denotes, however, not so much the 
 substituting of central action in the place of local government 
 as the prohibitions or unnecessary restrictions placed in the 
 way of individual initiation. In some countries a subject 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND OVER-GOVERNMENT 259 
 
 cannot change his address or start on a journey, without first 
 obtaining the consent of some State official. In others he is 
 left free to act on his own responsibility, subject only to his 
 liability to punishment if he invades his neighbour's claim to 
 similar rights. The position of the press in various countries 
 affords good examples of the two systems. In Eussia the 
 press is gagged in case it should do harm. In England it is 
 free ; but if any publisher abuse this liberty he will be 
 punished. Where a license, or the imprimatur of a bureau 
 is required before a man can act in the ordinary affairs of 
 life, " over-government " may justly be charged against the 
 State. 
 
 (10) Another phase of the evil complained of arises from 
 the adoption of a special method of enforcing laws. "When 
 a law is passed, it is the province of the State to see that 
 its provisions are not set at defiance. There are, however, 
 two courses open for preventing it from remaining a dead 
 letter. Individuals may be allowed to enforce such of its 
 provisions as they think will benefit themselves by applying 
 to the law courts to protect their rights as defined by the 
 new law. On the other hand, its enforcement may be 
 entrusted to an executive department or an official.^ For 
 example, if a law prohibits the sale of " margarine " as 
 butter, two courses are open. Private individuals, who are 
 wronged by its infringement, may be given a right of action, 
 or alternatively a series of inspectors paid out of public rates 
 may be appointed to inspect all dairy produce before it can 
 be lawfully exposed for sale at all. The second way of enforc- 
 ing the law is clearly unnecessarily burdensome, expensive, and 
 provocative of arbitrary interference with liberty of action and 
 initiation. The evil here lies not in the law itself, but in 
 the provision for its enforcement. " Over-government " would 
 here mean an executive as opposed to a judicial method of 
 affording to subjects the protection of the laws. 
 
 (11) It may also mean the endowment of petty admin- 
 istrative ofi&cers with excessive powers of an arbitrary and 
 discretionary nature in the discharge of their duties, and 
 might thus be called " officialism." In this sense all con- 
 ' Cf . Lord Farrer, The State in its Relation to Trade, p. 9. 
 
260 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 tinental nations, such as France, where a special law known as 
 droit administratif exists for the protection of the executive, 
 would be " over-governed " as compared with Britain. 
 
 It is not necessary to maintain that all the various uses 
 of the word included in this long catalogue are equally 
 legitimate ; nor that Individualists in attacking the abuse 
 of government always confuse all of them with one another; 
 but it is here asserted that writers like Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 are not sufSciently explicit in defining what they attack, and 
 that arguments which are valid against one phase of govern- 
 ment intervention are often used without formal proof as 
 though they applied to all. 
 
 A detailed refutation of Individualism is impossible and 
 unnecessary, until the evils complained of are stated with less 
 ambiguity. The arraignment of existing systems and institu- 
 tions must break down, unless it is made more specific. The 
 Individualist must be asked to state in black and white to 
 what phases and degrees of " over-government " he objects, 
 and then he is bound to explain how he proposes to 
 get on without them. When he has complied with this not 
 unreasonable request, moderate politicians of all schools will be 
 in a position to say how far they agree with him, and to frame 
 definite arguments in support of their conclusions when they 
 make bold to disagree. We must know definitely what In- 
 dividualists want before we can decide how far they can 
 safely be allowed to get it. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SOLUTION BY COMPEOMISE. 
 
 When Individualists, forced by the stress of hard facts, are 
 compelled to allow a certain province, however limited in 
 extent, to government intervention, they really adopt a com- 
 promise with Socialism. Only Anarchists avoid this necessity. 
 Socialists, on the other hand, when they admit any sphere as 
 inappropriate to government interference, are to that extent 
 temporizing with the enemy. All the solutions already con- 
 sidered, then, unintentionally partake more or less of the 
 nature of a compromise. Various direct attempts, however, 
 which cannot be described as distinctively either socialistic or 
 individualistic, have been made to effect a compromise be- 
 tween the opposed doctrines of laissez /aire and regimentation. 
 It is proposed to group these together, and briefly glance at the 
 chief features of a few of the most important among them. 
 (1) It is sometimes maintained that the legislature is justi- 
 fied in restraining individual freedom on moral grounds, but 
 never on purely economic ones. This attitude of compromise 
 towards the old-fashioned Liberal views of a thoroughgoing 
 policy of laissez /aire was well expressed by the Duke of Argyll 
 in his speech on the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875. He 
 maintained that, while there are circumstances " which compel 
 us frequently to interfere for moral ends " with freedom of 
 contract, for all that " restrictive legislation for the attainment 
 of purely economic ends is not only needless but injurious."^ 
 
 > 3 Hamard, ccxxm. 949, cited Cunningham, Politics and Economici, 
 p. 146. 
 
262 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 In this view, while laissez /aire ought to rule the economic 
 relations of the citizens, their moral relations are within the 
 sphere of government control. 
 
 (2) A line of argument that seems the converse of this 
 was taken by Mr. G-oschen in his Edinburgh address, when he 
 insisted on the danger of a system of official inspection 
 acting as a substitute for the moral responsibility of indi- 
 viduals. " We should exhaust," he said, " every means of 
 enforcing personal responsibility before we substitute public 
 responsibility." 1 "We must struggle to resist a condition of 
 public morality " when due preparation for an inspector's visit 
 would represent the discharge of all obligations and the fulfil- 
 ment of all claims." ^ In this view, one of the chief dangers 
 of legislative interference is the risk of undermining individual 
 responsibility by invading the sphere of the moral relations of 
 the citizens. All legislation would thus stand condemned if it 
 tampered with or weakened the moral tone of the community. 
 
 (3) It is sometimes argued that all legislation that inter- 
 feres with freedom of contract is bad. 
 
 (4) Others find the criterion of which all are in search 
 in the effect which a proposed law is likely to have on the 
 self-reliance of individuals. Each man, it is said, knows 
 best what he wants, and is best able to provide it for 
 himself if only let alone. His moral fibre will be weakened 
 if a parental or rather motherly government does everything 
 for him. In especial, all laws are utterly bad that provide 
 the necessaries of life. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply examples of similar attempts 
 at compromise. It would be easy, too, to point out objections 
 in detail to every one of them. While, on the one hand, 
 it is impossible to divide absolutely economic from moral 
 ends, on the other hand, the risk of weakening individual 
 responsibility must sometimes be incurred to avoid graver 
 perils. It is difficult, again, to know what constitutes undue 
 freedom of contract, and therefore so vague a principle cannot 
 be used as a basis of compromise. Lastly, the necessaries of 
 life are exactly what every one agrees that the Poor Laws 
 
 ^Addresses on Educational and Economic Subjects, p. 77. 
 ^Ibid., p. 84. 
 
THE SOLUTION BY COMPROMISE 263 
 
 must provide. These and many more detailed objections 
 show that each of the four compromises above suggested is 
 open to special objections of its own. Their chief defect 
 lies deeper, however, and applies equally to all. All com- 
 promises are false in principle, and, though often valuable 
 in practice as affording a modus vivendi for the time being, 
 must never be regarded as final or treated as absolute. 
 Between two things so intimately and organically connected 
 as the State and the individual, it is impossible to make 
 any compromise as to their respective spheres of action, 
 for wherever the one is there must the other be also. This 
 is the philosophical objection to the solution by compromise. 
 The practical objection has been well expressed by Professor 
 Jevons :-^ "This question involves the most delicate and 
 complicated considerations, and the outcome of the inquiry 
 is that we can lay down no hard-and-fast rules, but must 
 treat every case in detail upon its merits." A compromise, 
 then, is too clumsy and mechanical a contrivance to satisfy 
 political science, or to square with actual social phenomena, 
 and so form a working basis for a theory of legislation. 
 
 ' 7%e Slate in Relation to Labour, preface. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ORGANIC SOLUTION. 
 
 There are, apparently, insuperable difficulties of both a 
 philosophic and a practical sort to adjusting the province 
 of government upon lines exclusively socialistic or exclusively 
 individualistic. To make the State everything and the 
 individual nothing leads to absurdities on one side; while 
 the subordination of the State to the individual leads to 
 disaster on the other. Attempts at compromise, too, have 
 been seen to be futile. All three solutions then have 
 completely broken down ; yet the problem need not be 
 despaired of The discussion of the elements of truth con- 
 tained in each unsuccessful attempt has already shown where 
 the ultimate solution must be sought. The conclusion to 
 which everything points is, indeed, only a development of the 
 principle from which this Essay started — the essentially 
 organic relations between the State and the individual — the 
 fact that the one without the other is a lifeless and indeed 
 meaningless abstraction. All societies and all institutions are 
 both socialistic and individualistic in their nature. What is 
 wanted is not a mere compromise, but a principle which 
 combines and transcends both classes of tendencies in a 
 higher and nobler unity. 
 
 Some of the Individualists whose insight is clearest seem 
 to come near this position. Mr. Donisthorpe, in explaining 
 Individualism as he understands it, really develops this 
 theory far beyond the mere individualistic basis from which 
 he starts, and by which he professes to abide. "The whole 
 
THE ORGANIC SOLUTION 265 
 
 history of civilization is," in his opinion, " the history 
 of a struggle to establish a relation between society and its 
 units, between the whole and its parts, which is neither 
 absolute Socialism nor absolute Anarchy ; but a state in 
 which, by action and reaction of each upon each, such an 
 adaptation shall take place, that the welfare of the whole 
 and that of the units shall eventually become coincident 
 and not antagonistic. Such is the problem of civilization, 
 of the development of the hyper-organism ; integration with- 
 out impairing the individuality of the component units. 
 The final result to which we shall ever approximate, but 
 never attain, will be perfect civil liberty, or the greatest 
 liberty which is compatible with the utmost well-being of 
 society as a whole; and perfect law, or such subordination 
 of the individual will to that of society as may be com- 
 patible with the utmost well-being of the individual."^ 
 
 Mr. Donisthorpe has here formulated his belief in a 
 golden mean, and is, so far, worthy of all support, though 
 he may have placed it not in the middle, but considerably 
 further to the side of the individual than he ought. In- 
 stead of calling this mean by some neutral name, however, 
 he dubs it Individualism — a word usually reserved for one 
 of the two extremes which he agrees in thinking that all 
 sensible men should shun — while the two extremes are, in 
 his opinion, Socialism and Anarchy. There is no good pur- 
 pose to be served by disputing about a mere question of 
 nomenclature, and if Mr. Donisthorpe is prepared to throw 
 overboard under the name of Anarchy the evils which this 
 Essay finds in Individualism, there would be no real difference 
 left about which to argue. Individualism, however, as he 
 expounds it, is not such a golden mean as it professes to be. 
 On the contrary, when carried to its logical conclusion, it is 
 identical with that extreme which he calls Anarchy. While 
 Mr. Donisthorpe, in the passage just cited, really abandons his 
 original position as a pure Individualist, he yet fails to shake 
 himself free from the idea of a dualism between State and 
 individual, and so the desire for a compromise is always present, 
 and tends to set limits to the comprehensiveness of his aim. 
 1 Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Individualiam, p. 303. 
 
266 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 The doctrine of even the most moderate among the 
 Individualists differs, then, materially from the solution here 
 proposed. It not only emphasizes unduly one factor in the 
 problem to the detriment of the other, but it assumes an 
 absolute dualism between them that has no warrant in fact, 
 and proceeds to build all its conclusions on this erroneous 
 foundation. The organic theory alone fully explains all the 
 problems of society and government, while it finds a place 
 within it for the apparently conflicting tendencies of a 
 socialistic and individualistic nature respectively — tendencies 
 which are equally indispensable for the welfare of mankind, 
 and equally ineradicable from the life of every community. 
 
 Socialism and Individualism are, in the political world, 
 what the forces of attraction and repulsion are in the natural 
 world. They seem opposed, and yet neither could exist 
 without the other, while in the final unrestrained triumph 
 of either, the whole established order of things would dis- 
 solve and pass away. The two together form what Kant 
 has described somewhat clumsily as " the unsocial sociability 
 of men " — the fundamental contradiction of human nature 
 which forces men to seek one another's society, and yet 
 causes each one to endeavour " to direct everything merely 
 according to his own mind."^ 
 
 Political science can neglect neither the forces of integration 
 nor those of differentiation. While maintaining the sovereignty 
 of the whole and the coercive powers of government, it must 
 avoid all systems of slavery, and again, without neglecting 
 the liberty and right of initiation of the social atoms, it 
 must provide against anarchy and disintegration. Nothing 
 short of the organic theory can reconcile these contending 
 interests and tendencies. 
 
 The conception of an organic State involves two funda- 
 mental principles. In the first place, as nothing that 
 affects the part can be indifferent to the whole, the State 
 is bound by its laws and government to aim jointly with 
 the citizens at the perfect development of every individual 
 in the community. Nothing is beyond the proper sphere of 
 
 ^See Kant's Principles of Politics, translated by Professor Hastie, 
 p. 10. 
 
THE ORGANIC SOLUTION 267 
 
 government in pursuing this high end. In the second place, 
 while nothing is suffered to remain outside the State, fit 
 provision must be made for every individual enjoying a full 
 free life within it. 
 
 Each of these propositions requires some explanation : (1) 
 No one insisted more strenuously than Bluntschli on the 
 essentially organic nature of the State ; yet almost all the 
 defects of his political philosophy may be traced to the in- 
 adequate way in which he applies this conception to practice. 
 He excludes various spheres of influence from the legitimate 
 province of the State; and thus contradicts his own defini- 
 tion of it as an organic unity including all its parts. At 
 the same time, he imposes limits on the power of the State 
 inconsistent with the doctrine of its sovereignty. He draws, 
 for example, a distinction (quite untenable when taken as 
 absolute and final) between public and private law within 
 a community, and declares that, while the State is absolute 
 over the former, the latter is the domain of the individual.^ 
 Society, again, is difi'erentiated from the State, and the absolute 
 control of the latter over the former is denied. The know- 
 ledge of this distinction, he says, "protects society against 
 the tyranny of the State." ^ In some connections the State 
 seems to be further denied by him the right to interfere 
 with morality ; ^ with the church and religion ; * with 
 education ; ® with property ; ® with the family ; '' with the pre- 
 judices of subject nationalities; and lastly, even with the 
 pursuits of individuals, for it cannot control private life " in 
 what is essentially individual."^ It would be unjust to 
 exaggerate the amount of force given by Bluntschli to these 
 various exceptional cases ; but it is evident that a truly 
 organic State must exclude none of these things from its 
 all-embracing sphere. It may refrain from unwise inter- 
 ference in special eases, but it has the right to interfere in all. 
 (2) On the other hand, a proper place must be found 
 within the State for all those organizations which are not 
 
 1 Bluntschli, Theory of the State, p. 228. 
 
 2/fe'rf., p. 102. ^Ibid., p. 37. ^Ibid., p. 39. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 301. «IUd., p. 234. ''Ibid., p. 182. 
 
 ^Ihid., p. 301. 
 
268 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 allowed to stay without. The family and the Church must 
 he properly protected and cared for. In especial, there follows 
 from the organic theory the necessity of providing for each 
 individual the possibility of sharing in the life of that State 
 to which he is forced to yield obedience. In an ideal 
 commonwealth every citizen should be able to earn an honest 
 livelihood of so adequate a nature as to enable him to secure 
 the necessary conditions of physical health, to participate 
 in the influences of family life, to enjoy some measure of 
 political rights, and to obtain "some living contact with 
 the things of the mind."^ Every current of the national 
 life must flow freely within reach of every citizen before 
 the relations between them can be looked on as the per- 
 fection of organic union. 
 
 This is merely a theoretical solution, however, it may be 
 said, which brings us no nearer any tangible results. The 
 sequel must show how far the theory leads directly towards 
 rules of a practical usefulness, but its indirect benefits are 
 obvious at a glance. If true, it destroys at once all extreme 
 systems, whether coUectivist or anarchical, founded on in- 
 adequate theories. In especial, it would show the folly of 
 the endeavour to find a boundary which has no existence 
 between the individual and the State, and to devise ex- 
 pedients to prevent the government from crossing a line 
 which does not exist. 
 
 Two distinctions may afford a partial clue to a practical 
 solution — the difference between legislation and administrative 
 interference, and that between government management and 
 government control. It is not necessary for an adminis- 
 trative department to undertake directly the performance, 
 or even the supervision, of all industries and arts of the 
 nation. Indirect control, wherever possible and equally effec- 
 tive, is to be preferred to direct management. It is possible, 
 indeed, to imagine a State of the future in which both the 
 socialistic and the individualistic tendencies of the present 
 are exaggerated, and yet robbed of their evils through 
 the operation of an increased government control, and a 
 diminished government management. 
 
 1 John Maccunn, Ethics of Citizenship, p. 69. 
 
THE ORGANIC SOLUTION 269 
 
 That benignant deity or malignant demon " the State " 
 must not undertake to perform the duties of its citizens 
 while they sit and read novels and grow fat. It ought 
 rather to leave each man free to labour in his own way so 
 long as he does not shirk his legal duties; and to pounce 
 on him with punishment for the past, and compulsion for 
 the future, when he has deliberately neglected these. The 
 government must not relieve individuals of primary respon- 
 sibilities, though it ought to accept an ultimate responsibility 
 of compelling them where they have failed to comply volun- 
 tarily with the minimum of obligation which the State 
 demands. It may be wise to punish citizens criminally 
 for non -performance of duties, where it would be foolish to 
 send a government official to act in their stead. 
 
 The directions and limits of this government control will 
 require to be carefully examined, but it seems clear that, in 
 many cases, the substitution of indirect forms of interference 
 for direct government management affords a basis for realizing 
 many of the advantages of the competing systems, while 
 escaping some of their dangers. It gives room for free initia- 
 tion and the free play of individual responsibility, without 
 relaxing the power of the government in its duty of furthering 
 the general welfare. On the other hand, it makes the citizen 
 independent within the State, though not against the State. 
 
 It is upon such general lines as these that an ultimate 
 solution may be looked for; but its final statement must be the 
 outcome of an exhaustive analysis of the resuits of history 
 and the experience of actually existing States, and not a 
 deduction of a series of abstract propositions from any a 
 priori doctrine. A few suggestions derived from some of the 
 more outstanding facts are all that can be attempted here. 
 
CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 AN ANALYSIS OF ACTUAL EELATIONS BETWEEN THE 
 GOVERNMENT AND THE INDIVIDUAL FROM THE 
 POINT OF VIEW OF THE LATTER. 
 
 A COMPLEX network of relationships binds men to one another 
 and to the State. An analysis of these relations may be 
 approached from the side of the sovereignty of the whole 
 or of the liberty of the part. It is convenient to take the 
 latter aspect first. 
 
 The abstract doctrine that every man should be free is 
 apparently a very simple one ; but as a matter of fact every 
 individual is subject to a great number of restraints in the 
 exercise of this so-called "liberty." The absolutely unre- 
 strained freedom of one man would mean the absolute 
 dependence of his neighbours and the annihilation of the 
 sovereignty o.f the State, unless that sovereignty were centred 
 in the unrestrained individual, who would thien be an irre- 
 sponsible despot. This is only one application of the maxim 
 stcmmum- jus summa injuria. 
 
 Special restraints are placed upon children, lunatics, and 
 criminals, partly in their own interests and partly for the 
 protection of the public. These are exceptional cases which 
 may be eliminated in the meantime from the scope of the 
 inquiry. The members of each of these classes are not con- 
 sidered individuals by the State. In legal phrase, neither 
 a minor nor a lunatic has a full persona. He is not capable 
 of enjoying or exercising the full rights of a citizen. 
 
 It must not be thought, however, that, when a child has 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 271 
 
 reached the age defined by law as man's full estate, all 
 restraints immediately slip off him. He is, and must always 
 be, subject to innumerable forms and varieties of external 
 control. 
 
 What are these restraints or limitations ? They may be 
 divided for our present purpose (though without any claim 
 to exhaustive enumeration or scientific accuracy) into three 
 classes: (1) physical, (2) social, and (3) legal. 
 
 (1) No man can shake himself free from the fetters im- 
 posed upon him by time and space, and the limitations 
 inherent in his own nature. He cannot dive into the 
 past or project himself into the future. He must walk 
 along the surface of the globe. He can neither descend 
 into the earth nor fly above it. His freedom is limited by 
 his own powers of locomotion; and he has to contend with 
 the force of nature in supplying every wish, and even in 
 sustaining bare life within him. These are some of the 
 most obvious of the physical restraints that hem him in on 
 every hand, and he can make but little headway against 
 these elemental forces by his own unaided energies. Any 
 partial conquest he can effect is possible only through the 
 co-operation of his fellow-men. The united efforts of 
 generations have produced railways and phonographs, steam- 
 engines and electrical machines, which have enabled men 
 to gain a partial triumph over space and time, and over 
 nature herself by directing her energies to the accomplish- 
 ment of their own ends. It is, then, by his poWer of 
 association, or by what may be conveniently termed his 
 social nature that man gains a little freedom from a com- 
 plete dependence on the blind forces of nature that imprison 
 him. 
 
 The saying of Eousseau, "Man is born free, and every- 
 where he is in fetters,"^ is the exact reverse of the truth. 
 We should rather say, " Man is born a slave, and it is only by 
 the help of his fellow-men that he can throw off a single chain." 
 
 He ought therefore to think twice before rebelling at the 
 milder limitations which society puts upon him in return 
 for freeing him from a more cruel master. 
 •' Gontrat Social, i. i. 
 
272 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (2) The basis of social restraints, however, lies deeper 
 than any principle of returning a payment for benefits 
 received. Diogenes might pride himself on his independence 
 by affecting to set society at defiance. In reality he merely 
 refused the benefits it could give him, without freeing him- 
 self from the chief of its restraints. He could not cut 
 himself adrift from the rest of humanity by living in a 
 tub, or by retiring to a wilderness. In his solitude many 
 voices would haunt him. The terrible principle of heredity, 
 the ideas derived from former contact with his fellow-men, 
 and (unless he did violence to his nature) the longing 
 for human sympathy and love would follow him. Social 
 restraints bear harder on some men than upon others, 
 but they exist for all. At present, in civilized society, 
 these restraints seem to sink into comparative insignificance 
 as compared with strictly legal bonds. This is not because 
 they have disappeared, but because they have been strength- 
 ened and confirmed in receiving the stamp of positive 
 law. Even yet, however, there are many social restraints 
 which, though not illegal, are still unendowed with the 
 authority of law. Thus a man who would not be shunned 
 by his fellow-men is subject more or less to the restraints 
 placed upon him by the moral sense of the community in 
 which he lives. He is subject to public opinion under 
 penalty of losing much that he values in life. He is sub- 
 ject to "the laws of good society'' under penalty of social 
 ostracism. , Even in this narrowest sense of society, then, 
 the individual is bound to submit to various limitations on 
 his liberty. Such restraints are not enforceable in the law 
 courts, but they compel obedience under sanction of some 
 form of "boycotting." This method of punishing an indi- 
 vidual who refuses to submit to the usages of his own 
 neighbourhood or society is liable to many gradations of 
 intensity. In its mildest form it means the interruption of 
 social relations, but may rise by gradual steps to the ruin 
 of a man's business connection, or the refusal to supply him 
 with the necessaries of life in return for his money. In its 
 ultimate form it becomes " lynch law," still prevalent in 
 some parts of the United States of America. 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 273 
 
 In its lowest stages, then, this principle of the boycott 
 is perfectly legitimate and lawful ; but at a certain point, not 
 always easily determined, it comes into conflict with the 
 positive law of the land. The government will interfere to 
 protect the individual from the excessive tyranny of society 
 when that passes a certain limit. The practical difficulty of 
 determining this exact point need not detain us here, for the 
 general principle is sufficient to give a good illustration of 
 how the individual escapes to some extent from the tyranny 
 of society by an appeal to law, in a similar way to that in 
 which he escapes from the tyranny of nature by allying 
 himself with society. 
 
 (3) In addition to physical and social limitations to free- 
 dom there is yet a third class imposed by the will of the 
 State. These are legal restraints. To examine into their 
 nature and origin would be to write a complete system of 
 jurisprudence and a complete history of law. In a modern 
 State, such as England, it is easy to understand the difference 
 between a restraint which is legal and one which is merely 
 social. The practical test lies in this, that the law courts 
 wUl enforce the one but not the other. This is the ultimate 
 criterion of positive law for lawyers and business men, what- 
 ever theories philosophers care to make. 
 
 There are many acts, then, to which a man's unlimited 
 freedom would naturally lead him if he were not forbidden 
 by law. Now these legal restraints confront him in three 
 distinct forms. 
 
 A simple instance will illustrate this. A wishes to take 
 a short cut to his home. He leaves the high road and 
 proceeds across the fields. He comes to the property of 
 B, who objects to the public walking through his grounds. 
 Suppose that the law endorses B's objection — in other words, 
 that B has an undisputed legal right to forbid A's entrance, 
 there are three ways in which B may enforce his rights, 
 and therefore three ways in which A's liberty of action 
 may be impeded. A ten-foot wall may be buUt all round 
 the property, a policeman or a gamekeeper may be placed 
 with instructions to turn all-comers out, or a simple notice 
 may be posted stating that there is no legal right of way. 
 
274 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 with or without the addition that " Trespassers will be 
 prosecuted." 
 
 These three are simple types under which all methods of 
 enforcing legal restrictions may be brought. When the State 
 gives to one of its subjects a right against another, it may (a) 
 leave him to protect it by making its violation physically im- 
 possible, (&) appoint a number of of&cials to guard it for him, 
 or (c) simply open the doors of its law courts to award him 
 damages in case of its infringement. The first of these methods 
 is comparatively unimportant, since its application is limited 
 to a few exceptional cases. The distinction between the 
 remaining methods, which may be respectively named the 
 executive and judicial methods of enforcing rights, is a vital 
 one. Many of the arguments which the Individualist directs 
 against legal restrictions upon liberty, apply rather to the 
 way in which these are enforced than to the restrictions 
 themselves. The judicial method is free from the dangers of the 
 executive system, which requires to appoint a host of inspec- 
 tors and of&cials, with wide arbitrary powers and the right 
 to interfere when in their judgment the law is likely to be 
 broken. 
 
 The dangers of the latter way of enforcing rights are two- 
 fold. Carried to excess it would not only hamper trade unduly, 
 but would soon sap the self-reliance and power of initiation 
 of the nation. Again, all such methods tend to leave too 
 great arbitrary powers in the hands of individuals whose 
 imperfect moral nature is open both to bribes and to prejudices, 
 and whose judgment is liable to error. Every traveller in 
 Eussia is liable to be stopped and summarily expelled from 
 any district, according to the groundless suspicions or mere 
 caprice of any superintendent of police. Even in England, 
 where a jealous eye has always scrutinized the conduct of 
 officials, the police force have certain arbitrary powers at 
 their disposal. They may (though at their peril) arrest a 
 man for an imaginary disturbance of the peace, or accept 
 a small gratuity for overlooking a minor breach of law. All 
 such powers are bad without exception, if they can possibly 
 be dispensed with. In criticizing them, every argument is 
 sound and appropriate which Individualists direct more loosely 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF ftELATIONS 275 
 
 against government interference in general State action is 
 not (as they think) an evil in itself, but the arbitrary action 
 of State officials is. Unfortunately it is not possible to do 
 without the latter altogether. While all meddlesome official 
 interference with private citizens is to be deplored, it can 
 yet never be dispensed with altogether. The practical con- 
 clusion is that it should be reduced to a minimum. Ifow 
 this is exactly the result at which all practical English 
 statesmen and lawyers have long since arrived. It forms an 
 essential principle of the British constitution. Englishmen 
 were fighting for the abolition of arbitrary powers in the 
 executive government, so as to make of practical value such 
 rights as were possible, while Frenchmen were enunciating 
 grand but unrealizable theories of the rights of man. Jealousy 
 of the arbitrary powers of the executive is in part a legacy 
 from the misgovernmeut of the Stuarts, but it expresses at the 
 same time a deep accord with the whole history and dis- 
 position of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 On a retrospective survey of the restrictions placed by 
 law on individual liberty of action, three propositions come 
 to light. In the first place, some such restrictions are indis- 
 pensable. In the second place, they are not necessarily evil 
 in themselves, but only in the method of their enforcement, 
 when arbitrary powers of prohibition are vested in public 
 officials or private individuals, or excessive penalties are 
 inflicted out of proportion to the offence. In the third place, 
 such arbitrary powers can never be altogether dispensed with, 
 though they may be and ought to be abridged as far as 
 possible. The existence of legal restraints on himself and 
 others gives each man more true liberty than would be 
 possible in the absence of law. " The more law the more 
 liberty" is true, if the law is of the right sort. The im- 
 position of national legal restraints on the citizens saves the 
 individual from the tyranny of local society ; while social 
 influences help to free man from the tyranny of nature. 
 The function of the State, then, in defining and enforcing 
 law is necessary not only for preserving order and maintaining 
 the permanence of the whole, but even for the liberty of the 
 individual. The chief end of law is to make men free. 
 
276 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Social influences and tyrannies, however, are not the only- 
 evils from which the intervention of the State protects the 
 individual. The same power saves him from the despotism 
 of all voluntary associations and local authorities. The power 
 of positive law is always an ultimate court of appeal from 
 injustice done by any minor authority. 
 
 This suggests another most important aspect of the relations 
 between individuals and States. It is true that in many 
 cases they come face to face. But in many other cases — 
 more numerous and more intimately associated with the daily 
 routine of life — the connection is not direct, but through 
 some intermediary. 
 
 Every British citizen is necessarily a resident in a parish, 
 and in some town or county, and he is a member of a family. 
 He is generally also connected with various corporations, as 
 for example a Trades Union, a Masonic Lodge, a Friendly 
 Society, or a Club, and perhaps with one or two commercial 
 associations incorporated under the Companies' Acts. All of 
 these subordinate groups come between the man and the State. 
 Each of these local authorities or voluntary associations has 
 certain powers over its members, but each of them is subject 
 to the sovereignty of the law. Thus the State and its hand- 
 maiden the law must decide between two possible lines of 
 policy. They may either stand aloof, leaving each of these 
 bodies to manage its own internal affairs (including its 
 quarrels with its members) in its own way, or step in to 
 protect the individuals in the minority frorh the tyranny of 
 the majority who compose the rest of the society. It is the 
 second attitude which all existing States more or less 
 consistently adopt. In this policy, it is here maintained, the 
 government is not only justified, but bound in duty to per- 
 severe ; because in doing so it not only secures its own 
 stability, but protects and actually increases the freedom of 
 its citizens. If government interference with corporate bodies 
 is unwise or excessive, the rights of individuals, it is true, 
 must suffer; but if wise and moderate, the more State inter- 
 vention there is, the more freedom will accrue to its citizens. 
 It is usual to consider government and coercion as synony- 
 mous, and as together constituting the direct antithesis of 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS Til 
 
 individual liberty. We must remember, however, how many 
 other forms of restraint men are subject to, and that govern- 
 ment (if itself a tyrant) strikes all other tyrants down. 
 
 Numerous voluntary associations, corporations, and local 
 authorities stand between the State and the individual. In 
 controlling any one of these the government indirectly 
 affects the individual. In all of them it seems that its 
 interference makes, on the whole, for liberty. It would be 
 possible, of course, for the State to abolish all or any of 
 these intermediate bodies, or without destroying them it 
 might so paralyze their powers of action and particularly of 
 initiation, as to render them quite useless and inert. If 
 government interference took anything approaching this form, 
 individual liberty would undoubtedly suffer along with corporate 
 privileges, since the freedom of association is one of the 
 most cherished rights. But the State does no such thing. 
 It allows every lawful form of voluntary combination full 
 scope, and only intervenes when its forbearance is abused, 
 and injury done to its citizens. 
 
 The " Trust," or Corporation, or Trades Union would often 
 crush the individual into powder, if that ogre of the 
 Individualist's imagination — the State — did not extend its 
 all-powerful arm to strike the oppressor down. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 AN ANALYSIS OF THE ACTUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN 
 THE GOVEENMENT AND THE INDIVIDUAL FEOM 
 THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE FOEMER. 
 
 We have hitherto looked with the eye of the citizen on the 
 complex relations that connect him to the State, and have 
 found that the laws and government are not his oppressors, 
 but liis guardians and friends. It is necessary to change the 
 point of view, and to approach the analysis of the same 
 relations from the side of the State. Before seeking to 
 determine what extent or methods of government interference 
 are justifiable in an ideal State, it is well to ascertain the 
 facts applicable to existing governments, such as that of 
 England at the present day. 
 
 Now the first step in the analysis is to emphasize an 
 obvious distinction. The difference between legislative inter- 
 ference and executive interference is too often neglected in 
 speculative writings, perhaps from its very obviousness. The 
 State acts by two agencies — impersonal laws and living 
 ofiicials. Thus State intervention may mean either an 
 alteration of the existing law, or the active meddling of an 
 administrative officer, such as a sanitary inspector or police- 
 man. It is incumbent on every Individualist who would 
 alter the existing organization of society, to declare clearly 
 whether his objections are equally strong against both classes 
 of intervention. Does he object, for example, to all statutes 
 attempting to define family relationships, or would he only 
 oppose the intrusion on domestic privacy involved in the 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 279 
 
 visits of inspectors to enforce them ? This is exactly what 
 the average Individualist fails to do. 
 
 It is proposed now to disentangle these two essentially 
 distinct questions ; to inquire (first) into the sphere actually 
 influenced by legislation at the present day, and (secondly) 
 into the duties actually performed by the executive. 
 
 (I) THE SPHERE OF THE LEGISLATURE. 
 
 It is perhaps impossible to devise an absolutely satisfactory 
 basis of classification for the various forms of legislative 
 activity ; but laws may be arranged in some such order as 
 the following when viewed according to the chief object which 
 they may be presumed to seek : 
 
 (1) To define, protect, and enforce rights. 
 
 (2) To define and punish crimes. 
 
 (3) To alter the form of government, and regulate the 
 mutual relations of its parts. 
 
 (4) To confer such powers and authority upon the various 
 government organs and ofiicials as are necessary to enable 
 them to fulfil their duties, executive and judicial. 
 
 (5) To confer special powers or immunities on corporations 
 or individuals, or to inflict special disabilities on individuals 
 as a means of furthering the public good. 
 
 (6) To provide for the poor and protect the weak. 
 
 (7) To promote the material prosperity of the nation. 
 
 (8) To develop the intellectual faculties and resources 
 of the citizens, and to elevate their moral and spiritual 
 nature. 
 
 (9) To impose taxes to meet the needs of government. 
 How far is it right or advisable to set limits to the power 
 
 of Parliament in seeking each of these ends respectively ? 
 
 (1) To define the mutual rights and obligations of 
 individuals; to prevent these rights when so defined from 
 being invaded or defied; and to provide reparation or com- 
 pensation where they have been violated; these are clearly 
 the duties of the central government, if they are the duties 
 of any one. Laws may be inexpedient, unwise, or unjust in 
 principle or in detail; but it cannot be said that any spTiere 
 
280 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 is alien to Parliament as long as it confines itself to these 
 objects. 
 
 Obviously the liberty of British subjects would not be 
 increased by imitating the provisions of the constitution of 
 the United States of America restricting Congress to eighteen 
 topics of legislation ; for the practical effect of thus narrowing 
 the sphere of Congress is only to place elsewhere the right 
 to legislate on all excluded topics. 
 
 The practical effect is not to liberate the individual 
 American, even in part, from the control of government, but 
 rather to subject him to two law-making masters instead 
 of one. The partial independence of each member of the 
 Federal Union is preserved, but the citizen is to that extent 
 deprived of the protection that the united wisdom of the 
 nation might otherwise afford him from the tyranny of the 
 locality. The practical result is not that legislation is 
 excluded from any topic, but that a different law prevails 
 in every district, and the local law-making body will often 
 impose petty restrictions that Congress would refuse to sanction.^ 
 
 Evidently the method adopted in America of limiting the 
 sphere of the central legislature would not satisfy the 
 average Individualist. If legislation were to be confined to 
 any special province in defining the mutual relations of 
 individuals, all other legal rights of the citizens would 
 require to be regulated in one of two ways, (<x) by contract 
 or (6) by custom. Each of these modes is entirely inadequate. 
 
 (a) There are whole classes of obligations (such as those 
 arising ex delicto or qioasi ex delicto) that cannot be explained 
 on the principle that the parties have expressly or tacitly 
 agreed to them. Contract is by no means sufficient to define 
 all the rights of individuals. The utter inadequacy of the 
 doctrine as a complete theory of the State will be shown 
 in a separate chapter. 
 
 ^A press cutting will illustrate ■what is meant better than many 
 arguments : " The Ohio legislature has passed a law forbidding women 
 to wear large hats at theatres, and imposing a fine of ten dollars 
 upon any manager for each hat he allows to be worn in his theatre 
 obstructing the view of the audience of the stage. The measure is 
 applicable to headgear of any kind." 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 281 
 
 (6) In a civilized and advancing country like England, it 
 is equally impossible to leave to custom the duty of defining 
 any important portion of the rights of individuals. The 
 legislature must be ready when required to interfere with 
 every branch of the national law, civil and criminal. It 
 should not, indeed, pass a statute one day and repeal it the 
 next; but there is absolutely no sphere to which the law 
 does not extend. There is no relation so intimate, no right 
 so intrinsic, no obligation so binding, but that law gives 
 it its ultimate sanction. Law is everywhere, and wherever 
 law is, there is the sphere of the legislature. Parliament 
 cannot excuse itself from responsibility for a bad law on the 
 ground that it never made it, since it tacitly approves 
 what it fails to condemn. 
 
 Now as a society advances in civilization, or even when 
 its circumstances change without any distinct advance, 
 either its laws must alter too, or become a drag upon it. 
 Where there is no existing law to meet the new circumstances, 
 custom of trade may grow up to take its place, but this is 
 at best only a transitory and imperfect expedient. The legis- 
 lature should follow in its wake with a declaratory statute, 
 pruning and defining custom where it is too vague to be 
 serviceable, and eliminating local divergencies to keep one 
 uniform law throughout the land. Where a body of old laws 
 exists to hamper new conditions to which they are unsuited, 
 custom can give but little help. Legal fictions and judge- 
 made laws on equitable principles are devised, but these are 
 only artificial aids. Custom cannot prevail in opposition to 
 statute law, though it may supplement it where deficient. 
 
 Thus a constitutional method must be found to bring the 
 dead law to life again by contact with the conditions of 
 the new national life. If the recognized legislature refuses 
 to perform its duties, revolution will take its place. All 
 rights, civil and political, must be subjected to the defining 
 power of Parliament. 
 
 (2) The definition of what constitutes a crime must also 
 be left to Parliament. No practical man will seriously 
 advocate the abolition of all criminal law. It is possible, 
 of course, to imagine an ideal State where perfection is secured 
 
282 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 not only by the excellence of its institutions, but by the 
 absolute sinlessness of all its citizens. In such a community 
 no punishments would be needed, for no one could ever commit 
 a crime. Even then, criminal law (since it is unquestioningly 
 obeyed) must exist, though as a natural, or moral, rather 
 than a positive law. Until human nature is utterly trans- 
 formed, however, wrongs will be committed, or kept in check 
 only by coercive criminal enactments. Whatever theory of 
 punishment we adopt it seems necessary that felonies and 
 misdemeanours should be repressed. The received doctrine 
 is that all crimes should be punished. But what is a crime ? 
 Who is to define it ? Surely neither the criminal nor the 
 individual judge or jury. The State alone can undertake 
 that solemn task, for by sternly forbidding all individuals to 
 avenge wrongs done to themselves or their relatives — in 
 putting down all vendettas and rights of private warfare — 
 the State must charge itself with the duty of revenging 
 individual injuries, and therefore of defining what constitutes 
 a crime. 
 
 Unless the State appointed a separate organ for the regu- 
 lation of penal laws (a dualistic system which would never 
 work in practice, from the difficulty of differentiating between 
 criminal and civil injury), it must entrust this duty to the 
 ordinary legislature, that is. Parliament. 
 
 In defining, then, the various kinds and degrees of crime. 
 Parliament may be guided by diverse principles according 
 to the theories of crime and of legislation current at the time. 
 Modern public opinion leans to the side of leniency. Our 
 present code may not suit all tender-hearted philanthropists, 
 but it is certainly not exceptionally severe. Parliament could, 
 however — and this is the important point — without unduly 
 extending its proper functions or illogically widening the 
 notion of crime, reduce human liberty almost to vanishing 
 point. It could, too, quite well defend this line of action on 
 the purely individualistic grounds of "protection" or "negative 
 coercion." 
 
 It would be possible to abolish all public health officers 
 and sanitary inspectors, and in their place to construct 
 a whole code of criminal law assigning graduated penalties 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 283 
 
 to the breach of regulations laid down with painful minuteness. 
 Every man then would be " free " in a sense to break this 
 code, for no inspector need interfere with him beforehand, 
 but he would be liable to take the penal consequences of his 
 act. The public prosecutor would proceed against him on 
 information laid by any private individual. Whether our 
 penal laws are merciful or severe, numerous or scanty, no 
 other organ save the central legislature can be entrusted with 
 the power of defining crimes. 
 
 (3) The function of Parliament in altering constitutional 
 law need not be discussed here. 
 
 (4) When Parliament enacts statutes conferring new powers 
 upon the executive government, the liberties of the nation may 
 be seriously endangered ; yet the evil in that case does not 
 consist in the legislature as such stepping beyond its proper 
 sphere, but in the impetus given to unwarrantable interfer- 
 ence by administrative officials. 
 
 (5) The policy of granting special immunities to corpora- 
 tions by private Acts of Parliament is difficult to vindicate 
 on principles of abstract justice. Compulsory powers of 
 purchase are conferred upon railway companies whereby 
 vested interests are invaded. This comes dangerously near 
 favouring one class or group of individuals at the expense 
 of another. Similar theoretical objections seem to apply to 
 acts of attainder and acts of indemnity. Justification of 
 such legislation must be sought in their necessity for the 
 common good, and in the principle that the so-called right 
 of the individual is not really a right if it conflicts with the 
 welfare of the whole. All such measures may be dismissed 
 as exceptional. 
 
 (6) While to provide for the poor and to protect the 
 weak cannot be justified on a purely individualistic basis, no 
 one at the present day seriously contemplates the abolition 
 of all poor laws, and it is therefore unnecessary to prove 
 that Parliament is within its proper sphere in enacting such 
 measures. In giving charity, however, the legislature has 
 passed, it must be noticed, beyond the mere definition of 
 rights, strictly so called, and has entered on a policy of 
 tempering justice with mercy. 
 
284 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (7) and (8) The next two classes of laws may be grouped 
 together, as they have much in common, and are equally 
 exposed to the extreme vigour of the Individualist's attack. 
 The course adopted by Parliament with increasing con- 
 sistency throughout most of the present century, of directly 
 furthering the material prosperity of the nation and the 
 intellectual and moral welfare of the people, is at variance 
 equally with the principles of Von Humboldt, Mill, and Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer. Two lines of argument minimize the force 
 of their objections. 
 
 {a) In attacking all such legislation, Individualists are 
 forced to take up a position that deprives their protests of 
 all practical value. Their objections are grounded on the 
 presumed motives of the various measures. It would be 
 impossible to adopt a criterion either more flexible or more 
 vague. One motive shades into another. The alleged object 
 of any Act of Parliament may be very far from that which 
 actually influences the votes of a majority of the 670 mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons. Even the legislature itself 
 is hardly in a position to judge of its own aims and 
 intentions. Almost any motive might be advanced in favour 
 of any law. As long as presumed motive is the criterion 
 whether or not Parliament has gone beyond its proper sphere, 
 the supporters of any measure have only to declare that its 
 object is the " protection of rights " to disarm the criticism 
 of Individualists. 
 
 (6) Legislation in promotion of national wealth or intel- 
 lectual progress or the interests of posterity, however, need 
 not be made to depend on such technical arguments. If the 
 good of the community is the sole criterion of legislation, no 
 valid objection can be taken to any law on the ground that 
 its avowed motive is directly to promote the intellectual 
 advancement of the whole community. On the contrary, no 
 aim can be more praiseworthy. It is, of course, open to 
 Individualists to argue that all such laws only defeat their 
 ends ; but that is to adopt an entirely different attitude, and 
 to rest on an unwarranted assumption. 
 
 (9) The last class of laws requiring comment are those 
 that impose taxes. Mr. Auberon Herbert is in a minority 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 285 
 
 of one in holding it possible to conduct all the necessary busi- 
 ness of government on voluntary subscriptions in place of 
 taxes extorted by force if need be. Taxes of some extent are 
 necessary, however they may be minimized. Now there is 
 no doubt that the power to levy them is safer in the hands 
 of the central legislative organ of the State than in any 
 narrower and more local body. " Taxation," it has been well 
 said, "is always an act of sovereignty, and belongs to the 
 State as a whole."^ The question is thus reduced to one of 
 degree. Parliament is undoubtedly within its proper sphere 
 in imposing such just taxes as it deems necessary. 
 
 The result of the entire survey of the objects of legislation 
 under these nine heads shows that there is no sphere alien 
 to the action of Parliament in performing its proper legislative 
 functions. Legislative interference is objectionable only on 
 one or other of the following grounds : (a) that it is unwise, 
 inexpedient, or unjust ; (J) that it imposes excessive penalties ; 
 (c) that it unnecessarily vests arbitrary powers in the executive; 
 or (rf) that it lays on excessive or unjust taxation. There 
 is no sphere from which it can be legitimately excluded. 
 
 Thus, for example, protective legislation is wrong, not 
 because it is an attempt to define by statute the respective 
 rights of producer and consumer, but because it defines these 
 on a false basis or under an inequitable bias. The old law of 
 treason and the multiplication of capital offences were open 
 to reproach, not because the State had no right to punish 
 crime, but because it did so with savage and excessive brutality. 
 Some provisions of the Factories and Workshops Acts are open 
 to objection, not because they define the relations between 
 masters and employees, but because they place too wide 
 discretionary powers in the hands of inspectors. Lastly, the 
 old Poor Laws were iniquitous, not because the legislature had 
 no right to provide for the destitute, but because it did so 
 unwisely and at a ruinous cost to the nation by means of an 
 ever-increasing taxation which threatened to reduce even the 
 rich to the level of paupers. 
 
 It is impossible, then, to exclude legislative action from 
 any sphere which is ruled by law; and law in a thoroughly 
 iProf. r. Hoflinan, The Sphere of the State, p. 114. 
 
286 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 civilized State must define all relations between man and 
 man. Where the law leaves room for doubt, it opens a 
 door for quarrels, breaches of the peace, and the oppression 
 of the weak, which is the worst of aU possible "sins of 
 legislators." 
 
 As long as Parliament confines itself , to purely legislative 
 business the outcry against " over-government " is meaning- 
 less. The Individualist may here interpose, however, that 
 hardly any Act of Parliament is without some provisions 
 which involve either executive action or taxation. Parlia- 
 ment in England is, by its legislative supremacy, in a 
 position to dictate orders to the executive and also to direct 
 the finances of the nation. In exercising either of these powers 
 it may unwarrantably interfere in a wrong direction. This 
 is true ; but in doing so it steps beyond the region of legis- 
 lation proper, and acts as the ultimate controller of the 
 administration. If this is what the Individualist really objects 
 to, it is important he should realize that his argument is 
 directed, not against the legislative functions of Parliament 
 at all, but against the exercise of its other function of 
 controlling the executive. 
 
 (2) THE SPHERE AND DUTIES OF THE EXECUTIVE. 
 
 The ambiguity of the charge of "over-government," even 
 when confined to purely administrative action or interference, 
 has already been explained. It may mean an excess of 
 government management as opposed to government control; 
 State ownership substituted for the rights of private property ; 
 centralization as opposed to local government ; a bureaucracy 
 which numbs the energy and sense of responsibility of 
 private citizens; or a system of excessive police supervision 
 working through an elaborate apparatus of licences and 
 checks, prohibiting free discussion and gagging the press. 
 
 These are merely a few of the widely different things, 
 stigmatized indiscriminately by Individualists as the abuse of 
 government, under the general description of State intervention. 
 
 The extreme indefiniteness of all such vague condemnations 
 of the intervention of the State beyond its normal sphere 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 287 
 
 frustrates all attempts to carry on the discussion with any 
 hope of attaining useful results. If the Individualist wishes 
 his weight to be felt in practical politics, he must discard 
 vague generalities and ambiguous phrases, and point out 
 accurately the specific sins of government to which he objects. 
 
 It should be his task to draw up an exhaustive list of 
 the functions which the executive actually performs, and to 
 state clearly those that he would immediately abolish, and 
 those that he regards as evils necessary for the present but to 
 be gradually got rid of. It does not seem unfair to ask him 
 further to meet the difficulties to which these changes would 
 give rise, either by argument or by some practical substitute 
 for government control. It is no part of the scheme of 
 this Essay to relieve him from this duty, but some indica- 
 tion may not unnaturally be expected here as to the nature 
 of the chief duties actually performed by the executive 
 authorities in most modern European States. A good basis 
 for such an attempt is to be found in two admirable 
 works of the "English Citizen Series": The, State in Relation 
 to Labour, by the late Professor Stanley Jevons ; and The 
 State in Relation to Trade, by Lord Farrer. The analysis 
 ought to be undertaken, in the first instance, by practical 
 business men working in the various administrative depart- 
 ments, who are content to record the facts observed as they 
 occur, without selecting them in the light of any preconceived 
 theory with either an individualistic or coUectivist bias. 
 
 All that can be here attempted is a mere jotting down 
 of a few of the most obvious of the functions of the ad- 
 ministrative government; and for the present the distinction 
 between such acts as are directly performed by the central 
 government and those done by local authorities, must be 
 ignored. 
 
 The "facultative" or abnormal functions performed by the 
 administrative machinery of government are so numerous and 
 complex that they almost defy classification on any satisfactory 
 principle, but they may be roughly grouped under the fol- 
 lowing heads : 
 
 (1) It directs wars and foreign diplomacy; and is 
 responsible for the continued efficacy of army and navy. 
 
288 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Where such a course is thought advisable or necessary, the 
 government builds its own forts and warships, and manu- 
 factures its own guns and ammunition. Its diplomatic agents 
 abroad perform many duties of a somewhat miscellaneous 
 nature, such as protecting British trade in foreign countries, 
 keeping up lines of communication, and collecting statistics. 
 
 (2) It undertakes to defend its citizens agaiast the lawless 
 aggression of their fellow-subjects. A police force is main- 
 tained, and riots are suppressed. 
 
 (3) It provides for the relief of the poor and the health 
 of the people, and performs many services with the view of 
 promoting their comfort and physical well-being. These duties 
 are usually performed through local machinery, the ultimate 
 control, however, resting with departments of the central 
 government. The making of roads, bridges, and harbours, 
 the supply of water, sanitation, the providing of artisans' 
 dwellings, the erection and maintenance of model lodging- 
 houses, compulsory vaccination. State-aided emigration — all 
 these may be grouped under this general head. 
 
 (4) It provides education for all children beneath a certain 
 age, and compels their attendance at school. It adopts an 
 attitude of encouragement towards all arts and sciences ; 
 establishes museums and art galleries, and stocks them with 
 specimens chosen by its of&cials appointed for the purpose; 
 grants charters to bodies like the Eoyal Academy; appoints 
 a Poet-Laureate and an Astronomer- Eoyal ; confers titles and 
 dignities on those it considers worthy ; and undertakes 
 scientific expeditions. 
 
 (5) It maintains an Episcopalian Established Church in 
 England, and a Presbyterian one in Scotland. 
 
 (6) It supervises and controls the powers conferred on 
 municipalities and other local authorities, and also on volun- 
 tary associations, civil and religious. 
 
 (7) It performs all such miscellaneous functions as are 
 deemed necessary for the progress of the nation, and yet 
 cannot be equally well accomplished by private or corporate 
 enterprise. It acts, for example, as a carrier of letters and 
 parcels ; a banker of small savings ; and a transmitter of 
 telegrams. 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 289 
 
 (8) It maintains registers and grants licenses. Thus 
 registers of births, deaths, and marriages, and of limited 
 liability companies are kept by the State ; and licenses are 
 required by doctors, solicitors, and others before they can 
 enter on their professional duties.^ 
 
 (9) Lastly, the government of Great Britain, as is to be 
 expected amidst a " nation of shopkeepers," performs an enor- 
 mous amount of work of a miscellaneous nature, with the 
 view of supervising and aiding the trade of the country. It 
 determines standards of value and the medium of exchange, 
 institutes inquiries into the causes of explosions and accidents, 
 collects and disseminates useful information, grants letters 
 patent and copyrights, places restriction on various classes 
 of dealings, refuses to enforce immoral contracts, regulates 
 all partial monopolies such as railways (where competition 
 had previously failed),^ tests the safety of ships, confers 
 trade-marks, suppresses adulteration, and interferes generally 
 in mines, factories, and elsewhere to secure the health and 
 safety of those employed. 
 
 ^For a detailed list of such minor functions of government see the 
 Fabian Essays, pp. 46 to 52, and the volumes of the "English Citizen 
 Series" already alluded to. 
 
 2 Cf. Lord Farrer, The State in Relation to Trade, p. 69. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LOCAL AUTHOEITIES AND VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 The direct relationships between the State and the individual 
 are not the only ones. There are many smaller groups or 
 quasi-States within the larger group, which serve as channels 
 of communication between the political unit and the body 
 politic. These may mostly be arranged under two heads — 
 municipal, county, or other local governments, on the one 
 hand, and voluntary associations on the other. There are 
 indeed two groups within the State, each of which is of a 
 nature so entirely special and sui generis that it can be 
 classed with none of the others. These are the institutions 
 of the family and the church, which will require separate 
 treatment.! 
 
 Much has been written on the relations between central 
 and local government. The problem is a wide- one, and a 
 full consideration of it would fall naturally into three 
 branches, treating of legislation, administration, and the 
 dispensation of justice respectively. This would include a 
 complete analysis of the entire machinery of the various 
 civilized States of the world. A few special aspects of this 
 wide inquiry are all that can be here discussed. The first 
 question relates to the right of making laws. Should legis- 
 lation be a national matter, or a local one, or partly both ? 
 Some thinkers, realizing the importance of the reign of one 
 universal law over all the territories of a State as an element 
 both of national unification and of practical convenience, but 
 ' Vide infra, chapters xxiv. and xxvii. respectively. 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 291 
 
 at the same time conscious of the difficulties of a central 
 legislative assembly making regulations suited for widely dis- 
 tant and diverse localities, suggest that law should be partly 
 national or imperial, and partly local. 
 
 Others say that all law ought to be national, but that none 
 of its provisions should descend to matters of detail, as that 
 would prevent their applicability to the diversities of local 
 usage. This opens up the whole question of the nature of 
 law. How far should it confine itself to general principles ? 
 Is it possible to legislate at all without descending to details ? 
 One phase only of the general question as to the delegation 
 of power by the British Parliament can be here discussed, 
 viz. the advisability of granting separate legislative organs 
 to Ireland and Scotland. " Local government," as the 
 phrase is now used, is not confined to the right of every 
 district to " manage its own affairs." It includes in the 
 popular mouth the power to make laws as well. The dis- 
 cussion of the rights of subject nationalities comes in here 
 still further to complicate the inquiry as to how far law 
 ought to be uniform throughout the territory of one body 
 politic. 
 
 The views of society and of the State expounded in this 
 Essay would seem to favour conclusions such as these : 
 
 (1) The central legislative authority must retain the clear 
 right of overturning any laws made by every subordinate 
 institution within its sphere. Otherwise disruption of the 
 State is already effected in a latent form, and only requires 
 opportunity to break the commonwealth forcibly in pieces. 
 
 (2) The advantage of having uniform laws is so important 
 to the whole empire as to outweigh any minor hardship 
 that a particular district might suffer through the failure 
 of the law to adjust itself to local peculiarities. 
 
 (3) Wise and well-framed laws, keeping to the function 
 of defining, enforcing, and protecting rights and duties, and 
 involving no administrative orders, are equally applicable to 
 all parts of an empire, and unjust to no one. 
 
 (4) The power of making laws proper should never be 
 delegated to any district or locality. "Local legislation is 
 absurd." 
 
292 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (5) There is no harm, but on the contrary much good, 
 to be expected from vesting every district, large or small, 
 as well as every voluntary association, with the right to 
 make bye-laws or administrative regulations according to 
 their several needs. To every municipal corporation may 
 well be entrusted, along with the right to manage its own 
 internal affairs, the power to issue such bye-laws or regu- 
 lations as are necessarily involved in its local autonomy. 
 But no town ought to be allowed to determine, for example, 
 what class of private contracts should be enforceable 
 within its jurisdiction, or to alter the law of succession 
 or the law of divorce. The same applies to larger divisions 
 such as Scotland or Ireland. As long as these remain parts 
 of one State, they must be subject to one law as far as 
 possible. There is at present a rapid assimilation going on 
 between Scots law and English law. N"o powers should be 
 allowed to either Ireland or Scotland which would introduce 
 conflicting rules of law within the empire. Each of them, 
 however, must be endowed with the fullest powers to manage 
 " its own business '' after its own methods. The difficulty is 
 to define (in the lights which modern science and philosophy 
 have thrown on the solidarity of the race) what is, in the 
 case of any town or any district, "its own business." It 
 must be left to the Imperial Parliament to determine what 
 is an exclusively Irish or Scottish affair, and what affects 
 the commonwealth as a whole. Further, no local majority 
 must be allowed opportunities of coercing local minorities in 
 such a way as seems unjust to the moral sense of the whole 
 community. Under these limits full powers of " local govern- 
 ment" or district administration should be given to each 
 locality, and with these executive powers the right to make 
 bye-laws would naturally go ; but no rights of legislation 
 properly so-called could be entrusted to any power save the 
 legal sovereign — Parliament.^ Such an arrangement would 
 not imply any diminution of the sovereignty of Parliament. 
 It would merely mean that the central government is willing 
 
 1 Cf. Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Individualism, p. 25 : " If local authori- 
 ties are to be permitted to legislate independently, it is clear we are 
 brought back to the original position of local anarchy." 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 293 
 
 to allow the local authorities of each subject nation, pro- 
 vince, county, or parish to perform such local work as it 
 is fitted for, and that these powers will be conceded as long 
 as they are not abused. The individual, however, has the 
 better chance of justice, the wider the majority is to which he 
 appeals. It is the duty of the State never to diminish its 
 power to protect the aggrieved individual from the tyranny 
 of the parish, county, or province wherein he happens to 
 reside. The central government must not only jealously 
 preserve its theoretical rights of interference, but' must 
 keep the machinery for enforcing these in good working 
 order and under its own immediate control. The electric 
 chain between the central authority and the citizen must 
 never be broken in passing through any of the smaller 
 organizations. 
 
 These results, then, point to an allocation of the administra- 
 tive duties of government between the central and the local 
 authorities. Many of the objections urged with point and 
 success against the imperial government undertaking certain 
 classes of work for which it is totally unfitted are quite 
 inapplicable to a system under which these duties are per- 
 formed by local authorities. It would be stupid, for example, 
 for Parliament to occupy its time with the consideration of 
 the best method of lighting the streets of each city in the 
 kingdom, and for the Home Secretary to travel about the 
 country to collect local information in the various towns. 
 Such work can be more efficiently and cheaply performed 
 by the mayor and aldermen of each city, to whom the 
 work will probably be a greater pleasure, and in whose 
 wisdom (rightly or wrongly) the body of the townsmen will 
 have greater confidence. The central government is thus left 
 with more time to perform the important duties which it 
 dare not delegate to any one. 
 
 The bulk of the arguments brought forward by consistent 
 Individualists, however, are intended to bear against the 
 interference of local authorities of every description with as 
 great force as against the interference of the State itself. It 
 is true that they are usually reticent or remiss as to the 
 exact list of offensive actions to which they object ; but the 
 
274 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 with or without the addition that " Trespassers will be 
 prosecuted." 
 
 These three are simple types under which all methods of 
 enforcing legal restrictions may be brought. When the State 
 gives to one of its subjects a right against another, it may (a) 
 leave him to protect it by making its violation physically im- 
 possible, (&) appoint a number of ofi&cials to guard it for him, 
 or (c) simply open the doors of its law courts to award him 
 damages in case of its infringement. The first of these methods 
 is comparatively unimportant, since its application is limited 
 to a few exceptional cases. The distinction between the 
 remaining methods, which may be respectively named the 
 executive and judicial methods of enforcing rights, is a vital 
 one. Many of the arguments which the Individualist directs 
 against legal restrictions upon liberty, apply rather to the 
 way in which these are enforced than to the restrictions 
 themselves. The judicial method is free from the dangers of the 
 executive system, which requires to appoiat a host of inspec- 
 tors and officials, with wide arbitrary powers and the right 
 to interfere when in their judgment the law is likely to be 
 broken. 
 
 The dangers of the latter way of enforcing rights are two- 
 fold. Carried to excess it would not only hamper trade unduly, 
 but would soon sap the self-reliance and power of initiation 
 of the nation. Again, all such methods tend to leave too 
 great arbitrary powers in the hands of individuals whose 
 imperfect moral nature is open both to bribes and to prejudices, 
 and whose judgment is liable to error. Every traveller in 
 Euseia is liable to be stopped and summarily expelled from 
 any district, according to the groundless suspicions or mere 
 caprice of any superintendent of police. Even in England, 
 where a jealous eye has always scrutinized the conduct of 
 officials, the police force have certain arbitrary powers at 
 their disposal. They may (though at their peril) arrest a 
 man for an imaginary disturbance of the peace, or accept 
 a small gratuity for overlooking a minor breach of law. All 
 such powers are bad without exception, if they can possibly 
 be dispensed with. In criticizing them, every argument is 
 sound and appropriate which Individualists direct more loosely 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF Delations 275 
 
 against government interference in general. State action is 
 not (as they think) an evil in itself, but the arbitrary action 
 of State officials is. Unfortunately it is not possible to do 
 without the latter altogether. While all meddlesome ofl&cial 
 interference with private citizens is to be deplored, it can 
 yet never be dispensed with altogether. The practical con- 
 clusion is that it should be reduced to a minimum. Now 
 this is exactly the result at which all practical English 
 statesmen and lawyers have long since arrived. It forms an 
 essential principle of the British constitution. Englishmen 
 were fighting for the abolition of arbitrary powers in the 
 executive government, so as to make of practical value such 
 rights as were possible, while Frenchmen were enunciating 
 grand but unrealizable theories of the rights of man. Jealousy 
 of the arbitrary powers of the executive is in part a legacy 
 from the misgovernment of the Stuarts, but it expresses at the 
 same time a deep accord with the whole history and dis- 
 position of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 On a retrospective survey of the restrictions placed by 
 law on individual liberty of action, three propositions come 
 to light. In the first place, some such restrictions are indis- 
 pensable. In the second place, they are not necessarily evil 
 in themselves, but only in the method of their enforcement, 
 when arbitrary powers of prohibition are vested in public 
 officials or private individuals, or excessive penalties are 
 inflicted out of proportion to the offence. In the third place, 
 such arbitrary powers can never be altogether dispensed with, 
 though they may be and ought to be abridged as far as 
 possible. The existence of legal restraints on himself and 
 others gives each man more true liberty than would be 
 possible in the absence of law. "The more law the more 
 liberty" is true, if the law is of the right sort. The im- 
 position of national legal restraints on the citizens saves the 
 individual from the tyranny of local society; while social 
 influences help to free man from the tyranny of nature. 
 The function of the State, then, in defining and enforcing 
 law is necessary not only for preserving order and maintaining 
 the permanence of the whole, but even for the liberty of the 
 individual. The chief end of law is to make men free. 
 
276 THE STATE 'AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Social influences and tyrannies, however, are not the only- 
 evils from which the intervention of the State protects the 
 individual. The same power saves him from the despotism 
 of all voluntary associations and local authorities. The power 
 of positive law is always an ultimate court of appeal from 
 injustice done by any minor authority. 
 
 This suggests another most important aspect of the relations 
 between individuals and States. It is true that in many 
 cases they come face to face. But in many other cases — 
 more numerous and more intimately associated with the daily 
 routine of life — the connection is not direct, but through 
 some intermediary. 
 
 Every British citizen is necessarily a resident in a parish, 
 and in some town or county, and he is a member of a family. 
 He is generally also connected with various corporations, as 
 for example a Trades Union, a Masonic Lodge, a Friendly 
 Society, or a Club, and perhaps with one or two commercial 
 associations incorporated under the Companies' Acts. All of 
 these subordinate groups come between the man and the State- 
 Each of these local authorities or voluntary associations has 
 certain powers over its members, but each of them is subject 
 to the sovereignty of the law. Thus the State and its hand- 
 maiden the law must decide between two possible lines of 
 policy. They may either stand aloof, leaving each of these 
 bodies to manage its own internal affairs (including its 
 quarrels with its members) in its own way, or step in to 
 protect the individuals in the minority froib the tyranny of 
 the majority who compose the rest of the society. It is the 
 second attitude which all existing States more or less 
 consistently adopt. In this policy, it is here maintained, the 
 government is not only justified, but bound in duty to per- 
 severe; because in doing so it not only secures its own 
 stability, but protects and actually increases the freedom of 
 its citizens. If government interference with corporate bodies 
 is unwise or excessive, the rights of individuals, it is true, 
 must suffer ; but if wise and moderate, the more State inter- 
 vention there is, the more freedom will accrue to its citizens. 
 It is usual to consider government and coercion as synony- 
 mous, and as together constituting the direct antithesis of 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 277 
 
 individual liberty. We must remember, however, how many 
 other forms of restraint men are subject to, and that govern- 
 ment (if itself a tyrant) strikes all other tyrants down. 
 
 Numerous voluntary associations, corporations, and local 
 authorities stand between the State and the individual. In 
 controlling any one of these the government indirectly 
 affects the individual. In all of them it seems that its 
 interference makes, on the whole, for liberty. It would be 
 possible, of course, for the State to abolish all or any of 
 these intermediate bodies, or without destroying them it 
 might so paralyze their powers of action and particularly of 
 initiation, as to render them quite useless and inert. If 
 government interference took anything approaching this form, 
 individual liberty would undoubtedly suffer along with corporate 
 privileges, since the freedom of association is one of the 
 most cherished rights. But the State does no such thing. 
 It allows every lawful form of voluntary combination full 
 scope, and only intervenes when its forbearance is abused, 
 and injury done to its citizens. 
 
 The " Trust," or Corporation, or Trades Union would often 
 crush the individual into powder, if that ogre of the 
 Individualist's imagination — the State — did not extend its 
 all-powerful arm to strike the oppressor down. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 AN ANALYSIS OF THE ACTUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN 
 THE GOVEENMENT AND THE INDIVIDUAL FEOM 
 THE POINT OF VLEW OF THE FOEMER. 
 
 We have hitherto looked with the eye of the citizen on the 
 complex relations that connect him to the State, and have 
 found that the laws and government are not his oppressors, 
 but "his guardians and friends. It is necessary to change the 
 point of view, and to approach the analysis of the same 
 relations from the side of the State. Before seeking to 
 determine what extent or methods of government interference 
 are justifiable in an ideal State, it is well to ascertain the 
 facts applicable to existing governments, such as that of 
 England at the present day. 
 
 Now the first step in the analysis is to emphasize an 
 obvious distinction. The difference between legislative inter- 
 ference and executive interference is too often neglected in 
 speculative writings, perhaps from its very obviousness. The 
 State acts by two agencies — impersonal laws and living 
 officials. Thus State intervention may mean either an 
 alteration of the existing law, or the active meddling of an 
 administrative officer, such as a sanitary inspector or police- 
 man. It is incumbent on every Individualist who would 
 alter the existing organization of society, to declare clearly 
 whether his objections are equally strong against both classes 
 of intervention. Does he object, for example, to all statutes 
 attempting to define family relationships, or would he only 
 oppose the intrusion on domestic privacy involved in the 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 279 
 
 visits of inspectors to enforce them ? This is exactly what 
 the average Individualist fails to do. 
 
 It is proposed now to disentangle these two essentially 
 distinct questions ; to inquire (first) into the sphere actually 
 influenced by legislation at the present day, and (secondly) 
 into the duties actually performed by the executive. 
 
 (I) THE SPHERE OF THE LEGISLATURE. 
 
 It is perhaps impossible to devise an absolutely satisfactory 
 basis of classification for the various forms of legislative 
 activity ; but laws may be arranged in some such order as 
 the following when viewed according to the chief object which 
 they may be presumed to seek : 
 
 (1) To define, protect, and enforce rights. 
 
 (2) To define and punish crimes. 
 
 (3) To alter the form of government, and regulate the 
 mutual relations of its parts. 
 
 (4) To confer such powers and authority upon the various 
 government organs and officials as are necessary to enable 
 them to fulfil their duties, executive and judicial. 
 
 (5) To confer special powers or immunities on corporations 
 or individuals, or to inflict special disabilities on individuals 
 as a means of furthering the public good. 
 
 (6) To provide for the poor and protect the weak. 
 
 (7) To promote the material prosperity of the nation. 
 
 (8) To develop the intellectual faculties and resources 
 of the citizens, and to elevate their moral and spiritual 
 nature. 
 
 (9) To impose taxes to meet the needs of government. 
 How far is it right or advisable to set limits to the power 
 
 of Parliament in seeking each of these ends respectively? 
 
 (1) To define the mutual rights and obligations of 
 individuals; to prevent these rights when so defined from 
 being invaded or defied; and to provide reparation or com- 
 pensation where they have been violated; these are clearly 
 the duties of the central government, if they are the duties 
 of any one. Laws may be inexpedient, unwise, or unjust in 
 principle or in detail; but it cannot be said that any s'pkere 
 
280 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 is alien to Parliament as long as it confines itself to these 
 objects. 
 
 Obviously the liberty of British subjects would not be 
 increased by imitating the provisions of the constitution of 
 the United States of America restricting Congress to eighteen 
 topics of legislation ; for the practical effect of thus narrowing 
 the sphere of Congress is only to place elsewhere the right 
 to legislate on all excluded topics. 
 
 The practical effect is not to liberate the individual 
 American, even in part, from the control of government, but 
 rather to subject him to two law-making masters instead 
 of one. The partial independence of each member of the 
 Federal Union is preserved, but the citizen is to that extent 
 deprived of the protection that the united wisdom of the 
 nation might otherwise afford him from the tyranny of the 
 locality. The practical result is not that legislation is 
 excluded from any topic, but that a different law prevails 
 in every district, and the local law-making body will often 
 impose petty restrictions that Congress would refuse to sanction.^ 
 
 Evidently the method adopted in America of limiting the 
 sphere of the central legislature would not satisfy the 
 average Individualist. If legislation were to be confined to 
 any special province in defining the mutual relations of 
 individuals, all other legal rights of the citizens would 
 require to be regulated in one of two ways, (a) by contract 
 or (&) by custom. Each of these modes is entirely inadequate. 
 
 (a) There are whole classes of obligations (such as those 
 arising ex delicto or quasi ex delicto) that cannot be explained 
 on the principle that the parties have expressly or tacitly 
 agreed to them. Contract is by no means sufficient to define 
 all the rights of individuals. The utter inadequacy of the 
 doctrine as a complete theory of the State will be shown 
 in a separate chapter. 
 
 *A press cutting will illustrate what is meant better than many 
 arguments: "The Ohio legislature has passed a law forbidding women 
 to wear large hats at theatres, and imposing a fine of ten dollars 
 upon any manager for each hat he allows to be worn in his theatre 
 obstructing the view of the audience of the stage. The measure is 
 applicable to headgear of any kind." 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 281 
 
 (&) In a civilized and advancing country like England, it 
 is equally impossible to leave to custom the duty of defining 
 any important portion of the rights of individuals. The 
 legislature must be ready when required to interfere with 
 every branch of the national law, civil and criminal. It 
 should not, indeed, pass a statute one day and repeal it the 
 next; but there is absolutely no sphere to which the law 
 does not extend. There is no relation so intimate, no right 
 so intrinsic, no obligation so binding, but that law gives 
 it its ultimate sanction. Law is everywhere, and wherever 
 law is, there is the sphere of the legislature. Parliament 
 cannot excuse itself from responsibility for a bad law on the 
 ground that it never made it, since it tacitly approves 
 what it fails to condemn. 
 
 Now as a society advances in civilization, or even when 
 its circumstances change without any distinct advance, 
 either its laws must alter too, or become a drag upon it. 
 Where there is no existing law to meet the new circumstances, 
 custom of trade may grow up to take its place, but this is 
 at best only a transitory and imperfect expedient. The legis- 
 lature should follow in its wake with a declaratory statute, 
 pruning and defining custom where it is too vague to be 
 serviceable, and eliminating local divergencies to keep one 
 uniform law throughout the land. Where a body of old laws 
 exists to hamper new conditions to which they are unsuited, 
 custom can give but little help. Legal fictions and judge- 
 made laws on equitable principles are devised, but these are 
 only artificial aids. Custom cannot prevail in opposition to 
 statute law, though it may supplement it where deficient. 
 
 Thus a constitutional method must be found to bring the 
 dead law to life again by contact with the conditions of 
 the new national life. If the recognized legislature refuses 
 to perform its duties, revolution will take its place. All 
 rights, civil and political, must be subjected to the defining 
 power of Parliament. 
 
 (2) The definition of what constitutes a crime must also 
 be left to Parliament. No practical man will seriously 
 advocate the abolition of all criminal law. It is possible, 
 of course, to imagine an ideal State where perfection is secured 
 
282 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 not only by the excellence of its institutions, but by the 
 absolute sinlessness of all its citizens. In such a community 
 no punishments would be needed, for no one could ever commit 
 a crime. Even then, criminal law (since it is unquestioningly 
 obeyed) must exist, though as a natural, or moral, rather 
 than a positive law. Until human nature is utterly trans- 
 formed, however, wrongs will be committed, or kept in cheek 
 only by coercive criminal enactments. Whatever theory of 
 punishment we adopt it seems necessary that felonies and 
 misdemeanours should be repressed. The received doctrine 
 is that all crimes should be punished. But what is a crime ? 
 Who is to define it ? Surely neither the criminal nor the 
 individual judge or jury. The State alone can undertake 
 that solemn task, for by sternly forbidding all individuals to 
 avenge wrongs done to themselves or their relatives — in 
 putting down all vendettas and rights of private warfare — 
 the State must charge itself with the duty of revenging 
 individual injuries, and therefore of defining what constitutes 
 a crime. 
 
 Unless the State appointed a separate organ for the regu- 
 lation of penal laws (a dualistic system which would never 
 work in practice, from the difficulty of differentiating between 
 criminal and civil injury), it must entrust this duty to the 
 ordinary legislature, that is. Parliament. 
 
 In defining, then, the various kinds and degrees of crime, 
 Parliament may be guided by diverse principles according 
 to the theories of crime and of legislation current at the time. 
 Modern public opinion leans to the side of leniency. Our 
 present code may not suit all tender-hearted philanthropists, 
 but it is certainly not exceptionally severe. Parliament could, 
 however — and this is the important point — without unduly 
 extending its proper functions or illogically widening the 
 notion of crime, reduce human liberty almost to vanishing 
 point. It could, too, quite well defend this line of action on 
 the purely individualistic grounds of "protection" or "negative 
 coercion." 
 
 It would be possible to abolish all public health officers 
 and sanitary inspectors, and in their place to construct 
 a whole code of criminal law assigning graduated penalties 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 283 
 
 to the breach of regulations laid down with painful minuteness. 
 Every man then would be " free " in a sense to break this 
 code, for no inspector need interfere with him beforehand, 
 but he would be liable to take the penal consequences of his 
 act. The public prosecutor would proceed against him on 
 information laid by any private individual. Whether our 
 penal laws are merciful or severe, numerous or scanty, no 
 other organ save the central legislature can be entrusted with 
 the power of defining crimes. 
 
 (3) The function of Parliament in altering constitutional 
 law need not be discussed here. 
 
 (4) When Parliament enacts statutes conferring new powers 
 upon the executive government, the liberties of the nation may 
 be seriously endangered; yet the evil in that case does not 
 consist in the legislature as such stepping beyond its proper 
 sphere, but in the impetus given to unwarrantable interfer- 
 ence by administrative ofScials. 
 
 (5) The policy of granting special immunities to corpora- 
 tions by private Acts of Parliament is difficult to vindicate 
 on principles of abstract justice. Compulsory powers of 
 purchase are conferred upon railway companies whereby 
 vested interests are invaded. This comes dangerously near 
 favouring one class or group of individuals at the expense 
 of another. Similar theoretical objections seem to apply to 
 acts of attainder and acts of indemnity. Justification of 
 such legislation must be sought in their necessity for the 
 common good, and in the principle that the so-called right 
 of the individual is not really a right if it conflicts with the 
 welfare of the whole. All such measures may be dismissed 
 as exceptional. 
 
 (6) While to provide for the poor and to protect the 
 weak cannot be justified on a purely individualistic basis, no 
 one at the present day seriously contemplates the abolition 
 of all poor laws, and it is therefore unnecessary to prove 
 that Parliament is within its proper sphere in enacting such 
 measures. In giving charity, however, the legislature has 
 passed, it must be noticed, beyond the mere definition of 
 rights, strictly so called, and has entered on a policy of 
 tempering justice with mercy. 
 
284 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (7) and (8) The next two classes of laws may be grouped 
 together, as they have much in common, and are equally 
 exposed to the extreme vigour of the Individualist's attack. 
 The course adopted by Parliament with increasing con- 
 sistency throughout most of the present century, of directly 
 furthering the material prosperity of the nation and the 
 intellectual and moral welfare of the people, is at variance 
 equally with the principles of Von Humboldt, Mill, and Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer. Two lines of argument minimize the force 
 of their objections. 
 
 (a) In attacking all such legislation. Individualists are 
 forced to take up a position that deprives their protests of 
 all practical value. Their objections are grounded on the 
 presumed motives of the various measures. It would be 
 impossible to adopt a criterion either more flexible or more 
 vague. One motive shades into another. The alleged object 
 of any Act of Parliament may be very far from that which 
 actually influences the votes of a majority of the 670 mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons. Even the legislature itself 
 is hardly in a position to judge of its own aims and 
 intentions. Almost any motive might be advanced in favour 
 of any law. As long as presumed motive is the criterion 
 whether or not Parliament has gone beyond its proper sphere, 
 the supporters of any measure have only to declare that its 
 object is the " protection of rights " to disarm the criticism 
 of Individualists. 
 
 (S) Legislation in promotion of national wealth or intel- 
 lectual progress or the interests of posterity, however, need 
 not be made to depend on such technical arguments. If the 
 good of the community is the sole criterion of legislation, no 
 valid objection can be taken to any law on the ground that 
 its avowed motive is directly to promote the intellectual 
 advancement of the whole community. On the contrary, no 
 aim can be more praiseworthy. It is, of course, open to 
 Individualists to argue that all such laws only defeat their 
 ends ; but that is to adopt an entirely different attitude, and 
 to rest on an unwarranted assumption. 
 
 (9) The last class of laws requiring comment are those 
 that impose taxes. Mr. Auberon Herbert is in a minority 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 285 
 
 of one in holding it possible to conduct all the necessary busi- 
 ness of government on voluntary subscriptions in place of 
 taxes extorted by force if need be. Taxes of some extent are 
 necessary, however they may be minimized. Now there is 
 no doubt that the power to levy them is safer in the hands 
 of the central legislative organ of the State than in any 
 narrower and more local body. " Taxation," it has been well 
 said, "is always an act of sovereignty, and belongs to the 
 State as a whole."^ The question is thus reduced to one of 
 degree. Parliament is undoubtedly within its proper sphere 
 in imposing such just taxes as it deems necessary. 
 
 The result of the entire survey of the objects of legislation 
 under these nine heads shows that there is no sphere alien 
 to the action of Parliament in performing its proper legislative 
 functions. Legislative interference is objectionable only on 
 one or other of the following grounds : (a) that it is unwise, 
 inexpedient, or unjust ; (6) that it imposes excessive penalties ; 
 (c) that it unnecessarily vests arbitrary powers in the executive; 
 or id) that it lays on excessive or unjust taxation. There 
 is no sphere from which it can be legitimately excluded. 
 
 Thus, for example, protective legislation is wrong, not 
 because it is an attempt to define by statute the respective 
 rights of producer and consumer, but because it defines these 
 on a false basis or under an inequitable bias. The old law of 
 treason and the multiplication of capital offences were open 
 to reproach, not because the State had no right to punish 
 crime, but because it did so with savage and excessive brutality. 
 Some provisions of the Factories and Workshops Acts are open 
 to objection, not because they define the relations between 
 masters and employees, but because they place too wide 
 discretionary powers in the hands of inspectors. Lastly, the 
 old Poor Laws were iniquitous, not because the legislature had 
 no right to provide for the destitute, but because it did so 
 unwisely and at a ruinous cost to the nation by means of an 
 ever-increasing taxation which threatened to reduce even the 
 rich to the level of paupers. 
 
 It is impossible, then, to exclude legislative action from 
 any sphere which is ruled by law; and law in a thoroughly 
 iProf. F. Hofiman, The Sphere of the State, p. 114. 
 
286 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 civilized State must define all relations between man and 
 man. Where the law leaves room for doubt, it opens a 
 door for quarrels, breaches of the peace, and the oppression 
 of the weak, which is the worst of all possible "sins of 
 legislators." 
 
 As long as Parliament confines itself , to purely legislative 
 business the outcry against " over-government " is meaning- 
 less. The Individualist may here interpose, however, that 
 hardly any Act of Parliament is without some provisions 
 which involve either executive action or taxation. Parlia- 
 ment in England is, by its legislative supremacy, in a 
 position to dictate orders to the executive and also to direct 
 the finances of the nation. In exercising either of these powers 
 it may unwarrantably interfere in a wrong direction. This 
 is true ; but in doing so it steps beyond the region of legis- 
 lation proper, and acts as the ultimate controller of the 
 administration. If this is what the Individualist really objects 
 to, it is important he should reaUze that his argument is 
 directed, not against the legislative functions of Parliament 
 at all, but against the exercise of its other function of 
 controlling the executive. 
 
 (2) THE SPHERE AND DUTIES OF THE EXECUTIVE. 
 
 The ambiguity of the charge of " over -government," even 
 when confined to purely administrative action or interference, 
 has already been explained. It may mean an excess of 
 government management as opposed to government control; 
 State ownership substituted for the rights of private property ; 
 centralization as opposed to local government ; a bureaucracy 
 which numbs the energy and sense of responsibility of 
 private citizens ; or a system of excessive police supervision 
 working through an elaborate apparatus of licences and 
 checks, prohibiting free discussion and gagging the press. 
 
 These are merely a few of the widely different things, 
 stigmatized indiscriminately by Individualists as the abuse of 
 government, under the general description of State intervention. 
 
 The extreme indefiniteness of all such vague condemnations 
 of the intervention of the State beyond its normal sphere 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 287 
 
 frustrates all attempts to carry on the discussion with any 
 hope of attaining useful results. If the Individualist wishes 
 his weight to be felt in practical politics, he must discard 
 vague generalities and ambiguous phrases, and point out 
 accurately the specific sins of government to which he objects. 
 
 It should be his task to draw up an exhaustive list of 
 the functions which the executive actually performs, and to 
 state clearly those that he would immediately abolish, and 
 those that he regards as evils necessary for the present but to 
 be gradually got rid of. It does not seem unfair to ask him 
 further to meet the difficulties to which these changes would 
 give rise, either by argument or by some practical substitute 
 for government control. It is no part of the scheme of 
 this Essay to relieve him from this duty, but some indica- 
 tion may not unnaturally be expected here as to the nature 
 of the chief duties actually performed by the executive 
 authorities in most modern European States. A good basis 
 for such an attempt is to be found in two admirable 
 works of the " English Citizen Series " : The State in Relation 
 to Labour, by the late Professor Stanley Jevons ; and The 
 State in Relation to Trade, by Lord Farrer. The analysis 
 ought to be undertaken, in the first instance, by practical 
 business men working in the various administrative depart- 
 ments, who are content to record the facts observed as they 
 occur, without selecting them in the light of any preconceived 
 theory with either an individualistic or coUectivist bias. 
 
 All that can be here attempted is a mere jotting down 
 of a few of the most obvious of the functions of the ad- 
 ministrative government ; and for the present the distinction 
 between such acts as are directly performed by the central 
 government and those done by local authorities, must be 
 ignored. 
 
 The "facultative" or abnormal functions performed by the 
 administrative machinery of government are so numerous and 
 complex that they almost defy classification on any satisfactory 
 principle, but they may be roughly grouped under the fol- 
 lowing heads : 
 
 (1) It directs wars and foreign diplomacy; and is 
 responsible for the continued efficacy of army and navy. 
 
288 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Where such a course is thought advisable or necessary, the 
 government builds its own forts and v^arships, and manu- 
 factures its ovyn guns and ammunition. Its diplomatic agents 
 abroad perform many duties of a somewhat miscellaneous 
 nature, such as protecting British trade in foreign countries, 
 keeping up lines of communication, and collecting statistics. 
 
 (2) It undertakes to defend its citizens agaiast the lawless 
 aggression of their fellow-subjects. A police force is main- 
 tained, and riots are suppressed. 
 
 (3) It provides for the relief of the poor and the health 
 of the people, and performs many services with the view of 
 promoting their comfort and physical well-being. These duties 
 are usually performed through local machinery, the ultimate 
 control, however, resting with departments of the central 
 government. The making of roads, bridges, and harbours, 
 the supply of water, sanitation, the providing of artisans' 
 dwellings, the erection and maintenance of model lodging- 
 houses, compulsory vaccination, State-aided emigration — all 
 these may be grouped under this general head. 
 
 (4) It provides education for all children beneath a certain 
 age, and compels their attendance at school. It adopts an 
 attitude of encouragement towards all arts and sciences ; 
 establishes museums and art galleries, and stocks them with 
 specimens chosen by its of&cials appointed for the purpose; 
 grants charters to bodies like the Eoyal Academy; appoints 
 a Poet-Laureate and an Astronomer- Eoyal ; confers titles and 
 dignities on those it considers worthy ; and undertakes 
 scientific expeditions. 
 
 (5) It maintains an Episcopalian Established Church in 
 England, and a Presbyterian one in Scotland. 
 
 (6) It supervises and controls the powers conferred on 
 municipahties and other local authorities, and also on volun- 
 tary associations, civil and religious. 
 
 (7) It performs all such miscellaneous functions as are 
 deemed necessary for the progress of the nation, and yet 
 cannot be equally well accomplished by private or corporate 
 enterprise. It acts, for example, as a carrier of letters and 
 parcels ; a banker of small savings ; and a transmitter of 
 telegrams. 
 
AN ANALYSIS OF RELATIONS 289 
 
 (8) It maintains registers and grants licenses. Thus 
 registers of births, deaths, and marriages, and of limited 
 liability companies are kept by the State ; and licenses are 
 required by doctors, solicitors, and others before they can 
 enter on their professional duties.^ 
 
 (9) Lastly, the government of Great Britain, as is to be 
 expected amidst a " nation of shopkeepers," performs an enor- 
 mous amount of work of a miscellaneous nature, with the 
 view of supervising and aiding the trade of the country. It 
 determines standards of value and the medium of exchange, 
 institutes inquiries into the causes of explosions and accidents, 
 collects and disseminates useful information, grants letters 
 patent and copyrights, places restriction on various classes 
 of dealings, refuses to enforce immoral contracts, regulates 
 all partial monopolies such as railways (where competition 
 had previously failed),^ tests the safety of ships, confers 
 trade-marks, suppresses adulteration, and interferes generally 
 in mines, factories, and elsewhere to secure the health and 
 safety of those employed. 
 
 ^For a detailed list of such minor functions of government see the 
 Fabian Essays, pp. 46 to 52, and the volumes of the "English Citizen 
 Series " already alluded to. 
 
 2 Of. Lord Farrer, The State in Relation to Trade, p. 69. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LOCAL AUTHOKITIES AND VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 The direct relationships between the State and the individual 
 are not the only ones. There are many smaller groups or 
 quasi-States within the larger group, which serve as channels 
 of communication between the political unit and the body 
 politic. These may mostly be arranged under two heads — 
 municipal, county, or other local governments, on the one 
 hand, and voluntary associations on the other. There are 
 indeed two groups within the State, each of which is of a 
 nature so entirely special and sui generis that it can be 
 classed with none of the others. These are the institutions 
 of the family and the church, which will require separate 
 treatment.* 
 
 Much has been written on the relations between central 
 and local government. The problem is a wide- one, and a 
 full consideration of it would fall naturally into three 
 branches, treating of legislation, administration, and the 
 dispensation of justice respectively. This would include a 
 complete analysis of the entire machinery of the various 
 civilized States of the world. A few special aspects of this 
 wide inquiry are all that can be here discussed. The first 
 question relates to the right of making laws. Should legis- 
 lation be a national matter, or a local one, or partly both ? 
 Some thinkers, realizing the importance of the reign of one 
 universal law over all the territories of a State as an element 
 both of national unification and of practical convenience, but 
 ' Vide infra, chapters xxiv. and xxvii. respectively. 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 291 
 
 at the same time conscious of the difficulties of a central 
 legislative assembly making regulations suited for widely dis- 
 tant and diverse localities, suggest that law should be partly 
 national or imperial, and partly local. 
 
 Others say that all law ought to be national, but that none 
 of its provisions should descend to matters of detail, as that 
 would prevent their applicability to the diversities of local 
 usage. This opens up the whole question of the nature of 
 law. How far should it confine itself to general principles ? 
 Is it possible to legislate at all without descending to details ? 
 One phase only of the general question as to the delegation 
 of power by the British Parliament can be here discussed, 
 viz. the advisability of granting separate legislative organs 
 to Ireland and Scotland. " Local government," as the 
 phrase is now used, is not confined to the right of every 
 district to " manage its own affairs." It includes in the 
 popular mouth the power to make laws as well. The dis- 
 cussion of the rights of subject nationalities comes in here 
 still further to complicate the inquiry as to how far law 
 ought to be uniform throughout the territory of one body 
 politic. 
 
 The views of society and of the State expounded in this 
 Essay would seem to favour conclusions such as these : 
 
 (1) The central legislative authority must retain the clear 
 right of overturning any laws made by every subordinate- 
 institution within its sphere. Otherwise disruption of the 
 State is already effected in a latent form, and only requires 
 opportunity to break the commonwealth forcibly in pieces. 
 
 (2) The advantage of having uniform laws is so important 
 to the whole empire as to outweigh any minor hardship 
 that a particular district might suffer through the failure 
 of the law to adjust itself to local peculiarities. 
 
 (3) Wise and well-framed laws, keeping to the function 
 of defining, enforcing, and protecting rights and duties, and 
 involving no administrative orders, are equally applicable to 
 all parts of an empire, and unjust to no one. 
 
 (4) The power of making laws proper should never be 
 delegated to any district or locality. "Local legislation is 
 absurd." 
 
292 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (5) There is no harm, but on the contrary much good, 
 to be expected from vesting every district, large or small, 
 as well as every voluntary association, with the right to 
 make bye-laws or administrative regulations according to 
 their several needs. To every municipal corporation may 
 well be entrusted, along with the right to manage its own 
 internal affairs, the power to issue such bye-Jaws or regu- 
 lations as are necessarily involved in its local autonomy. 
 But no town ought to be allowed to determine, for example, 
 what class of private contracts should be enforceable 
 within its jurisdiction, or to alter the law of succession 
 or the law of divorce. The same applies to larger divisions 
 such as Scotland or Ireland. As long as these remain parts 
 of one State, they must be subject to one law as far as 
 possible. There is at present a rapid assimilation going on 
 between Scots law and English law. No powers should be 
 allowed to either Ireland or Scotland which would introduce 
 conflicting rules of law within the empire. Each of them, 
 however, must be endowed with the fullest powers to manage 
 " its own business " after its own methods. The difSculty is 
 to define (in the lights which modern science and philosophy 
 have thrown on the solidarity of the race) what is, in the 
 case of any town or any district, "its own business." It 
 must be left to the Imperial Parliament to determine what 
 is an exclusively Irish or Scottish affair, and what affects 
 the commonwealth as a whole. Further, no local majority 
 must be allowed opportunities of coercing local minorities in 
 such a way as seems unjust to the moral sense of the whole 
 community. Under these limits full powers of " local govern- 
 ment" or district administration should be given to each 
 locality, and with these executive powers the right to make 
 bye-laws would naturally go ; but no rights of legislation 
 properly so-called could be entrusted to any power save the 
 legal sovereign — Parliament.^ Such an arrangement would 
 not imply any diminution of the sovereignty of Parliament. 
 It would merely mean that the central government is willing 
 
 * Cf. Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Individualism, p. 25 : " If local authori- 
 ties are to be permitted to legislate independently, it is clear we are 
 brought back to the original position of local anarchy." 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 293 
 
 to allow the local authorities of each subject nation, pro- 
 vince, county, or parish to perform such local work as it 
 is fitted for, and that these powers will he conceded as long 
 as they are not abused. The individual, however, has the 
 better chance of justice, the wider the majority is to which he 
 appeals. It is the duty of the State never to diminish its 
 power to protect the aggrieved individual from the tyranny 
 of the parish, county, or province wherein he happens to 
 reside. The central government must not only jealously 
 preserve its theoretical rights of interference, but' must 
 keep the machinery for enforcing these in good working 
 order and under its own immediate control. The electric 
 chain between the central authority and the citizen must 
 never be broken in passing through any of the smaller 
 organizations. 
 
 These results, then, point to an allocation of the administra- 
 tive duties of government between the central and the local 
 authorities. Many of the objections urged with point and 
 success against the imperial government undertaking certain 
 classes of work for which it is totally unfitted are quite 
 inapplicable to a system under which these duties are per- 
 formed by local authorities. It would be stupid, for example, 
 for Parliament to occupy its time with the consideration of 
 the best method of lighting the streets of each city in the 
 kingdom, and for the Home Secretary to travel about the 
 country to collect local information in the various towns. 
 Such work can be more efficiently and cheaply performed 
 by the mayor and aldermen of each city, to whom the 
 work will probably be a greater pleasure, and in whose 
 wisdom (rightly or wrongly) the body of the townsmen will 
 have greater confidence. The central government is thus left 
 with more time to perform the important duties which it 
 dare not delegate to any one. 
 
 The bulk of the arguments brought forward by consistent 
 Individualists, however, are intended to bear against the 
 interference of local authorities of every description with as 
 great force as against the interference of the State itself. It 
 is true that they are usually reticent or remiss as to the 
 exact list of offensive actions to which they object ; but the 
 
294 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 principle of their reasoning would seem to extend even to 
 the enforcement of a general scheme for lighting and paving 
 the streets of a city or for supplying water to a whole com- 
 munity under a compulsory assessment. It would be difficult 
 to prove that the placing of a row of lamp-posts along the 
 streets of a town in a certain definite order is necessary for 
 " self-preservation " or for any of these " normal " functions 
 of government for effecting which coercion and interference 
 with liberty are alone justifiable on individualistic principles. 
 Yet by merely voluntary action or association, even so simple 
 a measure as this could never be carried out. Power of 
 coercion, though never actually enforced, must be there; for 
 without it any ordered city life would be impossible. One 
 man maliciously inclined, sordid, or eccentric might defeat 
 every project set on foot if all power to coerce him were 
 denied to the authorities or the majority who favoured it. 
 It is coercion to put a lamp-post opposite the house of a 
 proprietor who objects to it ; and it is coercion to make him 
 contribute towards the remuneration of the watchman who 
 interferes with his natural right to remove it. There is thus 
 no denying that every duty performed by the municipal 
 authorities, as well as by those at Whitehall and Downing 
 Street, limits a man's freedom in a particular direction. But 
 the question remains. Does it limit his freedom considered 
 as a whole ? Such restraints as those here spoken of are 
 of so trivial a nature, and the inconvenience (if any) to the 
 individual is so slight, compared with the benefit to the 
 community at large, that no reasonable man would for a 
 moment object. No individual is less free because he has to 
 acquiesce in an orderly arrangement for lighting and cleansing 
 the streets and to pay his just share of the expense, than 
 if he lived in a town without lighting or cleansing at all, or 
 one in which such matters were badly managed by competing 
 joint-stock companies. 
 
 Some Individualists have a definite remedy to propose for 
 what they consider the evils of local government: they would 
 substitute voluntary association. "Private enterprise," to 
 quote from Mr. Donisthorpe, "can, and will, effect all that 
 is good and lawful for any local area which is ripe for 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 295 
 
 it." And again : " The highest form of local government is one 
 of complete and unqualified private enterprise."^ Now, most 
 people will be inclined to agree with Mr. Donisthorpe that 
 when any public or individual want can be better (or even 
 nearly as well) supplied by private enterprise than under a 
 regime of municipal interference, the authorities should stand 
 aside. The majority of thinkers, however, would not be 
 prepared to concede to him that all beneficial undertakings 
 can be carried through in this way better than in any other, 
 or even that any beneficial measure not so realizable must be 
 delayed in the meantime because of the loss of "liberty" 
 involved in coercion by government administration. On the 
 contrary, while there are many departments of industry in 
 which both central and local authorities would merely make 
 trouble by interfering, there are others which can be a 
 thousand times better performed under their official initiative 
 and management than by private enterprise. There are, in 
 addition, some benefits to a whole community, and these of a 
 most fundamental and normal kind, and necessary to every 
 form of civilization, which could never be effected at all, 
 even in a rude and unsatisfactory way, without the coercive 
 power of an executive of some sort, either local or central.* 
 There are, on the other hand, many cases in which the 
 restraints placed on private liberty are more galling and 
 coercive under a regime of voluntary association than under 
 one of municipal authority. 
 
 At first sight' there seems to be a strong antithesis between 
 the principle of local government and that of association 
 on a contractual basis. The one, it is often said, depends 
 
 1 Individualum, p. 25. ^Ibid., p. 26. 
 
 3 Cf. Dr. Henry Dyer, The Evolution of Industry (p. 157). Speaking 
 of the supply by local authorities of commodities "of a simple and 
 uniform nature, the quality of which can be easily tested, and about 
 which there is likely to be little difference of opinion, such for in- 
 stance, as water, gas, and electric light," Dr. Dyer rightly says that 
 "from their nature it is highly desirable that they should be mon- 
 opolies, for it would not only be very inconvenient but wasteful and 
 absurd to have our streets invaded by companies which claimed the 
 right of free competition." 
 
296 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 exclusively on compulsion, and the other on voluntary co- 
 operation. The citizen cannot escape from any particular 
 local authority without leaving the district, nor from all local 
 authorities without leaving the country. He is compelled to 
 submit to the mandates of some local government. With 
 voluntary associations it is said to be entirely different. 
 The citizen may either join them or leave them alone. 
 Within the association he is subject to no restrictions save 
 those to which he has expressly assented, to wit, the con- 
 ditions of membership. In conforming to these, he is merely 
 carrying out his own contract. The extent of authority 
 possessed by a local magistracy over the same man seems 
 at first sight very different. It is generally much wider 
 in scope, and indeed may be extended to any degree under 
 powers conferred by Parliament. Its orders and regulations 
 are backed by the coercive power of the State. It is founded 
 on authority and not upon contract. The one seems a regime 
 of compulsion, the other of free-will. A more thorough 
 analysis, however, clears away a great part, if not all, of 
 this absolute contrast. A working man, for example, may 
 often be more free to choose his place of residence than to 
 choose between being a member of a trades union or not. 
 On the one hand, every citizen of any town may be 
 said to have placed himself willingly under its protection 
 and authority. When a new Police Act is passed by the 
 legislature, endowing the city magistrates with increased 
 powers of dealing with individual rights, if the citizen remains 
 voluntarily where he is, his consent to the changes is naturally 
 presumed. Although the powers of local government, then, 
 proceed from authority, they afterwards obtain the express or 
 tacit consent of the citizen. On the other hand, every individual 
 who enters an association — indeed every one who becomes a 
 party to a contract of any sort — makes himself subject to coer- 
 cion, and to coercion enforced by government. Thus by buying 
 a few shares in a joint-stock undertaking you may become 
 liable to a very great measure of coercion — more in fact 
 than is incurred in taking up your residence in a special 
 town. If the Articles of Association — which you may never 
 have asked to see — contain obligations with which you cannot 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 297 
 
 comply, you may find yourself coerced to the extent of the 
 confiscation of your shares. The voluntary principle is only 
 made effective by the action of government through its com- 
 pulsive power. 
 
 The State-will and the individual-will, authority and free- 
 dom, are really combined in both cases, although these seemed 
 at first the very antithesis of each other. There are some 
 institutions, in fact, which possess so equally the more obvious 
 characteristics of both that it is difficult to decide to which 
 they belong. Of this type any railway company is a good 
 example. In its origin a voluntary association of individuals 
 for the purpose of enriching themselves, it has yet applied 
 to Parliament for special powers, exactly as a municipality 
 might do. Eailways are always looked upon in Britain as 
 public institutions, upon which special privileges have been 
 conferred and from which special duties and public services 
 are in return required. The power to compel private indi- 
 viduals to sell such lands as the railway needs is granted 
 by Act of Parliament, along with the privilege of making 
 bye-laws and regulations. But the government insists in 
 return upon submission to many restrictions imposed by 
 statute, such as the inability to raise passenger fares 
 beyond a certain specified rate, and the effective control of 
 the Board of Trade. Thus, though railways are not con- 
 ducted by an administrative department, they are subjected to 
 control (legislative and executive) just like local authorities. 
 Other classes of corporations might be cited partaking partly 
 of the nature of one kind of association and partly of 
 another, and thus formed on a basis at once voluntary and 
 compulsory.^ 
 
 The real difference between the two is one of origin. 
 
 ^Mr. Chamberlain in the Forum for November, 1892, has laid 
 emphasis upon the points of analogy. " The leading idea of the English 
 system of municipal government may be said to be that of a joint- 
 stock or co-operative enterprise in which every citizen is a shareholder 
 and of -which the dividends are receivable in the improved health and 
 increase in the comfort and happiness of the community.'' Cf. also 
 Dr. Dyer's Evolution of Industry, p. 161, where the above opinion 
 is cited. 
 
298 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Local government as it exists in England to-day — the insti- 
 tutions of that nature under the so-called Anglo-Saxon system 
 are not here alluded to — owes its existence to the delegation 
 of powers from the central government ; whereas the origin of 
 voluntary associations depends upon the initiative of indi- 
 vidual citizens. Each class is a connecting link in which 
 both the State and the individual acquiesce, and which 
 combines the elements of consent and coercion ; but the one 
 proceeds from the State downwards, the other from the 
 individual upwards. 
 
 There are two further principles of difference : (a) the 
 nature of the sanctions by which the association can enforce 
 its commands ; and (&) the fact that local authorities are 
 necessarily formed on a basis of contiguity or neighbourhood. 
 
 (a) The municipal or county authority is allowed by the 
 central government to enforce its will upon the recalcitrant 
 citizen by methods denied to the voluntary association. 
 This is not open to objection, on the ground of invidiousness, 
 unless it can be shown that the need of the voluntary body 
 for coercive powers is as great as that of the local authority, 
 and that the functions of the one are as important and 
 necessary as those of the other. It is small consolation to 
 the aggrieved individual to be told that it is a voluntary 
 association which coerces him. The valid grounds of com- 
 plaint are either that the sanction is a disproportionate one 
 or that it is unjustly applied. 
 
 (&) The fact that the powers of each local government are 
 confined to a specific territorial division of the country, is 
 of even more importance. Some public benefits must be 
 organized on a local basis or remain altogether unperformed. 
 While a Yorkshireman may insure his house from fire, 
 through the medium of a London insurance company or a 
 Scotch one, it is impossible to arrange sanitation or police 
 organization on such a basis. Wherever an undertaking can 
 only be performed by those who live in one neighbourhood 
 acting together and with practical unanimity, it is necessary 
 to entrust its conduct to a local authority. Otherwise the 
 opposition of a small minority of unreasonable individuals 
 might ruin the whole scheme. Private enterprise means 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 299 
 
 competition, and while it is well carefully to avoid condemn- 
 ing all competition as unhealthy, there are undoubtedly certain 
 classes of work from which it must necessarily be excluded. 
 Large cities like Glasgow, Birmingham, or Liverpool can be 
 supplied with water only through powers specially conferred 
 by Parliament upon local authorities. If two or three private 
 companies had insisted on competing to supply Glasgow with 
 water, not only would the cost to the community have been 
 enormous, but the supply would have been much worse both 
 in quality and quantity than at present. What private com- 
 pany could have obtained powers to turn Loch Katrine into 
 a reservoir for Glasgow ? or have justified the priority of its 
 claims ? 
 
 Such schemes, necessary as they are to our modern civil- 
 ization, can only be carried out by the agency of a local 
 authority acting under special powers conferred by Parliament 
 and under its control. Where natural resources (water, for 
 example) are capable of exhaustion, the system of competi- 
 tion involved in voluntary association is entirely inapplicable. 
 
 The argument against local government, grounded on the 
 liberty of individuals, breaks down as completely as that based 
 upon expediency ; for certain forms of voluntary associations 
 are worse enemies to freedom than any local authorities at 
 present in existence. Despotism may exist within every 
 description of club or free combination of men, but the best 
 (because the most exaggerated) example is to be found in the 
 trades unionism which forms so marked a factor in our present 
 labour system. On this subject it is well to rely on the 
 testimony of Individualists whose prejudices are all in favour 
 of voluntary associations as opposed to local government. The 
 following passage by Mr. George Howell is taken from the 
 symposium written in favour of Individualism under the name 
 oi A Plea for Liberty} "Eecently, as late as August, 1890, 
 the newly-formed Dockers' Union, led by the men who claim 
 to be the originators of what they are pleased to describe as 
 the ' new trades unionism,' decreed that their books should be 
 closed ; that no new members were to be enrolled ; that they 
 were now sufficient in numbers to perform the work at the 
 * Plea for Liberty, p. 138. 
 
300 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 docks, and that any addition would but impede their progress, 
 by being brought into competition with the accredited members 
 of the union. Any departure from this decree was to be left 
 in the hands of the executive of the union. This autocratic 
 ukase is worthy of the most unscrupulous despotic tyrant 
 that ever disgraced the pages of history : no parallel for it 
 can be found in the annals of labour, except perhaps in the 
 more degenerate days of the trading corporations of the 
 middle ages, or possibly in some of the commercial ' rings ' 
 of modern times. It says in effect, 'We, the members of 
 the Dockers' Union, are quite sufficient in number to do all 
 the dock work of the port of London or other ports ; we 
 only are to be employed ; no other men shall come into 
 competition with our labour, and we will dictate the terms 
 and conditions upon which we shall be employed. If you 
 don't like it, we will stop all industry until you cave in.' 
 Supposing all other unions adopted the same policy, and shut 
 out all labour except that which had been enrolled in the 
 books of the union, what is to become of the unemployed ? 
 Beggary or the workhouse is to be the lot of all newcomers 
 into the field of industry, unless they can be banished into 
 other lands. If any doctrine so abominable had been pro- 
 pounded by employers the world of labour would have been 
 up in arms. The monopoly of the land, or the upper chamber 
 of the legislature, sinks into insignificance by the side of this 
 unexampled piece of wicked stupidity on the part of the 
 new leaders, the apostles of the New Trades Unionism." 
 
 Thus, while the old unionism confined its energies to 
 forcing men to join or starve, the new unionism, while it 
 continues to boycott and thus to starve those who are left 
 outside, refuses to admit them except at the arbitrary will 
 of the executive comniittee which forms the irresponsible 
 government of these "voluntary associations." Once inside, 
 the member finds himself under an absolute despotism. 
 Valuable testimony to this tyranny is borne by that 
 apostle of Individualism, Mr. Herbert Spencer •} " ' Be one 
 of us or we will cut off your means of living' is the usual 
 threat of each trades union to outsiders of the same trade. 
 ' Plea for Liberty, p. 22. 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 301 
 
 While their members insist on their own freedom to combine 
 and fix the rates at which they will work (as they are 
 perfectly justified in doing), the freedom of those who disagree 
 with them is. not only denied but the asserting of it is treated 
 as a crime." Again, still to quote from Mr. Spencer •} " The 
 coercion of outsiders by unionists is paralleled only by their 
 subjection to their leaders. That they may conquer in the 
 struggle they surrender their individual liberties and indi- 
 vidual judgments and show no resentment, however dictatorial 
 may be the rule exercised over them." 
 
 He goes on to ask what will happen when the State under 
 a socialistic regime becomes one vast universal trades union. 
 The possibility of that event, however remote, is certainly one 
 fitted to make prudent Socialists pause and think, but it 
 is not the only, or even the chief lesson to be learnt. The 
 despotism of trades unions has its message to Individualists 
 also. It warns thenl that the true liberty of the in- 
 dividual can only be protected by the interference of the 
 State, for only the State itself is powerful enough to defy 
 a league of trades unions. Government must limit the 
 misused liberty of such voluntary associations or there will be 
 no room left for the liberty of the individual. Such inter- 
 ference is not socialistic, but proceeds along the via media 
 endorsed by common-sense, the principles of which, properly 
 rationalized, must be, after all, in harmony with those ulti- 
 mately formulated by a true philosophy. 
 
 Protection from the socialistic tyranny of trades unionism 
 can only be sought through government intervention, whether 
 that take the form of legislation or of action by the imperial 
 or the local authorities. Individualists who are consistent 
 advocates of self-help and freedom ought to insist upon 
 increased government coercion to prevent trades unions from 
 forcing communism on their unwilling members, and to 
 protect " blacklegs " from being compelled to join such 
 "voluntary" associations under the penalty of starvation. 
 Still, with all its defects and limits and liability to abuse, 
 the voluntary system is excellent in its own place. Its 
 adherents only injure its claims to perform those duties for 
 ' Plea for Liberty, p. 23. 
 
302 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 which it is by nature fitted, by urging it to usurp all the 
 ■duties of government. There are many functions which it 
 can undertake not only as well as but infinitely better than 
 any government or local of&cials. Parliament has not only 
 to protect individuals from being coerced unreasonably by 
 voluntary associations, but to prevent the latter from being 
 unnecessarily meddled with by local government. 
 
 A number of interesting questions arise as to the relations 
 of Individualism and Socialism to local government and to 
 voluntary associations. The system of Eousseau, professedly 
 on an individualistic basis, was really a municipal, though 
 not a national, Socialism. He advocated that the whole of 
 France should be split up into small quasi-States or communes, 
 ■each of them complete in itself and as nearly as possible 
 independent of the others, though he failed to give any indi- 
 •cation of how this independence was to be secured consistently 
 with his principles. A question of greater practical interest 
 is, how far it is possible to realize the chief benefits claimed 
 by Socialism, or rather to overcome the chief evils it laments 
 in the existing order of things, by means of associations 
 ■conducted exclusively on a voluntary basis. By making a 
 free use of the two principles of co-operative production, 
 and of mutual insurance against loss of various kinds, in- 
 dividuals who believe in certain of the advantages of Socialism 
 ■(such as the absence of competition and the equal distribution 
 of the burden of an unavoidable loss upon all the members 
 ■of a community), can secure for themselves such benefits as 
 they value. Those who do not believe in these principles are 
 under no coercion to join. 
 
 It would be impossible, without swelling this chapter to 
 an undue extent, to seek to apply its principles to particular 
 •cases. Many volumes have been written to show to what 
 extent, on grounds of justice and expediency, railways, tele- 
 graphs, roads, or museums, should be regulated by the nation 
 ■or managed by private enterprise exclusively. It is some- 
 times insisted that they should be subjected to a more 
 or less close supervision of an administrative department of 
 the imperial government, and sometimes that they should 
 be taken over altogether by the municipality or by the State. 
 
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND AS.SOCIATIONS 303 
 
 These questions cannot be here discussed in detail. It may 
 be again pointed out, however, that each case is to be decided 
 on its own merits. There is no absolute presumption in 
 favour of a so-called " coercive '' regime over a " voluntary " 
 one, or mce versa. 
 
 In conclusion, it may be said that the respective claims of 
 central and local government must be carefully weighed and 
 balanced one against the other. The health of the State 
 depends on the preservation of a proper equipoise between 
 them. Much has been said — and wisely said — upon the 
 evils caused by the encroachment of central organs upon 
 the duties of localities. This is the bureaucracy of the 
 German system. It seems to be an evil inherent in every 
 socialistic scheme yet invented or put partially into practice. 
 The evils of such a system are incalculable — sapping as 
 they do the vigour and self-resource of the nation. Self- 
 government and local government have always been features 
 of the British constitution, which has thus escaped the evils 
 of a too centralized system. It must never be forgotten, 
 however, that there are evils equally dangerous to the safety 
 of the commonweal on the other side. Where the powers 
 of local government grow out of proportion to those of the 
 central authority, the balance necessary to a healthy action 
 is equally destroyed. The chief duties of government must 
 never be left for either local authorities or voluntary associa- 
 tions to take up. If the chief agent of the State steps 
 back from its proper place, as the ultimate and highest 
 power in the State, as the supreme* lawgiver and last 
 court of appeal — if it shirks the duty of supplying command 
 and guidance to its subjects when they look to it for help 
 or encouragement — other authorities will be only too willing 
 to step in. If the State will not govern when called on, 
 the reins will be taken from its hands. If the government 
 ceases to be the centre and focus of the national life, taking 
 the foremost place in all important works and interests in 
 the commonwealth, the sovereignty will pass from it to those 
 who both can and will lead the citizens ; but with the fall 
 of the effective power of the central authority, will come 
 the disintegration of the nation, which will cease to be a 
 
304 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 harmonious and united body, and become either a congeries of 
 districts ruled over by local authorities or a series of classes 
 warring against one another, and subject to the dictation of 
 such bodies as trades unions on the one side and com- 
 mercial " trusts " or " rings " on the other. 
 
 The State must preserve its sovereignty and leadership 
 intact, and this involves its stern resistance of all attempts to 
 oust it from its legitimate share of the control of the local 
 bodies, associations, and individual interests. It must keep 
 itself in touch with every smaller power within it, and keep 
 every such power in clear subjection to itself. 
 
 Imperial federation approaches the same question from the 
 other side. The problem is to find machinery to join each 
 colony in constitutional and organic union with the mother 
 country, and to preserve intact the effective sovereignty of the 
 latter without unduly interfering with the just rights and 
 liberties and power of action of the colonies. If the Imperial 
 Parliament fails to enforce its will upon its dependencies, 
 these will become States. Similarly, if it allows any muni- 
 cipalities or chartered companies or trades unions to shake 
 themselves free of all coercion, their own coercion will become 
 unbearable. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 LIBEETY AND COEECION. 
 
 It has been one of the main objects of this Essay to combat 
 the antithesis between the individual and the State in the 
 abstract and unbending form in which it is often formulated. 
 The two are necessarily bound together, and it is therefore 
 impossible to differentiate their respective spheres. In 
 systems of philosophy where this antithesis is insisted on, 
 it does not stand alone, for it is logically connected with 
 various other dualisms that a too abstract philosophy seeks 
 to establish between principles essentially related. It is 
 associated in particular with the opposition between liberty 
 and coercion. It emphasizes the difference between the inner 
 and the outer law. 
 
 Now, it is undoubtedly of great importance to see clearly 
 that the true nature of liberty and coercion can only be under- 
 stood with reference to each other, and it is quite true that 
 they seem, as manifested in life and history, to be constantly 
 at variance. The opposition, however, is only relative. The 
 atoms are indeed always chafing against restraint, struggling 
 for a negative liberty which in its extreme form would be 
 anarchy. The central power is always striving for order and 
 coercion, which in its extreme form would be slavery. A 
 state of practical equilibrium is the resultant of conflicting 
 forces ; but it is not a dead equilibrium. The element of 
 strife on which it is built is really an element of life. It is 
 the constant struggle between the central authority and the 
 constituent atoms that keeps the body politic healthy. The 
 
 u 
 
306 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 energy thus expended promotes motion and life. It is said 
 that under a democratic form of government there is urgent 
 danger of the equilibrium being upset, because the units 
 think that they constitute the government, and naturally 
 have no fear of themselves. This confidence, it is held, 
 is the foundation of a tyranny. Whenever a want is 
 felt, the friendly government is appealed to to supply it, 
 and increased powers are gladly bestowed to enable it 
 effectually to fulfil its ever-increasing tasks. According 
 to Mr. Spencer, a Frankenstein is being called into exist- 
 ence and endowed with earthly omnipotence. Democracy has 
 thus a bias towards both Socialism and despotism. If this 
 be true — and it contains an element of truth, though not the 
 whole — neutral individuals would do well to vote for laissez 
 faire, wherever government meddling fails clearly to prove 
 its case. In this respect Mr. Spencer's warning may do good 
 service. 
 
 But there is another side to the picture. Under a well 
 organized democracy the coercive action of the whole on 
 the parts is to some extent counteracted by the freer action 
 of each unit upon the whole. For this purpose the mere vote 
 of any individual is a secondary matter. The main thing is 
 that he should be able to air his own grievances and to 
 state his own rational arguments clearly before the central 
 authority, and to ensure in this way that he will not be 
 coerced by a mechanical external power, but only by a 
 sympathetic force guided by the common will and common 
 reason of the nation, to which he has been permitted to 
 contribute his quota, and upon which he has been allowed 
 to exercise freely all his arguments. 
 
 Mr. Spencer begins his essay on the " Sins of Legislators " 
 with these striking words : " Be it or be it not true that 
 Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is un- 
 questionably true that government is begotten of aggression 
 and by aggression." 
 
 Now it is a mere truism that coercion or efficient force 
 must be at the command of every government, but to call that 
 force " aggression " is to apply an abusive epithet, calculated to 
 make an unfair impression on the mind of a careless or ignorant 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 307 
 
 reader. It is like calling a soldier " a hired cut-throat " or a 
 barrister a "paid liar." It is a perversion of a certain 
 aspect of truth. But there is a further and graver objection 
 to Mr. Spencer's way of stating his argument.^ The passage 
 cited insinuates that coercion or " aggression " came into 
 existence with government. Now, if a man could pass 
 at once from being a member of a savage tribe, that owned 
 no authority at all, into the status of a full citizen of a 
 civilized State, he would not jump — as Mr. Spencer's sentence 
 would have us believe — from freedom into aggression. On 
 the contrary he would escape from the aggression of anarchy 
 to an ordered force on whose moderation and rational principles 
 of action he could depend. The offensive term " aggression," 
 if applicable at all, refers to the savage tribe and not to the 
 nation which is " over-governed " on principles of right. 
 
 Subject to this explanation, however, the fact must be 
 faced that coercion is the basis of all government. The 
 legislature — where the constitution secures to it the legal 
 sovereignty — is the ultimate director of force in the common- 
 wealth, while the executive is its ultimate applier. The 
 object of government in thus regulating and using coercion, 
 is not to deprive its subjects of freedom, but to secure their 
 freedom. 'It does not create force, but only collects, directs, 
 and applies existing forces. By so doing it makes irresistible 
 the restraints imposed on individuals, but it also frees these 
 restraints from all that is arbitrary, and makes them regular 
 and rational. The one coercion of the resultant is substituted 
 for the thousands of isolated and conflicting coercions of an 
 unorganized society. 
 
 When the individual man, in the person of Von Humboldt, 
 John Stuart Mill, or Mr. Spencer, cries out against the 
 coercive authority of the State, philosophy seems to answer 
 him that he is foolish to revolt against his own true nature 
 as embodied in a higher form and degree in the rational State. 
 To the business man, who finds obedience injurious to his 
 abstract view of his own isolated interests, and who cares little 
 for the consolations of philosophy, a more practical answer 
 may be given. He may be reminded that it is only by the 
 ' Thi Man versus tht State, p. 44. 
 
308 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 coercion of the State that he is saved from a much more 
 galling system of restraints. 
 
 Those who oppose the liberty of the individual to the 
 authority of the government absolutely, proceed on two 
 false assumptions, viz. (1) that liberty is always a good 
 thing in itself, and coercion a bad thing; and (2) that to 
 increase the one is necessarily to diminish the other. Each of 
 these requires some examination. To say categorically that 
 coercion is bad and liberty is good, is to make them ends 
 in themselves instead of merely means to ends. Before a 
 State endows the individual with full social and political 
 rights, it is surely competent to ask what he will do with 
 them when he has got them. It would be foolish to present 
 full rights of citizenship to any foreign anarchist who landed 
 on our shores with the avowed intention to ruin England. 
 Whenever he has broken the law, or has incited others to 
 do so, he is at once deprived of that freedom which has 
 become a menace to the welfare of the State. Liberty is here 
 clearly enough seen not to be a good thing for the State. It 
 is, perhaps, not so obvious that it would be evil for the indi- 
 vidual as well ; but when we admit the essential dependence of 
 even a criminal upon that society against which he lives in 
 chronic rebellion, we see that in sinning against the law he sins, 
 against himself. Liberty to commit a crime is to him not a 
 benefit but in every way a curse. 
 
 Again, it is difficult to see how it is right or expedient to 
 allow a man liberty to hurt himself. Suicide is prohibited 
 among all civilized nations. Sir James F. Stephen, in his 
 criticism of Mill, eloquently maintains that liberty is either 
 good or bad according to the use to which it is put, just as 
 fire is good or bad according as it warms or burns us.^ Simi- 
 larly, in his view, coercion is to be praised or condemned 
 according to the object for which it is resorted to. It seems, 
 however, unnecessary to go quite so far as this to establish 
 the main truth that Sir James contends for. Nor is it 
 necessary to say, as he does, that coercion is only a form 
 of persuasion. Liberty may be invariably a better thing 
 than coercion, caeteris paribus, and yet not co-extensive with 
 ^Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 48. 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 309 
 
 the supreme good of humanity. No one would deny that 
 if a man can be induced to do right willingly and of his 
 own initiative, this is better from every point of view than 
 that he should act grudgingly because he must. Sir J. F. 
 Stephen, indeed, confesses this when he allows that coercion 
 may be evil when more of it than necessary is used ; for if it 
 were neither good nor bad in its essence, a little more or 
 less would not matter. The highest stage of moral grandeur 
 is reached when a man does noble deeds freely and joyfully, 
 and not through dread of punishment, or under the actual 
 sting of the lash. 
 
 That liberty cannot be made an absolute end in itself is 
 borne out by the theory on which all education proceeds, 
 for otherwise why should society inflict education or discipline 
 of any kind on an unwilling child — and what child is not 
 unwilling, more or less, to learn? The State educates the 
 child before it makes him free. 
 
 The second individualistic assumption which requires 
 examination is that whatever is gained to authority is lost 
 to freedom and vice versa; just as one vessel might be 
 emptied by pouring its contents into another. In reality 
 the facts are exactly the reverse. The stronger the govern- 
 ment becomes, the greater, caeteris paribus, is the liberty of 
 its subjects. It has been already pointed out that the 
 coercion of government is a way of escape from the worse 
 coercion of unorganized society, of local prejudice, and, worst 
 of all, of anarchy. 
 
 All England rejoiced in the greater liberty enjoyed under 
 the despotic Tudor rule established by Henry VII., because 
 the "lack of governance" of the Lancastrian and Yorkist 
 period had allowed true liberty to be trampled under foot 
 in the anarchy of the Wars of the Eoses. In the first 
 half of the fifteenth century the coercive power of govern- 
 ment had entirely broken down, with the loss of prestige 
 and dignity of the crown. Henry of Eichmond placed both 
 again on a firm basis. In doing so, he notably illustrated 
 the truth that to establish a strong government is not to 
 diminish the individual's freedom. 
 
 All must submit to coercion of some sort, or, worse 
 
310 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 still, suffer it without submission. Subjection is the 
 natural lot of men. Now, government simply takes this 
 business of coercion into its own hands. It regulates the 
 degree and method of its application to each individual. 
 The ultimate right of coercion flows into a strong govern- 
 ment. The force at the command of government is the 
 resultant of the forces of the whole community, which 
 neutralize one another in this universal "clearing-house" of 
 a central authority. Government controls the stored-up 
 force of the commonwealth. The coercion of government 
 is in this way the high road to liberty. 
 
 All rule implies both submission and consent. It implies 
 either that every private citizen is contented, or that he 
 cannot make good his discontent. This is the valid aspect 
 of the truth presented in a distorted form by the Social 
 Contract theory, and by its weak reflection the " incorporation 
 of society" invented by Mr. Spencer. The aggrieved individual 
 finds himself unable either to obtain redress by altering the 
 law or constitution to his own ideal or to rebel effectually 
 against the form of authority to which he objects. 
 
 It is not a " contract " in the same sense in which we 
 speak of a " contract of sale " or a " contract of marriage." 
 
 An established government may enforce any law against 
 a recalcitrant individual without pausing to ask him politely 
 whether he has openly or tacitly, directly or implicitly, agreed 
 to that law — or even (more generally) agreed to the right of 
 the government to make laws at all. The onus is all the 
 other way. It is the business of the individual (1) to ji^^ify 
 his dissent, and (2) to rnake that dissent effective. This he 
 may do in either of two ways (a) by obtaining through his 
 eloquence, his arguments, or the enthusiasm caused by his 
 martyr sufferings, the repeal of the obnoxious law, or (6) 
 by refusing to comply, and successfully defying the govern- 
 ment to compel him. The first course is quite lawful and 
 constitutional ; the second course is flat rebellion against the 
 government. 
 
 Where national institutions are established on a democratic 
 basis this question of the opposition of coercion and liberty 
 takes the form of the conflicting rights of majorities and 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 311 
 
 minorities. If every Act of Parliament required the consent 
 of every member of the House of Commons, all legislation 
 would obviously become impossible. The votes of the many 
 must be allowed to outweigh those of the few. The only 
 question is, What is to constitute an effective majority? It 
 would be quite possible for the legislature as a whole to decree 
 that no measure should become law until a two-thirds majority 
 of the Lower House had agreed to it. It would be possible 
 even to require a different majority for one class of laws than 
 for another.^ As things stand at present, however, there is 
 nothing either in the law of the realm, in the conventions of 
 the constitution, or in the customs and procedure or standing 
 orders of the Commons' House to prevent any bill being 
 accepted by that House by a bare majority of one vote. As 
 the Speaker does not take part in the division — except in 
 giving a casting vote — 335 votes, or exactly one-half, or less 
 than a numerical majority of the whole House, could coerce 
 a compact minority of 334 members, and commit the whole 
 House to any principle whatever — even to the entire abolition 
 of the existing laws and constitution en Hoc. If the 
 Lower House of Parliament were the sole depositary of the 
 legislative power, there would be no check whatever on this 
 divine right of majorities. As it is, the House of Lords and 
 the legislative rights of the crown stand as the champions of 
 minorities. The barriers so imposed, however, are good only 
 in certain circumstances and up to certain limits. These are 
 nowhere precisely defined, but it is admitted on all hands 
 that a clear majority of the House of Commons, when it 
 has vnthout doubt the voice of the nation at its hack, can 
 sweep all opposition before it. The rule or tyranny of the 
 Lower House of Parliament means at bottom the rule or 
 tyranny of the majority of the nation over the minority — 
 that 51 per cent, of the people may coerce the remaining 49. 
 
 It is evident that there will always be a minority dissent- 
 ing from every measure. The rule of the majority in some 
 form is a necessity inherent in every society. It only remains 
 to be asked: Is this rule of the majority necessarily the 
 
 iThe provisions of the constitution of the United States for its own 
 amendment are an interesting commentary on this. 
 
312 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 tyranny of the majority ? Suppose a hundred men adrift 
 on a raft with no land in sight. Surely it is not tyranny 
 for ninety-eight men to insist on steering east when the 
 remaining two believe that safety lies in the west. It 
 is not tyranny, again, for the city magistrates to compel one 
 recalcitrant individual to keep back his building line from 
 blocking the entire traffic of a busy thoroughfare. Where 
 the common good demands some course of action, any plan 
 adopted must displease some one, and it is no tyranny to 
 prevent a minority from forcing their schemes on an un- 
 willing majority. Tyranny, then, does not consist in the 
 use of coercion by majorities, but in its abuse. It is 
 not easy to define what constitutes this abuse. Some 
 would place the criterion in the intention of those who 
 coerce, others in the methods employed — such as the gagging 
 of free discussion, of which the application of the " closure " 
 in the House of Commons is a good example. A suggestion 
 towards a better test may be got from the organic con- 
 ception of society. If the majority applies its right of 
 compulsion in a mechanical rather than in an organic way, 
 this is the essence of oppression. The criterion thus suggested 
 is necessarily a somewhat elastic one. It implies in a general 
 way that the ruling power should never act harshly or 
 unsympathetically towards the coerced minority. These con- 
 siderations point once more to the old conclusion that coercion 
 is not absolutely bad, but only its excess or misdirection. 
 In other words, the rule of the majority is not necessarily 
 the tyranny of the majority. 
 
 When all is said, however, there is generally something 
 harsh in coercion which cannot be altogether eliminated. 
 It is a very important practical question, then, to inquire how 
 this harshness may be reduced to a minimum, consistently 
 with the maintenance of the unimpaired sovereignty of the 
 central government. 
 
 John Stuart Mill, with his usual penetration, saw that the 
 coercion of government was only one side of a wider question, 
 and that the coercion of society and public opinion were even 
 worse evils. " Protection against the tyranny of the mkgis- 
 trate is not enough; there needs protection also against the 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 313 
 
 tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling." ^ He adds that 
 in England " the yoke of opinion " is perhaps heavier than that 
 of law. The conclusion he draws is that in democracies it is 
 necessary to limit the power of the people over themselves. 
 
 Now it is hardly necessary to inquire whether such a 
 limitation would be desirable, because it is self-evident that 
 it is impossible of accomplishment. The sovereign people 
 of to-day who support individualistic theories cannot limit 
 the sovereign people of to-morrow, who may all be Socialists. 
 It would be an attempt of democracy to dethrone itself, and 
 put lip a dictum of John Stuart Mill to reign in its stead. 
 There is no practical safety to be looked for against the 
 tyranny of majorities on the lines laid down by Mill. 
 
 Indeed there is no safeguard anywhere except in the 
 diffusion of enlightened views as to the nature of society and 
 of a spirit of justice and public morality. These qualities 
 cannot be forced by one generation upon the next, though, of 
 course, the handing down of traditions and institutions and 
 the principle of heredity may do much in that direction. 
 
 The tyranny of the State, of society, or of the majority, can 
 be guarded against only from within, not from without. An 
 enlightened view of the nature of society is what is wanted 
 — not as a mere tenet of speculative interest, but widely 
 difPased among the people, and used as a rule of action in 
 practical politics. 
 
 Tyranny is only possible in a commonwealth based upon 
 an arithmetical or mechanical theory, regarding itself as an 
 aggregate of individuals with isolated interests, or drawing a 
 sharp line between the ruling body and the subject masses. 
 
 Under popular forms of government this danger shows 
 itself whenever the principle of representation is allowed to 
 become merely quantitative. The old anomalies of the fran- 
 chise, as they stood prior to the Eeform BiU of 1832," 
 were undoubtedly a disgrace to a civilized country ; but 
 there may be a danger also in carrying the principle of 
 equality in voting to extremes. To divide the nation into 
 arbitrary but equal divisions for polling purposes, and to 
 take infinite pains that each man has the same infinitesimal 
 ^ Essay on Liberty, p. 13. 
 
314 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 fraction of a joint representative in Parliament, tends to 
 disseminate false ideas as to the nature of the State. The 
 evils of this system would be ten-fold aggravated if taken 
 in conjunction with a principle the advent of which it per- 
 haps tends to hasten — the degradation of representatives into 
 mere delegates. A delegate is a puppet who can only move 
 according as his constituency pulls the strings. Delegation 
 is the essence of a mechanical theory of democratic organiz- 
 ation, and a mere mockery of representative government. If 
 a majority in Parliament were to build upon these principles, 
 its want of liberty of action would necessarily involve a 
 want of sympathy with opponents, and minorities would be 
 subjected to an unreasoning tyranny like that of the blind 
 powers of nature. 
 
 The good citizen ought to be a member of the State first, 
 and only secondarily a member either of a political party 
 or of a majority or minority. If this were realized, tyranny 
 within a State would be impossible. The organic unity of 
 an individual with something outside of himself should draw 
 him into close relations with the whole body politic and 
 not with a sect or party. 
 
 The oppression of the majority can be avoided only by 
 rising in practice above the idea of the State as a sum of 
 units. We must get beyond the conception of sovereignty as 
 the resultant of conflicting wills. In reality the voice of the 
 majority is the voice of the nation. It is the rational general 
 will, and not merely the sum of the individual wills of the 
 " ayes " minus the sum of the wills of the " noes." 
 
 If the individual is allowed a fair chance of bringing the 
 whole weight of his personality to bear on the discussion 
 before the matter is settled, he has afterwards no right to 
 object to his views being overruled by the voice of the 
 nation. History affords several fine instances where the 
 exponent of a new theory began in a minority of one, made 
 a bold stand, and ended by conquering a whole nation 
 originally opposed to him. Truly, in Mill's noble words, 
 " One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety- 
 nine who have only interests."^ 
 
 ^ Representative Oovemment, p. 14. 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 315 
 
 A recent and powerful commentary upon the doctrine of 
 the so-called tyranny of majorities was aiforded by the 
 career of the late Mr. Bradlaugh. Beginning in a minority 
 of one, he ended by forcing the whole nation to agree with 
 him. The solution of the mystery is quite a simple one. 
 Eeason was on his side. He was right and the majority was 
 wrong. In admitting this it is not necessary to endorse either 
 the wisdom of Mr. Bradlaugh's conduct or methods of pro- 
 cedure or to express any opinion of the personal dignity of his 
 action, nor, on the other hand, to agree that the treatment 
 accorded to him was either just or generous. There were 
 faults on all sides ; but Mr. Bradlaugh triumphed, and his 
 success is a good illustration of the rights of minorities.^ 
 
 These conclusions would lead to the adoption in practice 
 of such rules as the following: (a) The dissenting individual 
 or party ought to be allowed freely to plead every argument 
 against the disputed measure, and " closure " ought to be 
 applied only when liberty of discussion has been clearly 
 abused or used as a mere engine of obstruction. (J) The 
 majority should endeavour honestly to sympathize with the 
 point of view of the minority before overruling it by sheer 
 force of numbers, (c) An attempt should always be made 
 to convert the minority by persuasion before applying force. 
 A majority, it has been well said, comes near tyranny " when 
 it neglects available means of justifying its action in the eyes 
 of its opponents."^ (<£) More force than absolutely necessary 
 
 ' Cf. Prof. Eitchie, State Interference, p. 73. " As to the rights of 
 minorities, it may be enough at present to point out that the most 
 important and valuable right of a minority is the right to turn itself 
 into a majority if it can, i.e. the right of freedom of speech and free- 
 dom of association, not the impossible right of the member to exist 
 apart from the orgauic whole." 
 
 2 John MacCunn, Ethics of Citizenship, -p. 119. On the whole subject 
 of the rights of majorities and minorities, in addition to the authorities 
 cited by Mr. MacCunn, the following works may be consulted : Sheldon 
 Amos, Science of Politics, p. 198; Sir J. F. Stephen, Liberty, Equality, 
 Fraternity, p. 22 ; Herbert Spencer, The Mem versus the State, p. 103 ; 
 Prof. Bryce, American Commonwealth, passim ; Wordsworth Donisthorpe, 
 Individualism, pp. 25 and 260 ; Prof. D. G. Eitchie, State Interference, 
 p. 73. 
 
316 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 should never be applied, (e) The miuority on its part ought 
 in turn loyally to acquiesce when fairly beaten; accept the 
 conclusion arrived at as its own ; and work for its success, 
 thus rendering coercion unnecessary. 
 
 Those who object to the rule of majorities must direct 
 their efforts towards regulating its abuse, since it is 
 impossible to abolish it except by substituting the rule 
 of minorities — the tyranny either of the one or of the few, 
 which would not suit democratic ideals. All governments 
 must aim at keeping intact their powers of coercion, but 
 that does not imply that they must also aim at subverting 
 "liberty." On the contrary, the object of all legislative and 
 administrative activity ought to be to raise men to the 
 highest level of freedom, according to their nature as rational 
 beings, by means of such restraints as are necessary.'^ 
 
 The sharp antithesis between coercion and liberty thus 
 breaks down on a close analysis of the aims and uses of 
 government; and the same result will be found to follow 
 from any attempt to give an exact definition of what is 
 meant by "liberty." 
 
 The absolute freedom of frail finite man trembling before 
 the energies of nature, the mysteries of life and death, and the 
 conflicting interests of his brother men, is unthinkable and 
 absurd. The sum of the forces arrayed against the individual 
 is infinitely greater than he, and therefore the more such forces 
 are reduced to order and subjected to the guidance of justice 
 founded on reason, the better for him and his " natural rights." 
 Even the strong man needs to shelter himself behind the still 
 stronger arm of the law, and in the rush for wealth the weak 
 without its aid would be trampled to death. If freedom 
 means merely the absence of all restraint, it is as unattainable 
 as omnipotence or omniscience. Man is, in this sense, always 
 a slave — the slave of destiny, of circumstance, or of his own 
 evil passions, if not of society or the State. Every man, 
 says Mr. Herbert Spencer,^ " must have a master, but the 
 master may be nature or may be a fellow man. When 
 he is under the impersonal coercion of nature we say that 
 
 ' Cf . Kant's Principles of Politics, translated by Prof. Hastie, p. 34. 
 ''Introduction to the Plea for Liberty. 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 317 
 
 he is free; and when he is under the personal coercion of some 
 one above him we call him, according to the degree of his 
 dependence, a slave, a serf, or a vassal." The choice of 
 masters, however, does not lie between nature and man, 
 for each individual must at every moment of his life be 
 subject to both. The rule of a majority representing so wide 
 a community as to become " impersonal " is the alternative 
 to that of a despot or a feudal over-lord. Liberty means the 
 sovereignty of laws as distinct from the sovereignty of indi- 
 viduals. Under an individualistic regime man, it is sometimes 
 asserted, in partially shaking off the rule of government, 
 would to that extent fall under the despotism of a wealthy 
 few rather than of nature, becoming thus the servant of a 
 harder master. 
 
 Coercion in some form thus imposes its sway upon the in- 
 dividual. In a sense, therefore, he is never "free"; but the word 
 liberty has two meanings, and these must be carefully kept apart. 
 Negative liberty is impossible. " The condition of human life 
 is such," it has been said, " that we must of necessity be re- 
 strained and compelled by circumstances in nearly every 
 action of our lives."^ Positive freedom, however, is a different 
 thing. " Know the truth and the truth will make you free." 
 This is positive liberty in the moral or spiritual sense. That 
 man is morally free who is the bond-slave of reason in place 
 of selfish passions and desires. Is no similar conception of 
 positive freedom possible in the sphere of the State ? Un- 
 doubtedly it is, for political freedom means subjection to the 
 laws of a rational government, which frees individuals from 
 subjection to a chaos of warring wills. It means the substitu- 
 tion of the coercion of Parliament for that of free competition, 
 of the national will for that of the county or parish or trades 
 union, of wisdom for ignorance. It is only when a negative 
 and abstract conception is formed of liberty, that government 
 is necessarily its foe. It is by taking this inadequate view of 
 freedom that Sir John Seeley is led to make the opposition 
 final and irreconcilable. " Liberty, in short," he says, " in the 
 common use of language, is opposed to restraint, and as 
 government in the political department is restraint, liberty 
 ' Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 11. 
 
318 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 in a political sense should be the opposite of government. . . . 
 Liberty being taken as the opposite of government, we may say 
 that each man's life is divided into two provinces, the province 
 of government and the province of liberty."^ Such reasoning, 
 founded as it is on individualistic assumptions, would lead 
 to the conclusion that the savage is more " free " than the 
 subject of a civilized State, because the number of restraints 
 placed upon him is less. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition may be profitably com- 
 pared with Professor Seeley's, as both have fallen into 
 the same error. "The liberty which a citizen enjoys is 
 to be measured, not by the nature of the governmental 
 machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, 
 but by the relative paucity of the restraints it imposes on 
 him."^ Now, this is to take an artificial and mechanical view 
 of liberty, and to determine the degree of freedom or of 
 bondage by merely adding up the sum of restraints irrespective 
 of their character. It is, however, the nature and not the 
 number of these restraints that is the important point. To 
 obey the uniform laws of a rational government is freedom, 
 whereas to be at the mercy of the capricious dictates of a Nero 
 is slavery. Freedom, when understood in a positive sense, 
 is not lawlessness. 
 
 " The modern English citizen," says Professor Jevons, " who 
 lives under the burden of the revised edition of the statutes, 
 not to speak of innumerable municipal, railroad, sanitary, and 
 other bye-laws, is after all an infinitely freer as well as 
 nobler creature than the savage, who is always under the 
 despotism of physical want, far freer too than the poor 
 Indian, who, though perhaps unacquainted with written law, 
 is bound down by the most inflexible system of traditional 
 usage and superstition."^ 
 
 law and political freedom, rightly understood, are thus 
 seen not to be mutual enemies, but rather necessary counter- 
 parts which cannot exist the one without the other. The 
 important thing is to understand wherein true liberty is to 
 
 '^Introduction to Political Science, p. 119. 
 
 ^ The Mam, versus the State, p. 15. 
 
 ' The State in Relation to Labour, p. 14. 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 319 
 
 be found. Its real nature has been well expressed by Dr. 
 Hutchison Stirling in explaining the place it occupies in the 
 Hegelian system. "Freedom," he says, "ought not to be 
 taken abstractly as the freedom of subjective self-will. Legal 
 restriction ought to be seen to be the true freedom, and 
 formerly precisely such restrictions used to be called the 
 freedoms, the liberties. In effect, every veritable law is a 
 freedom, a liberty, for it is a result of objective reason. In 
 the best sense it is not true, then, that the State is but the 
 mutual limitation of each others' liberties ; in the best sense, 
 on the contrary, the State is a realization of liberty, for, in 
 reality, to restrain particular or formal will is to emancipate 
 universal and substantial will."^ 
 
 But it is not enough to know from what the individual 
 desires to be free, before we can judge if his liberty is a good 
 or a bad thing for himself or for the State. Even its nega- 
 tive aspect (which implies nothing more than the absence of 
 restraint) is meaningless apart from a knowledge of the bonds 
 to be shaken off; but in real or positive conceptions of liberty, 
 the relativity of the term is still more obvious. The im- 
 portant question is : — What things ought a man to be free 
 to do? 
 
 Freedom, then, is not the absence of all restraints, but 
 rather the substitution of rational ones for irrational. Positive 
 freedom implies the removal of all restraints that hinder the 
 attainment of what is excellent. In a word, he is free who 
 enjoys the opportunity of self-realization according to his 
 highest nature as a rational being. Governments ought to 
 grant freedom to each of their subjects to further his own 
 development, and to help forward the good of humanity ; but 
 not to brutalize himself and others, or prove a danger to 
 the stability, health, or moral vigour of society. The true 
 freedom of the subject lies in the right to enjoy the 
 fuU life of the State in all its phases — economic, social, 
 and political. This is the meaning of organic. Allow all 
 the currents of man's life and opinions, in so far as these 
 are healthful and rational, to flow into and influence the 
 State ; take him along in the full current of the common 
 ' Lectures on the Philosophy of Law, p. 39. 
 
320 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 life, and let the government he must obey be one of light 
 and persuasion, not of darkness and oppression ; then, and 
 only then, he will be fully free. 
 
 It seems after all, then, that coercion and liberty are 
 friends not foes ; and when the absolute barrier raised by 
 an abstract philosophy between them is broken down, other 
 dualisms fall with it. John Stuart Mill's plea for liberty 
 is joined with one for individuality or originality. To the 
 opposition he sets up between freedom and government, he 
 adds another between originality on the one hand, and authority 
 or education on the other. Here, as before, abstractions, 
 useful as stepping stones, are dangerous as final resting 
 places. True originality can never be independent of dis- 
 cipline and dare not despise the attainments and teaching 
 of others. 
 
 "There is nothing new under the sun'' is itself an old 
 saying. If true, originality would seem impossible. It is 
 perhaps safer to say that originality is only a relative thing. 
 There can be no "creative genius" able to make something 
 out of nothing. Genius can only rearrange and view old 
 facts under new relations. 
 
 Originality is not exclusively an emanation from the inner 
 consciousness of the individual. To gain it he must first 
 absorb all that lies around him, falling under the sway of 
 the ordinary recognized rules. Only when he has mastered 
 them can he hope to rise beyond them. In Carlyle's phrase, 
 his first step is to "swallow all formulas." To, despise 
 authority is to aim at originality and to achieve eccentricity 
 — to become a mountebank instead of a genius. "True 
 originality," it has been said, " does not consist in living in 
 a world of one's own, but in making the common world new 
 by a fresh interpretation of it, and such a fresh interpreta- 
 tion of it no one could give unless he knew it."^ 
 
 Genius means an advance beyond the ordinary position 
 attained by the average of mankind, not a falling behind it. 
 The man who insists to-day that the sun goes round the 
 earth is not an original genius, but an ignorant blockhead, 
 
 ^ The Master of Balliol, address on " The Belation of Culture to 
 Knowledge,'' delivered at Aberystwith, October, 1895. 
 
LIBERTY AND COERCION 321 
 
 To be original he must first learn all that others have to 
 teach, and then pass heyond them if he can. Before he 
 takes the first step, then, he must submit himself to others, 
 accept restraints, curb vain imaginations, and in a sense lose 
 his own individuality to find it in a higher form. Eccen- 
 tricity is not originality any more than caprice is freedom. 
 Liberty and individuality depend on authority and the 
 solidarity of the human race. 
 
 Individuality has its own place in the State, but it is 
 only one of two factors. Its due subjection to the laws 
 imposed by the sovereignty of the community must be 
 recognized. " If individuahty has no play," says Professor 
 Huxley, " society does not advance ; if individuality breaks 
 out of all bounds, society perishes."^ 
 
 The result of the whole inquiry seems to be that all 
 absolute dualisms between State and individual, coercion and 
 liberty, authority and originality must be abandoned. 
 
 When government is attacked on the ground that it is 
 an aggressor, several replies are open: (1) Coercion is not 
 the whole of government, but only one element. The consent 
 of the governed is always to some extent implied, as Eousseau, 
 the enemy of all arbitrary authority, clearly saw, though he 
 expressed it in a distorted fashion in his social contract 
 theory. (2) Coercion is not necessarily evil if directed to a 
 good end and not employed in excess of what that end 
 justifies. (3) The coercion of government is an immediate 
 escape from the tyranny of less rational powers. (4) Lastly, 
 an apparent encroachment on liberty in one age has often, as 
 a historical fact, paved the way for an advance in rational 
 freedom for the next. 
 
 These considerations seem sufficient to make the individual- 
 istic indictment against government break down, along with 
 the false assumptions upon which it rests. 
 
 1 Method and Remits, p. 277. 
 
 X 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 EQUALITY. 
 
 There is no more obvious phenomenon of human nature 
 than the radical fundamental inequality of men. No two 
 men are, or ever have been, exactly equal in any one respect 
 since the world began. Human beings differ enormously 
 from one another in characteristics of every kind — moral, 
 intellectual, and physical. They are unequal in animal 
 strength, in bodily proportion, and even in the capabilities 
 of physical pain. They are still more unequal in respect of 
 intellectual endowments — in breadth of mental horizon, in 
 capacity for study, in natural bent of mind, and in wealth 
 of imagination. If moral worth be taken as the test of 
 equality, as is sometimes done, the result is still more 
 pronounced. Men differ in moral worth from the Apostle 
 Paul to Judas Iscariot, as they differ in intellectual calibre 
 from Shakespeare to Mr. Martin Tupper, or in strength 
 from Goliath to a newly-born child. 
 
 The radical inequality of men, then, is a fact which it is 
 madness to dispute, however bitterly it may be deplored. 
 Every true theory of government must take as one of its 
 axioms — if not its very starting-point — the foxt of the in- 
 equality of men. 
 
 It may be said, however, that no sane man seriously 
 doubts this. The fallacy lurks, all the same, in the back- 
 ground of many average minds as an imperfectly formulated 
 preconception ; and equality is tacitly assumed to be the 
 loftiest social and political ideal. In one form or another 
 
EQUALITY 323 
 
 it consciously or unconsciously tinges many otherwise diverse 
 views of society and theories of government. 
 
 To most men the idea of equality is rather a prophecy for 
 the future than a generalization from the past, a statement 
 of what ought to be rather than of what is. Equality is, 
 however, as delusive an ideal as it is unreal as an established 
 fact. Its inherent absurdity is disguised only by the prudence 
 of its advocates, who refrain from clearly defining what they 
 mean. It is allowed to colour men's thoughts, while it refuses 
 to come to clear consciousness itself. If the statement that 
 all men are equal is as erroneous as that the surface of the 
 earth is level, the assertion that all men ought to he equal 
 is as absurd as that the earth ought to be one vast plain. 
 An attempt to reduce the earth to a dead level would be no 
 whit more stupid or mischievous than the endeavour to force 
 all men to be equal. 
 
 Inequality is a law of nature, and can no more be ignored 
 than the law of gravity or the principle of cohesion. The 
 forces of nature may be partially controlled and tamed to 
 work in man's service, but its laws can never be reversed. 
 
 Neither by leaving men to the unfettered liberty of their 
 own Individualism, nor under a thorough system of Collec- 
 tivism, is it possible to eradicate their essential inequalities. 
 If all mountains were levelled with the valleys the world 
 would be one dull, uninteresting, universal plain. If the 
 inequality of existence were abolished there would remain 
 none of the poetry and none of the lights and shadows of 
 human hfe. This world would not supply the discipline 
 needed as a preparation for a higher form of existence.^ 
 
 Absolute equality is evidently as impossible of attain- 
 ment as absolute liberty ; therefore the science of right 
 cannot postulate either one or other as a practical rule for 
 the guidance of legislators or rulers. 
 
 Liberty and equality, to have any definite meaning in the 
 
 ^Cf. Sir J. F. Stephen's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 235. "Men 
 are fundamentally unequal, and this inequality will show itself arrange 
 society as you like." And Prof. Flint's Socialism, p. 320. "Mankind 
 must develop or die, and development involves differentiation, unlike- 
 ness, inequality." 
 
324 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 political world, must be used as relative terms, and therefore 
 defined with reference to ends outside of themselves. When 
 this is forgotten the theorist is landed in the usual dangers 
 and insoluble problems which beset the abstract thinker. 
 The Individualist and the Socialist alike profess to search for 
 principles of abstract justice. The former identifies it with 
 liberty and the latter with equality. Thus, using these rival 
 clews to guide them when they step from the region of 
 abstractions to the world of realities, the worship of the 
 same deity called "justice" leads them by absolutely 
 opposite roads. 
 
 The root of all well-ordered social action is declared by 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer to be " a sentiment of justice which 
 at once insists on personal freedom and is solicitous for the 
 like freedom of others."^ To the average Individualist, then, 
 justice means liberty. Those of its worshippers who have 
 socialistic leanings, on the other hand, would identify justice 
 with equality. Now, aistract liberty and abstract equality 
 may well be identical while they remain empty universals, for 
 all zeros are the same. But they clash immediately they find 
 a content from the empirical material of experience. Laissez 
 faire is called on to realize the individualistic conception of 
 practical justice embodying " freedom," while the coercion of 
 the State in every department of life is required for the 
 attainment of socialistic justice as "equality " on a commun- 
 istic basis. 
 
 The problems which present themselves for solution are : 
 (1) Does strict justice demand equality (in any definite 
 meaning of that word) among the fellow-citizens of a State? 
 and (2) how far is it the duty of government to see this 
 equality realized ? 
 
 The first step in the inquiry is obviously to determine 
 what is really meant by " equality " in the region of practical 
 politics, when we have once laid aside vague generalities and 
 
 ' A Plea for Liberty, p. 25. Cf. Kant's Philosophy of Law, translated 
 by Prof. Hastie, p. 45. "Right, therefore, comprehends the whole of 
 the conditions under which voluntary actions of any one person can 
 be harmonized in reality with the voluntary actions of every other 
 person, according to a universal law of freedom." 
 
EQUALITY 325 
 
 empty universals. It is necessary to be definite ; for it will 
 not do to prove that abstract justice implies abstract 
 equality, and then to jump to the conclusion that within 
 the family circle the son has equal authority with the father, 
 or that the tenant has an equal right to the rent with the 
 landlord, or that every male adult has an equal claim to a 
 ruling voice in the Cabinet with the Prime Minister. Abstract 
 and actual equality are very different things. 
 
 It is thus useless to demand that men be made "equal" 
 without specifying clearly what is meant. There are obviously 
 certain kinds of equality that may be at once dismissed, 
 since neither government nor any other human agency can 
 affect them. It is as impossible to make men equal in wisdom 
 or in happiness, as in age or stature. After such conceptions 
 have been eliminated, at least seven distinct varieties of equality 
 remain. It is necessary to separate these clearly from one 
 another before asking how far the State may be bound, in 
 the name of justice, to secure their realization in the mutual 
 relations of its citizens. (1) " Civil equality " requires that all 
 men should be equal before the law. Justice demands that 
 its courts, in dispensing law, should treat all over whom their 
 jurisdiction extends absolutely without fear or favour. This is 
 clearly not the kind of equality for which Socialists clamour ; 
 for judicial impartiality is already sufficiently secured in 
 countries like England where the reign of law brooks no 
 rival ; sets aside all class privileges and official immunities : 
 and puts the highest and the lowest on the same level in 
 the courts of law. 
 
 It is easy, however, to misunderstand what this species 
 of equality means. It merely implies that all men have an 
 equal right of standing in a Court of Law to make good 
 the inequalities which nature and their own exertions have 
 procured for them. The dispensation of equal justice to all 
 men does not imply that when a case of disputed inheritance 
 is brought before the courts, an equal distribution of 
 the subject of litigation will be made among the claimants. 
 It merely means that each claimant will receive an equal 
 and impartial hearing for every legal argument he can bring 
 forward to establish his rights as the law defines them. 
 
326 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 " An equal law " is a just law, and not one which recognizes 
 the equal rights of every one to everything. This extremely 
 abstract meaning of equality — according to which each citizen 
 is the possible subject of rights — is perhaps the only one 
 which justice categorically demands. "Equality," says Sir 
 James Stephen, "has no special connection with justice ex- 
 cept in the narrow sense of judicial impartiality."^ 
 
 (2) " Political equality " is of a different nature, and though 
 possibly a wise thing, its absolute necessity in a well-governed 
 country cannot be said to be so axiomatic as that of civil 
 equality. It is easy to distinguish between the two. The 
 relations of individuals to the government, and their rights 
 against it, are of two kinds, civil and political. The first 
 class defines the position of the citizen as one of the 
 subjects of government, fixing the extent of the control 
 that can be legitimately exercised over him, laying down 
 rules by which that control will be guided, and specifying 
 the measure of protection which he is entitled to demand; 
 The second class defines the position of the citizen as a 
 part of government, or at least as having upon it an indirect 
 influence, fixing his share in the election of rulers, his right 
 to strive for the alteration of the constitution, and his eligi- 
 bility to be appointed to a direct position in the government. 
 
 The sum of a citizen's civil rights or jus privatum is the 
 counterpart of the control which the government has over him; 
 whereas the sum of his political rights or Jus publicum is iden- 
 tical with the control which he has over the government. From 
 this distinction it appears that civil or legal equality does not 
 necessarily involve political ; for it is quite consistent to hold 
 that the law should have equal control over all, including 
 even the sovereign, along with the doctrine that all have 
 not an equal voice in the making of laws or the choosing of 
 rulers. Indeed, the formula of equal political rights in its 
 extreme form is not only inconsistent with the existence of 
 a hereditary monarchy and a second chamber of any sort, 
 but even with the existence of representative government; 
 for if all have equal political rights why should there be 
 any division into representatives and represented? 
 'See Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 238. 
 
EQUALITY 327 
 
 Equality of political rights, to have any sensible meaning 
 at all, must be restricted materially.- It means in practice 
 little more than an universal franchise. " One man, one vote," 
 is quite a logical contention, running counter to no "law of 
 nature." It falls far short of political equality, however, and 
 its realization would make men equal at the polling booths, 
 just as they are already equal in a court of law. It would 
 in no way imply the equal political influence of the most 
 illiterate voter with Mr. Gladstone, nor the right of every 
 citizen to interfere in naval affairs with the same authority 
 as the first lord of the Admiralty.^ One phase of the 
 general question of the equality of the sexes centres round 
 the possession of the franchise. It is the State which in 
 all such matters must finally decide; and it ought to do so, 
 not on the ground either of a " natural right " of man to 
 rule, or a " natural right " of woman to equality, but on the 
 general grounds which regulate all its decisions. It must 
 decide in favour of whatever course will best further the 
 various proximate objects for which it exists in the light 
 of that ultimate end which includes and transcends them 
 aU. 
 
 (3) The only equality which the Individualist insists on 
 is "equality in freedom." This claim is put forward, it is 
 true, rather in the interests of liberty than of equality. The 
 only limit in this view to the right of all men to be free 
 — absolutely free — is the equally absolute right to liberty of 
 every other man. The only legitimate business of the State 
 is then, it would seem, to see that this empty freedom is 
 distributed equally among all its citizens, and to perform 
 the duties necessary for the attainment of this end, such as 
 the prevention of foreign interference or domestic disorder 
 from interrupting its universal reign. 
 
 (4) "Eeligious equality" is a phrase often used, but rarely 
 analyzed. It may mean either an absolute toleration by the 
 State of all religious and irreligious sects equally, with the 
 absence of all restraints direct and indirect (an ideal utterly 
 unattainable apart from anarchy), or merely the absence of 
 
 ^ Cf . T. H. Huxley, Method and, Remits, p. 308. " ' Political inequality 
 naturally dogs the heels of natural' inequality." 
 
328 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 an established church. It might even mean the equal 
 establishment of all churches of whatever creeds or ceremonies. 
 
 (5) "Moral equality" might be made a party cry. K 
 the criterion is to be applied by individual consciences, 
 however, toleration of differing codes of morality must imply 
 toleration of immorality as well, for what the community 
 condemns the individual may approve. To allow conduct to 
 pass uncensured and unrestrained only when it confines itself 
 within those lines considered not immoral by the community, 
 is intolerance and the reverse of equality. The adherent of 
 religious equality may be more willing to tolerate the dis- 
 semination of heresy and atheism than the believer in moral 
 equality to allow the propagation of gross immorality. The 
 difference seems to be that religious dissenters form a large 
 minority, and bigamists a very small one. It is difficult to 
 see why bigamy should be punished and atheism go free — on 
 grounds of equality alone. It may easily be proved, of course, 
 that one is more injurious to the community than the other. 
 
 (6) " Social equality " is another ideal which commends itself 
 to many minds. Society, as it exists, is founded on inequality. 
 No two families moving in the same circle are exactly on a 
 par. Society is a chain extending from the sovereign down- 
 wards — each link hanging on to the one immediately above 
 it, and supporting in turn one a little lower than itself. 
 
 How far is the State responsible for this inequality ? How 
 far should it interfere to alter it ? The provisions of EngKsh 
 law have a two-fold bearing on the subject. In the first 
 place, the law allows no class privileges or invidious distinc- 
 tions of any kind to interfere with the impartial dispensation 
 of justice. Neither hereditary nobility nor high officials of 
 State have any licence to break the law of the land, and even 
 the prerogative of the sovereign is subject to its sway. This 
 is, however, rather equality of the first sort — an equal stand- 
 ing before the law — than social equality in the sense under 
 discussion. The one, however, tends to bring the other in 
 its train. In the second place, the Queen is the fountain of 
 honour; and by conferring through the appropriate constitu- 
 tional channels, peerages, baronetcies, knighthoods, and other 
 distinctions, Her Majesty, as head of the State, can greatly 
 
EQUALITY 329 
 
 affect the relative social positions of her subjects. This is 
 only one element in determining social position; but so far 
 as the State confers honours at all, it gives its voice in 
 favour of inequality. Beyond this somewhat unimportant 
 interference, it leaves each individual to sink or rise to his 
 natural level in society as best he may. 
 
 (7) There is still another form of inequality towards 
 which the government must assume an attitude of some 
 sort. Is it the duty of the legislature to aim at establish- 
 ing, as far as possible, a complete equality of material wealth 
 or of the enjoyment of its fruits? Ought it to attempt any 
 modification at all of the extreme inequality that divides 
 the rich from the poor ? 
 
 This field of inquiry is a wide one, and it is well to 
 limit it wherever practicable. It cannot be the duty of the 
 State to do what is impossible; therefore the issue may be 
 at once narrowed by discarding all attempts to produce a 
 dead uniform level. Absolute equality of wealth or of its 
 produce is impossible in a world where men grow old and 
 die in varying numbers that cannot be calculated beforehand, 
 while the ratio of these deaths to the births of children 
 destined to fill their places is equally uncertain. The laws 
 of supply and demand, too, insist on asserting themselves in 
 spite of all State regulation of labour, and so continue to 
 upset the best laid plans. There are, besides, innumerable 
 differences of bodily organization, of mental endowments, and 
 of taste, which make the needs of individuals for the various 
 forms of wealth unequal — and this difficulty would certainly 
 not be diminished by the abolition of " money " as a medium 
 of exchange. It is difficult to understand how even an 
 omniscient and omnipotent government could superintend a 
 distribution of the natural good things of the world in a 
 way that would be "equal" or successful in satisfying the 
 needs of any one man, or in advancing the well-being of 
 the community as a whole. 
 
 The demand for absolute material equality may then be 
 dismissed as at once unattainable and undesirable. Some ap- 
 proximation to equality may be made, however, or rather some 
 modification of the more glaring inequalities of life. Equality, 
 
330 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 as a term of practical politics, is only a matter of degree. 
 When this is granted, there is nothing inherently absurd or 
 illogical in the demand that the law should do something 
 to lessen the hardships of the poor man's lot and to com- 
 pel the rich man to contribute from his superfluity towards 
 that desirable end. But while such a proposal cannot be 
 summarily dismissed as ridiculous on the face of it, weighty 
 questions yet require to be answered as to its justice 
 and expediency even in the interests of the poor them- 
 selves. To adopt the only criterion at once safe and definite, 
 Will such a course advance the highest ends for which the 
 State exists ? or, as the question comes to be one of degree. 
 How far does a due regard for that end justify the govern- 
 ment in going ? 
 
 Different theorists have adopted as an ideal almost every 
 gradation from extreme communistic doctrines to the plausible 
 and praiseworthy though indefinite claim for what is vaguely 
 called "an equal start in life." 
 
 The present law in England makes no direct attempt 
 towards even an approximate equality of wealth. The Poor 
 Laws might be pointed to as a possible exception, but their 
 object is not to raise the poor to a level with any other class, 
 but to provide out of the common purse the bare necessities of 
 existence for those who are utterly destitute. Much modern 
 legislation, it is true, aiming at other objects (such as the 
 promotion of education or safe-guarding the health of locali- 
 ties), by putting increased taxation chiefly on the well-to-do, 
 unconsciously tends in this direction.-^ 
 
 In estimating the merits of any of the theories which 
 advocate a forcible readjustment of wealth and poverty, one 
 
 ^Cf. Dr. Henry Dyer's Evolution of Industry, p. 158, where the 
 whole of the present scheme of levying local rates is declared to be 
 socialistic, "for they fall much more heavily upon property and on 
 the incomes generally of the well-to-do classes than upon the poor, 
 thus helping to equalize the distribution of wealth and forcing a 
 practical recognition of the fact that the community is a social organism." 
 It must not be forgotten, however, that part at least of the taxation 
 thus expended on local improvements comes back indirectly to the 
 owners of local property in the form of increased rents and what is 
 often called "unearned increment." 
 
EQUALITY 331 
 
 principle seems certain. No moral State can select arbi- 
 trarily any one class of property, and confiscate it without 
 compensation. Even if private ownership comes to be ultimately 
 condemned, and even if it were to be considered equitable to 
 abolish it by one stroke, and not gradually through centuries 
 of slow approximation to new conditions, it would still be 
 utterly contrary to the science of right and the true interests 
 of humanity to select arbitrarily one victim of the change in 
 public sentiment, and let others go free. 
 
 It is true that the unreasonable interests of individuals 
 cannot be allowed to block the advance of the State, and 
 so-called natural rights of citizens must often be invaded 
 against the will of those affected ; but this should never be 
 done arbitrarily, and never without giving as full compensa- 
 tion as is consistent with the nature of the property of 
 which they are deprived, and with the resources of the 
 nation. This is not a limitation upon the power or the 
 abstract rights of the State, but an ethical maxim which it 
 cannot ignore without injury to its own highest interests. 
 It does not deprive it of the right to punish a citizen for 
 a crime or misdemeanour by the deprivation of part or 
 of the whole of his possessions, nor of the right to compel 
 a man to fulfil all obligations incurred by his contract or 
 quasi-contract, delict or quasi-delict, nor of the right to coerce 
 the rich man to contribute a greater share of taxation 
 than his poorer neighbour for the general ends of the 
 State. 
 
 It does limit, however, a justice-loving nation from step- 
 ping in and appropriating summarily possessions which an 
 individual has acquired in strict conformity with law. It 
 forbids the State, on grounds of public morality — in plain 
 words, under the penalty of being considered by more 
 equitably minded States and individuals, a thief and a breaker 
 of faith — ^from forcibly taking one kind of property from A 
 and leaving B to enjoy the fruits of an equally large income 
 derived from property of another class. 
 
 If the present law allows private ownership of land, 
 houses, machinery, trading companies, mortgages, personal 
 debts, and ships as all equally legal, it ought never to select 
 
332 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 one of these kinds of property as more subject to confisca- 
 tion without compensation than another. 
 
 It is unjustifiable to attempt to shelter the expropriation 
 of a citizen who is innocent of offence m the eyes of the 
 existing law, under the pretence that that law is bad. 
 
 If the legislature is convinced that the old law is im- 
 moral, it should undoubtedly make a change as soon as 
 possible, but it cannot repair its old sins by committing 
 new ones of a more heinous nature. Thus Mr. Henry 
 George is entitled to convince the conscience of Great 
 Britain (if he can) that private property in land is immoral ; 
 and if the community sincerely forms the opinion that he 
 is right, the law ought to be altered at once, making it 
 illegal for any one to hold land in the future. But to 
 refuse to give to each proprietor from whom property has 
 been so taken a full compensation for its market value (and 
 also, if possible, for any sentimental considerations attached 
 to it) is to punish him by the new law for doing what the 
 old law protected and encouraged him in doing. If the 
 abolished system was immoral, the whole community which 
 was responsible for the wicked law shared in the sin. It 
 is unjust to single out the actual holders of land at the 
 time when the change is made, to act as scapegoats for the 
 sins of all. The law ought only to punish individuals for 
 breaches of its mandates, not for its own former imperfec- 
 tions as judged by a later standard. Mr. Henry George's 
 system is open to all the usual objections to which 
 retrospective legislation is always exposed, and that in an 
 exaggerated degree, while it has special objections of its 
 own. 
 
 This is only one instance of a principle of quite universal 
 application. Even if it were possible to sweep poverty for 
 ever from the land by seizing on the surplus riches of any 
 one class, and applying them to relieve the crying necessities 
 of the many, the State ought still to pause before commit- 
 ting itself to such a course, in case, by so doing, it should 
 interfere with the eternal principles of justice, or (if the 
 phrase be preferred) with the rational basis of a utilitarian 
 system of ethics. Confiscation is too severe a remedy to be 
 
EQUALITY 333 
 
 applied to the body politic, to alleviate even the frightful 
 evils which Socialism professes to cure. 
 
 If a man has once made a fortune under the protection 
 of the law and without violating its provisions, it can never 
 be to the ultimate good of the community to prevent his 
 enjoyment of what the past law has encouraged him to 
 call his own for the natural term of his life. Accumulated 
 wealth in the hands of individuals must be respected, unless 
 contemporary law has branded as illegal any particular type of 
 property or the methods by which it has been acquired or the 
 uses to which it is put. 
 
 The aim of absolute equality and the methods of con- 
 fiscation must then be alike discarded by every system of 
 political science with truth and justice before its eyes. 
 Apart from socialistic Utopias founded on a complete abolition 
 of private property, only two schemes have come definitely 
 before the public for lessening material inequalities — a gradu- 
 ated income tax and an ascending scale of death duties. These 
 proposals seem at first sight to have much in common — to 
 hold out the same inducements and to lie open to the same 
 objections. But there is one cardinal point of distinction; 
 for the first would debar the comparatively rich capitalist from 
 enjoying part of what he had himself acquired, whereas the 
 latter would keep from the expectant heir something which 
 had never been his. 
 
 Strong reasons may be urged against both schemes, but 
 the future may evolve means of overcoming the practical 
 difficulties. It is only their theoretical aspects that can be 
 here discussed. 
 
 It is only fair that the heaviest burden of providing 
 benefits wherein the whole community participates should 
 faU on those best able to bear it, especially when it is to 
 those favourites of fortune that the greater share of the 
 benefit accrues in proportion as they have more at stake. 
 Thus, if increased taxation is essential for purely national 
 needs — these are of course difficult to define — it is not 
 necessarily unjust that the rich man out of his abundance 
 should pay one shilling in the pound, while only one penny 
 is taken from those to whom a decrease of revenue will 
 
334 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 mean a deprivation of many of the small comforts of life. 
 Such a graduated taxation is justifiable on these two con- 
 ditions : first, that the sliding scale be really a fair one 
 (though the difficulty here comes in of determining what is 
 fair), and, secondly, that it is really levied for hcma fide 
 purposes of taxation (though here again comes in the new 
 difficulty of providing a criterion to determine what such 
 purposes are). But if the whole scheme is merely a 
 cloak for partial confiscation, then it only adds hypocrisy 
 to theft. If A's ability and industry have enabled him to 
 lay aside a few hundred pounds for a rainy day, while B 
 has squandered all he earned, it would be iniquitous under 
 the name of graduated taxation to allow B to enjoy a half 
 or even a smaller portion of the produce of A's store. 
 
 A thorough-going scheme of graduated death duties escapes 
 some of these crucial objections, though it has difficulties and 
 dangers of its own. In a "state of nature" — if that phrase 
 is used for the impossible condition of human life from which 
 even the rudiments of social and political organization are 
 entirely wanting — when a man died, all his possessions would 
 become res nullius, to be scrambled for among the first- 
 comers, and to be borne off by the strongest or most cunning. 
 In early times it is the family which determines how the 
 deceased's property shall be divided. The peaceable pos- 
 session of those who take either by bequest or by intestate 
 succession, is at a later stage secured by the government. 
 There is no such right apart from positive law ; and 
 ancient systems of jurisprudence have not always recognized 
 either the right of testation or the right of blood relations 
 to divide the inheritance. It is open for the State, then, to 
 determine how far it will allow a man, with or without 
 children, to exercise free rights of testation, and also how 
 far it will allow the family in testate or intestate succession 
 to absorb the whole of the wealth accumulated by the 
 deceased in his lifetime. If the State thinks it expedient 
 and just — which are, of course, exactly the aspects of the 
 question on which it is difficult to decide — it may say to the 
 heirs and successors of the man who leaves two millions 
 behind him, " I take one million for the community and 
 
EQUALITY 335 
 
 leave the balance to you," and to the representatives of him 
 who leaves one million, "I take £30,000 for myself," and 
 so on, on whatever descending scale may be reckoned fair 
 and expedient. 
 
 Such a scheme has many and obvious difficulties in its 
 way; but it could not be justly branded with the name of 
 confiscation, for the following reasons : In the first place, you 
 cannot take from a man what has never belonged to him ; 
 in the second place, without laying any emphasis on the fact 
 that the wealth of the deceased was accumulated through 
 the instrumentality of the community in which he lived, 
 it may be urged that it is only through the good offices of 
 law and government that the heirs and successors are 
 enabled peaceably to enter upon their inheritance, and that 
 therefore the State is justified in taking a part in payment 
 for its services in protecting the rest. It would be necessary, 
 however, that such a measure (even if all theoretical and 
 practical objections to it were successfully overcome) should 
 be entered upon very gradually, and that due notice should 
 be given of the intended changes so as to prevent undue 
 interference with the reasonable expectations of children or 
 other presumptive beneficiaries. Such a measure of reform 
 (if possible at all) would not only place in the hands of the 
 State a fund for carrying out the various ends for which it 
 exists, and which, for want of money, it is often unable to 
 fulfil, but would also help to keep within due limits a 
 danger to the national welfare which becomes every year 
 more threatening in the United States of America— if not 
 yet in Great Britain — from the vast accumulations of millions 
 in the hands of a few rich families. 
 
 The object of graduated death duties is not to produce 
 absolute equality, but only to ameliorate great inequalities 
 that threaten to grow so large as to menace the sovereignty 
 of the State itself. 
 
 It has been frequently pointed out that even an approxi- 
 mation to equality of material well-being is impossible, 
 however uniformly wealth may be distributed among indi- 
 viduals, as long as these are grouped in families, for the 
 man who has twelve children to support is not as rich as 
 
336 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 his neighbour who has only one, and the child of squandering 
 parents is not " equal " to the child of wise and frugal ones. 
 
 The claim to equality of happiness or the means of 
 happiness may be considered merely as a phase of the claim 
 for equality of wealth, so far as it has any definite meaning 
 at all. It seems to be tacitly implied in the theories of 
 the school of Bentham, in the " greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number," where "each is to count for one, and 
 nobody for more than one." Few faddists either of the 
 individualistic or socialistic type are likely seriously to hold 
 the government responsible for providing all its subjects 
 with an equal amount of happiness, or with equal means 
 for its attainment in a world where each individual must 
 seek happiness in his own way. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence by the United States 
 of America, incorporating the wisdom of Jean Jacques 
 Eousseau into the primitive Puritan theology, holds " these 
 truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 
 that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un- 
 alienable Eights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and 
 the pursuit of Happiness.'' The equal right to pursue 
 happiness is thus substituted for the equal right to obtain 
 it. It would be beside the mark to estimate how far the 
 laws of the United States have successfully realized this 
 ideal ; for the important point to note is its vagueness and 
 impracticability. If it has any definite meaning, it must 
 resolve itself into a claim for equal opportunities. Life is 
 looked on as a race, and each child is entitled to a fair start 
 with all the others. 
 
 When theorists have settled how far this is desirable and 
 just, then the practical question will arise : What ought the 
 government to do towards its advancement ? 
 
 The whole question of the relations of government and 
 legislation to the ideal of equality illustrates the dependence 
 of political philosophy upon the results of all the other sciences. 
 Much preliminary work has to be done before the theory of 
 the State can take the matter up. Before Parliament can 
 interfere it ought to have weighed the results of specialists 
 in economics, sociology, and the science of right. It is for 
 
EQUALITY 337 
 
 the first-named to say how far the economic well-being of 
 the nation demands a more equal distribution of wealth. It 
 is for sociology to correct the too abstract conclusions of 
 political economy by showing the relation of mere material 
 wealth to all the other phases of social welfare, such as enjoy- 
 ment, art, and virtue. It is for the science of right (in the 
 Kantian sense, which includes jurisprudence and ethics under 
 one conception) to determine how far the ideal can be attained 
 without violating the principles of truth and justice. Only 
 after all these have given their verdicts can political science 
 declare how far it is wise for government to interfere. It 
 is only after social well-being has been defined that statesmen 
 can step in as Individualists or Collectivists with their rival 
 schemes for its realization. 
 
 Those who hold the organic theory of society refuse to 
 assume with the Socialist that, a priori, governments are 
 bound to accept the sole responsibility for whatever is amiss 
 in the distribution of wealth, or with the Individualist that 
 the State's only duty is to let things drift on as best they 
 may. Indications indeed are not wanting that under the 
 present system of industry, we are moving towards a 
 " coming slavery," where, however, the slave-owner will not 
 be the State but the wealth of a few individuals. 
 
 The philosophic justification of property is that it is needed 
 for the development of personality.^ Now, in certain diseased 
 conditions of society, wealth may defeat its own end by 
 crushing out the persons of the citizens instead of developing 
 them. When danger arises from this source, the legislature 
 in a civilized State is bound to interfere. Thus when the 
 old debtors' law was abused, imprisonment for debt had to 
 be abolished to free those who had become the slaves of the 
 proprietary rights of others pushed to excess. Similarly 
 where "trusts" or trade corporations insist on urging their 
 rights of property to extremities, the State may be com- 
 pelled to step in, to prevent the reins of government being 
 dragged out of its own hands, only to be seized by industrial 
 associations representing either capital or labour, or perhaps 
 both. 
 
 1 Cf. W. Galbraith Miller's Philosophy of Law, Lecture v., and also p. 304. 
 
 T 
 
338 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 In flying from the extreme of individualistic indifference 
 it is not necessary to rush to another, and to attempt to 
 distribute all property equally. The wise course lies in the 
 centre, in a reasonable extent of State interference judiciously 
 applied. 
 
 Government must interfere if it can further the "good" 
 of mankind — remembering always that that end combines the 
 universal principles of right with those practical conditions 
 of a healthy life of which happiness is the outward sign. 
 In this aim, as in others, it is absurd to expect an absolute 
 criterion by reference to which the legislature can at once 
 know whether or not to interfere. A few practical suggestions 
 may be made, however, in summing up the results of the 
 discussion. (I.) It is quite possible, without injustice, to 
 reduce the excessive inequalities of existing fortunes, by 
 extending the principles already at work, such as the 
 graduated scheme of death duties, or even the sliding scale 
 of income tax. No such scheme ought, however, to be 
 extended so as to act as a cloak for what is practically con- 
 fiscation. There is a danger in introducing the principle at 
 all, as it admits so readily of abuse. Prudence alone would 
 dictate that all taxation should stop clearly short of such 
 interference with private property as would destroy " the 
 incentive of gain." 
 
 (II.) The ideal of " an equal start in life," when once its 
 vagueness and difficulty of realization are clearly grasped, is 
 not without its value. All artificial restraints, whether the 
 creations of law or of social arrangements and prejudices, 
 ought to be removed to allow free play to every individual 
 to rise to such a position in the State as he is fitted to 
 fill. He should enjoy such opportunities of development as 
 may be given him without injuring the rights of others. 
 To express this ideal by the word "equality" is, however, 
 a hindrance rather than a help. Children, despite the Declar- 
 ation of Independence, are not born naturally equal. The 
 race is a handicap from the first. At least three different 
 views are possible as to what is the proper meaning of "an 
 equal start in life." (a) The State may aim at giving equal 
 advantages by law to aU alike, both weak and strong; (6) 
 
EQUALITY 339 
 
 it may consider that more should be done for the stupid 
 boy than for his brighter brother, who needs it less ; or (c) 
 it may hold that artificial advantages should be proportionate 
 to natural ones, and that therefore the best opportunities 
 should go to those best able to use them. 
 
 Free education is the practical shape which this theory 
 has recently taken in Great Britain. An uniform minimum 
 of education is forced upon every child between certain 
 ages. This is in reality far from securing to aU "an equal 
 start in life," for the stupid boy who is less able to benefit 
 wUl not unnaturally receive less attention from his masters. 
 Bursaries again are open to those who excel their fellows, and 
 thus even a university education is within reach of a talented 
 few, and will still further increase the inequalities of Mfe 
 by giving to him who already has. All this is contrary 
 to the gospel of equality according to Eousseau, who maintains 
 that " it is precisely because the force of circumstances tends 
 always to destroy equality, that the force of legislation 
 ought always to tend to maintain it. "^ To give effect to 
 Eousseau's doctrine it would be necessary for the stupid 
 child to receive twice as much education as the clever one. 
 
 (III.) The third practical suggestion is that the legislature 
 (if dissatisfied with the present unequal distribution of the 
 good things of this world, but yet unwilling to interfere with 
 fortunes already amassed) should aim at so altering the 
 economic conditions of commerce that it will be impossible in 
 the future for one man to amass by speculation an amount 
 of wealth greater a thousand-fold than that of his more 
 industrious neighbour. 
 
 The law may be changed to meet the requirements of a 
 more developed public opinion or more equitable national 
 conscience so as effectually to prevent new accumulations 
 of capital being made under the old conditions. Thus, if 
 the opinion comes to prevail that the existing relations 
 between capital and labour are iniquitous and pernicious, 
 the duty will arise of changing them for the future by 
 means of new legislative definitions of the respective rights 
 of employers and workmen ; but this would not justify 
 * Contrat Social, ii., xi. 
 
340 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 interference with fortunes made under the old system. The 
 question of how far such new definition is called for must 
 be answered on the usual grounds of justice and expediency. 
 (IV.) The most important suggestion of all is that it is 
 better to awaken the owners of property to a due sense of 
 their responsibility than to endanger the stability of the 
 State by unnecessarily attacking vested interests. "More 
 good will be done," to quote Professor Jowett,^ " by awaken- 
 ing in rich men a sense of the duties of property, than by 
 the violation of its rights." Inequality, according to the 
 same authority, may not be altogether a bad thing even for 
 the poor ; for it cannot " be denied that great inequalities of 
 property, by giving a stimulus to increased production, may 
 give a larger share of the goods of life to the poor than could 
 be obtained by any system of distribution however just." ^ 
 
 ^Introduction to Aristotle's Politics, p. 28. ^Ibid., p. 34. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE STATE AND THE FAMILY. 
 
 Among the most prominent features of this last decade of 
 the nineteenth century must be ranked the various processes 
 working together for the disintegra,tion of the family. The 
 most obvious, though not perhaps the chief of these, is the 
 movement for what is called the enfranchisement of women, 
 of which the claim on behalf of wives as well as spinsters 
 to equal political rights with men is one of the most 
 familiar symptoms. 
 
 The social system of the past, throughout all its triumphs 
 and its failures, has held fast to the principle that politics 
 and the heated discussions they usually engender ought to 
 be jealously excluded from marring the harmony of domestic 
 life. The husband, as the acknowledged head of the family, 
 has hitherto been entrusted with the political rights and 
 duties deemed essential for the representation of the interests 
 of his home in the councils of the nation. If politics and 
 the family are brought into closer relation in the future, 
 the results will probably be mixed. While the conservative 
 desires to preserve the privacy and sanctity of home life, 
 the advocate of change may urge that the acerbity and 
 one-sidedness of political discussions would be softened by 
 contact with the pure influences of the family. Much might 
 doubtless be said on both sides, but the fear seems to be 
 not unfounded that the adoption by two spouses of different 
 political creeds accompanied by active electioneering efforts, 
 would bring an element of discord into the sanctuary of home. 
 
342 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 The possibility of a career for women independent of the 
 vicissitudes of their husbands' lives opens up even a wider field 
 for reflection. If married women are to aim at developing their 
 own capacities for trade or literature, disturbing the monopoly 
 hitherto held by men, it will be necessary for them to follow 
 their careers into whatever social circles and parts of the world 
 these summon them. Under the existing organization of society 
 a wife is content, as a general rule, to subordinate her own 
 personal inclinations as to place of abode and social sur- 
 roundings to the requirements of her husband's business, to 
 which he likewise has to sacrifice his own preferences for 
 particular climates and localities. All minor considerations 
 are planned in conformity with the movements of the 
 bread-winner of the family. Now, if a woman also is to 
 have a career of her own, one of three things must happen. 
 She may follow a trade or profession as a pastime or as an 
 auxiliary employment ; she may force her husband to make the 
 requirements of his business subservient to her own; or she 
 must be prepared to separate from him wh^n their careers 
 summon them to different towns or countries. If the husband 
 is engaged in cotton spinning in Lancashire, and the wife 
 receives the offer of a professorship in Sydney or Cape 
 Town, the prospects and perhaps the invested capital of one 
 must be sacrificed to the ambition of the other to save the 
 family from being broken up. 
 
 If marriage remains a tie- "till death do us part," and 
 human nature physical and moral does not materially change, 
 married women cannot follow their careers like married men. 
 A wife may enter tentatively on a line of her own, prepared 
 to consider it as of merely secondary importance to her 
 husband's labours, to be taken up or laid aside according 
 as circumstances allow, leaving these, as at present, dependent 
 to a great extent on the requirements of the business of the 
 husband. This course is not likely to recommend itself to 
 the more ardent among the advocates of a complete equality 
 between the sexes ; yet it seems the only logical solution of 
 the difficulty, having regard to the interruptions which a married 
 woman's business career must suffer, through her more onerous 
 share in the toils inseparable from the rearing of a family. 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 343 
 
 If the woman is not willing to follow a career rather as 
 a secondary than as a primary pursuit in life — rather under 
 the rdU of an amateur than that of a professional — the 
 disintegration of the family seems an inevitable consequence. 
 A woman has the option of course of refraining from entering 
 into the married state altogether, but if once this becomes the 
 rule rather than the exception, the family would be saved from 
 disintegration only by ceasing to exist. It is difficult to find 
 to what extent " the subjection of women " may be removed or 
 ameliorated in the future; just as it is hard to tell where 
 a stone once set in motion will stop, but undoubtedly the 
 legislature has already done much to readjust the relations 
 of husbands and wives. One instance out of many may be 
 referred to — the recent modifications of the law of property 
 in both England and Scotland, which allow a wife to acquire 
 and manage an estate in land or movables in practical 
 independence of her husband's control. 
 
 The claim of women to extend the legitimate sphere of their 
 influence beyond the little afiairs of the home to the world of 
 trade and the world of politics, is by no means the only aspect 
 of the disintegration of the family. The institution of marriage 
 itself is boldly attacked. AU the wild modern theories as 
 to freedom of relations between the sexes, the alleged in- 
 justice of marriage vows being permanently binding on either 
 party desirous of breaking the tie, and the claims put for- 
 ward to greater facilities of divorce, point to the break-up of 
 family life. Again, advocates of the rights of children to rebel 
 against parental control are not wanting. Boys and girls 
 put forth claims to lead their own lives in their own way 
 without let or hindrance. There have always been rebellious 
 children at all stages of the world's progress ; but the 
 peculiar feature of to-day lies in the systematic nature of the 
 revolt from authority, and in the attempt to justify it on 
 sober scientific principles. It is claimed that even young 
 children should not be biassed either one way or another by 
 their parents and guardians. Each child should, it is said, 
 be encouraged to develop himself according to his own 
 nature, apart from the family traditions of politics, morals, 
 or religion. He is to fulfil the law of his own being, free 
 
344 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 as far as possible from correction or reproof. Strangely 
 enough, the individuals who put forth these claims to be 
 relieved from the restraint of family life, are by no means 
 prepared to renounce its advantages. While they shake 
 themselves free from inherited traditions and beliefs, they 
 usually claim, as an inalienable right to be received as a 
 matter of course, and without any necessity of returning 
 thanks, the best maintenance, education, and start in life 
 which their family can possibly afford to them. The decay 
 of reverence for parents is thus undoubtedly an important 
 factor in the break-up of the family. A number of mis- 
 cellaneous items might be dwelt upon, all pointing in the 
 same direction. Thus when the State steps in to educate 
 children it helps to diminish the dependence of the child 
 on the father, while it removes the feeliag of responsibility 
 of the latter for the welfare of his offspring. Then, the spirit 
 of unrest and cosmopolitanism of the present day is not 
 without an important bearing. The monotony of family life 
 is irksome to a generation that loves excitement. The 
 desire for travel and change of sensation in parents who can 
 afford it, makes them more ready to entrust the training of 
 their children to hired service, and to send them at an 
 early age to school. In America, again, the difficulty of 
 obtaining domestic servants has extended to great proportions 
 the boarding-house system, which is quite incompatible with 
 true family life. 
 
 These tendencies — and more could be added — show that 
 the family is being attacked both from the inside and from 
 the outside. 
 
 It is maintained, and probably with truth, that some of 
 these features are merely temporarily antagonistic to the 
 true unity of the family — that they break it up relatively, 
 not absolutely, and in order to consolidate it again on a 
 nobler and more equitable footing. Speaking of one of 
 these tendencifes. Professor Flint has well said : ^ " The move- 
 ment towards securing to women equal rights with men, 
 and free scope to exercise all their faculties, although some 
 have regarded it as likely to endanger and disorganize the 
 ^Socialism,, p. 286. 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 345 
 
 family, really tends directly and powerfully to its consolida- 
 tion and true development. It favours the formation of a 
 better class of women. It contributes largely to increase 
 the number of women who are not necessitated to enter 
 into loveless marriages." This is undoubtedly true, but 
 even the forces which tend to build up the nobler family 
 of the future help to break up the family of to-day. 
 To that extent their immediate effect is to be deplored, 
 though the present loss should be discounted by the future 
 gain. 
 
 Other of the elements at work, however, seem essentially, 
 and not merely relatively, hostile to the family, and these 
 are necessarily evil. 
 
 When we inquire into the reasons of all this decay of 
 the family coincident with the great advance of science and 
 civilization, it is not dif&cult to form a conclusion. 
 
 The family is being attacked from two opposite sides at 
 once. Socialistic and individualistic influences alike are 
 sapping its foundations. There is a sense, of course, in 
 which every family, like every society and every State, must 
 include both of these influences. There is a true Socialism 
 in the community of interests and comforts and sympathies 
 of home life ; while, at the same time, the family is the 
 sanctuary that protects the individual at all times, and 
 especially during the tender years of his immaturity and 
 growth, from the hostile influences of the outside world. 
 Society would crush the immature individual if the family 
 did not guard him, and thus secure the very basis of Indi- 
 vidualism from overthrow. 
 
 Abstract Socialism and abstract Individualism are, how- 
 ever, alike the enemies of the family. Here, perhaps, the 
 weakest spot in both systems is laid bare. Each extreme 
 theory fails to solve the problems involved in the existence 
 of the family. Each of them is unable to find an adequate 
 place for domestic life in its ideal system. To take only one 
 problem, the relations of a young child to society cannot be 
 explained exclusively on the lines of the Socialist or on those 
 of the Individualist. The latter claims for the father the 
 right as against the community to educate and train his 
 
346 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 own child as he chooses. The State has no title to inter- 
 fere in any way. The father, who is responsible for the 
 very existence of the child, and who has its best interests 
 presumably at heart, is surely the best judge of what is good 
 for it. To push this doctrine to extremes, however, would be 
 to reduce the child to the level of its father's chattel or slave. 
 This was the original theory of the older Eoman law, and 
 apparently the logical outcome of the rights of the father on 
 a purely individualistic basis. But the child too is an indi- 
 vidual, potentially if not actually, even at the earliest moment 
 of its existence. The Individualist must preserve him from the 
 tyranny of his father, taking care that development of the one 
 being is not stunted or dwarfed by the overshadowing of the 
 other. The child must be protected in the rights of his nascent 
 individuality as well as the father in those of his maturity. 
 The budding genius of the son must not be crushed out by the 
 narrow prejudices of the father. If he cannot do without a 
 guardian he must at least be allowed to choose one after his 
 own heart. Thus the claims of the father and child become 
 mutually irreconcilable on a purely individualistic basis. 
 The logical absurdity of the position lies in this, that on the 
 lines of an abstract division between the unit and the 
 group there is a stage somewhere in the development of the 
 child when he can be properly described neither as possessing 
 nor as wanting an individuality. Some attempt may be made 
 to disguise the difficulty by fixing by law arbitrary ages at 
 which the child gains partial emancipation from the patria 
 potestas. But this is merely a make-shift, and affords no solution. 
 If an equally extreme Socialism tries to escape this 
 difficulty by swallowing up both individual and family 
 in the State, it does so only to fall into other dilemmas 
 peculiar to itself, which are absolutely insurmountable on its 
 own principles. It is perhaps possible for the State, by the 
 exercise of an unlimited and despotic force, to compel all 
 parents to hand over their children to an administrative 
 department or Board of the executive government whose 
 business would be to rear and educate them. Such a scheme, 
 however absurd it may seem, is exactly what was proposed 
 by Plato for his ideal republic. 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 347 
 
 In this way a socialistic government might make secure its 
 tyrannical sway over the minds and bodies of children as 
 soon as they are born ; but it could never get beyond the 
 individualistic basis on which they are ushered into the 
 world. It might be partially successful in smothering all 
 motherly instincts in its women ; but it could never get 
 beyond the fact of motherhood itself — that no man can 
 come into the community except on an individualistic basis 
 as the individual son of an individual mother. But the 
 philosophic or logical difficulties (great as they are) are less 
 than the practical ones. The family proper cannot exist 
 under a regime of pure Socialism, any more than under one 
 of pure Individualism. All consistent and thorough-going 
 attempts in either direction have begun by annihilating the 
 family. Yet, as the existence of individuals and of 
 States in the future is dependent on the population of the 
 world, each of them has been forced to substitute some 
 caricature of the family in its place. Professor Flint, in 
 giving a partial assent to the hostile criticism passed by 
 Socialists on the structure of the family as at present con- 
 stituted, maintains that the only substitutes offered have 
 faults a thousand-fold more radical and horrible. When 
 " we ask them how they propose to get rid of, or at least 
 to lessen, the evils which they have indicated, they have 
 virtually no other answer to give us than that they would 
 introduce evils far worse — the absorption of the family in 
 the community, free love, the separation of spouses at will, 
 transference of children from the charge of their parents to 
 that of the State." ^ 
 
 Some of these results, it is interesting to note, come 
 strangely near the ideals reached by purely individualistic 
 thinkers. Both schools logically require to annihilate the 
 family ; and this is impossible in practice. The result under 
 either regime would be not to crush it out, but simply to 
 degrade it. 
 
 The family is historically the germ from which the State 
 developed. It is still the ordinary source through which 
 the ranks of citizenship are filled. "The three institutions 
 ^Socialism, p. 283. 
 
348 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 of which every man is born a member are the Family, the 
 State, and the Church. Fly to whatever corner of the earth 
 he chooses," it has been said, "he is still a member of a 
 Family, a citizen of a State, and a subject of an Almighty 
 Power." ^ However the atheist or sceptic may question 
 the necessary though unrecognized connection with a church, 
 he cannot deny that no man is born except through the 
 agency of the family, if not in its noble purity, then in 
 some mutilated and degraded form. 
 
 Marriage and the family are under the special pro- 
 tection of the government. Is this as it should be ? Ought 
 the law to take cognizance of such matters at all ? Un- 
 doubtedly it should ; for the State cannot, if it would, leave 
 alone the family which is its prime factor and in a sense 
 its source. In four directions, in especial, are the interests 
 of the two bound together: (1) population; (2) education; 
 (3) social status ; and (4) distribution of wealth. 
 
 (1) The question of population depends on that institution 
 which commands the gates of life. Even on that purely 
 industrial side of the State to which Socialists are apt to look 
 chiefly if not exclusively, production, distribution, and ex- 
 change are only one half of the problem, of which population 
 forms the other. Material prosperity varies directly with the 
 amount of wealth, and inversely with the population. The 
 law of wages, as expounded by Malthus and Eicardo, by Marx 
 and Lassalle, turns chiefly on this question of population. 
 Government, then, by encouraging or discouraging marriage, 
 may vitally affect the welfare of the State. If the State 
 refused its countenance to every form of permanent union, 
 and at the same time undertook the free education, training, 
 and maintenance of all children of transitory connections, the 
 number of births would probably increase in an appalling ratio 
 to the number of existing citizens. Such fluctuations in the 
 population of a State necessarily affect all its interests intim- 
 ately. The England of the future might for want of citizens 
 become too weak to protect itself from invasion. On the 
 other hand, the resources of the country might be unable 
 to sustain the advent of an enormous horde of children, 
 1 Hoffman, The Sphere of the State, p. 207. 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 349 
 
 especially during the time of their helplessness or non- 
 age. 
 
 (2) The whole moral and intellectual training of society 
 depends on the family. In the earliest and most impres- 
 sionable age of every individual he is subjected to the 
 discipline and example of home. The citizen begins life 
 as a member of a family. " The family," as has been well 
 said, " is the nursery of the State. . . . The character of 
 the family determines the character of the State." ^ Under 
 a system of Mormonism like that recently abolished in Utah, 
 or under a regime of polygamy like that of Turkey, the train- 
 ing of the citizen is entirely different from what it would be 
 if monogamy prevailed. Nor can it be denied that in the 
 long run, whatever system rules, it must be established or 
 tacitly sanctioned by law. Either the law will be altered 
 to suit the practice, or the practice will mould itself into 
 conformity with the law. 
 
 (3) Wisely or unwisely, public opinion places a stigma on 
 the offspring of parents not united in wedlock in the usual 
 way recognized by society. Wisely or unwisely, the State 
 gives its authority towards strengthening this praiseworthy 
 sentiment or silly prejudice of society. It does this by 
 bestowing its special countenance on those who are married 
 according to the legal methods, and by specially favouring their 
 children in questions of succession and also of such social 
 distinctions as are regulated by the State. In these ways the 
 State favours the formation of permanent unions and dis- 
 courages all such as are branded by popular thought as 
 clandestine or immoral. No society is likely to exist wherein 
 the law looks with equal favour on the life-long marriage of 
 one man with one woman, as upon polygamy, polyandry, 
 or free love. A State where " religious equality " is the rule 
 is at any rate possible, but a State where morality and 
 immorality in the family life are equal before the law is 
 barely conceivable. The Anglican Church may be dis- 
 established, but not the monogamic family. When political 
 and social influences are becoming more and more closely 
 blended, as is the tendency in England at the present day, 
 
 ' Prof. HoflFman, The Sphere of the State, p. 207. 
 
350 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the structure of the family cannot fail to affect materially the 
 structure of the State. 
 
 (4) The family further affects the State by influencing the 
 diffusion of wealth and regulating the distribution of pro- 
 perty. Great fortunes are sometimes amassed in a life-time ; 
 but more often they are accumulated only in the course of 
 two or three generations. In any case the inequalities of 
 wealth would be materially reduced if such fortunes were 
 always scattered at the death of the individual who amassed 
 them. As it is, when a millionaire dies without leaving a 
 will, the members of his family inherit his possessions in 
 certain proportions defined by the law of intestate succession. 
 It is only through the action of the commonwealth, then, 
 that a dead man's capital is secured to his heirs. This 
 right of inheritance reacts upon the State. It influences 
 the distribution of riches among the ranks of its citizens, and 
 this is a noteworthy factor in that evil which Socialism is 
 chiefly anxious to overcome. Unless the State made some 
 legislative provision for the settlement of disputes as to the 
 succession to an intestate individual — in addition to allowing 
 such rights of testation as seem good to it — the relatives of 
 the deceased would require to settle the matter by club- 
 law or superior cunning. The State is under the necessity 
 of declaring either for or against the right of testation 
 generally: if it does not regulate the division of the dead 
 man's goods, it will simply leave those included in the will 
 and those passed over to settle the matter by force. 
 
 The State, therefore — as appears from these four instances 
 — cannot leave the family alone, however desirous it may be 
 to do so. 
 
 In abandoning a policy of laissez /aire towards this most 
 important social institution, what attitude ought the legis- 
 lature to adopt ? It is impossible to prescribe a complete 
 code of rules equally applicable to all States at every stage 
 of their history; but a few general suggestions may be 
 made. 
 
 (1) The State must rule every institution within it ; 
 therefore it can never allow the customs or institutions or 
 arrangements of the family to set its central authority at 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 351 
 
 defiance. Whatever rights are conceded, and however much 
 these are based on "nature," in any one or more of the 
 many meanings of that word, natural family rights must 
 never be made absolute against the sovereign rights of the 
 State. Whatever sphere is fenced off for the family with its 
 domestic affections and sympathies to regulate, the govern- 
 ment must never, either in theory or in practice, abdicate 
 its ultimate right of interference and coercion, and must 
 never allow any customs to arise likely to impede its free 
 exercise, when required, of these reserved powers. The 
 limits of family life within which the State does not inter- 
 fere, by legal restrictions or otherwise, must be defined by 
 Parliament in making laws, and by the courts in interpreting 
 them. 
 
 (2) The government ought scrupulously to respect the 
 privacy of the family. Legal restraints should be carefully 
 regulated with a view to strengthen and supplement rather 
 than to weaken and supersede natural affections and the 
 duties that are spontaneously performed as the highest form 
 of domestic happiness. Fatherly love should be allowed to 
 act according to its own promptings, and in such varied 
 channels as it tends naturally to make for itself. Only 
 when these natural affections have failed signally to act, is 
 it wise for the State to step in with strong compulsion. 
 
 (3) A State with political institutions planned on a 
 rational basis need have no jealousy of the family. On the 
 contrary, the true interests of the two never clash. It is 
 only when it is sought to construct the constitution on extreme 
 individualistic or extreme socialistic lines that a collision with 
 the family is inevitable. In a healthy social and political 
 life, where the individual and the State are not conceived 
 as two antagonistic bodies, the end of the family is perfectly 
 in harmony with the common ends of all the citizens and 
 of the body politic. 
 
 (4) When the family, however, fails spontaneously to 
 attain its ideal, or such a minimum of approximation towards 
 it as the present state of society and civilization demands, 
 then the government must be authorized to interfere. An 
 ideal family should have no conflicting interests within its 
 
352 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 bounds. While this is too high a level for almost any 
 group of sinful individuals to reach, an ordinary, well- 
 conducted family should arrange its differences and disputes 
 amicably vyithin itself, vyithout either the use of violence 
 by one member to another or an appeal to any outside 
 authority. Where this is impossible, however, the State 
 must take the matter up, and arbitrate between them. 
 Thus the government must protect the individual from the 
 tyranny of family authority, even when that authority is 
 exercised within the proper sphere of home influences as 
 defined or tacitly approved by the law. Parents must 
 be prevented from making an unreasonable or cruel 
 use of the powers vested in them. Even in such cases, 
 however, it is not always easy to say how far the law is 
 justified in interfering, for acts of parental tyranny may 
 often be enforced by means in themselves perfectly lawful, 
 for example, by the threat to disinherit a disobedient child. 
 The law of Scotland affords children some measure of pro- 
 tection even here ; for each son or daughter has a right to 
 a share of the father's movable or personal estate, which 
 cannot be defeated by any exercise of testamentary powers. 
 The law of England contains no similar provision. 
 
 The State is wisely abstemious in the exercise of its rights of 
 interference either in favour of the family group against the 
 undutiful individual, or to protect him against the group. 
 In particular it is chary of meddling between husband and 
 wife ; although such a policy is sometimes provocative of 
 hardship in individual cases, as where a wife has difficulty in 
 obtaining protection from her husband's ill-usage unless that 
 is of a pronounced and indisputable nature. Here, as else- 
 where, the convenience or even the happiness of individuals 
 must be sacrificed to the good of the commonwealth. 
 
 (5) The State must fix, either definitely or vaguely, how far 
 the duty of education and of moral and physical training lies 
 within the province of the family. It may do this in many 
 ways — by determining for example : (a) that up to a certain 
 age the family trains the child, and then gives place to 
 agents appointed by the State; (&) that all education is 
 primarily a family matter, whatever the age of the pupil ; or 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 353 
 
 (c) as some Socialists hold, that all training, physical, in- 
 tellectual, and moral, falls within the functions of the 
 government. If any conflict of opinion should arise, it is 
 undoubtedly for the State itself to decide, and not for either 
 the parent or the child. 
 
 One of the chief functions of the family is undoubtedly to 
 care for its children in their early youth. The influence of 
 the training thus received will be subsequently seen in every 
 phase of the national existence. "The first seven years of 
 life are," in the opinion of Comte,i "the most decisive, 
 because a mother's discipline lays so firm a foundation that 
 the rest of life is seldom able to affect it." 
 
 If the legislature, after mature reflection, concluded this 
 maternal influence to be on the whole an evil to the true 
 welfare of the individual and the State, it would become its 
 duty to suppress it. If, on the other hand, it is thought 
 to be the best training for a child up to a certain age, it is 
 the duty of the government to ward off (forcibly, if need be) 
 all influences hostile to the mother's influence during that 
 period. It is equally open to the State to interfere either 
 positively or negatively with the later processes of education 
 with the view of bringing the boy or girl more or less closely 
 or exclusively under the care and influence of home. A 
 statute might be passed that all children up to twelve or 
 fifteen, or even eighteen years of age, should be educated 
 by private tuition at home, or on the contrary, that all 
 children after their tenth or eighth or sixth birthdays should 
 be sent to boarding-schools, or, lastly, that day-schools should 
 be the only legal form of education. The first plan means 
 a complete subjection to home influences ; the second a 
 complete break in them ; and the third a combination of 
 the care of the family with the harder training of the 
 outside world. While it is certain that the first system would 
 tend to make boys effeminate, the practice of sending very 
 young children to boarding-schools is communistic in its ten- 
 dencies, though not necessarily coUectivist. The world is made 
 up of men and women, and contains hostile interests and home 
 sympathy, so that to cut off a boy at once from family life 
 
 ^ Cited by Professor Flint, Socialism,, p. 282. 
 z 
 
354 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and female influence is to deprive him of one-half of the 
 world in which God has placed him ; while to confine him 
 to the enervating atmosphere of too comfortable a home is to 
 deprive him of the other. On these principles, the day-school, 
 combining home life with school discipline, realizes the golden 
 mean which is the safest guide in the practical affairs of life. 
 However this may be, the State wisely refrains from prescrib- 
 ing an uniform system of education, and leaves each family 
 to decide under which of the three systems its children shall 
 be reared. It merely makes provision that all of them sha 
 be educated somehow. 
 
 The law as to very young children is somewhat different, 
 for the mother is confirmed by positive law in her natural right 
 to act as sole guardian of her offspring during the years 
 when they are absolutely dependent on the care of others. 
 The attitude of the State towards little children, indeed, 
 illustrates well how it is possible to avoid both extremes of 
 Collectivism and Individualism. It secures the full advantages 
 of government control without resorting to government 
 management, and of wise laws without arbitrary interference. 
 Mothers are left to rear their babies as they individually 
 think best, within reasonable limits. The State does not 
 institute a central administrative department charged with 
 the duty of rearing them, nor authorize local authorities 
 to interfere. It does not prescribe a system of nursing, or 
 lay down strict rules as to diet and hygiene. It wisely 
 realizes that nascent individualities will have almost infinitely 
 different requirements, and that the individual parent is 
 best suited to discover these and minister to them. So far 
 its policy is individualistic. With this laissez faire attitude, 
 it may without inconsistency combine the advantages of 
 Socialism by a rigorous system of State control, kept in the 
 background, but well within call whenever the natural duties 
 of the parent are grossly neglected. Statutes may be 
 passed authorizing health lectures in every district, paid for 
 by the community; compelling vaccination; prohibiting 
 unnaturally severe chastisements; and punishing breaches of 
 parental duty. 
 
 (6) The management of the property of the spouses, and its 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 355 
 
 distribution when the family is broken up by death or 
 divorce, are other matters which the State is required to 
 regulate. Until quite recently the law of almost every 
 European country handed over the wife's property to her 
 husband during the marriage in a wholesale way. In Scot- 
 land and elsewhere, where the principles of the Eoman Law 
 prevailed, the real nature of this transaction was disguised 
 under the specious name of a " commiinio honorum.'' The 
 legal fiction held that all property which originally belonged 
 to either spouse was after marriage the common possession 
 of both ; but the practice was very different from the theory. 
 During the husband's life he had complete control over this 
 so-called common fund, which he could alienate or consume 
 in any way he chose, quite irrespective of the wife's wishes ; 
 while at his death it went to his representatives and not 
 to hers. Such share as the widow got was taken by her as 
 relict of the deceased, and not in her own right at all. In 
 both England and Scotland this state of things has been 
 altered, and the law now secures to the wife the exclusive 
 property in her own effects, in addition to allowing her a 
 share in her husband's estate at his death. Whatever plan 
 has been adopted, it has always been the State acting through 
 its ordinary legislature which has defined the respective rights 
 of the spouses. It would be interesting to know whether 
 the individualistic theorist would resent this as an unwarranted 
 extension of State interference, and, if so, what better manner 
 of settling the regulation of property within the family he 
 would be prepared to substitute. Apart from law, the more 
 selfish and arrogant of the two spouses would probably always 
 usurp the control. The private means of both would be con- 
 trolled by the more masterful or the more artful. The division 
 of the family property among the children on the decease of the 
 parents is an even more vital matter, in which it is difficult 
 to see how an arrangement could be arrived at without the 
 powerful intervention of positive law. The influence of the 
 law of testate and of intestate succession on the unequal 
 distribution of wealth in the State has been already mentioned. 
 (7) The last aspect of the relations between the State and 
 the family is the most important of all. Has law any right 
 
356 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 to intervene in the formation or dissolution of the latter ? 
 Should the State take any part in marriages, and should it 
 permit divorces ? 
 
 The extreme individualistic view is that all relations between 
 the sexes should be treated as ordinary civil contracts between 
 two individuals who have a perfect right to make any arrange- 
 ment, temporary or permanent, which commends itself to both 
 of them. On this theory the State has really no concern in 
 the matter more than it has in a contract for the sale of a 
 house, or a contract of insurance. Yet, in either of these 
 latter cases, the law does interfere in many ways. It will 
 not allow one of the parties to use fraud or force to coerce 
 the free consent of the other. After the contract has been 
 concluded, with all necessary legal formalities, it will insist 
 on its terms being observed, as long as this is possible without 
 violating law. 
 
 Even Individualists, then, would allow the government to 
 interest itself to the same extent in the contract of marriage. 
 They hold that the law should prevent either party being 
 forced to marry, or induced to do so by fear, fraud, or essential 
 error, but that, when the bargain is once struck, the govern- 
 ment should force either spouse to observe the exact terms 
 of the original contract. They might further concede that, 
 where the bargain was left incomplete or ambiguous, the 
 law might lay down presumptions as to the supposed intention 
 of parties, subject always to amendment on the production 
 of contrary evidence. They might even allow, for the con- 
 venience of all concerned, that certain forms of evidence of 
 the ceremony should be required for certain purposes, as, 
 for example, that contracts of marriage should be in writing, 
 just as is at present required for contracts with respect to 
 real property. Some of them might even go so far as 
 to concede to the government a right to establish a register 
 of such marriages, provided no one was compelled to make 
 use of it who objected to do so. 
 
 Even ordinary contracts — of sale, hire, or insurance, for 
 example — are not merely private arrangements between two 
 persons. The State is tacitly a party to every lawful agree- 
 ment, which it permits and enforces when called on. Every 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 357 
 
 valid contract when analyzed contains four elements or 
 moments : (a) the persons contracting ; (6) their mutual 
 consent ; (c) the State, without whose express or implied 
 recognition all idea of legal obligation would be absent ; {d) 
 the approval or at least toleration by the State of the terms 
 agreed on.^ Every legal agreement is in a sense both a 
 private and a public contract. Under the latter aspect 
 the State has a right to interfere in what concerns itself. 
 
 But the share thus taken by the State is not sufficient 
 in the case of marriage, which is not only the most 
 important of all agreements, but is essentially sui generis, 
 because its chief object is the bringing of new individ- 
 ualities into the world. It prevents the extinction of the 
 State by the gradual operation of death. 
 
 The law is thoroughly justified in imposing more stringent 
 regulations on marriage than on any other form of agree- 
 ment. It is not impossible to justify this on a purely 
 individualistic basis, for the individualities of unborn children 
 have rights that call for intervention. Children ought not to 
 be summoned into existence under such conditions, physical, 
 moral, and intellectual, as to render life a burden to them. 
 It is upon the plea of vindicating the rights of such help- 
 less individuals that the State's strongest claim to interfere 
 is grounded. 
 
 As far as the fact of marriage goes, legal regulations should 
 be entirely negative, not positive. "Marriage cannot be directly 
 enforced," says Bluntschli, " because the freedom and will of 
 the parties are essential to it."^ Most people will be pre- 
 pared to give a hearty assent to this, while they reject the 
 further opinion of Bluntschli that all "restraints put upon 
 marriage " by law " are prompted by an unsound condition 
 of society," and to modify his statement that "to make mar- 
 riage conditional on the arbitrary consent of the State is an 
 unjustifiable infringement of individual rights." Of course, 
 all "arbitrary" restraints are bad; but to prove an inter- 
 ference unjustifiable you require to prove that it is arbitrary 
 or unnecessary, or both. 
 
 iCf. W. Galbraith Miller's Philosophy of Law, p. 211. 
 2 Theoi-y of the State, p. 187. 
 
358 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 The only difficulty is as to what constitutes a sufficient 
 reason. Many men argue that the law should prevent all 
 marriages likely to deteriorate the race, including those of 
 near relatives, or of those who are criminals or drunkards or 
 are afflicted with incurable or hereditary disease of mind or 
 body. But this ground is always combined with another — 
 the individual rights or happiness of the children of the 
 marriage. " The State is the only power that can in any 
 effective way guard the natural rights of unborn generations." ^ 
 
 Undoubtedly the State ought to continue to do what it 
 has always done in civilized communities — absolutely refuse 
 to recognize marriages wherever it sees sufficient grounds for 
 interference. 
 
 It must always exercise some extent of control over marriages. 
 It is a matter of degree. Each extreme must be avoided. 
 Thus the law must neither force all its citizens of a marriage- 
 able age to enter into the bonds of matrimony, nor yet emulate 
 the example of some communistic societies and forbid it alto- 
 gether. Two intermediate lines of policy are open. The 
 law may define the only terms upon which two individuals 
 can marry at all, or it may leave each pair to make their 
 own contract exactly as they please. In the early centuries 
 of the Christian era the regulation of marriages was handed 
 over to the Church, and the formalities essential to the union 
 of wedlock were made a religious sacrament. At present 
 the State treats the question of marriage very much as it 
 treats that of an established church. It forces no one 
 to marry. The confirmed bachelor is not even taxed by the 
 State. He can stay outside the pale of married life if he 
 choose, just as the Methodist need not attend the Established 
 Church unless so inclined. Similarly the law tolerates, if 
 it does not encourage, certain other forms of quasi-marriage, 
 just as it tolerates other forms of religious worship, or even 
 atheistic associations. It does not however tolerate con- 
 nections repugnant to the moral sense of the community. 
 It forbids marriages between near relatives and sternly 
 represses bigamy, which it not only stigmatizes as immoral 
 but punishes as criminal. 
 
 ' Hoflfman, The Sphere of the State, p. 211. 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 359 
 
 The consistent Individualist labours under the necessity 
 of objecting on principle to two features in this existing order 
 of things. He ought to forbid the State to interfere with the 
 free right of any subjects to marry if they choose. If 
 marriage lies outside the province of government, the law 
 has no right to prevent even bigamy or polygamy, or unions 
 between near relatives. On the same assumption it is wrong 
 for the law to put a premium, as it were, on the orthodox 
 or established form of union between the sexes. Why, it 
 might be asked, should the State give special encouragement 
 to those citizens to adopt the sentiments and practices on 
 the marriage question which happen to suit the majority 
 for the time being ? Why should the wife receive more 
 rights and protection than " The Woman who Did " ? Why 
 should the children of the latter be cut off from an equal share 
 in the intestate succession to their father's estate ? If the 
 State is an association for the protection of liberty and pro- 
 perty, the conclusion is obvious. 
 
 Most people will, however, apart from special theories, 
 consider that the State is wise in laying down an uniform 
 marriage law for the whole nation ; in assuming that all 
 respectable people will conform to it; and in adjusting the 
 rights of members of the family upon this assumption. 
 There can be no doubt, on the principles laid down in this 
 Essay, that the State has the right and the duty to make 
 such regulations for marriage as seem to itself to conduce 
 most directly to its own ultimate end. Experience seems 
 to have proved that an uniform law encouraging wedded life 
 on the old basis of "for better or worse, till death do us 
 part" in the long run contributes most to the welfare of 
 the State, and to the "greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number," and more particularly to the peace of mind of those 
 who (however unwilling to admit it) most need the protection 
 of the law — women. The revolt of a certain modern and 
 probably limited type of woman against the family law is 
 a rebellion against a system which has been framed to 
 protect her weakness from abuse. 
 
 The State is justified in prescribing the form of the contract 
 of marriage, then, as well as in forbidding unfit individuals to 
 
360 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 enter on the relationship at all. It is justified further in 
 making that form in essentials the same for all — in not allow- 
 ing optional systems. It fixes, then, the main terms of the 
 only contract between the sexes which it recognizes as legal. 
 It leaves individuals free, however, by written contract of 
 marriage, to regulate certain important though subordinate 
 details, especially those connected with money matters. Where 
 the privileges of private contract are not exercised, the law 
 provides a scheme which regulates these relations, to which 
 spouses are presumed to have tacitly consented in the absence 
 of express stipulation to the contrary. 
 
 After marriage is entered into, the law still retains the 
 right to interfere whenever the necessity arises. Bluntschli 
 lays down the rule that " the State cannot properly interfere 
 with the private relations of man and wife,'' and then pro- 
 ceeds to enunciate a number of exceptions which it seems 
 impossible to vindicate without overturning the basis upon 
 which the rule rests, such, for example, as that "it may 
 punish breaches of conjugal fidelity." 
 
 Now this is to reverse the natural order of things. The 
 rule is that the State may interfere whenever and wherever 
 it thinks there is a necessity, and of this it is sole judge. 
 It must protect, if necessary, the wife from her husband's 
 ill-usage or vice, versa; but it should do so in such a way as 
 least to interfere with the spontaneous performance of mutual 
 duties by the spouses. The qualification of the rule, then, is 
 that it is wise to interfere as little as possible. The law 
 is slow to interfere between man and wife. Until quite 
 recently English law upheld the right of the husband to 
 the assistance of the State in compelling a wife to return 
 under his roof. 
 
 The important question of divorce has still to be considered. 
 Some Individualists would have all marriages perfectly free", 
 so that the spouse who got tired of the other, or met a new 
 mate more to his or her liking, would be entitled at once to 
 break up the partnership, on giving perhaps a week's notice, 
 and probably on making some small pecuniary compensation 
 to the deserted spouse where that seemed advisable. Others 
 would hold that, while one of the contracting parties cannot 
 
THE STATE AND THE FAMILY 361 
 
 dissolve it against the wish of the other, marriage may be 
 amiuUed by the mutual consent of the two individuals chiefly 
 interested, while the State has no right to say a word on 
 the subject. 
 
 The principles already explained leave no doubt that the 
 State has something to say in the matter, has indeed the 
 chief say. It is perfectly within its rights in placing a 
 complete veto on all divorces or in handing over the 
 regulation of the matter either to the Church courts or the 
 civil courts to determine «ach individual case, either on its 
 merits or in accordance with rules laid down by the legis- 
 lature for that purpose. It has a right, in fine, to treat 
 the question of divorce in any way it considers best suited 
 to further its own highest interests, in which, of course, the 
 interests of every individual are necessarily involved. This 
 right needs no justification apart from the sovereignty of the 
 State ; but the use made of the right requires to be justified 
 on grounds of morality, experience, and expediency. 
 
 Such grounds are chiefly four: (i.) Where one spouse 
 has entered into a family relationship, understanding that it 
 was for life, and has sacrificed all other interests and means 
 of livelihood to fulfil his or her part of that contract, the 
 State is more than justified in forbidding the other spouse 
 lightly to refuse adherence to its original terms. This 
 assumes, of course, that these terms were clearly understood 
 originally. Faith must always be kept, (ii.) Even apart 
 from contract or quasi-contract, a man may be forced to 
 fulfil obligations beyond what he promised. The weak and 
 confiding must be protected against the strong and designing. 
 If an ignorant and inexperienced girl were induced on 
 marrying to agree that her husband should have the option 
 of renouncing the tie, the law might well interfere and set 
 aside that part of the bargain, (iii.) The rights of children 
 have to be considered, (iv.) The State has to protect itself 
 from disintegration by the weakening of the family tie. 
 
 These reasons must be weighed by the State in considering 
 any proposed amendment of the law of divorce, either in the 
 direction of greater freedom or of greater restraint. It is 
 not necessary here to pronounce a definite opinion either way. 
 
362 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 It is sufficient to assert that the State has a right absolutely 
 to prohibit divorce under any circumstances if it thinks fit. 
 
 One aspect of the socialistic idea has a noble element — 
 the conception of the State itself as one great family. Here 
 the aspiration is to extend the sphere of the domestic affec- 
 tions to embrace the whole nation, and so to make sympathy 
 take the place of competition, and realize the reign of fraternity. 
 In abolishing the natural family, however, the original sphere 
 and the source of all such brotherly affections, it is to be 
 feared rather that they will die altogether than bear trans- 
 planting to an alien soil so unsuited to their growth. The 
 idea of brotherhood, however, as a watchword for members 
 of one State is a very noble one. The only difficulty is as to 
 the means of realizing it. Communists, in seeking to establish 
 an universal reign of fraternity on earth, may end in anni- 
 hilating it completely. 
 
 Fraternity, as an ideal of revolutionary politics, is not 
 confined to professed Socialists. It is the third part of the 
 composite motto of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," which 
 has played so wide a part in history. Two criticisms suggest 
 themselves. In the first place, the idea of Fraternity is 
 entirely inconsistent with those of Liberty and Equality as 
 these are currently understood. In the second place, in 
 limiting the selected watchword to only one of the family 
 relationships, it is doubtful whether the one chosen should not 
 have been rather that of paternity, as the father is the 
 head and chief bond of the family circle, and from him flow 
 both authority and practical care for those who cannot protect 
 themselves. In framing an ideal picture of the universe as 
 a vast territory peopled by one great family, it seems arbitrary 
 to choose only the relationship between brother and brother, 
 excluding that between father and child, or husband and 
 wife. At the bottom of the selection lies, of course, the huge 
 assumption — the fallacy that vitiates many false systems of 
 politics, both individualistic and socialistic — that all indi- 
 viduals are equally able to care for themselves, and therefore 
 need only the sympathy and love of a brother, not the 
 guidance and care of a father. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE STATE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 The child comes into the world a bundle of undeveloped 
 potentialities, void of experience and thought. The environ- 
 ment and external circumstances necessary for the growth 
 of his mind and body are all supplied by the State. This 
 is true, although not all nor even the chief part of them are 
 imparted to the child directly by the officials of the govern- 
 ment or by the laws or other organs of the State. The 
 immediate environment depends on the influence of the family 
 and of other institutions and agencies included in and con- 
 trolled by the State. The child may have " innate ideas " in 
 the sense of that a priori element which is one of the pre- 
 requisites of all conscious existence ; but the equally necessary 
 a posteriori element can be got only from experience; and the 
 sphere of the State, or of various parts of the State, is the 
 only school where experience is possible for him. He is 
 born into the commonwealth, and from the day of his birth the 
 rights of citizenship, which he cannot actually enjoy till he 
 has acquired full age, are held in trust for him by the Stated 
 It is true that it is the family whose influences at first sur- 
 round him, moulding his earliest tendencies and aspirations 
 after its traditions, but the family itself would be empty of 
 content except for what flows into it from society and the 
 State. The community as a whole, then, is the environment 
 of the individual. It is the State which fills him with its 
 own ideas and moulds him after its own pattern. The 
 English youth grows up with habits and ideas quite absent 
 
364 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 in the Zulu or even in the frenchman. Allowing all due 
 claims for heredity — though this too has been indirectly 
 supplied by the State through ancestors who were them- 
 selves its members — his environment has made him what 
 he is. 
 
 The State then — using the word in its widest sense — 
 puts its stamp on the young individuality before he has 
 reached manhood and acquired the ability to choose his own 
 surroundings. Willingly or unwillingly, it educates the 
 individual and so has a terrible responsibility thrust upon 
 its shoulders. The young mind as well as the young body is 
 thrown upon its care during the important and impressionable 
 years fated to mould the development of an immortal soul 
 for time and for eternity. This trust, burdensome and dis- 
 quieting as it is, is yet one which the State dare not decline. 
 
 Its duty to the young cannot be brushed aside or lightly 
 treated. But it has also a duty to itself. In each helpless 
 child lies a future citizen who will form an organic portion 
 of the commonwealth, and may exercise a deep and lasting 
 influence on its destinies. All children cannot become great 
 statesmen, but all great statesmen once were children. 
 
 On these two grounds the State has both a right and a 
 duty to include the education of the young within its proper 
 province. Indeed it must educate whether it will or no. 
 The only question is whether it will do so consciously or 
 unconsciously, systematically or at random, well or ill. 
 Government need not undertake the work of education, but 
 the supreme legislative sovereign is forced to assume some 
 attitude towards that all-important question. 
 
 There are three positions, any one of which Parliament 
 may adopt. (I.) It may repudiate all direct responsibility, 
 leaving each child to scramble for itself. (II.) It may compel 
 parents to educate their offspring at their own expense. 
 (III.) It may enforce education upon all and pay for it out 
 of the national purse. Each of these three courses has its 
 adherents. They must be examined in order. 
 
 I. The theory that the government and the law should 
 leave the child alone in the matter of education is supported 
 on behalf both of the family and of the individual. It is 
 
THE STATE AND EDUCATION 365 
 
 urged that the community has no right to interfere with the 
 family, and that education is essentially a family matter. It 
 is alternatively maintained that education is an individual 
 matter, with which the government cannot meddle without 
 unduly interfering with the rights of its citizens. 
 
 The arguments against these contentions have already been 
 given in part. (1) The State has a duty to all children born 
 within its pale, which it cannot shake off. (2) It has also a 
 duty to itself to rear them as future good citizens. It has 
 the most vital interest in the matter, for early education 
 may determine whether a boy develops into a pickpocket 
 or a "pillar of society." Whether a child is destined to 
 become prime minister or a silent nameless voter, it is 
 important that he should be duly trained to the fit exercise 
 of his share in the power of the democracy. The nature 
 and extent of his education will stamp his whole life, and 
 thus materially affect the welfare of the nation and of every 
 individual member of it. (3) The State cannot plead that 
 the training of its future members is no part of the purposes 
 for which it exists, since these purposes include the welfare 
 and advancement of all.^ Nor can it plead with relevancy 
 that its government is not suited for the task, for it is not 
 necessary that it should perform all its functions by its 
 ordinary executive officials. 
 
 It thus seems tolerably plain that the State cannot, without 
 derogating from its own dignity and neglecting one of its 
 clearest duties, disown all responsibility for the training of its 
 future members. " The ultimate control of and responsibility 
 for the education of the people rests with the State." ^ We 
 may agree with this sentiment without involving ourselves 
 in the absurdity that the members of the Cabinet must 
 personally superintend the teaching of the young, or that 
 the legislature should appoint all the schoolmasters. 
 
 Though the impossible attitude of laissez /aire towards 
 education is associated with an individuahstic philosophy, 
 it does not follow that all Individualists object to the State 
 
 ^Cf. F. C. Montague, Limits of Individual Liberty, p. 149. "The 
 true function of the State is to make the most of the citizen." 
 2 Prof. Hoffman, The Sphere of the State, p. 36. 
 
366 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 superintending the training of its youth. The difference 
 between the abstract theory of Von Humboldt and his practice 
 in the concrete world of statesmanship has often been em- 
 phasized. 
 
 In his treatise on the Sphere and Duties of Government 
 no principle is more categorically asserted than the necessity 
 the State is under of observing an absolutely negative attitude 
 towards education. 
 
 "The grand leading principle," he says/ "towards which 
 every argument hitherto unfolded in these pages directly 
 converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human 
 development in its richest diversity, but national education, 
 since at least it presupposes the selection and appointment 
 of some one instructor, must always promote a definite form 
 of development, however careful to avoid such an error. And 
 hence it is attended with all those disadvantages which we 
 before observed to flow from such a positive policy ; and it 
 only remains to be added that every restriction becomes more 
 directly fatal when it operates on the moral parts of our 
 nature — that if there is one thing more than another which 
 absolutely req[uires free activity on the part of the individual 
 it is precisely education, whose object it is to develop the 
 individual." A few pages further on he reiterates, even 
 more emphatically, the conclusion forced upon him by the 
 logical necessities of his individualistic position. " I have 
 only to conclude from what has been argued here, that national 
 education seems to me to lie wholly beyond the limits within 
 which political agency should properly be confined."^ 
 
 Such was the solution given to the world by Von Hum- 
 boldt the thinker in 1791; in 1808 he was appointed 
 Minister of Worship and Public Instruction in the Prussian 
 Eeform Ministry, and the memory of Von Humboldt the 
 statesman is kept green by association with the University 
 of Berlin, founded by him as the crown of a complete system 
 of national education, in the zealous furtherance of which he 
 expended the best energies of the busiest years of his life. 
 
 With John Stuart Mill inconsistency takes a somewhat 
 different form. He advocates boldly a theory of education 
 ip. 65. 2 P. 71. 
 
THE STATE AND EDUCATION 367 
 
 logically incompatible with the individualistic basis of the 
 rest of his philosophy. "The State," it appears from the 
 .Essay on Liberty,^ " should require and compel the education 
 up to a certain standard of every human being who is born 
 its citizen" — truly a wise conclusion, but one which it is 
 hard to reconcile with the general principles of a laissezfaire 
 philosophy. Both the English Locke and the French Physio- 
 crats of the eighteenth century have indeed tried hard to 
 reconcile the limitation of the sphere of government to the 
 protection of liberty and property with a scheme of national 
 and enforced education.^ Surely this is possible only by 
 straining the function of protecting liberty and property to 
 such undue proportions as would authorize any conceivable 
 course of coercion. 
 
 All the old individualistic arguments are brought by other 
 writers to bear against the interference of the State in educa- 
 tion : for example, that to train the young is to step out of 
 its legitimate sphere; that provision for it is not included in 
 the imaginary articles of incorporation of the State; that it 
 violates the natural rights and liberties of the father; that 
 it is inexpedient, because the parents are the best judges 
 what education is required; that it substitutes compulsion 
 for voluntary action and enforced obedience for virtue, and 
 so weakens the sense of parental responsibility. All these 
 objections and many more are brought to bear. The father, 
 it seems, has a natural right to think and act for his own 
 child until he comes of age, and no community can justly 
 deprive him of it. In fine, the enforcement of education by 
 the State, according to the IndividuaUst, would be unjust to 
 both father and child, and also inexpedient and ultimately 
 productive of ruin to the State itself. 
 
 Most of the priaciples, of which these expressions are 
 merely applications to a special problem, have already been 
 criticised. A few further remarks, however, may help towards 
 an estimate of their practical value as bearing on the question 
 of education: — 
 
 (1) The abstract principle of individuality is here a more 
 
 ip. 187. 
 
 * Cf . Prof. Huxley's Essay on Government {Method and Results, p. 409). 
 
368 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 than usually unsafe guide, since there are two individuals 
 whose rival interests may clash. The child has a potential 
 personaKty which must be considered as well as the father's 
 developed one. Absolute non-intervention by the government 
 between parent and child is utterly impossible in a civilized 
 State. The Eoman jurists looked back to a perhaps mythical 
 age when the patria potestas included the right to put the 
 child to death or sell him as a slave. But this power 
 of life and death, if it ever existed unrestrained by law 
 or custom, was lost by the Eoman paier familias in pre- 
 historic times. To throw the child back under the despotic 
 power of the father would be a relapse to barbarism which 
 no one seriously contemplates. The State must, and always 
 does, interfere when necessary, and the only questions, as usual, 
 are those of degree and methods. 
 
 (2) The argument that to interfere by law is to compel 
 the father to do grudgingly and half-heartedly what he 
 ought to do lovingly and happily is one which demands 
 sympathetic consideration. The compulsion, however, need 
 only be applied where the opportunity of voluntary action has 
 been given and rejected. The spontaneous manifestation and 
 tender beauty of parental love are not interrupted because 
 the law forbids unnatural fathers to abuse their children; 
 nor need the knowledge that neglectful parents are compelled 
 to give a minimum of education to their ofifspring prevent 
 the pride and pleasure with which true parents pinch and 
 cramp their own lives to better their children's start in life 
 by the best education to be purchased anywhere. The growth 
 of virtue is not checked by the punishment of crime. The 
 objection has thus no force at all, unless the State interferes 
 unwisely and unnecessarily. It is not wise for it to usurp 
 the father's place. But it does not weaken parental love 
 if it stays in the background and interferes only on an 
 emergency. 
 
 (3) A great proportion of the future members of every 
 State are unhappily the offspring of utterly unworthy parents. 
 These wretched children obtain a bad start in life, sadly 
 handicapped by inherited vices and incapacities of every sort. 
 Whatever education they receive can never make them equal 
 
THE STATE AND EDUCATION 369 
 
 with the sons of decent, honest parents. To condemn them 
 to depend for education, as well as environment and heredity, 
 upon an unworthy father's want of love is to cut off every 
 hope of earthly salvation. They will be left remorselessly 
 by their parents, steeped in an atmosphere reeking with 
 every form of vice, and without a chance of knowing any 
 better. The voice of the State, demanding that a little light 
 be let in on these dark places, is the only chance the child 
 can have of ever becoming worthy of citizenship. Without 
 descending to such depths, the nominal heads of many homes 
 are themselves sadly in need of education. How far, then, 
 should the latent individuality of the child be measured by 
 the standard of the stunted personality and narrow views of 
 an ignorant father ? The day-labourer may thiuk it education 
 enough if his son is trained to work his pick and shovel; 
 and thus progress from generation to generation would be 
 made an impossibility and degeneracy would set in. 
 
 (4) Most of the Individualist's objections, so far as they 
 are valid at all, have force not against State intervention 
 ■per se but against the improper or extreme manner of its 
 application. Thus when he argues that each man is the best 
 judge of what is good for his child, the Socialist who would 
 have the State thrust the same education into all brains, 
 whether wide or narrow, would do well to listen. Yet ample 
 room is left for a father's care and right of private judgment 
 even under a regime where government insists on a minimum, 
 since not only may each father provide more, if he wishes, 
 but may even decide as to the manner and matter of 
 the modicum required by law. 
 
 All the individualistic arguments seem thus to break down 
 in a peculiarly signal manner when applied to the problem 
 of education. Here at least a consistent policy of laissez 
 faire is absurd and impossible.^ 
 
 'Of. Prof. Huxley, Methad and RemlU, p. 288. "If the positive 
 advancement of the peace, wealth, and the intellectual and moral 
 development of ita members are objects which the government as the 
 representative of the corporate authority of society may justly strive 
 after, in fulfilment of its end, the good of mankind : then it is clear 
 that the government may undertake to educate the people." 
 
 2 a 
 
370 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 II. The second attitude which the legislature may adopt 
 is one which is not exclusively either individualistic or 
 socialistic, but is in complete accord with the organic theory 
 of the State. The law may command that every child should 
 receive a certain minimum of education as a legal right, and 
 decree that it is the duty of the family, and especially of 
 its male head, to provide this out of the family ftmds. 
 
 Education thus viewed would be primarily the business 
 of the family. If the father had not the ability or the 
 time — and he would not be likely to have either in a 
 highly differentiated community where the principle of the 
 division of labour had been carried to excess — he might 
 appoint one or more competent substitutes — might, in fine, 
 send his children to a respectable school and pay for the 
 education there received. In this view the State would 
 neither provide the schooling nor meet the expense incurred, 
 nor would it undertake any responsibiUty for the existence 
 of efficient schools, nor superintend the teaching. It would 
 leave every father free to exercise his own discretion, to 
 decide between board-school, day-school, and private tuition; 
 and would give no advice as to the details of the instruction 
 to be received, and support no national schools to supersede 
 or compete with those conducted on principles of private 
 enterprise or voluntary association. It would of course 
 have some say in the matter, and exercise an indirect 
 control, as it must do over every institution within its 
 territory and over every person who owns its sovereignty, 
 but would interfere only when other expedients had failed. 
 This seems to be the position taken up by Mill: "The 
 objections," he says, " which are urged with reason against 
 State education do not apply to the enforcement of education 
 by the State, but to the State's taking upon itseK to direct 
 that education: which is a totally different thing." ^ Having 
 commanded a certain minimum of education, however, the 
 law would require to see its command enforced. To de- 
 termine the best means of doing this is a question for the 
 
 '^ Essay on Liberty, p. 190. This line of argument needed only to be 
 generalized to have necessitated an advance beyond the individualistic 
 stand-point. 
 
THE STATE AND EDUCATION 371 
 
 practical statesman. It is obviously not possible in this 
 matter simply to leave the wronged individual to obtain 
 redress by application to the proper law courts; for the 
 individual is not yet developed. The child cannot and dare 
 not turn against its father to the protection of the State. 
 The pupil has no tots standi in a court of law. Govern- 
 ment inspection of some sort is evidently necessary. This 
 may bring with it certain evils which wise legislation must 
 modify and restrict as far as possible, eliminating every- 
 thing that is arbitrary, and all unnecessary interference 
 with the privacy of the family and the sacredness of home 
 life. There are evils in every human scheme. The states- 
 man has only to decide if these are greater or less than 
 those involved in any possible alternative policy. 
 
 This second attitude may be summed up as follows : The 
 State should command every man to educate his own children 
 at his own expense up to a standard fixed by law, and 
 ought only to interfere when this command is not voluntarily 
 obeyed. This position is criticised from two sides, which 
 may be called in a general way the socialistic and the 
 individualistic. All the usual lines of criticism are called 
 into requisition on both sides. There is one argument, 
 however, of a novel kind which is often used by practical 
 men who are neither Socialists nor Individualists, viz. that 
 it is unjust to compel a man to educate his children without 
 providing the schooling for nothing. Many men say that 
 either the first or the third attitude is allowable, but that 
 this second one is unjust to the parent. Now, there seems 
 no good reason why the same principle, which already compels 
 parents to care for the health and bodily welfare of their 
 children, should not be extended to their intellectual and 
 moral training as well. No man can refuse to be liable 
 for the food necessary for his child's nourishment. Why, 
 then, should he be allowed to stunt its mind ? If he cannot 
 provide food for mind and body alike, he has no right to 
 paternity at all. Primary responsibility for supplying the 
 wants and developing the capacities of children rests clearly 
 with the individual father; the ultimate responsibility rests 
 equally clearly with the State, which must compel the parent 
 
372 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 to fulfil his natural duties, having first given him an oppor- 
 tunity to do so of his spontaneous goodwill and pleasure. 
 If the father is dead or disabled or utterly destitute, then 
 the community must educate his pauper children as it must 
 feed them, but this task it should undertake directly only 
 when all other resources have failed. 
 
 III. Each of the political parties that divide the Great 
 Britain of to-day has gone beyond the golden mean in 
 the direction of State control of education. Conservatives 
 and Liberals alike are committed to the third possible attitude 
 of the law towards education. Great Britain as a nation 
 undertakes a primary responsibility for the education of the 
 children of every citizen, paying for it out of the national 
 exchequer, insisting on the maintenance of an efficient staff 
 of educators, and generally exercising a very minute and 
 direct control over even the details of schooling. This may 
 be called the socialistic attitude. i 
 
 The chief arguments against free education may be 
 enumerated as follows: — 
 
 (1) For the State to undertake the education of the child 
 free of all expense to the family is to substitute State-love 
 for father-love, to weaken the natural affections along with 
 the responsibilities of the parent, and so to deteriorate the 
 working classes, making them bad citizens in proportion as 
 they become bad fathers. As parents become accustomed 
 to look to the community to take from them their proper 
 responsibilities for the intellectual welfare of the child they 
 have brought into the world, they will begin to look to be 
 relieved of the burden of feeding and clothing him as well. 
 Human nature, even at its best, is ready to throw off a 
 burden on to other shoulders willing to receive it ; but it 
 is in the bearing of one's own burdens manfully and un- 
 complainingly that the discipline of life consists. Such an 
 effort lays the foundation of the self-reliant character so 
 necessary for the administration of States. It keeps in 
 check the discontent and grudging discharge of duty. "Free 
 education," it is urged, " is an injury to the self-discipline of 
 English character."^ 
 
 1 Thos. Maokay, A Plea for lAherty, p. 261. 
 
THE STATE AND EDUCATION 373 
 
 (2) It is perhaps only another aspect of the same objection 
 to hold that to relieve each family from the duty of educating 
 its own young ones will produce a physical deterioration of 
 the race by the avoidance of hardships and a moral degener- 
 ation by the evasion of duty. "Knowledge," it has been 
 finely said, "has to be won at the cost of self-denial, being 
 the best inheritance a man can bequeath to his children, as 
 the fruit of the exertions of a life-time."^ 
 
 (3) Free education, it is said, weakens the family tie. The 
 child no longer needs to look to his parents with gratitude 
 for the education their self-privation may have given him. 
 Eeceiving his education from the bounty of the State, he 
 feels emancipated from most of the duties of that family 
 to which he owes fewer obligations. If the family suffers, 
 the State will suffer too. 
 
 (4) What is easily got is lightly appreciated. The educa- 
 tion thrust upon every unwilling recipient, without any 
 sacrifice by himself or his guardians, is apt to be lightly 
 appreciated. There is perhaps less weight in this objection, 
 as all education is apt to be grudgingly received by the 
 person chiefly concerned. The child, before he has learned 
 its value, is rarely too keen at his work. 
 
 (5) The State, which pays for the training, will naturally 
 dictate both its quality and quantity. There is thus a 
 danger of the introduction of too great a monotony in the 
 routine enforced on all alike. Too little regard is apt to 
 be paid to the requirements of unique individualities. This 
 objection is inherent, perhaps, in all schemes of education, 
 but the evils which are found in centralized bureaucracies, 
 are likely to attach with special force to a system of 
 national education directed from a central department and 
 conducted on uniform lines throughout the country. This 
 danger is at present kept under check in some measure 
 by allowing local School Boards the chief share in the 
 management. It is not easy to see, however, how this caii 
 continue effectually to counteract the strong tendencies already 
 manifesting themselves in the direction of a more thorough 
 system of central control, which seems the legitimate out- 
 
 *Thos. Mackay, A Plea for Liberty, p. 272. 
 
374 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 come of a scheme of education paid for out of the national 
 purse. 
 
 (6) The responsibility of finding suitable employment 
 for the boy when he is done with his schooling still rests 
 with the parent. It may be argued, then, with much force 
 that the father who has to choose for him, or to help him 
 in choosing for himself, or who knows at any rate better than 
 the government what sphere of life the son is likely to 
 occupy, is the best judge of what amount and kind of 
 education will best fit him for its duties. The farmer knows 
 that his only son will succeed to his farm, and ought to be 
 allowed to judge whether he should learn some smattering 
 of agricultural chemistry rather than Latin or the elements 
 of Euclid. If the State undertakes to educate the child 
 to fill his station as a citizen, it may be argued that it 
 should further determine what that station is to be, 
 furnishing a situation in life in keeping with the education 
 it has provided. Free schooling would in this light be 
 merely a first step in the direction of a vast scheme of 
 Collectivism reducing everything under the control of the 
 State. 
 
 (7) As long as A is able to pay for the education of 
 his own children, there seems no reason why the State 
 should compel B to contribute towards that desirable object, 
 any more than it should compel him to contribute to a 
 fund for sending them to the sea-side for a holiday. It 
 is sometimes urged by tender-hearted philanthropists that 
 it is unjust for the State to compel A to fulfil his natural 
 obligation by paying for the education of his own children, 
 but surely it is more unjust to make B pay for them. It 
 is unjust to allow the improvident father of ten children 
 to burden the provident father of two with an equal 'pro 
 indiviso share of educating the lot. It is still more unfair 
 to compel the bachelor, who is too poor to marry, to pay for 
 the education of the children of his wealthy and successful 
 rival. "Free" education under compulsory taxation is unjust; 
 biit " compulsory " education, where every man is bound to 
 support his own, but free to marry or to abstain from 
 marriage, is open to no such objection. 
 
THE STATE AND EDUCATION 375 
 
 (8) Free education is not only unjust to individuals : by 
 increasing the rates, it is injurious also to the trade and com- 
 mercial prosperity of the country. Every increase of taxation 
 raises the cost of production. The assessment for education 
 is itself a heavy item, and is felt more severely when taken 
 in conjunction with others of a more or less socialistic 
 tendency. 
 
 Every bale of cotton manufactured in Lancashire, and every 
 ship built in the Clyde dockyards, is dearer because of free 
 education. Thus British goods, already handicapped by dear 
 labour, are being gradually elbowed out of their old chief place 
 in the markets of the world. Goods of foreign manufacture 
 are finding their way more and more into the home market. 
 Taxation is, of course, a matter of degree ; but free education 
 is responsible for a heavy addition. Any further increase 
 would probably give irresistible impetus to the cry already 
 heard proceeding in a half-ashamed way from thinking 
 Socialists, for a protective tariff for the products of British 
 labour. 
 
 (9) It is further urged that the system will gradually 
 pauperize the nation. Mr. Herbert Spencer draws a close 
 analogy between the probable effects of the Free Education 
 Acts and the proved results of the Poor Law as it stood prior to 
 1832. This is a question of economics, pure and simple, and, 
 apparently, many arguments might be produced on both sides. 
 Analogy is always a dangerous weapon ; and there is certainly 
 a difference between supplying food for adults and education 
 for the young. It is open for argument, however, whether 
 the difference is not one of degree rather than of kind. There 
 may exist a pauperizing effect in free education, although the 
 evil is less pronounced than in the case of the old Poor Laws. 
 
 (10) Lastly, and closely connected with the foregoing, 
 comes the argument — perhaps the most important of all, 
 though least suited for full discussion here — that to provide 
 free education for all children — especially when accompanied, 
 as it sometimes is, by a modicum of free rations — is to with- 
 draw one of the most effective restraints on over-population. 
 If a government rigidly enforces the principle that parents 
 must accept a full responsibility for every child they bring 
 
376 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 into the world, that world is less likely to become over- 
 populated, than if the State shows a readiness to relieve the 
 parents of any burdens which they ought individually to bear. 
 Over-population, it is perhaps unnecessary to add, has been 
 acknowledged since the days of Malthus to be the cause 
 of low wages and the root of social distress. 
 
 Without speaking dogmatically, then, against that free 
 education which has been adopted with acclamation through- 
 out the land, it seems clear that there are grave dangers 
 connected with it which its advocates have neglected or failed 
 sufficiently to notice. The objections urged against it by 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer and others cannot be easily brushed 
 aside. On the other hand, these arguments, however far 
 they may be good against "free " education, have no place 
 against the compulsion of the State being brought to bear 
 upon the father to perform his natural duties, by providing a 
 modicum of education to every child, male or female. The 
 State may have gone too far in its interference with education, 
 l3ut no arguments can prove that it should or can leave the 
 matter altogether alone. 
 
CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 THE STATE AND MOEALITY. 
 
 Not only the prosperity of a State, but its very existence 
 depends upon the stuff its citizens are made of — upon the 
 moral fibre of its individual men and women, and the moral 
 value of the ideas that animate its policy. In the words of 
 Professor Jowett, commenting on Aristotle's Politics: " The 
 State exists for the sake of a good life, and without virtue 
 has no true existence."'' It is, indeed, no accidental meeting 
 of individuals who might instead have exercised an option of 
 living in self-sufBcing isolation. The reason why men must 
 form a State of some sort, large or small, developed or em- 
 bryonic, is that they are by nature moral agencies, knowing 
 right from wrong. Thus the State itself partakes of necessity 
 in that same moral nature of its citizens to which it owes 
 its origin. Its official actions mingle with those of private 
 individuals. In the resultant effects it is difficult to deter- 
 mine how far each agency has contributed to the joint result. 
 The same world of men and things is affected by the actions 
 of government and by those of its subjects. It is impossible 
 to escape from the conclusion that the government is merely 
 one moral agent among others. The same universal rules of 
 right and wrong by which individuals are judged are applic- 
 able to governments as well. No power, whether executive 
 or deliberative or legislative, can escape from the moral re- 
 sponsibilities attaching to its every act, decision, or law. 
 The government as a whole, then, and the State its master 
 'Introduction, p. Ixix. 
 
378 THE STATE, AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 must accept responsibility for the ethical principles bound up 
 in every act performed or statute enacted.^ But the further 
 questions still remain : How far is the State responsible for, 
 and how far should it promote, the morality of its private 
 citizens ? Has it a right to control individuals at all, on the 
 avowed ground of their own moral good ? 
 
 The answer given by Individualists is that the government 
 has no responsibility whatever for private acts of immorality 
 or sin, and that it has no right to interfere with any man for 
 his own moral good or advancement in the path of virtue. 
 It must, therefore, leave him severely and absolutely alone, 
 avoiding all action that will constrain his moral nature either 
 for good or evil. Von Humboldt sums up his chapter on 
 the Amelioration of Morals in the declaration " that the State 
 must wholly refrain from every attempt to operate directly 
 or indirectly on the morals and character of the nation, other- 
 wise than as such a policy may become inevitable as a natural 
 consequence of its other absolutely necessary measures ; and 
 that everything calculated to promote such a design, and 
 particularly all special supervision of education, religion, sump- 
 tuary, etc., lies wholly outside the limits of its legitimate 
 activity." ^ 
 
 It is the object of the following pages to show that the 
 opinion expressed in this extreme form is untenable in theory 
 and impossible in practice, that the laws and administration 
 of a country cannot, try how they may, avoid putting moral 
 restraints upon individuals, and that they ought not always 
 to refrain even where possible. 
 
 There are two broad grounds on which to justify a censor- 
 
 * It would be unnecessary to insist on what will to most men seem a 
 truism, were it not directly denied by a writer of such weight as Mr. 
 Auberon Herbert, who considers the whole foundation of all governments 
 as essentially though unavoidably immoral. " I do not think that it is pos- 
 sible to find a perfect moral foundation for the authority of any government, 
 be it the government of an emperor or a republic" {The Right and Wrong 
 of Compulsion by the State, p. 22). If all compulsion were really a wrong 
 to those compelled, it would be absurd to talk of guiding by moral rules 
 what is essentially immoral. 
 
 ^Sphere and Duties of the State, p. 113. 
 
THE STATE AND MORALITY 379 
 
 ship of morals. In the first place it may he urged that it is 
 impossihle for any government to avoid influencing, in one 
 way or another, the ethical ideas, and controlling the actions 
 of its citizens. In the second place, the plea that the highest 
 interests of the whole community are at stake in the moral 
 worth of the men who compose it, is of itself sufficient justi- 
 fication. 
 
 It is impossible for the government or the laws of a civilized 
 country to maintain a strict neutrality in the war constantly 
 waged between the powers of morality and immorality. No 
 policy can be decided on, no treaty signed, no law enacted, and 
 no tax levied, without the danger and even the certainty of 
 doing violence to the conscience of some individual subject. 
 Thus to some tender consciences all warfare is sinful, and 
 every man who pays a tax that contributes directly or in- 
 directly to its conduct is tainted with blood-guiltiness. To 
 others, on the contrary, the duty of forcible intervention, even 
 in foreign countries, to prevent gross Bulgarian or Armenian 
 atrocities at any sacrifice of lives and money, is equally clear; 
 and, to them, to submit tamely to a selfish government that 
 ignores the sufferings of humanity is immoral. On whatever 
 grounds a government may primarily see cause to act, as (for 
 example) those of an economic or hygienic nature, conflicts 
 are sure to arise sooner or later with the private morality of 
 individuals. It is for the health of the community that 
 compulsory vaccination is enforced ; but this is frequently a 
 violation of the conscience and the moral freedom of indi- 
 viduals. It is for the preaching of the Gospel of Christ that 
 tithes or teinds are taken from the lands of men of all 
 denominations ; and this hurts the consciences of Jews and 
 Mohammedans, as well as of those who believe in " religious 
 equality." The national endowment of an opera-house might 
 injure the moral sense of those compelled to contribute to 
 the rates. 
 
 Sir James Stephen has illustrated, from our legislation in 
 India, the impossibility of making laws for a people without 
 thereby coercing the subjects for whom they are made into 
 some degree of outward conformity with the moral and 
 religious standards of those who make them. The policy o 
 
380 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 non-interference with native standards and prejudices was 
 avowedly followed, but it was found to be absolutely im- 
 practicable. 
 
 This, then, is the negative justification of the intervention 
 of the government in the private morals of its subjects — that 
 it cannot adopt an attitude of laissez /aire if it would. There 
 is also a positive justification on the ground that it is its 
 duty to interfere wherever such intervention is likely to do 
 good. Any form of interference, whether direct or indirect, 
 whether enforced by persuasion or compulsion, and to what- 
 ever extent it may be required, is justifiable on the ground 
 that the highest interests of the community demand it. The 
 mere plea of self-protection is sufficient ; for it may be shown 
 that when private morality becomes relaxed the bonds of 
 society are loosened, and revolutions are more imminent. 
 If the State is entitled to protect itself against danger of 
 overthrow, it might on that plea alone institute a close 
 censorship of morals, and punish any departure as a crime. 
 It might do all this and still shelter itself with logical con- 
 sistency behind the individualistic plea of self-protection. It 
 has a still more clear title to interfere, however, on the ground 
 not of self-defence but of advance and progress. Men are 
 associated into States not merely for existence, but for the 
 realization of such measure of perfection as can be attained 
 on earth. The State is something different from the mere 
 legal framework of its constitution. Its strength lies not in 
 the material wealth of its territory or the accumulated riches 
 that form the product of the labour of ages, but in the worth 
 of its subjects. That worth rests upon moral forces. No 
 institutions, however wisely contrived and deeply rooted in 
 the history of the past, can enable a nation to continue 
 its career of greatness or even to drag on an independent 
 existence, if the vital forces forming its life's blood are 
 tainted or enervated. If the sovereign State has a duty, 
 and therefore a right, to alter its constitution, it has an 
 equally pressing duty and an equally inalienable right to do 
 what it can to stimulate the moral well-being of its citizens. 
 The same life flows from the individuals to the central organs 
 of the State and back again to every unit, and nothing that 
 
THE STATE AND MORALITY 381 
 
 affects the individual is so trivial that it fails to influence 
 the State. The government has then a right to interfere, 
 and an interest to interfere, and a duty to interfere to 
 promote the virtue of all its subjects, from the highest to 
 the lowest. 
 
 It is indeed absurd to hold that the State must confine 
 itself to law, while the individual attends to morality, for the 
 distinction between law and morality must not be considered 
 final or absolute : law loses its inner sanction and meaning if 
 divorced from ethical principles. Man's moral nature is at 
 once the basis of all his rights and the prerequisite of the 
 existence of society — in so far as a society differs from a 
 mere flock of sheep or band of apes. The State is an em- 
 bodiment of the common will of individuals endowed with 
 conscience or practical reason. This is the fundamental 
 conception of the Hegelian philosophy, and has been well 
 expounded by the late Professor Green. "The claim or 
 , right of the individual to have certain powers secured to 
 him by society, and the counter claim of society to exercise 
 certain powers over the individual, alike rest on the fact 
 that these powers are necessary for the fulfilment of man's 
 vocation as a moral being to an effectual self-devotion to 
 the work of developing the perfect character in himself and 
 others."^ All legal rights and obligations are thus seen to 
 be based on morality. It is this consideration which leads 
 writers like Professor G-reen to the conclusion that the sphere 
 of morality is not only a legitimate part of the province of 
 the State, but the chief part and almost the whole, and that 
 " the real function of government " is " to maintain conditions 
 of life in which morality shall be possible."^ Every organ 
 of the government is bound to interfere (within the proper 
 constitutional limits assigned to it) to help its citizens to realize 
 
 '^Collected Works, Vol. ii., p. 347. 
 
 ^Ibid., Vol. II., p. 345. Cf. William Cunniugham, Polities and 
 Economics. " The State is concerned with human conduct, its action 
 is distinctly moral in character, it may be said that the business of 
 the legislature is always that of enforcing morality in the widest sense 
 of the term" (p. 141). Again, "Its business is to enforce morality as 
 recognized by public opinion" (p. 144). 
 
382 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the virtuous life so inseparable from the prosperity of the 
 community, whenever such intervention is likely to accomplish 
 its end. 
 
 Such a line of reasoning, however, is very far from proving 
 that all interference with private morality is sure of success. 
 Stupid intervention must always do more harm than good ; 
 and there are cases in which no intervention of any kind 
 is likely to effect anything but evil. Each question must 
 be dealt with on its merits. Neither in the region of morality 
 nor elsewhere is there any absolute presumption against State 
 action any more than in its favour. The argument, then, 
 merely proves that, a priori, there is no bar to such action 
 on the ground that the State steps thereby beyond its proper 
 sphere. The right and duty to interfere are established 
 whenever the acts proposed are just and expedient. 
 
 Government interference with private morality is, however, 
 condemned on very different grounds by the best friends of 
 virtue, and by some of those who fully appreciate the vital 
 interests that the State has therein at stake as well as its 
 absolute right to interfere. They urge with great force that such 
 interference will substitute an external habit of obedience 
 for a spirit of free morality, and thus defeat its own designs. 
 Professor Green was of this opinion. " The real function of 
 government being to maintain conditions of life in which 
 morality shaU be possible, and morality consisting in the 
 disinterested performance of self-imposed duties, 'paternal 
 government ' does its best to make it impossible by narrow- 
 ing the room for the self-imposition of duties and for the 
 play of disinterested motives."^ 
 
 If this doctrine contained the entire truth, the State 
 would best promote virtue by leaving it severely alone. 
 This we have already seen to be impossible. The law 
 cannot help influencing morality in a thousand ways. As 
 a negative attitude is impossible, the only question is how 
 its positive relations may be so extended as to do most 
 good, or be so limited as to do least harm. 
 
 Five criteria have been suggested as affording a solution 
 of the problem. (1) The State, it is said, ought never 
 1 Works, Vol. II., p. 345. 
 
THE STATE AND MORALITY 383 
 
 directly to aim by its laws or its government at making men 
 moral, although no valid objection can be raised to any course 
 of action upon which it may have resolved to enter for 
 other motives (economic or hygienic, for example) on the 
 ground that it cannot effect this without putting moral con- 
 straint upon individuals. (2) No objection, it is said, may 
 be taken even to the direct interference of the State with 
 private morality by persuasion and education, provided no 
 force is used. (3) It is sometimes urged that the govern- 
 ment may advance morality by removing obstacles but not 
 by furnishing positive support. (4) Public opinion is some- 
 times suggested as the only test. (5) Lastly, it may be held 
 that not only is direct and positive intervention always 
 allowable, but even coercion may be consistently applied, 
 provided it is likely to attain its end at a cost not 
 altogether disproportionate. 
 
 (1) It is obvious, to begin with, that the presumed motive 
 of the law or ofiScial act can never afford a practical ground 
 of complaint for a subject to adopt when he considers 
 himself aggrieved by a government anxious to shield itself 
 from blame. The makers of any law and the devisers of 
 any counsel are alone able to judge of the motives which 
 led to its enactment. AH motives, too, are mixed; the good 
 with the bad; the moral with the economic; the selfish 
 with the unselfish. Thus it is often difficult for a private 
 man to analyze the motives of his simplest action ; while, for 
 a complex body like the legislature dealing with a compli- 
 cated code of laws, it would be simply impossible. Indeed, 
 it is difficult to see how any act can be divorced entirely 
 from moral considerations, though they may sometimes be 
 kept more in the background. Thus for example in legislat- 
 ing against overcrowding in lodging-houses, while the chief 
 object is to guard the health of the community, moral 
 considerations have also their place. 
 
 The criterion of motive, then, is of no practical utility; 
 but it has other and more vital defects as well. Is it never 
 right, it may be asked, to legislate avowedly with the object 
 of making men better than they are? The varied reasons 
 against such legislation may be reduced under two heads: 
 
384 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (a) morality is a matter of private judgment and should 
 be left to the individual man, who is alone responsible for 
 his actions ; and (b) government should never interfere, in 
 case it may be in the wrong and the individual in the 
 right, as history has shown to have been the case in too 
 many instances. 
 
 Now, the neutral man who wishes to find that golden mean 
 which commends itself alike to philosophy and to common- 
 sense, may accept both these arguments as containing sound 
 relative truths, while he rejects them in their absolute form. 
 Thus {a) it is quite true that each man's morality is 
 primarily a matter for his own private direction; and there- 
 fore all powers and authorities should think twice before 
 interfering between him and his conscience. So-called external 
 influences should rather stimulate him into obeying his own 
 sense of duty than set up an external standard of conduct 
 as its rival. This is the aspect of truth contained in the 
 argument for private judgment in questions of morality. This 
 criterion is only relative, however, not absolute; because 
 all abstractions are false philosophically, and unworkable in 
 practice. It is impossible always to distinguish between ex- 
 ternal and internal standards, and between private and public 
 acts of the individual. No man's morality is "private" in 
 the sense that it does not affect the public welfare, or that 
 it is not in return moulded by the current estimates of the 
 society of the age and country in which the individual moves. 
 It is impossible, then, to draw any sharp line between what 
 is and what is not private for the guidance of Parliament 
 in deciding how far it may go. 
 
 (6) Similar considerations tend to weaken the alternative 
 line of argument. Instances have often occurred — as for 
 example in the often-cited case of Socrates — where the State 
 has interfered in the name of morality, and has persecuted 
 and attacked a higher standard of ethics than its own. Too 
 great care indeed can never be taken to avoid the possibility 
 of such isolated cases — though from the necessary imperfection 
 of all human affairs the danger can never be absolutely obvi- 
 ated, however it may be safe-guarded. This, too, is a relative 
 truth. It does not for a moment prevent a raid by the ofi&cers 
 
THE STATE AND MORALITY 385 
 
 of justice on a gambling-hell, or the immediate suppression of 
 gross indecency, and the punishment of its perpetrators. 
 
 The State can and does hunt down and punish vice. It 
 can and does encourage virtue. The laws that treat certain 
 forms of immorality as crimes cannot be explained on any 
 other basis; and while it is as difficult to prove as to dis- 
 prove the presence of any one motive among others, it is 
 probable that the suppression of immorality or of sin (if the 
 word be preferred) is one of the objects of all criminal law. 
 In preventing a man who is tired of life from committing 
 suicide, the State is preventing an act condemned as immoral 
 by the code of ethics on which its laws are, consciously or 
 unconsciously, based. Other and more artificial motives for 
 this branch of our criminal law may easily be devised, but 
 most men will agree that this is the chief one. A desire to 
 curb immorality is at once the only and the sufficient justi- 
 fication of the State in treating bigamy as a crime, where 
 all three individuals immediately concerned are quite happy 
 and agreed, and no force or fraud or concealment of facts 
 has been used towards any of the spouses. The promotion 
 of virtue is here as elsewhere a most praiseworthy motive 
 of legislation. Indeed it might be well that, instead of 
 eliminating this endeavour of the State to educate its 
 citizens in morality, the whole of our criminal law were 
 based more consciously and consistently upon this theory. 
 The convict should be subjected to wholesome restraint and 
 discipline, less as a punishment for the past than as a training 
 to enable him to be, if possible, a good citizen in the future. 
 Only in "habit and repute" and hopeless cases may this 
 object of amelioration be lost sight of. In the reformatory 
 system, and the principle of the First Offenders' Act, the State 
 aims at the moral welfare of its citizens as the direct and 
 conscious motive of its legislation. 
 
 The assertion that the State ought never to interfere from 
 motives of elevating the morals of its subjects seems thus 
 entirely untenable. It is nevertheless true that in acting 
 clearly and unambiguously from that motive it accepts a 
 responsibility which should never be lightly undertaken, and 
 runs a risk which can hardly be over-estimated. 
 
 2b 
 
386 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (2) The second criterion proposed as a test for the legiti- 
 macy of State interference with private virtue is the absence 
 of force — of positive coercion. The same arguments — or others 
 very similar — might be used over again to show that this 
 cannot be made a final and absolute standard. It is not 
 always easy to know where persuasion ends and force begins, 
 as Sir James Stephen has abundantly illustrated. It is not 
 easy to see how it is possible for the State to carry out any 
 reform or put into execution any law or regulation without the 
 reserved right to apply that brute force without which all 
 executive government becomes a farce. It is not easy to 
 see why the State should hesitate to use such a sanction 
 in furtherance of an end of whose desirability it is assured, 
 provided it is likely to be effective. 
 
 For these and many other reasons which might be adduced, 
 the application of coercion is not an absolute criterion. There 
 are on the other hand at least two reasons that militate 
 against the expediency of using force unless under very 
 careful restraints and limitations. 
 
 In the first place, forced adherence to a moral standard 
 not approved by the individual makes hypocrites instead of 
 saints. In the second place, the highest form of morality 
 must be spontaneous and joyous, not the grumbling obedience 
 paid to a hated external law. 
 
 (3) We are thus led to consider the third suggested test, 
 that of the late Professor Green. The highest object of 
 human attainment is a "free morality," and the essence of 
 this lies in the spontaneous action of a moral being " deter- 
 mined by a conception of the end to which it is relative." 
 Thus every direct enforcement of outward conduct will only 
 sap the foundation of all morality by destroying the basis 
 of spontaneity on which it rests. " For this reason," concludes 
 Professor Green,^ " the effectual action of the State, i.e. the 
 community as acting through law for the promotion of habits 
 of true citizenship, seems necessarily to be confined to the 
 removal of obstacles." 
 
 There is a valuable lesson embodied in this argument, 
 namely, that legislators ought never to forget the danger of 
 1 Worhs, Vol. II., p. 514. 
 
THE STATE AND MORALITY 387 
 
 substituting a dead legality for a living morality ; but viewed 
 as the sole and universally applicable criterion of government 
 action, it is manifestly inadequate. Not to insist on the 
 practical difficulty of determining whether a particular law 
 removes an obstacle from the path of virtue or affords positive 
 aid, it is sometimes wise and expedient to enforce a formal 
 and outward habit of good-living in the hope that it may 
 lead some day to a truly inward and free morality. 
 
 The true test of the good or evil effects of any statute 
 is how far it will ultimately stiiiiulate a true vital and 
 spontaneous morahty. All interference which substitutes a 
 hard metallic pharisaic observance of dead forms for the 
 natural outcome in good actions of the pure heart within,, 
 is bad. All legislation which makes the compulsory com- 
 pliance with the law one step in the progress of the moral 
 agent towards a pure and spontaneous morality, is good. The 
 cleansing of the outside of the platter must not be substituted 
 for the purity of the inside. Enforced morality should be 
 like a crutch that helps the injured man to regain his power 
 of unaided locomotion. So far as it is serviceable at all, it 
 is chiefly as a means to a higher end, and not as an end in 
 itself. Even in itself, however, it is something to raise men 
 from the level of swine to the standard of external and 
 enforced respectability. 
 
 Much of the force of the Individualist's argument rests on 
 the fallacious assumption that all men naturally strive hard 
 to be moral, and err through defect in judgment rather 
 than defect in will. Now the great mass of mankind are 
 not so strongly rooted in virtue as to be insensible to all 
 temptations and independent of all external supports. Morality 
 is a thing of the inner man, but it is not independent of 
 the material social and political environment. Socrates, 
 perhaps, reached so high a level as to receive only hin- 
 drance instead of help from the manners and institutions 
 of his country ; but the ordinary mortal is kept from many 
 a sin by the influence of his surroundings, by the knowledge 
 of the standard of conduct that his friends expect of him, 
 by the fear of public opinion, and the reverence for the 
 traditions of his ancestors and the law of the land. Beneath 
 
388 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 this ordinary level of humanity there come the lapsed 
 masses, who have no hope and hardly any desire of elevating 
 their lives from their utterly debased condition, physical, 
 mental, and moral. Coercive morality is for such men the 
 only possible beginning, if not the end, of their salvation. 
 If they are forced to comply with a moral standard, they 
 may rise in time beyond it to a voluntary pursuit of a 
 virtuous life ; but humanly speaking, without such coercion, 
 even the rudiments of morality are impossible to them. 
 Even if such an expectation is groundless as regards them- 
 selves, it may help towards giving their children a start in 
 life with fewer hereditary tendencies to vice. "When the State 
 merely insists that men shall not live like the lower animals, 
 there is little danger of it persecuting what is in reality a 
 higher standard of morality than its own. Certain forms 
 of vice can be suppressed without the slightest possibility 
 of doing harm to any one. 
 
 (4) It may be proposed again, that the State should interfere 
 in moral questions only in cases where it is impossible there 
 should be any doubt — that it should only suppress what 
 public opinion with practical unanimity condemns, and only 
 enforce by active coercion what the same opinion cries for 
 with unanimity. This is the view of Mr. Cunningham — that 
 the state of public opinion is the only criterion of such legis- 
 lative interference. " From our point of view, then," he says, 
 " no limits can be assigned to the sphere of action of the State: 
 its business is to enforce morality as recognized by public 
 opinion. . . . The State is concerned in seeing that every 
 man performs that minimum of duty which public opinion 
 demands of every citizen."^ There is a very valuable element 
 of truth in this, for no legislation ought to be in advance of 
 the public opinion of the whole community, nor run counter 
 to the scruples of any disinterested minority whose conduct 
 and presumed motives are such as to entitle their opinions 
 to any respect. It is, however, only one of many elements 
 which we must take into consideration in determining the 
 expediency of interference in any given case, although perhaps 
 one of more than usual weight in questions of morality. 
 ^ Politios and Economics, p. 144. 
 
THE STATE AND MORALITY 389 
 
 Legislative coercion may bring up the stragglers into line 
 with the ordinary rank and file, by whom public opinion is 
 formed. Every important advance towards a higher standard 
 must come from individuals, spreading gradually to the mass 
 of the people, and last of all upwards to the government. 
 The last stage in any enduring advance is the alteration 
 of the law (if need be) to suit the new and higher morality. 
 In this respect there is a notable difference between material 
 and moral progress. Health regulations to prevent the spread 
 of disease through infection or defective sanitation may be 
 in advance of public opinion. They ought to work downwards 
 to the people, proceeding from the initiative of the government, 
 acting on the skilled advice of scientific and medical experts ; 
 but the progress of a new departure in morality must be all 
 the other way. 
 
 (5) The fifth and last suggestion is that no absolute bar can 
 be placed to the action of the State in the sphere of morality 
 any more than in the sphere of health or of trade. ' It is 
 always justified in interfering when its own conception of 
 the public good seems to call for it. Its duty is to interfere 
 in any direction required, and to use whatever force seems 
 necessary. It must never act, however, where either it is 
 likely to defeat the end it has in view, or to cause worse 
 evils than it cures. A wise government will thus do well 
 to allow their full relative weight to all the considerations sug- 
 gested by its various advisers — to beware of degrading virtue 
 to an irresponsive legality, to guard against the use of force 
 where persuasion is equally effective, and to avoid the danger 
 of reaction through urging the minimum of enforced duty 
 beyond what public opinion warrants. 
 
 Each of those counsels, however, is a mere rule of 
 expediency, not to be hardened into an absolute cri- 
 terion. 
 
 This view of the duty of the State has perhaps never been 
 more eloquently supported than by Sir James E. Stephen. 
 " I think," he says, " that governments ought to take the re- 
 sponsibility of acting upon such principles, religious, political, 
 and moral, as they may from time to time regard as most 
 likely to be true, and this they cannot do without exercising 
 
390 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 a very considerable degree of coercion."^ Now, in his opinion, 
 such compulsive authority may be applied by three methods, 
 criminal law, civil law, and public opinion. The substance 
 of Sir James Stephen's argument is that it is impossible for 
 any one of these agencies to act at all without coercion, and 
 that it would be wrong of them to abstain from its use 
 when necessary. " Criminal law in this country actually 
 is applied to the suppression of vice, and so to the promotion 
 of virtue to a very considerable extent, and this I say is 
 right."^ And the same holds good of the civil law, for the 
 courts refuse to enforce immoral contracts, while the law of 
 marriage and inheritance is based upon a well-formulated 
 code of positive morality. Thus "nearly every branch of 
 civil law assumes the existence of a standard of moral good 
 and evil, which the public at large have an interest in main- 
 taining, and in many cases enforcing." It is, therefore, 
 impossible to lay down invariable rules as to how far the 
 government may help and how far it will only hinder. 
 
 In no circumstances is there an absolute veto placed on the 
 right of intervention. The highest power in the State (that is 
 to say, the nation acting through its accustomed constitutional 
 channels) is the sole court of appeal on all such questions. 
 
 If it is urged that this vindication of the existing order 
 of things — of this unfettered supremacy of the real " sove- 
 reign," which always does and must exist in every State — 
 is a plea for persecution, several answers may be made. In 
 the first place, coercion in some form is a necessity, and the 
 mildest form of it is that of a wisely ordered State which 
 will permit no " persecution " but its own. In the second 
 place, in reserving to itself (as it cannot help reserving) the 
 supreme right of intervention if need be, the legislative sove- 
 reign as the servant of the supreme people does not necessarily 
 use that power for persecution. There is no tyranny unless 
 it is used wickedly and unwisely. Lastly, in the only true 
 sense in which morality is a private and not a public affair, 
 the individual is invulnerable and can defy the State. If 
 he is forced into outward conformity with the code of the 
 community, his soul is free. Conscience cannot be coerced. 
 ^Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 53. ^Ibid., p. 148. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 When the sphere of the State has been extended to em- 
 brace all the ends and aims of the lives of its subjects, no 
 room for the Church would seem to have been left. The 
 independent existence of the latter has been crushed out 
 altogether. The truth is that in the modern highly developed 
 State, in its widest signification, the Church is included as 
 merely one factor in a larger whole. This doctrine is at 
 variance at once with the claims of keen churchmen and 
 with the popular notions as to the relations of the two. 
 
 The theory that the Church is simply a part or phase ot 
 the State, and therefore subordinated to the authority of 
 the civil government, requires some explanation and vindica- 
 tion. Much light is thrown on the matter by an examination 
 of the mutual relations of the two powers in the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 In theory all mediaeval Christendom was one vast territory, 
 whose inhabitants owed a common allegiance to one God 
 and professed a common faith in one Saviour. A theoretical 
 division was made between the spiritual and temporal 
 aspects of life. One ruler was recognized as sovereign, over 
 the former, and was called the Pope. Another was sovereign 
 over the latter under the name of Emperor. These two 
 potentates were intended to move hand in hand. The Pope 
 undertook to lend the aid of his spiritual power to help 
 the Emperor in his more mundane affairs, while in return 
 the armed might of the temporal ruler was the natural 
 
392 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 protector of religion. The Pope was head of the Church ; 
 the Emperor, of the Empire-State. 
 
 As their jurisdictions moved in different planes and were 
 essentially distinct in kind, no one dreamed of asking which 
 was above the other. This theoretically postulated harmony 
 between two spheres of influence, one purely temporal and the 
 other purely spiritual, never held good in practice for a day. 
 The history of the Middle Ages is one long sad record of 
 discords and actual warfare between Pope and Emperor, 
 Guelph and Ghibelline, Church and State. 
 
 Now the spiritual power of the Pope over the nascent 
 nationalities of Europe was a very real one ; whereas the 
 temporal power of the prince elected to the sovereignty of 
 the Holy Eoman Empire was a mere shadow, unless he could 
 claim the support of hereditary dominions of his own. In 
 isolated England, in particular, his rights of feudal overlordship 
 were utterly ignored. While in theory one Empire- State 
 extended over Christendom, in reality a number of national 
 or dynastic States were growing up, each claiming and prac- 
 tically possessing independence of the Emperor and of one 
 another, but looking to Eome for spiritual guidance. It is 
 in this sense that one Church might be said in that age to 
 include all States. The only link that bound all peoples 
 together was Eome with its universal Church, its canon 
 law, its uniform ecclesiastical government and constitution, 
 and its hierarchy of priests, whose traditions and the Latin 
 language they used in common made them international 
 rather than national, and too often loyal churchmen rather 
 than patriotic statesmen. After the fall of the old Eoman 
 Empire the only organization that deserved the name of 
 State was not the new or Holy Eoman Empire but the 
 Catholic Church. The Church was the State. The organ- 
 ization and law of the Church were the only restraints 
 upon the anarchy and lawlessness always found in the train 
 of genuine feudalism. In each nation a branch of that 
 Church took root and would yield, only on compulsion, 
 a qualified allegiance to the State that sheltered it, while 
 it remained proud to own obedience to its spiritual head 
 at Eome. Thus there were men in England even, who looked 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH 393 
 
 beyond their native island for the sovereignty before which 
 they bowed ; and continental churches were still more 
 closely bound to Eome. Professing only to exercise spiritual 
 authority, the canons of the ecclesiastical law usurped 
 legislative weight throughout Europe; the Church courts 
 obtained exclusive jurisdiction in various important classes of 
 suits between man and man ; and the decrees of the Pontiff, 
 issued in papal bulls, found sanctions to enforce them in 
 the power of excommunication and in the swords of the 
 temporal princes who acted as "defenders of the faith." 
 The Church, with its seven sacraments and its superintend- 
 ence of education and relief of the poor, extended the 
 province of the spiritual to embrace many of the most im- 
 portant social, domestic, and material interests of individuals. 
 By pressing its jurisdiction over the sacrament of marriage, 
 and by its control over the probate of wills and other 
 matters where an oath was needed, the Church took into its 
 own hands the law of succession, and the regulation of family 
 relationships. 
 
 In those days many States were included within one 
 church, whereas in modern England many churches are 
 included within one State. Unfortunately ideas borrowed 
 from a buried past are still used nominally to explain, 
 but really to confuse, the facts of the present age, to which 
 they are entirely inapplicable. Church and State have now, 
 to some extent, changed places. 
 
 It is unnecessary to endeavour here to trace the steps by 
 which, in countries such as England, a national ecclesi- 
 astical organization was gradually elaborated, beginning as 
 a branch of the universal Church, and gradually tending 
 towards separation from the parent stem. This tendency was 
 due to various causes : partly to the growth of national feeling 
 among the leading prelates ; partly to the policy of kings 
 in excluding the rivalry of the Papal supremacy from their 
 dominions ; and partly to the prejudice of the common people 
 against foreign influences. When Henry VIII., with the 
 formal concurrence of his Parliament, severed the connection 
 of the Anglican Church with the Church of Eome, and placed 
 himself as an insular Pope at its head, arbitrary and abrupt 
 
3,94 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 as his innovations seemed, he merely put the coping stone 
 to a work that had long been in progress. Subsequently to 
 Henry VIII. 's day (except during the reaction towards Eome 
 at the accession of Queen Mary), there has always existed 
 a native English Church independent of the Pope, as well as 
 an English State independent of the Emperor. Henceforward 
 the relations of Church and State, so far as England was 
 concerned, were exclusively to be determined by causes 
 beginning and ending within its own island territories. Prior 
 to the Eeformation the Church in England had not been 
 entirely subject to the civil power, but that was only because 
 the nation was not fully entitled to be called a State. As 
 long as Eome had a constitutional and acknowledged right to 
 meddle in English affairs, this country was not an independent 
 nation. 
 
 When England shook off the power of Eome, the Church in 
 becoming truly national, became subservient to the civil power. 
 
 The old dualism did not reappear — at least under the old 
 form in which it had torn Europe asunder in the early quarrels 
 between Pope and Emperor. From the first, Henry VIII. 
 made it clear that he, as head of the State, meant to be head 
 of the national Church as well. In that age, when the 
 New Monarchy had attained its zenith — when the kingship 
 as the chief organ of the central government had absorbed 
 all political power and dictated its decrees to Privy Council 
 and Parliament alike — this supremacy of the king over the 
 Church meant the subjection of the latter to the State. 
 
 It was indeed no part of Henry's policy consciously to 
 subordinate the ecclesiastical organization to the Parliament, 
 since it suited him better to keep the two apart and play 
 off the one against the other. Still, in making himself 
 (already the acknowledged head of both legislative and execu- 
 tive branches of the civil government) head of the Church 
 as well, he opened the way for the entire subjection of the 
 ecclesiastical to the civil authority. In taking even the 
 formal consent of Parliament to his Church reforms, he made a 
 further stride in the same direction. Thereafter the principle 
 of the sovereignty of Parliament over spiritual as well as 
 temporal concerns made steady progress, although as late as 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH 395 
 
 the reigns of the first two Stuarts, we find attempts to deny 
 the right of the Commons to meddle with Church affairs. 
 The change was a gradual one. Tor example, the process by 
 which Parliament obtained the acknowledged right to tax the 
 clergy without the consent of ConYocation, and which forms 
 one of the most curious chapters of our constitutional history, 
 was only brought to a close in 1664, by the arrange- 
 ment made between Lord Chancellor Clarendon and Archbishop 
 Sheldon. 
 
 The Church of England is now, like the Church of Scotland, 
 an integral part of the British Constitution. All its affairs 
 are subject — ^just as the affairs of the individual, the family, 
 or the Trades Union are subject — to the legal sovereignty 
 of Parliament. In a word, the ecclesiastical, is bound to 
 obey the civil, government : the Church must bow to the 
 State. 
 
 The Established Churches of England and Scotland are by 
 no means the only ecclesiastical bodies within Great Britain. 
 The State extends its protection to and claims obedience from 
 two Established Churches, one Church which has been dis- 
 established by Act of Parliament, various bodies of seeeders 
 from each of these, and numerous congregations originally 
 formed on a purely contractual basis. All of these, whether 
 " free " or established, are subject to the sovereignty of the 
 State and its various laws and organs of control, the only 
 differences being that, while the members of the established 
 churches voluntarily associate themselves with an institution 
 which owns a special tie to the State, and whose relations 
 with that State are defined by a code of special customs 
 and laws, the members of the other churches refuse to 
 recognize such special ties, and leave the relations between 
 their church and the State to be determined by the ordinary 
 common and statute law of the land. Both classes of churches 
 are subject to the dominion of the State in both temporal 
 and spiritual matters. 
 
 This is a simple statement of the law as it stands — the 
 only interpretation consistent with the "reign of law" or the 
 "supremacy of Parliament," the two central principles of the 
 Constitution. The only point open for discussion is whether 
 
396 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 such a condition of the law is right. Many distinguished 
 churchmen of all denominations are prepared vehemently to 
 argue on behalf of the claims of the Church to an equality with, 
 or even to a supremacy over, " the State." A common misuse 
 of words adds an unnecessary element of confusion to the 
 discussion, and gives some colour to the pretensions of 
 churchmen. The phrase " Church and State " brings with it 
 a legacy of latent error in the associations borrowed from 
 various periods of history. By taking for granted a necessary 
 distinction, if not opposition, between the two, the expression 
 seems, by a petitio principii, to assume the very point at 
 issue, viz. that State and Church are mutually exclusive. The 
 same phrase with the implied meaning contained in it has 
 been in part to blame for the common solecism by which 
 State is reduced to a mere synonym for Government. The 
 real opposition is that between the civil and ecclesiastical 
 governments. 
 
 The question, then, is not whether State or Church is 
 supreme, but whether the civil or the ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment ought to rule the other, or whether some compromise 
 ought not rather to be made between them. When there 
 is only one church and only one ecclesiastical organization, 
 there is no immediate absurdity involved in the opinion that 
 the chief legal authority should be given to some organ of 
 the Church — say to Convocation — instead of to either King 
 or Parliament ; but when there are hundreds of churches 
 in any country, the absurdity is apparent of proposing that 
 the authority of the representatives of one sect should over- 
 ride the civU authority of the nation. 
 
 Churchmen support their claims partly by denying the 
 statement of the law as expounded by lawyers, and partly 
 by admitting it, while denying its justice. These two lines of 
 argument are usually blended together in the hope that though 
 neither stands by itself, they may shore up each other. 
 
 The answer to such a claim is simple enough. Each man 
 is free to try to alter the present law and constitution, and 
 to make the spiritual power supreme over the temporal if 
 he choose. But until this is done the government of the 
 day can claim to be both a temporal and a spiritual power, 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH 397 
 
 since it is vested with the supreme legal power in all things 
 by the voice of the sovereign people. 
 
 The civil government, then, is the authorized agent of the 
 community in all matters, spiritual as well as temporal. It 
 possesses this double supremacy under mandate of the law. 
 Here the churchman steps in with a new argument. The 
 Church, he says, has its own law. Its canon law is founded 
 on the law of God, and has superior sanctity and authority 
 to either common law or statute law. This canon law rules 
 within the Church as the civil law rules without. Neither 
 can override the other; or if there is any inferiority in the 
 case, it attaches to the secular law. This new argument 
 — which is indeed just the old one in a new dress — ^is equally 
 untenable. It is historically false, logically unsound. The 
 course of English Constitutional History is a record of the 
 triumph of the common law over all other codes, including 
 the forest law of the Normans, the feudal law, the Canon law, 
 all systems of special administrative law or martial law, and 
 what may be conveniently called prerogative law. Various 
 claims have been put forward at different epochs of English 
 history for the independence of special courts claiming exemp- 
 tion from the principles, rules of evidence, and procedure of 
 the common law. Thus the courts of the feudal barons, in 
 early times, and the Court of the Star Chamber dispensing 
 "prerogative law" as late as the seventeenth century, have 
 claimed such exemption, while from the time of Thomas k 
 Becket and his opposition to the Constitutions of Clarendon to 
 that of Laud with his High Commission Court, the tribunals of 
 the Church have struggled to dispense a special ecclesiastical 
 law under various names and pleas. All these pretensions 
 have long been reduced to mere empty theories. All tribunals, 
 whe^er church courts, courts-martial, or local courts, must 
 now humbly accept the ordinary law of the land and ac- 
 quiesce in its definition of the extent of their jurisdiction and 
 the limits of their power. 
 
 The law, indeed, allows that all exclusively church matters 
 shall be decided by church authorities, exactly as it allows 
 all the affairs of a limited liability company to be managed by 
 its directors; but in both cases there are three important 
 
398 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 provisos : (1) That the civil power has the right to determine 
 the province of the Church as of the company ; (2) that even 
 within the province thus limited and defined, the law of the 
 land must not be infringed; and (3) that the legislative 
 branch of the civil government has the sole right to alter the 
 existing law as it thinks good. 
 
 All religious societies are not, however, in exactly the same 
 position to the civil government. The relations of the Church 
 of England to the State are of a specially intimate nature. 
 Within the central government itself, representatives of this 
 Church have a place assigned to them by law. The Arch- 
 bishops and Bishops have seats in the House of Lords. The 
 ecclesiastical organization of the Anglican Church has been 
 built into the fabric of the State. This connection has two 
 consequences. While on the one hand it gives this church 
 a special constitutional means of influencing the policy and 
 civil laws of the State by bestowing upon it a direct share 
 in the legal sovereignty of Parliament ; on the other hand, 
 by the closeness of the tie and the clear enunciation of the 
 fact that the Church is merely a part of the civil constitution, 
 the temporal authorities are afforded a ready means of 
 enforcing their will more effectually upon the spiritual. 
 Churchmen can no longer proclaim an absolute dualism, while 
 by their own constitution they are admittedly a mere part 
 of the larger whole with which they would claim equality. 
 
 Before attempting to formulate the ideal relationship 
 between Church and State in a perfect society, it is well 
 to ascertain from history the various forms it has actually 
 assumed in practice. It is not enough to decide categorically 
 for either the establishment or the voluntary principle, since 
 each of these contains several distinct species differing from 
 one another in degree and perhaps in kind. , 
 
 At least five solutions of the problem are compatible with 
 an adherence to the principle of establishment, though some of 
 these are of purely speculative interest. 
 
 (1) The State may establish one Church with or without 
 endowments, insist on absolute uniformity of discipline and 
 creed within it, and compel every citizen to become a 
 member. This was the position assumed by the Tudor kings. 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH 399 
 
 The system was completed and firmly secured on an orderly 
 and enduring basis by Queen Elizabeth. While the Act of 
 Supremacy made her head of the Church, the Act of Uniform- 
 ity was intended to crush out all diversities and differences 
 within it, and at the same time to render it impossible 
 that either Catholic 6r Puritan should remain without. The 
 spiritual affairs of all England were to be managed by one 
 organization, on an absolutely uniform plan to be regulated 
 by the church dignitaries and the Queen. 
 
 (2) It is possible, however, while maintaining and en- 
 dowing a national Church, to which all citizens are welcome 
 and in which they have a right to find a place, to allow 
 those who object to the form of worship there insisted on, to 
 stay outside unmolested and in safety from any consequent 
 diminution of their civil and political rights. This is very 
 much the attitude of the present constitutional law of England. 
 
 (3) A third course is to compel membership of the one 
 church which the law recognizes, but to allow within it a 
 wide divergence of doctrine and of service, and even of 
 " local " church government, in so far as that is compatible 
 with the central management of the whole as really one 
 united organization. 
 
 (4) Again, both of these concessions may be made together. 
 While the principle of an establishment is still maintained 
 by the State, a wide latitude may be allowed within it, 
 and also full liberty to stay without. 
 
 (5) It is quite possible, however, for a State to support 
 and specially recognize more than one church. In Great 
 Britain, the episcopalian form of ecclesiastical government 
 is established throughout one part of the island, and the 
 presbyterian in the other. This is historically explained by 
 the fact that Great Britain arose from the union of two 
 States, each of which had its own national form of religion 
 before the amalgamation, and refused to give it up. An 
 example of a more curious nature is to be found in Switzer- 
 land, where the law establishes all religions alike. 
 
 Wherever there are two or more State churches, two courses 
 are open, (a) The one is to establish a number of churches 
 to one of which every citizen must belong, and to tolerate 
 
400 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 no religious institution which is not so established. (6) The 
 other is to establish all churches that desire it, and to 
 allow voluntary associations as well. 
 
 All these systems have one principle in common — the 
 national recognition of religion — an acknowledged bond 
 between the State and a church or cHurches of some sort. 
 It is this principle which those who call themselves Libera- 
 tionists attack, and they allude to the abolition of this bond 
 when they talk of the Church being " free." Freedom in 
 practical church politics means little more than disestablish- 
 ment and disendowment. Many members of the voluntary 
 or dissenting communions are not satisfied, then, with liberty 
 to stay without the pale of the national church; they desire 
 to inflict compulsory freedom on all. 
 
 It must not be thought for one moment that all difficulties 
 are triumphed over by a simple declaration that the Church 
 is free, and by a dissolution of all official ties that nominally 
 connect it with the State. Although all religious associa- 
 tions were placed to-morrow upon a voluntary basis, the civil 
 government must still take up some position towards them, 
 and has indeed duties to perform in respect of them from 
 which it can never shake itself clear. 
 
 Three distinct positions are consistent with a purely 
 voluntary basis. 
 
 (1) There is no obvious absurdity in maintaining that the 
 Church needs no organization at all, but that every religious 
 individual, while placing his temporal interests under protection 
 of the State, should act as sole keeper of his own conscience. 
 The civil polity would thus be the only form of organization of 
 which he stood in need. Each man could, when he chose, 
 make his religious convictions the ruling motive in his 
 political actions, and so bring his influence to bear on the 
 policy of the nation, through the exercise of his ordinary 
 political rights and duties as a citizen, to wit, through 
 his franchise and rights of free discussion. Under this 
 theory, each man would be his own church, and would 
 minister to the necessities of his own soul as he thought fit. 
 Such a view would be only carrying to an extreme the right 
 of private judgment which led Luther and his fellow-reformers 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH 401 
 
 to throw off the yoke of Eome when the needs of their own 
 consciences required it. If all the individuals in a country 
 came to think like this, there would still be religion, but 
 no longer any visible church. In its regulation of spiritual 
 affairs (if it decided on any intervention at all) the State 
 would come face to ' face with the individual. No church 
 or ecclesiastical organization would stand between. There 
 would thus cease to be any relations between Church and 
 State, because the former would cease to exist. The only 
 problem to be solved would be that of the right attitude of 
 the State towards the religious life and actions of each 
 individual citizen. 
 
 (2) Those who think alike on the great mysteries of life 
 and death and immortality will naturally draw together to 
 help one another with sympathy, advice, and encouragement, 
 and so add intensity to their common convictions and 
 aspirations. To prevent such association is impossible, and 
 the laws of all fully civilized States recognize it as a right. 
 There seems no good reason why men should not be allowed 
 to band themselves together for religious purposes as well as 
 for those of pleasure, social intercourse, or commerce, as long 
 as they break no law and injure no one. This, then, is the 
 second of the relations possible between State and Ckurch 
 upon a voluntary basis — that religious associations, whether 
 called churches or by any other name, should be treated by 
 the law just like any other society or institution within 
 the State; and that men should be allowed to organize them- 
 selves into just as many or as few churches as may suit them 
 — each one owning no connection with the others except 
 such as is determined by contract, mutually and freely 
 entered into. Since association for religious purposes has a 
 noble aim, churches would naturally be more dignified in their 
 nature than, say, trades unions ; but of this fact the State could 
 take' no official notice without in some sense "establishing" 
 those of which it took such notice. The respective govern- 
 ments of rival churches would be not unlike the boards of 
 directors of limited companies. They would neither have, nor 
 profess to have, any special place as such in the constitution 
 of the State, nor to have any special right to interfere with 
 
 2c 
 
402 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the civil government. When an individual member came to 
 differ from the doctrine, or to object to the discipline of one 
 church, he would be free to join another. 
 
 The attitude of the civil government to these associations 
 could never, of course, be a purely negative one, for that is 
 impossible. The executive officials would prohibit them from 
 performing illegal acts, and would, on the other hand, protect 
 them from unlawful interference. The legislature would define, 
 when necessary, not only the rights of each church with refer- 
 ence to outsiders, but also the rights of its members when 
 the original contract was silent, or when lapse of time or 
 other causes had rendered a readjustment necessary. Lastly, 
 the ordinary law courts would have to decide how far such 
 associations and their contracts were legal, to settle the 
 meaning of their terms where ambiguous, and to arbitrate 
 between the disputed rights of individual members, in the 
 event of dissensions arising or a disruption taking place. 
 Generally, the State would require to determine how far 
 the sphere of each church extended, and the limits of the 
 jurisdiction of its courts. 
 
 (3) Liberationists, however, while calling for " disestablish- 
 ment," may not rest content that churches, or, at any rate, 
 the particular one with which they are connected, should have 
 no more share in the legal sovereignty than any other volun- 
 tary association. The Church may claim not only independence 
 but a direct right of interference in the government of the 
 State — a special share of influence in its corporate character, 
 in addition to that exercised by its individual members, acting 
 either of their own free will or under its direction as political 
 agents. This is at bottom a claim to participate in the work 
 of the civil government, but it is usually disguised under the 
 form of a request for a voice in spiritual affairs, coupled with 
 the assertion that " the Church " must have at least equal 
 weight in defining the limits of this spiritual sphere. When 
 a dispute arises between civil and ecclesiastical authorities 
 as to their mutual boundary lines, some third principle or 
 authority must be called in as umpire between them, if neither 
 owns the sovereignty of the other. The search for such a 
 principle is objectless to those who are convinced of the error 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH 403 
 
 on which the distinction is based ; but a short discussion of 
 the solutions proposed may help to put that error in a clearer 
 light. 
 
 It is necessary to remove an ambiguity lurking in the 
 phrase "the Church." The member of any communion is apt 
 to use the expression in a vague way to cover both the 
 Church Universal and his own particular congregation. 
 Thus a member of the Methodist Church or of the Free 
 Church of Scotland pleads eloquently, on behaK of the 
 true Church of God, for independence from all secular powers 
 in the performance of the duties owed to its Divine Head. 
 When he has established to his satisfaction these claims of 
 the Church Universal, he identifies the latter with his own 
 body. Now the immunities and rights thus demanded may be 
 also claimed on behalf of the Mohammedans or the Positivists 
 or the Buddhists. To favour Christianity more than Unitari- 
 anism is to decide between rival systems of theology. If the 
 State were willing to afford special rights to " the Church," it 
 would still be confronted with the difficulty of finding which 
 of the many denominations could claim that title. If it must 
 wait till all are joined together into one organization, like a 
 federal republic of spiritual allies, it will wait long enough. 
 If only a select few are to be admitted to a right to share in 
 the Universal Church, who is to make the choice ? To make 
 any special compact with one or more churches to the 
 exclusion of the others is simply to revert to the principle 
 of an establishment in a more or less modified form. 
 
 When churchmen then propose that the dualism they 
 have created ought to be bridged over by a series of con- 
 ferences or concordats between the civil and the ecclesiastical 
 authorities, the first difficulty presented to the statesman is 
 to know where to find the latter. As long as the national 
 church remains, the problem is easy; but in the absence of 
 all religious establishments he has no right to decide between 
 the rival claims of church dignitaries and synods. To decide 
 between conflicting sects would make the temporal power a 
 spiritual power as well, nor is the difficulty overcome by 
 appointing spiritual advisers to decide for it, for in their 
 appointment the same judgment is involved. 
 
404 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Until the "Universal Church" obtains the adherence of all 
 the individuals in the nation to one system of ecclesiastical 
 government (if not to one creed), the settlement of disputed 
 boundaries and jurisdictions between Church and State by a 
 solemn conclave between the representatives of the two is 
 simply a dream. 
 
 A definite pronouncement in favour either of the principle 
 of establishment or of that of voluntaryism would be here out 
 of place, but it is idle to think that the State can shake 
 itself free of all responsibility for, and interest in, the religion 
 of its subjects by simply declaring itself in favour of the 
 latter. A purely negative attitude is impossible, and that 
 for many reasons ; two of which may be briefly mentioned, 
 (a) Morality and religion are so interwoven that the legis- 
 lature cannot influence the one without also influencing the 
 other, and it has already been shown that all laws have their 
 foundations in morality. "All government," says Sir James F- 
 Stephen, " has and must have a moral basis, and the connec- 
 tion between morals and religion is so intimate that this 
 implies a religious basis as well."^ 
 
 (6) Education is another link between the civil government 
 and religion, for it is impossible to draw a sharp line between 
 intellectual and spiritual instruction. Modern Liberationists 
 themselves begin to see this difi&culty. The editor of a 
 leading organ of Nonconformist opinion declares that in 
 recent years " our idea of the State, its functions, and its 
 responsibilities, has greatened," and frankly confesses that 
 if we " admit, even in its most elevated form, the idea that 
 the Church is an instrument of culture, be it intellectual or 
 ethical or spiritual culture, the argument against establishment 
 is gone." 2 It would seem, then, that the reasoning of the 
 Liberationist must start from the assumption — ^humiliating 
 as it is to clerical influence — that the Church is not in any 
 sense " an instrument of culture." Dissenters of the old 
 
 ' Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 58. Even in India, he shows (a few 
 pages further on) that legislation unintentionally coerces native religions 
 by proceeding on the assumption that they are all false. 
 
 2 Mr. Eobertson Nicoll in a lecture on " The Church and the Press," 
 read at the Free Church Congress, Nottingham, 10th March, 1896. 
 
THE STATE AND THE CHURCH 405 
 
 school held that the State had no right to meddle with 
 education, and therefore none to control the Church. Those 
 of the new school draw the same conclusion from the premiss, 
 that the State Aas a right to meddle with education. The 
 latter assume the absence of all direct relations between 
 Church and education ; the former, their necessary connection. 
 "To arrive at the conclusion," says Edward Miall,^ "that it 
 is the duty of the government to feed and clothe all the 
 people of the realm, would be just about as logical as to draw 
 the same inference with regard to education. Who made it 
 the duty of the government to interfere with the direction of 
 mind ? Whenever the rulers of a people get hold of the 
 minds of the people, they frame them to patient submission, 
 to oppression, and to sympathy with every slavish doctrine." 
 Thus the Dissenters in 1847 opposed the regulation of 
 education by the State for much the same reasons as led 
 them to oppose the regulation of religion by the State. They 
 now acquiesce in the establishment of education, while holding 
 " with increasing clearness the necessity for the termination 
 of all ecclesiastical establishments." To reconcile the two 
 axioms, the Church has, it would seem, to renounce all claims 
 to act as a medium of instruction. 
 
 1 Quoted by Mr. Robertson NicoU. 
 
CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 CUSTOM, CONTRACT, AND LEGISLATION. 
 
 The world's progress is many-sided, and its secret cannot be 
 squeezed into an epigram. Sir Henry Maine assuredly did 
 not intend to circumscribe the mystery of the universe within 
 his well-known formula of the movement of progressive 
 societies " from Status to Contract." ^ All such statements, 
 however brilliantly expressed, are only half truths, and 
 become dangerous if taken for the whole truth. Sir Henry 
 Maine never meant that absolute freedom of contract was 
 the only goal of progress, and the embodiment of every 
 noble and desirable achievement of civilization. The 
 extreme adherents of the doctrine of laissez /aire are un- 
 fortunately less moderate, and are apt to insinuate into the 
 formula a meaning that its author would have been the first 
 to repudiate. Without undervaluing the boon of freedom of 
 contract to a progressive community, there seems little doubt 
 that it requires a supplement ; for unlimited competition is 
 anarchy. It is true that where custom and status imprison 
 individuals within the walls of tradition, substantial advance 
 
 ^Sir H. S. Maine, Ancient Law (tenth edition), p. 170. "All the 
 forms of Status taken notice of in the Law of Persons were derived 
 from, and to some extent are still coloured by the powers and privileges 
 anciently residing in the family. If then we employ Status, agreeably 
 with the usage of the best writers, to signify these personal conditions 
 only, and avoid applying the term to such conditions as are the 
 immediate or remote results of agreement, we may say that the move- 
 ment of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from 
 Status to Contract." 
 
CUSTOM, CONTRACT, AND LEGISLATION 407 
 
 is impossible : freedom of contract is needed to open a door 
 of escape. Progress cannot proceed far, however, before a 
 new principle is needed to limit the licence of contract, and 
 this is found in legislation enforced by the State. The will 
 of the community must supplement the wills of contracting 
 individuals. Thus to enunciate the law of progress as a 
 movement " from status to contract " is to stop half-way. 
 The formula should indicate three stages — custom, contract, 
 legislation. Societies, then, which are destined to make any 
 material progress in civilization, move from custom or status 
 to contract, and from contract to legislation. Several explan- 
 ations are needed to prevent misconception. Legislation, in 
 supplementing contract, does not by any means supersede it, 
 any more than the toleration of free contract deprives the 
 individual of status. On the contrary, a fuller and more 
 flexible legal status is founded upon contract. Where castes 
 have been broken up, and the hard and fast divisions between 
 classes inherent in feudalism have given way before the 
 development of trade, and the .liberal ideas that come in its 
 train, then each man is free to regulate his status through 
 the bargains he is able to make with others. The day 
 labourer can, by his savings and judicious or lucky invest- 
 ments, become an employer, amass a fortune, purchase 
 land, and become a county magnate if not a peer of the 
 realm. Status acquired by contract is substituted for status 
 conferred by birth. In a somewhat similar way, legislation 
 in correcting the self-seeking tendency of a regime of 
 laissez faire must leave room for the free play of contract. 
 Parliament may limit agreements and define what provisions 
 are legal without instituting a system of regimentation or 
 socialistic State-management. Immoral agreements may be 
 suppressed and fraudulent ones set aside without abolishing 
 freedom of contract or forcing upon progressive societies a 
 retrograde movement towards status, as defined by Sir Henry 
 Maine. 
 
 The third stage of progress represented by the word 
 " legislation," has features of its own, it is true, but it embodies 
 those of each of the earlier stages in addition. The modern 
 legislative spirit, with its unceasing activity, and its minute 
 
408 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 and inquisitorial penetration into every aspect of the national 
 life, is essentially of recent growth. Parliament in the Middle 
 Ages has been described as a drag on the royal will in the 
 making of laws. The earliest statutes were tentative, temporary, 
 and timid. Only during the last century have our statute 
 books swelled out to enormous dimensions with laws bearing 
 on every circumstance, relation, and pursuit of the people. 
 Legislation, as it is understood in nations like England of 
 to-day, is clearly a modern institution. Yet the germs of 
 the principle it embodies were contained in the rudest be- 
 ginnings of the State. Even when the reign of laissez faire 
 was most undisputed, traces of legislative control were not 
 wanting, while during the period of status, neither contract 
 nor conscious law-making was altogether absent. The earliest 
 laws were declaratory of status or custom. When they 
 ventured openly beyond such mere registration of existing 
 practice, they tended to assume a contractual form. Magna 
 Carta itself is a bilateral agreement between King John and 
 his Barons. Eeal legislation, in its modern acceptation, 
 develops only at a comparatively late stage in a nation's 
 history. It is not a mere arbitrary arrangement between two 
 or more beings endowed with reason and able to consent, 
 but a deliberate enunciation of a principle binding on all, 
 by the legal organ of the sovereignty expressing the rational 
 will of the whole community. Only in legislation does the 
 rational nature of men, as associated in the State, reach its 
 highest development and most conscious expression. 
 
 If this view is correct, the doctrine often advanced by 
 Individualists, that the supreme and only duty of govern- 
 ment is to enforce contracts and so leave its subjects free 
 to regulate their lives for themselves, is utterly inadequate. 
 Contract is only a stage and not the goal of progress, one 
 factor and not the sum of civilization. 
 
 The general argument against unlimited laissez faire ^ has 
 
 ^ Laissez faire has been defined by Prof. Sidgwick {Elements of Polities, 
 p. 137) as " letting people manage their own affairs in their own way, so 
 long as they do not cause mischief to others without the consent of those 
 others." Mr. Baden Powell {State Aid and State Interference, p. 29) 
 would reduce the functions of government even beneath what this meagre 
 
CUSTOM, CONTRACT, AND LEGISLATION 409 
 
 been already sufficiently insisted on. The principle of contract 
 carried to excess defeats its own end, which is presumably 
 the freedom of individuals and their right to adjust them- 
 selves in their own way to the conditions of life that suit 
 them best. Unrestrained competition, beginning in freedom, 
 ends in monopoly, involving the worst slavery of all — the 
 bondage of men to things, the subjection of persons to 
 property. Thus a purely industrial society, founded on free 
 contract, leads to materialism through excessive accumulations 
 of wealth in the hands of individuals and the combinations 
 of capitalists into "rings" and "trusts." Men are degraded 
 to the mere instruments of production-^are made means to 
 the acquisition of wealth instead of ends in themselves.^ 
 Where two or three great firms combine their energies and 
 capital, they can usually drive weaker competitors to the 
 wall ; and the reign of unrestrained competition brings 
 about its own overthrow by the growth of monopolies that 
 render all competition impossible. A new stage of status 
 is reached which contract is powerless to break. Legis- 
 lation, however, can succeed where the agreements of private 
 individuals fail. The world fortunately is not doomed to 
 stay where contract would leave it. 
 
 The terrible pictures drawn by Socialists of the state 
 of England under a regime of freedom of contract cannot 
 be controverted by impartially minded men, though some 
 remedies proposed may be considered worse than the disease. 
 Mr. Sidney Webb^ has graphically described the "white 
 slavery " that prevailed prior to the passing of the Factory 
 Acts. " Women working half-naked in the coal mines ; young 
 children dragging trucks all day in the foul atmosphere of 
 the underground galleries ; infants bound to the loom for 
 fifteen hours in the heated air of the cotton mill, and kept 
 awake only by the overlooker's lash : hours of labour for all, 
 young and old, limited only by the utmost capabilities of 
 
 formula would allow : " State aid should be utilized for the sole purpose 
 of disestablishing State interference." 
 
 ^Cf. Mackenzie, Social Philosophy/, pp. 90 to 114; William Cunning- 
 ham, Politics and Economics, p. 121 ; Professor H. Sidgwick, Elements 
 of Politics, p. 142. ^FaMan Essays, p. 41. 
 
410 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL • 
 
 physical endurance; complete absence of the sanitary pro- 
 visions necessary to a rapidly growing population : these and 
 other nameless iniquities will be found recorded as the results 
 of freedom of contract and complete laissez /aire in the 
 impartial pages of successive blue-book reports." 
 
 It is more pleasant to turn from the recital of such 
 horrors to the possibility of finding a remedy. Is the only 
 cure that to which Mr. Webb would point us, namely. 
 Socialism, as his friends of the Fabian Society define it, 
 or the State-ownership of all these mines and mills ? 
 Surely not; for a more simple remedy has already been 
 found where (under our law of the three stages of progress) 
 we are prepared to seek it — in legislation. The Factory 
 Acts and kindred statutes have removed at least those evils 
 above enumerated, and are daily removing more ; though a 
 terrestrial paradise has by no means been yet realized. Parlia- 
 ment has interfered ; but not by confiscating the property of 
 its subjects, and undertaking by its officers to perform their 
 functions and accept their responsibilities. On the contrary, 
 it has refused to meddle directly by its officials except where 
 absolutely necessary; and has simply by legislative enactment 
 brought home to the owners of factories and mines the respon- 
 sibilities they had so long neglected with impunity. The 
 sacred principle of freedom of contract had been abused, and 
 was therefore subjected to control. The solution was found 
 in one word — legislation. Parliament enforced obligations and 
 imposed penalties without abolishing property. The State in 
 adopting this line of policy was assuming to itself no untried 
 or dangerous powers. It was only extending to contractual 
 relations its sovereign right of control to which all other 
 relations and all institutions had always been subject. Its 
 right to regulate contracts had indeed never been seriously 
 questioned, even when the doctrine of laissez faire was at 
 the height of its popularity. The principle of contract was 
 never considered absolute against the intervention of the 
 government. To begin with, it is the State that enforces 
 contracts. It does this by allowing any party to an agreement 
 to bring an action against the other party either for specific 
 performance or for damages as the case may be. The law 
 
CUSTOM, CONTRACT, AND LEGISLATION 411 
 
 courts are thus afforded an opportunity of reviewing the 
 terms and circumstances of all agreements before they enforce 
 them. Now, certain contracts have always been considered 
 illegal; and by refusing to recognize these as binding, the 
 State has at all times possessed the machinery for a specially 
 thorough control over the principle of free contract whenever 
 it might be required. Two classes of agreements have always 
 been either void or voidable at common law: (1) those to which 
 a full and free consent had not been given ; and (2) those 
 which were immoral or opposed to public policy. Legal 
 consent implies a persona capable of consenting, that is to 
 say, a man or woman of full age and not incapacitated by 
 reason of imbecility or lunacy ; and it implies also the absence 
 of fraud, force, and fear of violence, and that there is no error 
 in essentials. Among contracts, on the other hand, that 
 are ineffectual because contra honos mores, may be instanced 
 those acting as incentives to crime, conferring bribes, or out- 
 raging the public sense of decency. 
 
 By developing either of these principles far enough, we 
 might make considerable progress towards a thorough-going 
 system of State control, if not actually towards Socialism. 
 Thus, for example, a contract made between an employer 
 and a starving man, binding the latter, in consideration 
 of immediate relief, to serve the former for a term of years 
 in return for the bare necessities of life, might be set aside 
 either on the ground that a starving man is not free to consent, 
 or that it is immoral for an employer to take advantage of 
 such a misfortune. Eecent legislation has — unconsciously to 
 a great extent, it is true — adopted both principles. In pro- 
 hibiting tenants from " contracting out " of the provisions 
 made in their favour by the Ground Game Act, for example. 
 Parliament must justify itself either on the plea that the 
 tenant is not free to withhold his consent, or on the principle 
 that such contracting out is immoral or opposed to public policy. 
 
 The Factory Acts can be vindicated more easily on the 
 ground that they only enforce the equitable rights of the 
 employees against their master. Thus the entire mass of 
 recent statutes that have totally upset the reign of laissezfaire 
 can be justified as the extension of existing principles, well 
 
412 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 understood and widely enforced already. The era of legisla- 
 tion, then, is not sharply defined and marked off from that 
 of contract. The two merge into each other almost imper- 
 ceptibly, as do those of contract and status. In each of 
 the three stages, obligations are enforced on the individual. 
 In the first one, these arise out of the status into which 
 each man is born. Penalties are inflicted on him for 
 breaking through the established order. In the second 
 or laissez fain era, each individual is supposed to create 
 his own obligations. "In adopting freedom of contract," says 
 Lord Farrer, "as the general principle governing mercantile 
 dealings, what has been done is not to abolish obligation, 
 but to substitute for an obligation devised by custom or law, 
 an obligation self-imposed by the individual, and this obliga- 
 tion the State, not without many additions and limitations, 
 undertakes to enforce."^ It must not be forgotten, however, 
 that in this second stage many obligations still exist based 
 upon status ; while it is even more important to note that in 
 the third stage — that of legislation — obligations and penalties 
 are directly imposed by the State itself as supplementary 
 to, not in place of, those arising from custom and contract. 
 To some extent this third principle of obligation imposed by 
 Parliament seems to restore the regime of status, but there 
 is really a wide difPerence ; for a place is now preserved for 
 the operation of all legitimate voluntary arrangements. Free 
 contract breaks up the old synthesis of society, and legislation 
 (civil and penal) must build a new one. The day when free 
 contract was accepted as the whole duty of government has 
 already passed away. All political parties combine to disclaim 
 it. Mr. Thorold Eogers, for example, in the debate on the Irish 
 Land Bill of 1881,^ summarily dismissed this whole gospel 
 of industrialism according to Bright and Cobden in a few 
 contemptuous words, remarking that " much had been said 
 about that three-legged horse, freedom of contract ; but if they 
 allowed persons to do just as they pleased in their relations 
 with their fellow-subjects, the result would be universal 
 
 ^ The State in Relation to Trade, p. 14. 
 
 ^3 Hansard, cclx., 1135 (cited by Wm. Cunningham, Politics and 
 Economics, p. 255). 
 
CUSTOM, CONTRACT, AND LEGISLATION 413 
 
 swindling in the whole of society." Similar views are em- 
 phatically expressed on every side. We have already passed 
 into the new era where conscious legislation of the whole 
 State displaces the rule of private contract as well as that 
 of unconscious custom. It is sometimes maintained that this 
 is really the advent of Socialism. All legislation is sometimes 
 said to be socialistic in principle. It is in this sense that 
 we must explain the phrase of Sir William Harcourt so often 
 quoted, " We are all Socialists now." All such phrases when 
 seriously used, however, conceal a dangerous fallacy.^ Legis- 
 lation and Socialism are alike in one thing. Neither is 
 consistent with the untrammelled license of a policy of laissez 
 /aire. The former, however, is able to remedy the evils of 
 free competition without resorting to the methods of the 
 latter. It is possible to subdue the anarchy produced by 
 competition and free contracts by a system of indirect govern- 
 ment control and the enforcement of individual responsibility, 
 without absorbing all private property in the State. Socialism, 
 properly understood, involves State-ownership ; and when the 
 same name is applied to the rigid enforcement of the duties 
 of private ownership upon individual proprietors, a gratuitous 
 element of confusion is deliberately introduced into the dis- 
 cussion. To punish a man for leaving a pit-head unenclosed, 
 or for keeping unmuzzled a dog that is known to bite, is 
 essentially a different policy from a scheme under which all 
 mines and all dogs would be owned by the State. 
 
 Progress, then, cannot stop at untrammelled free contract. 
 The new line of advance, however, is not that proposed by 
 Socialists with their nationalisation of land and the instru- 
 ments of production. Legislative definition of obligations and 
 crimes, and the enforcement of damages and penalties for their 
 infringement, afford all the supplement that is wanted. It 
 would be absurd to claim that the whole law of progress is 
 imprisoned in the phrase, " custom, contract, legislation," but 
 it indicates, at all events, one necessary extension of the 
 inadequate formula that progress is a movement exclusively 
 "from status to contract." 
 
 ^ This fallacy underlies much of the reasoning of the first four Fabian 
 Essays, viz. : — those on the Baxis of Socialism. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THREE METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION. 
 
 A COMPLETE scheme of laissez /aire is unattainable. The 
 closer we approximate to its only consistent ideal of un- 
 bridled competition and the survival of the fittest, the 
 nearer we approach to anarchy. " Administrative Nihilism " 
 is a dangerous motto ; and indeed Individualists, however 
 vehemently they declare their theoretical adherence to that 
 formula, always qualify it in practice by the introduction 
 of numerous exceptions, or by the surreptitious expansion of 
 their superstructure in a way quite inconsistent with the 
 narrow basis they profess to build upon. ^ Laissez faire 
 and freedom of contract must be supplemented by legislation 
 and State control, and the only questions open are those as to 
 the extent of interference allowable, and the least objectionable 
 methods of its application. 
 
 The Fabian Society and kindred associations welcome 
 government intervention, and claim as their own each triumph 
 won over unlimited competition; while Mr. Spencer and his 
 followers are too ready to acquiesce in these claims of Socialism 
 to an already half-achieved success. It is possible, however, 
 to escape the anarchy of Individualism without resorting in 
 any degree whatever to the drastic methods of Collectivism ; 
 
 ' Professor Sidgwick, for example, starting from the stand-point of 
 Utilitarian Individualism and the "individualistic minimum" of State 
 control involved, proceeds to supplement his results by admitting ex- 
 ceptional legislation with both " paternal " and socialistic tendencies. 
 Elements of Politics, chapters iv., ix., Snd x. 
 
METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION 415 
 
 for as one of the leading Fabians — for the moment off his 
 guard — declares "it must not be forgotten that although 
 Socialism involves State control, State control does not imply 
 Socialism — at least in any modern meaning of the term."^ 
 The only cure for the evils of free contract is State inter- 
 vention, but not necessarily Socialism ; and State intervention 
 may be either good or bad, according to its form and methods. 
 
 It has three phases which must be carefully distinguished 
 from one another. I. State-ownership, or Socialism strictly 
 so-called. II. Government administration, or regimentation. 
 III. Legislative control. 
 
 It is quite possible that these three phases may be con- 
 currently in force in one country, each in that sphere for which 
 it is specially fitted. Further, each of them admits of several 
 degrees and infinite variety in the methods of its application. 
 Thus, for instance, while thorough-going Socialism would 
 municipalize or nationalize all forms of property, Mr. Henry 
 George would be content that the State should annex all 
 land. This would be, strictly speaking, Socialism, though only 
 a limited Socialism, since all movable or personal property 
 would be still left to private ownership. While there is 
 no a priori objection to any one of these three forms of 
 State control in its proper place and subject to prudent con- 
 ditions, the main object of this chapter is to show that (a) 
 an excess of State control in any form is objectionable and 
 dangerous ; and (6) where two methods of its application are 
 equally effective, the third is to be preferred, caeteris paribus, 
 to the second, and the second to the first. 
 
 To prove these hypotheses, it is necessary to examine 
 briefly each of these three methods of State intervention with 
 its underlying ideas. 
 
 I. At first sight the surest remedy for the evils of the 
 irresponsible private use of property, is to abolish it alto- 
 gether; to allow the State to absorb all objects capable of 
 appropriation; and to manage them directly by its of&cials 
 or by government employees working under their commands. 
 National or municipal ownership is the one point on which 
 all Socialists are agreed. 
 
 'Hubert Eland, Fabian Essay g, p. 212. 
 
416 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 "What the achievement of Socialism involves economically," 
 says Mr. J. Bernard Shaw,^ "is the transfer of rent from the 
 class which now appropriates it to the whole people. . . . 
 The socialization of rent would mean the socialization of the 
 sources of production by the expropriation of the present 
 private proprietors, and the transference of the property to 
 the entire nation." "Whatever State control may have meant 
 fifty years ago," says Mr. Hubert Bland,^ "it never meant 
 hostility to private property as such. Now for us, and for 
 as far ahead as we can see, it means that and little else." 
 
 Neglecting the more general bearings of Socialism — already 
 sufficiently discussed — and neglecting also the justice and 
 practicability of appropriating private property without com- 
 pensation, it is proposed here to confine the inquiry to the 
 merits and demerits of State-ownership as one of three com- 
 peting methods of State control. It must not be forgotten 
 that its advocates are not agreed as to what they want. (1) 
 Consistent Socialists demand that all property (real and 
 personal) should be owned by the county or the nation. 
 (2) The land alone is claimed by some for the joint use of 
 the people. (3) " All instruments of production must belong 
 to the State" is the formula of a third sect. (4) Lastly, 
 many politicians of all shades of opinion are declared Socialists 
 to the moderate extent of desiring the State to own all 
 telegraphs, and even all railways, and to work them for the 
 benefit of the community. 
 
 It seems hardly necessary to emphasize the obvious fact 
 (too often, however, ignored by Socialists) of the difference in 
 principle and practice between advocating a State-monopoly 
 of all property on the one hand, and allowing the State to 
 become one proprietor having equal rights with individual 
 proprietors, on the other. It is quite consistent to hold that 
 each large town should own its own tramways, and yet to 
 oppose the abolition of all private property. 
 
 The objections to the institution of private property are 
 
 chiefly two: (a) Without its abolition "equality" is declared 
 
 to be impossible. (6) It is said that it militates against the 
 
 good of the community. The first argument is worthless, 
 
 ^Fabicm Essays, p. 179. ^Ibid., p. 208. 
 
METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION 417 
 
 since equality is in any case unattainable, and because it is 
 doubtful how far it would be a blessing if attained. On 
 the other hand, if the Socialist can only make good his second 
 argument he has won his case. He must remember, however, 
 that " the good " of humanity involves the things of the 
 spirit as well as the things of the body, universals as well 
 as particulars, justice as well as happiness. An unrighteous 
 State cannot thrive, nor can its members. Por those to whom 
 more sordid reasons appeal, it may be urged that wealth is 
 not happiness ; and, further, that the socialization of the in- 
 struments of industry might reduce the total production, thus 
 impoverishing the wealthy without enriching the poor. 
 
 The doctrine here advocated as the true one is the regu- 
 lation, not the annihilation of property — the enforcement of 
 duties, not the invasion of rights. Although all rights of 
 property must bow to the demands of justice and humanity 
 as defined and enforced by the State, still it is here main- 
 tained that the time-honoured institution of private property, 
 when properly controlled and secured from abuse, is, on the 
 whole, conducive and even essential to the well-being and 
 development of every healthy community. 
 
 The arguments for and against State-ownership would fill 
 a fair-sized volume, and cannot be given here. The place 
 played by private property in a general system of philosophy 
 may be profitably studied in the works of German idealists 
 — especially in those of Kant and Hegel.-' Its moral basis 
 cannot be exhaustively considered apart from a complete 
 system of ethics and theology. It may be allowable, how- 
 ever, to quote a few sentences from the late Professor Green, 
 in whose opinion property was necessary for the well-being 
 of a community. "A necessary condition at once of the 
 growth of a free morality, i.e. a certain behaviour of men 
 determined by an understanding of moral relations, and by 
 the value which they set on them as understood, and of the 
 conception of those relations as relations between all men, 
 is that free play should be given to every man's powers of 
 
 ^English readers may consult Dr. Hutchison Stirling's Lectwres on 
 the Philosophy of Law, Prof. Morris' HegeVs Philosophy of the State, and 
 Prof. Hastie's translation of Kant's Philosophy of Law. 
 
 2d 
 
418 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 appropriation."^ The only sense in which property is of value 
 is, according to him, "as a permanent apparatus for carrying out 
 a plan of life, for expressing ideas of what is beautiful, or giving 
 effect, to benevolent wishes." ^ " The rationale of property in 
 short," he goes on, " requires that every one who will conform 
 to the positive condition of possessing it, viz. labour, and the 
 negative condition, viz. respect for it as possessed by others, 
 should, as far as social arrangements can make him so, be a 
 possessor of property himself, and of such property as will 
 at least enable him to develop a sense of responsibility, as 
 distinct from mere property in the immediate necessaries of 
 life."* Now, Socialism, it is hardly necessary to point out, 
 would only leave to subjects these "immediate necessaries 
 of Ufe." 
 
 The practical arguments against joint ownership, on grounds 
 of common-sense and expediency, such as are likely to appeal 
 to the average member of a British constituency, were perhaps 
 never more forcibly or clearly expressed than two thousand 
 years ago by Aristotle,* in his critique of Plato's Jtejovblic. 
 The first five heads of his argument may be cited from Pro- 
 fessor Jowett's summary^ — (1) "When men have distinct 
 interests, they will not be so likely to quarrel ; and (2) they 
 will make more progress, because every one will be attending 
 to his own business; (3) there is a natural pride of owner- 
 ship, and also (4) a pleasure in doing a kindness to others ; 
 these will be destroyed by communism ; (5) the virtues of 
 continence and liberality will no longer exist." Eleven other 
 objections are added, but may be here omitted as they apply 
 more closely to the scheme of Plato than to modern schemes, 
 as, for instance, those of the Fabian Society. An universal (or 
 even a general) system of State-ownership would involve diffi- 
 culties, social, moral, industrial, and political, which are quite 
 absent from the mild exceptional Socialism implied in the Post 
 
 ^T. H. Green, Worh, Vol. n., p. 624. ^Ibid., p. 525. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 526. Contrast Mr. Sydney Oliver {Fabian Essayg, p. 114): 
 "Socialists contend that the system of private property is actively de- 
 structive of the conditions in which alone the common morality necessary 
 for happy social life is possible.'' 
 
 ^Politics, II. 5. ^ Introdiiction, -p. -xxxi. 
 
METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION 419 
 
 Office and Telegraph department of government. Briefly stated, 
 the chief objection to a general scheme of State-ownership is 
 this : that it would force the government to act as a terrestrial 
 providence, requiring omniscience and omnipotence to fulfil its 
 gigantic task ; but omniscience cannot in fairness be expected, 
 while its omnipotence would mean the slavish obedience of the 
 governed. The barest outline of the argument is all that can 
 be given. 
 
 If the State owns all instruments of industry and trade, 
 it follows that the government must regulate all processes 
 of production, and also distribute what is produced. No 
 producer can find employment save what the government 
 appoints. No consumer can possess any product of industry 
 save what the government gives him. Executive officials, as 
 the only employers of labour, must allocate tasks and see 
 them accomplished to their satisfaction. Such despotic power 
 would constitute a political danger of the gravest nature. 
 The government would dictate to each citizen the nature and 
 amount of the work he was bound to do. "In fact, work 
 or starve will be the alternative set before each communal 
 employee" says a prominent modern Socialist.^ "The in- 
 dividual shirker will be warned, and, if he prove incorrigibly 
 idle, discharged from the communal employ."* 
 
 The difficulties of distribution are, however, equally great. 
 AU the necessaries of life, when produced from the national 
 workshops, would be the joint property of the nation. The 
 invidious task of dividing these among the toiling millions 
 would devolve upon the officials appointed by government to 
 perform that office. "Socialism is the common holding of 
 the means of production and exchange, and the, holdmg of 
 them for the equal lenefU of all."^ The impossible task thus 
 presents itself of providing equal benefits for unequal beings.* 
 As every one would starve save for the portion doled out to 
 him by the government, the State becomes primarily respon- 
 
 ^Mrs. Annie Besant, Fabian Essayt, p. 160. 
 " lUd., p. 166. 
 
 'Hubert Bland, Fabian Essays, p. 212. 
 
 *The difficulties of a fair distribution are well shown by Professor 
 Flint, Sociaiism, p. 124. 
 
420 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 sible for the up-keep of all its members, children as well as 
 adults. Here a cruel dilemma meets it. It must either 
 accept responsibility for what it cannot control ; providing 
 without limit for all children, legitimate or illegitimate, and 
 thus abolishing the only • effective check on the reckless 
 increase of population, or else it must devise some scheme 
 for effectually controlling the unlimited extension of its 
 membership. This is the point where the abolition of private 
 property comes into collision with the family and with 
 morality. 
 
 Socialism cannot stop even when it has made the govern- 
 ment the sole owner of aU property, the sole manager of 
 all production, and the sole employer of all labour. The 
 government must go on boldly to undertake all responsibilities, 
 to regulate all the affairs of the nation, to provide for every 
 contingency, and generally to absorb the lives, interests, and 
 endeavours of its citizens, and so to realize, as far as 
 possible, its own ideal of a monotonous and stagnant per- 
 fection. 
 
 WhUe totally rejecting all such schemes, we may without 
 inconsistency cordially approve State-ownership of the pro- 
 perty required for the ef&cient performance of such services 
 as private enterprise has failed to render to the community. 
 The nationalization of all the telephone instruments and wires 
 in Great Britain does not bring us one step nearer a State 
 Socialism properly so-called, any more than has the experiment 
 already tried by several municipal authorities of owning and 
 managing the local tramways. 
 
 II. Milder measures, however, are happily sufficient to effect 
 any required degree of interference with individual actions, 
 rights, and liberties. Government administration or regimen- 
 tation may be resorted to without any State-ownership. 
 Nationalization of property involves, of course, the most rigid 
 and systematic form of regimentation, but the converse does 
 not hold. The State may leave to every one full proprietary 
 rights over the fruits of his own labour or other possessions, and 
 yet control the use he makes of them by means of overseers or 
 inspectors appointed to enforce its commands. Such regulation 
 by executive officials may vary from a very mild form that can 
 
METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION 421 
 
 with difficulty be differentiated from purely legislative control, 
 to a system of minute and constant supervision by govern- 
 ment spies and inspectors. 
 
 Under this general head of government administration are 
 here included all regulation by the State of individuals or of 
 corporations, effected by means of licences and registers, with 
 the restrictions these involve ; all inspections of mines, factories, 
 and schools ; all orders issued by the Board of Trade for 
 the regulation of railways, ships, and harbours; all measures 
 taken by the Local Government Board to prevent the spread 
 of infectious diseases and to improve the sanitary conditions 
 of any district; and in addition all miscellaneous duties of 
 administrative control, such as the hall-marking of gold plate, 
 the testing of gun-barrels and chain cables, and the branding 
 of herring, performed by Government officials for the safety 
 or convenience of the public. 
 
 Some of the dangers of such interference, when in 
 excess of what is absolutely necessary, have already been 
 suggested. Lord Farrer^ has reduced the chief among them 
 under these seven heads: (1) "Any restriction is almost sure 
 to bring some bad consequences on the persons restricted." 
 (2) The indirect consequences may be bad though the direct 
 are good. (3) It may be preventing good. (4) It negatives 
 individual responsibility. (5) "The gain of a regulation en- 
 forced by law is often more apparent than real." (6) It 
 makes persons less careful. (7) There are plenty of other 
 objections, "such as the risk of corruption amongst a host of 
 inspectors and administrators, the check of invention, ingenuity, 
 and improvement, and so on."^ 
 
 On these grounds Lord Farrer concludes, not in favour 
 of unqualified laissez faire, but of the motto, " When in doubt, 
 let the individual alone." 
 
 It only remains to be said that all these objections, in so 
 far as valid against administrative interference, apply with 
 added force to State-ownership, which, while necessarily in- 
 volving administrative interference, with all the dangers that 
 
 1 The State in Relation to Trade, p. 139. 
 
 2 Compare Prof. H. Sidgwick's objections to "paternal" interference, 
 {Elements of Politics, p. 37). 
 
422 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 come in its train, has a host of even graver dangers peculiar 
 to itself. 
 
 III. There still remains a third form of intervention — by 
 simple legislative enactment unsupported by special admini- 
 strative machinery — to which none of these objections can be 
 validly applied. Unfortunately, however, it is not — in the 
 present condition of society, at least — sufficiently effective in 
 every case. It is not always possible to dispense with the 
 official visit of the inspector, however much he comes to be 
 regarded by an enlightened opinion as a necessary evil. The 
 British public wisely view him with suspicion ; and it must 
 always be remembered that the diminution of his powers and 
 functions need neither weaken State control nor give rein to 
 anarchy. 
 
 The difference between the second and third methods of 
 State intervention may be best explained by two examples 
 — the liberty of the press and the Merchant Shipping Act. 
 There are two ways of preventing the dissemination in a 
 printed form of sedition and libel. A rigorous censorship 
 of the press may be instituted, or, alternatively. Parliament 
 may leave every man free to take the risk of publishing 
 what he pleases, subject to the penalties imposed for offences 
 defined by statute. The first method represents regimen- 
 tation, and the second legislative control. The respective 
 merits of the two have been well expressed by John 
 Locke. " I know not why a man should not have liberty 
 to print whatever he would speak ; and to be answerable 
 for the one, just as he is for the other, if he transgresses 
 the law in either. But gagging a man, for fear he should 
 talk heresy or sedition, has no other ground than such as 
 will make gyves necessary for fear a man should use violence 
 if his hands were free, and must at last end in the im- 
 prisonment of all who, you will suspect, may be guilty of 
 treason or misdemeanour."^ 
 
 A somewhat similar question was raised when Mr. 
 
 PlimsoU first began his crusade against sending coffin-ships 
 
 to sea. Shipowners were evidently grossly abusing the 
 
 measure of liberty the existing law allowed them. Two 
 
 1 Lord King's Life of Locke (Bohn's edition), p. 202. 
 
METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION 423 
 
 rival lines of remedy offered themselves, corresponding more 
 or less closely to the second and third methods of State 
 control as here discussed. Socialists, indeed, would have 
 cured the evil hy making the State turn shipowner, and 
 assume the entire control of all British ships, and therefore 
 of more than half the carrying trade of the world. Such 
 ownership, however, was not desired by any practical poli- 
 tician, and the choice lay between administrative supervision 
 and stringent legislative definition of individual responsibility 
 for loss at sea. The former course was chosen. Parliament 
 laid down certain absolute rules with which all sea-going 
 ships had to comply. Such compliance, however, at once 
 put an end to all further responsibility of the private 
 owners. In especial, each boat had to be marked with a 
 " load line " — a visible mark showing the maximum freight 
 it might legally carry. So long as this limit was observed, 
 the owner was free from all responsibility, though his boat 
 were actually overloaded. Many competent authorities seem 
 now agreed that Parliament adopted the wrong alternative : 
 that it should have avoided all unnecessary State manage- 
 ment, and enforced, instead, personal responsibility more 
 stringently by greater penalties where required. Mr. 
 PlimsoU, it has been said, " recommended a course which, 
 as he distinctly stated, would protect lives but diminish the 
 responsibility of shipowners ; he thus urged Parliament to 
 neglect its proper function and to expend the energies of 
 public officers on work which lies outside the sphere of 
 State action. . . . His system was not carried out 
 in its entirety, but it was so far carried out that the 
 agitation which he led ceased ; and under the scheme he 
 accepted, overloading and faults in construction have enor- 
 mously increased. It has been a terrible price for the 
 nation to pay in order to exhibit the mischief which may 
 be done by benevolent enthusiasm coupled with misconcep- 
 tions aS' to the duties and powers of the State." ^ 
 
 These examples explain with sufficient accuracy the 
 general distinction between the two methods of intervention 
 here contrasted. So long as the provisions of a law can be 
 'Wm. Cunningham, Politics arid Economics, p. 251. 
 
424 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 enforced without hampering individual subjects in initiating 
 or carrying out any schemes of profit or interest to themselves, 
 and without subjecting them to supervision, or increasing 
 the powers and functions of any administrative department, 
 it is clear that none of the objections enumerated by Lord 
 Farrer apply. If a law is objectionable, it is so because 
 it is immoral, or ineffectual, or unwisely framed, and not 
 because it can ever meddle where it has no business. 
 While statutes are never to be condemned because they 
 seek to enforce old responsibilities or to impose new ones 
 of an equitable nature ; there are, on the other hand, many 
 burdensome and inexpedient methods of applying them, 
 especially such as involve the conferring of arbitrary powers 
 upon executive of&cers. 
 
 There are many spheres of life into whose privacy agents 
 of the government must never be allowed to pry. If the 
 impersonal law is outraged, it is true, the executive arm 
 must in the last resort have authority to interfere; but 
 such remedies are to be kept for extreme emergencies and 
 fenced round with many careful restrictions, and never con- 
 sidered part of the ordinary routine of official duty. They 
 are like medicines, welcome in cases of disease, but not 
 meant for the healthy body's daily food. 
 
 A system of government management may be subversive of 
 all self-reliance, while judicious legislative control acts as a 
 stimulus. The ultimate right to interfere may, with the 
 advance of civilization, be kept more and more consistently 
 in the background, while the law is yet ready at a moment's 
 notice to step forward to supplement the efforts of the weak 
 or to force the unwilling to perform duties which they have 
 refused voluntarily to fulfil. It seems probable that future 
 progress may be at once towards a more minute State control 
 and a diminution of administrative management. 
 
 The policy of a wise State ought to be to enact just laws 
 defining mutual rights, and then to leave its citizens as free 
 as possible to help themselves and one another within the 
 limits thus defined, but to be ready to step in with coercive 
 power to redress the wrongs which arise whenever this liberty 
 is abused, or to prevent its abuse when imminent. 
 
METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION 425 
 
 This way of viewing the relationship between the govern- 
 ment and the governed may receive illustration from the 
 relations which exist in Great Britain between the House of 
 Commons and the members of the Cabinet; for we have 
 established a system of Parliamentary control as opposed to 
 Parliamentary management. When the Long Parliament, 
 after its open breach with Charles, tried to take the reins of 
 administration into its own hands, the folly of such a policy 
 was soon disclosed. Now-a-days the House of Commons, 
 while indirectly controlling every act of Her Majesty's Minis- 
 ters, would never dream of directly meddling in any one 
 executive matter. Laws are laid down for the guidance of 
 coimcillors of the Crown, Who are left free within defined 
 limits to do in the Queen's name whatever they think best 
 subject to ultimate responsibility to Parliament. Some such 
 system of control, then, it is here suggested, is being gradually 
 built up over every individual citizen, while, at the same time, 
 direct management by government is restricted within narrower 
 limits. Both tendencies, -it is maintained, are signs of healthy 
 progress. 
 
 On the one hand, the theoretical control enjoyed by every 
 State has become more practically efficient. On the other 
 hand, government is shaking itself free from such functions 
 as can be performed equally well by private enterprise. The 
 conduct of war — so long as brute force is recognized as a 
 means of settling international disputes — is one of the clearest 
 provinces of government action. The Admiralty is respon- 
 sible for the efficiency of the navy, and the War Office for 
 that of the army ; while the naval dockyards are almost as 
 much a part of the executive government as are the Treasury 
 and the Home Office. In all these departments, however, 
 a marked tendency has of late years been shown to curtail 
 the sphere of direct government management. Cruisers and 
 torpedo boats are built to contract by private firms, the work 
 being subject to rejection if it fails to conform to the estimates.^ 
 
 lA good instance of this tendency of government to delegate the 
 actual performance of even its most normal functions is afforded by 
 the part played by Messrs. Cook, the well-known tourist agents, in our 
 recent wars in the Soudan. It is amusing to read in the newspapers 
 
426 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 While the most public functions of government are thus 
 delegated to private enterprise, there is no undertaking so 
 private that the public interest in it is not safeguarded by 
 numerous legislative enactments. 
 
 Another aspect of the distinction between the two forms of 
 intervention by administrative management and legislative 
 control respectively is afforded by the methods of redress 
 open to a wronged individual. The State may either throw 
 open the doors of its law courts to all its subjects, 
 and leave them to come and claim their rights when 
 they choose, or it may appoint official inspectors or other 
 guardians to see that the ignorant and the weak are not 
 wronged by superior cunning or force. Lord Farrer has ex- 
 plained these two methods of enforcing the provisions of a 
 law,i and has pointed out that " the two forms of interference 
 are generally incompatible."^ The latter has at least three 
 objections from which the former is free. In the first place, 
 it is less thorough-going. In the second place, it is liable 
 to jobbery and corruption. In the third place, it vests 
 arbitrary power in the hands of one man and puts arbitrary 
 checks on the actions of another. It may cripple private 
 responsibility and initiative energy, and so injure both the 
 trade of the nation and the moral stamina of its citizens. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, however, that in many cases 
 individuals, from natural timidity, extreme poverty, social 
 tyranny, or other reasons, are quite unable to protect them- 
 selves. In such cases, where there are no voluntary 
 philanthropic agencies to afford such protection, government 
 is bound to take the matter into its own hands, and arm its 
 officials with the requisite powers. This is the principle upon 
 which inspectors of factories and workshops act. Further, to 
 leave it to the law courts to give redress is sometimes to prefer 
 
 of 10th March, 1896, the accounts of the arrangements made for the 
 advance of troops to the front — how "Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son 
 have contracted for the transport of these three regiments, and of the 
 Surrey Eegiment from Girgeh, whence they go from Cairo by rail to 
 Assouan." Here we have, in a notable form, the substitution of indirect 
 government control for direct government management. 
 
 '^The State in Relation to Trade, chapter iv. ^ Ibid., p. 7. 
 
METHODS OF STATE INTERVENTION 427 
 
 cure to prevention. The injured individual may not desire com- 
 pensation for wrongs done to him. He prefers that it should 
 be made impossible for him to be wronged. When a man is 
 killed through the reckless negligence of his employer, a sum 
 of money paid to his widow may be a very poor consolation. 
 Thus circumstances may very readily arise reversing the general 
 presumption. 
 
 The lessons drawn from the comparison of the three forms 
 of State control may be briefly stated. The iirst of these forms 
 — State-ownership — is artificial, unnatural, and fraught with a 
 thousand dangers, except when applied to limited kinds of 
 property and under specially favourable circumstances. The 
 second — administrative management — must always be looked 
 on with suspicion, though it cannot be altogether dispensed 
 with. The third — legislative control — in so far as its pro- 
 visions are wise, just, and expedient, and involve no unnecessary 
 admixture of either of the other forms, is open to no valid 
 objection of any sort. 
 
 Legislation alone, backed where absolutely necessary by 
 administrative machinery or official intervention, will form 
 an adequate supplement to the doctrine of laissez faire, and 
 go far to effect all that is practicable and just in the schemes 
 of Socialists. Eoom will thus be left for the free play of 
 the now mature principle of individuality and for the undis- 
 turbed enjoyment of property as the medium required for its 
 development. Any system which crushes out the spontaneity 
 and individuality of its subjects, robs the community, of the 
 most precious product secured through many centuries of 
 growth and struggle. Socialistic commonwealths, by re- 
 pressing many of the noblest and most energetic elements in 
 human life, would establish an unstable equilibrium, in which 
 stern coercion would need constantly to strive to suppress 
 rebellion. No such danger would be encountered by a system 
 of government that allowed free play to the individual tastes 
 and habits of its citizens, while at the same time it defined 
 legal obligations according to an advancing standard of equity 
 and mercy, and rigorously exacted their performance. 
 
PAET III. 
 
 THE APPLICATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICAL 
 POLITICS. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 SOME PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 Political Science, wide as is its scope, does not include the 
 arts of statecraft and politics. It treats of universal principles 
 and leaves in other hands the minutiae involved in their 
 application to particular cases as they arise. It does not pro- 
 fess to furnish the candidate for parliamentary honours with 
 a ready-made code of electioneering axioms or a legislative 
 programme that will tempt the votes of the constituencies. 
 It is, at the same time, impossible to make an absolute line 
 of cleavage between the theory of the State and its cor- 
 responding art; and, indeed, it would be undesirable to rob 
 philosophic discussions of much of their vital interest by 
 abstracting from them all reference to questions of the day. 
 In this light it seems desirable to bring together in a con- 
 cluding chapter a few of the practical applications of principles 
 already explained. 
 
 The organic doctrine of society, rightly understood in all 
 its bearings, is in itself a complete theoretical solution of the 
 problem of the sphere of government; and it contains also 
 the practical key to the thousand and one forms into which 
 that problem splits itself in the world of politics. All hard 
 and fast rules inconsistent with the fluidity or elasticity of an 
 organic whole — all mechanical contrivances likely to crush 
 or trammel the growing organs or to interrupt the free union 
 of part with part — must be at once discarded. 
 
 In formulating, then, a few practical rules embodying the 
 conclusions arrived at as to the proper province of govern- 
 
432 THE STATE AND T,HE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 ment in actual politics, three guiding principles must be 
 borne in mind : (a) the nature of the State itself as an organic 
 brotherhood of men essentially connected with all other 
 portions of humanity ; (5) the end of all government and 
 legislation in the " good " of this community, looking to 
 posterity as well as to the existing citizens ; and (c) the means 
 of realizing this end in the unlimited sovereignty of the State 
 over all its subjects. 
 
 In the light of these three broad principles a number of 
 practical conclusions may be laid down. 
 
 (1) The righteous State must do everything in its power to 
 further its own end. This is merely axiomatic, for the ulti- 
 mate end or final cause of the State means that one great 
 object to which all others are subordinate. If the State 
 refuses to further its own highest development after the law 
 of its nature, it will fight against destiny. In the language 
 of Job it will "curse God and die." In scientific phrase it 
 will violate the laws of nature and must pay the penalty. 
 
 (2) The means to this end must next be sought. As all 
 abstract principles have failed, there seems to be no criterion 
 left but that of expediency. This word by no means implies, 
 however, the acceptance of an utilitarian philosophy on a 
 hedonistic basis. Expediency indeed always involves the adap- 
 tation of means to ends ; but these ends are not necessarily 
 ignoble ones, nor need they exclude the idea of " right " as an 
 element — indeed the chief element — of the whole. The end 
 of the State and of humanity is neither an empty universal nor 
 an unrelated series of particulars. It is not an abstract right 
 like the categorical imperative of Kant manifesting itself apart 
 altogether from the positive well-being of individuals; nor 
 is it the sum of the joys and selfish interests of the citizens 
 to which Bentham and Mill would reduce it, by making it 
 dependent on the principle of contingency and the infinite 
 vicissitudes of chance. Eight, then, is included in "the 
 end of the State" as one moment of that whole of which 
 happiness is the other. An act or policy is useful because 
 it is right. It is not right because it is useful. To say 
 otherwise is deliberately to play with words, and to set up 
 as an end what is by definition merely a means. 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS 433 
 
 The goal must be determined on a principle quite different 
 from mere expediency. Subject to this explanation, expediency 
 is the guide of the statesman and legislator, and all abstract 
 principles must be discarded. 
 
 This involves the truth that the State, in striving for its 
 great ends, must use whatever instruments come to hand, 
 and in the way best suited for the purpose held in view. 
 In adjusting available means to effect its high ends, it must 
 never lose sight of its own true nature — embracing the most 
 despised of individuals and the remotest posterity as essential 
 parts, and embodying social, moral, and spiritual interests as 
 well as material ones. It must recognize, too, its obligations 
 to other States, and to humanity as a whole. 
 
 (3) From this follows the corollary that the various organs 
 of government must be invested with just so much legal power 
 as will best forward this end. There is no presumption either 
 for or against government intervention. Where it is proved 
 bad it must be abandoned ; where good, it must be adopted. 
 
 (4) It would be a gross breach of duty to allow to any class, 
 interest, or individual an immunity in opposing such measures 
 as are for the good of the whole. AU so-called natural inalien- 
 able rights must be denied. At the same time every right, 
 however alienable and relative, must be fuUy weighed and 
 appreciated before it is annihilated, and must never be touched 
 at all unless a more urgent right or interest of the community 
 as a whole calls categorically for it ; and the best compensation 
 of which the circumstances of the case allow must always be 
 given for all rights infringed. The philosophical justification 
 of this rule is that all rights are relative and not absolute ; 
 and that no true right of the individual can be opposed to 
 the rights of a moral State. 
 
 (5) The necessity of coercion must be clearly faced. As 
 force cannot be eliminated from human life, it should be 
 placed where it will do least harm. The supreme right of 
 coercion must rest with the body or organ which expresses 
 the rational wUl of the nation. This is to be found in the 
 legislature, if it is constructed on a right model. There 
 should be no dubiety in the mind of any one as to where 
 the supreme power lies. The constitution must make this 
 
 2 E 
 
434 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 clear beyond a doubt ; and this is exactly what British con- 
 stitutional law does in making the Queen in Parliament 
 supreme. Further, there should be adequate machinery 
 provided for enforcing this coercive power of the national 
 sovereign in every corner of the land. No loophole of escape 
 should be allowed anywhere — no barrier to the arm of the 
 law. To tolerate the possibility of effective opposition is to 
 nourish seeds of anarchy and disintegration. 
 
 (6) Government must remember that persuasion is usually 
 better than force. Thus, when a recalcitrant individual opposes 
 his will to that of the State, coercion should be kept as a last 
 resource. It is best to allow a presumption in favour of 
 liberty, just as a prisoner is treated as innocent until he 
 is proved guilty. Where there is no pressing emergency, 
 coercion should only be used when all other plans have failed, 
 and even then not more of it than is clearly necessary and 
 proportionate to the end in view. This is the substance of 
 Sir J. F. Stephen's three well-known rules : " Compulsion is 
 bad — 
 
 1. When the object aimed at is bad. 
 
 2. When the object aimed at is good, but the compulsion 
 
 employed is not calculated to obtain it. 
 
 3. When the object aimed at is good, and the compulsion 
 
 is calculated to obtain it, but at too great an 
 
 expense."^ 
 These principles seem to carry us beyond two of Sir James's 
 own theories, viz. that the distinction between force and per- 
 suasion is at bottom illusory when analyzed, and that, caeteris 
 paribus, coercion is just as good a thing as liberty. Any idea 
 made abstract and pushed to its extreme is meaningless and 
 void, and therefore becomes the same as any other idea simi- 
 larly caricatured. The abstract ideas of liberty and coercion 
 may ultimately meet, but undoubtedly a regime of practical 
 liberty is to be preferred to a regime of coercion : else why 
 should there be even a presv/mption one way or the other ? 
 
 (7) No limits can safely be placed to the law-making 
 power of the sovereign body, and no competing legislative 
 authority can be tolerated. 
 
 1 Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 49. 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS 435 
 
 (8) As far as possible the same laws should everywhere 
 rule within one State.^ 
 
 (9) Municipal corporations and counties may be allowed 
 powers of making bye-laws and local regulations, so long as 
 these do not encroach on the proper province of the legislature, 
 nor contradict the provisions of any actual law, nor infringe 
 the rights of voluntary associations or individuals in such a 
 way as Parliament considers unjust or disproportioned to the 
 objects to be gained. 
 
 (10) Many of the executive acts necessary for the mere 
 existence of the nation, as well as for its development towards 
 the highest perfection it can attain, can only be performed by 
 the central authority. Government action should not be 
 assumed to be necessarily bad, any more than necessarily 
 good. If there is a presumption against it, it is one that can 
 be rebutted by evidence and argument in any particular case. 
 
 (11) There are, however, many things necessary for pro- 
 gress which can be much better performed by municipal 
 and county authorities, conversant with the varying needs of 
 their own districts, than by the officials of a central bureau- 
 cracy, living far from the seat of the varying local requirements, 
 and not unnaturally more interested in their own affairs. 
 Where this is the case, the central authority should simply 
 authorize the local bodies to act; giving them reasonable 
 immunities from the consequences of. their own errors when 
 acting bona fide, and also full powers of coercing recalcitrant 
 individuals. The number of restraints on negative freedom 
 increases with civilization ; but with every restraint positive 
 freedom makes a new advance. Thus a due measure of 
 coercion must be allowed to local authorities. 
 
 'All branches of the law that affect either commerce or family rights 
 in especial should be uniform in essentials throughout all the dominions 
 of one State — if not throughout the world. The dangers of an opposite 
 system are well illustrated by the experience of the United States. 
 Professor Munroe Smith is of opinion that " Diversity of commercial rules 
 in the several States impedes and annoys business, for American business 
 pays little heed to State lines. Conflicting laws of marriage and divorce 
 unsettle family relations, and undermine the moral basis of society." See 
 article on " State, Statute, and Common Law," in the Political Science 
 Qmurt&rly for March, 1888. Cf. also swpra, p. 291. 
 
436 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 (12) While the central government should give every en- 
 couragement and facility to the municipal and county and 
 parochial authorities to manage their own affairs, it must 
 never for a moment forego its own ultimate rights of 
 sovereignty, or allow any measure which would render these 
 difficult of enforcement. 
 
 Thus (a) it must preserve the right of defining what 
 matters are local and what are imperial. (6) While it allows 
 to localities the necessary powers of coercion over individuals, 
 it must watch that these are not abused, or used unreasonably 
 to crush out liberty. 
 
 (13) Some matters can be better performed through the 
 agency of voluntary associations. Where this is the case. 
 Parliament should refuse to allow either administrative 
 departments of the central government or local authorities 
 to interfere. Thus the existing fire-insurance companies 
 perform their work efficiently and well on the whole. If a 
 county council proposed a system of compulsory insurance of 
 all property within its territory, Parliament ought undoubtedly 
 to refuse its aid to such a scheme, not because compulsory 
 insurance is necessarily a bad thing, but because the other 
 is better. If a system of compulsory fire-insurance did 
 commend itself to the nation, the least hurtful way of 
 enforcing it would be to insist that every building should 
 be insured in a sound respectable company, carrying on busi- 
 ness on the principle of voluntary association. This might 
 still involve an unwarrantable interference with the "right 
 of private judgment," but would be free from the objection 
 of burdening either the central or local authorities with a 
 new task in addition to their already too extensive business 
 of a more legitimate nature. 
 
 (14) Some things, however, are better left to the operation 
 of the principle of " self-help " than of either the mutual help 
 of voluntary association or the municipal help or State help of 
 government authorities. In such cases Parliament should 
 stand aside and put as few obstacles in the way as possible ; 
 but where it is quite clear that a little timely help from 
 government is not opposed to the true principles of self-help, 
 there is no reason why it should not render it. Such good 
 
PRA CTICAL , CONCL USIONS 437 
 
 offices should, however, be performed by the government with 
 the greatest reserve and care. Individualists assume, without 
 any attempt at proof, that all State aid is opposed to 
 self-help. It is true that if the State did everything for a 
 man, self-help and individual responsibility would die. Stupid 
 philanthropists do incalculable harm by ill-devised schemes 
 of relief; but all disinterested kindness is not therefore bad, 
 or it would be wrong for a doctor to dress a poor man's 
 wound for nothing. To throw a life-buoy to a drowning man 
 is surely not contrary to the doctrine of self-help. When 
 you have replaced a fallen man on his legs, you ought 
 probably to leave him to walk alone, if he is able; but 
 your help may have been absolutely necessary before he 
 could begin to help himself. In the same way, government 
 aid is not necessarily opposed to self-aid. The government 
 should leave every man free to conduct his own commercial 
 enterprises ; but there seems no reason why it should not 
 instruct its consuls at foreign ports to collect statistics of trade 
 and finance, or why it should refrain from instituting a system 
 of national registration of titles to land, or of births, deaths, 
 and marriages. 
 
 (15) As little arbitrary or discretionary power as possible 
 should be entrusted to any executive official or adminis- 
 trative department, whether central, or municipal, or 
 parochial. There is, of course, something arbitrary in all 
 executive power, because such power must be vested in living 
 finite beings liable to misconceptions, prejudices, and evil 
 passions. This is the amount of truth contained in the in- 
 dividualistic indictment of existing society. All government 
 coercion is bad so far as it is dependent on the caprice of 
 one man or of a body of men. All Acts of Parliament are 
 bad which directly vest such powers in officials. Increase 
 of arbitrary executive power should be at all times looked on 
 with the gravest suspicion. Though it can never be entirely 
 eliminated, certain rules, such as the following, may be laid 
 down with the view of keeping it within moderate bounds : — 
 
 (a) Every executive organ should be clearly subject to the 
 legislature, and to the ordinary law of the land. The very 
 keystone of the British Constitution on its legal side is 
 
438 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the entire absence of any institution similar to the adminis- 
 trative courts of the continent, and any body of special laws 
 conferring immunities on officialdom, such as the droit 
 administratif in France. 
 
 (6) As far as possible the powers and immunities of the 
 administrative departments should be accurately defined by 
 law. This is not always possible or expedient, however, as 
 a certain latitude is necessary to enable the humblest official 
 — even the policeman or exciseman — to fulfil his duties. In 
 the higher branches of statecraft, such as diplomacy, it is 
 quite essential that a free hand should be given to the 
 executive. Subject to such exceptions, however, all powers 
 should be defined. 
 
 (c) Wherever the ends of justice can be equally well 
 served by leaving the wronged individual to apply for redress 
 through the channel of the law-courts, this course is to be 
 preferred to the appointment of officials whose authorization 
 is required before any specific course can be entered on. 
 
 {d) All functions performed by the executive should be 
 so conducted as to interfere as little as possible with the self- 
 respect of the individual, or the privacy of his family life. 
 The intrusion of a stranger is the most common and perhaps 
 the worst violation of privacy. Thus, unless in cases of ex- 
 treme urgency, no medical health officer or sanitary inspector 
 should be permitted to force his way into any citizen's house. 
 It is not always easy to define wherein a violation of privacy 
 consists, but " conduct which can be described as indecent is 
 always in one way or another a violation of privacy."^ Good 
 examples are to be found in such arbitrary rights of govern- 
 ment inspectors as those to which Mr. Spencer so vehemently 
 objects, as, for example, laws recently enacted " giving sanitary 
 officers powers to search certain premises for unfit food,"^ 
 compared by him to the law of Edward III., under which 
 "innkeepers at seaports were sworn to search their guests to 
 prevent the exportation of money or plate." 
 
 (16) As the State is essentially a moral being, it cannot 
 shake itself free of responsibility for the moral welfare of 
 
 'Sir J. F. Stephen, Liberty, Eqiuility, Fraternity, p. 160. 
 ^ The Man versus the State, p. 8. 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS 439 
 
 its subjects. If by its direct interference it can advance its 
 citizens in virtue, it is bound to do so. Experience, however, 
 teaches that such direct interference has often defeated its 
 own end. It has sometimes led not to morality but to 
 hypocrisy, followed sooner or later by a frightful reaction 
 to excesses of sensuality and sin. Indirectly, however, the 
 government should do everything in its power to stimulate 
 the moral worth of its subjects. Its institutions should 
 be so modelled as to reduce temptations to fraud and 
 corruption. It must in its international and constitutional 
 relations observe a scrupulous uprightness of conduct. It 
 must endeavour to fill its highest ofi&ces with men whose 
 public if not private character is above reproach. It must 
 secure for its citizens material and intellectual surroundings 
 compatible with a virtuous life, and take care that greater 
 facilities are not permitted for an immoral than a moral career. 
 
 (17) Lastly, indirect legislative control, when equally effec- 
 tive, is always less hurtful than government management. 
 
 The foregoing are a few of the practical conclusions 
 directly deducible from the principles before laid down. Such 
 rules are, of course, merely specimens, somewhat arbitrarily 
 chosen from among many. 
 
 An obvious criticism suggests itself at this point, that these 
 rules are merely truisms, patent to common-sense. Yet almost 
 every one of them is directly opposed to the teaching either 
 of Socialists or of Individuahsts. If any excuse is required 
 for setting them forth in order here, and for endeavour- 
 ing to ground them on some philosophic principle, it may 
 surely be found in the fact that though adhered to by most of 
 those " practical politicians " who are objects of ridicule to 
 some philosophers, they have been deliberately condemned 
 by many theoretical politicians who have written on the limits 
 of the province of government. The conclusions here arrived 
 at may be, and it is hoped they are, supported by common- 
 sense ; but they are certainly not admitted either by Mr. 
 Spencer and his disciples on the one hand, or by the members 
 of the Fabian Society on the other. 
 
 These conclusions, while they emphasize the facts that the 
 present basis of society is on the whole a sound one, and 
 
440 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 that humanity is . progressing steadily if slowly towards its 
 own amelioration, are still far from implying a wholesale 
 eulogy of the statiis qiio, or a cheap optimism that " whatever 
 is, is best." A few examples have been incidentally mentioned 
 of practical conclusions inconsistent with current tendencies 
 and opinions ; but the main intention has been throughout to 
 set forth the fundamental principles upon which all politics 
 rest, and not to construct one competing system of reform 
 among others. A complete political creed or programme, 
 applicable to the present position of parties and suitable for 
 electioneering purposes, is not only uncalled for, but would 
 tend to throw suspicion on the impartiality of the more im- 
 portant preliminary investigation into fundamental principles. 
 A few concluding suggestions may, however, be given, if 
 only to show that the results arrived at by no means 
 involve a blind or servile adulation of the existing order of 
 society and government. 
 
 Four suggestions in especial may be made. I. Indi- 
 vidual freedom should be increased wherever feasible by 
 (a) curtailing all arbitrary or discretionary powers vested 
 in officials of every kind ; (&) affording facilities of appeal 
 from all local authorities and voluntary associations to the 
 central government ; (c) removing all unnecessary restraints 
 on freedom of action, such as censorships of the press and 
 undue restrictions on the transfer of land ; and {d^ reducing 
 the expense of and obviating delay in obtaining access to 
 justice through the courts of law. 
 
 II. Where it is necessary for the State to interfere with 
 the actions and liberties of its citizens, it is always best 
 to effect this with the minimum of executive interference 
 sufficient for the purpose. The legislature in defining rights, 
 and the law courts in redressing wrongs, can never carry 
 their intervention to an undue extent ; but administrative 
 interference is always to be viewed with suspicion as an 
 infringement of individual liberty and a possible deterrent 
 to private enterprise. All extensions of regimentation and 
 State initiation into new spheres must be jealously watched 
 until the benefits conferred are clearly shown to compensate 
 for the inherent dangers and demerits of the system. In this 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS 44I 
 
 light much recent legislation seems to have been based on 
 mistaken principles, and to have run unnecessary risks by 
 resorting to government management where legislative control 
 would have proved eq[ually effective. 
 
 III. The State must never relieve individuals of the 
 primary responsibility for their actions and possessions. 
 While it must accept more and more an ultimate or joint 
 responsibility, legal and moral, for all that its citizens do, it 
 should contrive that the full weight of each man's misdeeds 
 or culpable carelessness fall upon his own back in the first 
 instance. It should define and rigorously enforce the legal 
 duties that form the counterpart of every right it secures. 
 The law must not, however, attempt to reduce all moral 
 duties to legal obligations, for fear it should strangle 
 all generosity and spontaneous morality in a network of 
 legislative casuistry. It should aim at enforcing a minimum 
 rather than a maximum of duty; but this minimum should 
 progress with the advance of society. The only criterion 
 for fixing it, according to the varying requirements of 
 different times and countries, is the somewhat leaden rule of 
 public opinion. The State must not aim at creating an 
 official standard by which to dictate the line of advance. 
 Its duty is rather to bring up the stragglers to the lowest 
 standard tolerated by public opinion. In particular, the law 
 must define and enforce {a) the duties of property, and (6) 
 the duties of paternity. The ship-owner must not be allowed, 
 to skulk behind the fiat of a government official, and thus 
 screen himself from blame. The owner of dwelling houses 
 miist see that they are fit for human habitation, or take the 
 consequences in the form of liability to consequential damages 
 or a criminal prosecution. "To my mind," Mr. Goschen de- 
 clared in his Edinburgh Address,^ " the argument is almost 
 irresistible that it is as just to prevent, and, if necessary, to 
 punish house owners who let out rooms unfit for human 
 occupation, as tradesmen who offer putrid food for sale." 
 The remedy for existing abuses is not the socialistic one of 
 abolishing private property altogether, but simply the enforce- 
 ment of such duties as equitably accompany it. A similar 
 ' On Laissez faire and Government Interference. 
 
442 THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 criticism applies to the scheme advocated openly by some 
 Socialists, and forced more or less upon all by the unconscious 
 logic of their position, of breaking up the unity of the family 
 as at present constituted, and making the State primarily 
 responsible for the rearing and education of children in 
 place of the individual father. The State indeed may accept 
 a joint or ultimate responsibility, but ought in the first 
 place to enforce the burden where it naturally falls. This 
 is necessary, not only for preserving intact the natural 
 affections that bind the members of one family together, 
 but, what is of even more importance, for maintaining the 
 only check that keeps the increase of population within 
 manageable bounds. The State ought to enforce an increased 
 measure of responsibility on the parents of all children, 
 illegitimate as well as legitimate. In this light all schemes 
 of free education, as opposed to compulsory education pro- 
 vided by the parents, are of a retrogressive tendency. They 
 are condemned on moral grounds, since they encourage the 
 unworthy father to shirk his natural duties, and thus under- 
 mine the basis of the national character. They are condemned 
 on economic grounds, because they stimulate the root of all 
 industrial distress — over-population. 
 
 The same rules may be applied to the duties associated with 
 every other factor of human life. The State must never allow 
 individuals to throw off their responsibilities on to the broad 
 shoulders of the government. " Whatever action the State 
 may ultimately take," said Mr. Goschen in the address already 
 quoted, "it is to be hoped that while the duties of the com- 
 munity are enlarged on and pressed, the duties of individuals 
 and the propriety of enforcing them may not be neglected." 
 While all schemes of Socialism and regimentation tend to 
 discourage individual energy and invention, and so to relax 
 the moral fibre of the governed, a more thorough State 
 control, applied through the stringent definition of personal 
 duties, must have a healthy and bracing effect. Public 
 responsibility may be allowed to supplement private respon- 
 sibility, but must never be made its substitute. In this 
 way a new integration of society may be effected, while 
 individual energy is stimulated rather than relaxed, thus 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS 443 
 
 realizing in due combination the two requisites of a truly 
 organic State. 
 
 IV. While the prime necessity is at all times to realize 
 this organic unity, giving due prominence alike to the 
 solidarity of the whole and the independence of the part, the 
 more pressing problem of the present day is the reconstruction 
 of society — especially on its industrial or economic side. A 
 century of rampant Individualism, beginning in the redress of 
 abuses and the removal of artificial restraints on progress, has 
 ended in the partial disorganization of society ; the war of class 
 against class ; the material waste and moral deterioration of 
 continual strikes; and the unlimited selfishness of industrial 
 competition. The harmony of the organism has been dis- 
 turbed. It is in this aspect that even the extreme theories 
 of Socialists, dangerous as they are in themselves, may be not 
 unfraught with good by counteracting the extreme evils of 
 laissez faire, while they are powerless to overthrow the essen- 
 tially individuahstic basis of modern society. The most 
 pressing task of the present age is to build up a system 
 of government control comprehensive enough to include and 
 reconcile the conflicting economic agents whose mutual 
 struggles periodically convulse the entire social fabric, and 
 powerful enough to regulate the industrial monopolies which 
 reduce free competition to an empty name, and threaten to 
 usurp the place and authority of government. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acts of Indemnity, 283. 
 
 "Alabama," case of, 107. 
 
 Amos, Sheldon, 47 (note), 162; on 
 State and individual, 3 ; on organic 
 nature of British Constitution, 1,6 ; 
 on possibility of Science of Politics, 
 26 (note) ; on the difficulties of 
 Political Science, 30 (note) ; his de- 
 finition of State, 60 ; on moral 
 responsibility of States, 98 ; on 
 international morality, 149 ; on 
 province of government, 169 ; on 
 impracticability of Socialism, 184. 
 
 Anson, Sir William, on the meaning 
 of " State," 47 ; on conventions of 
 constitution, 143 (note). 
 
 Aristotle, 76, 78, 148, 159 ; on man's 
 social nature, 2, 67 ; on continuity 
 of State's existence, 53 (note) ; on 
 the end of the State, 74 ; his classi- 
 fication of States, 109 ; on private 
 property, 418. 
 
 Austin, John, conception of sove- 
 reignty, 129, 134. 
 
 Bagehot, Walter, 143 (note), 149. 
 
 Bentham, 31, 66, 72, 83, 87. 
 
 Blackstone, 140. 
 
 Blatohford, Robert, on Socialism, 178 ; 
 author of Merrie England, 178 ; on 
 practicability of Socialism, 189. 
 
 Bluntschli, 75 (note), 129 ; on organic 
 nature of society, 9 ; definition of 
 Political Science, 27 ; statement of 
 characteristics of State, 54 ; asserts 
 opposition between society and 
 State, 58 ; on origin of State, 68 ; 
 on end of State, 87 ; forbids State 
 to control morality, 97 ; on the 
 State Universal, 150 ; on rights of 
 subject nations, 236 ; fails con- 
 sistently to apply his organic 
 principle, 267 ; on marriage, 357, 
 360. 
 
 Bodin, Jean, on Sovereignty, 132. 
 
 Body Politic (see also State), a thing 
 sui generis, 19 ; all analogies mis- 
 leading, 20. 
 
 Bradlaugh, Charles, 172 (note), 174, 
 315. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 66 ; his conception 
 of the State, 60 (note). 
 
 Cabinet government, 116. 
 
 Caird, Edward, on Auguste Comte, 
 14 ; on characteristics of social 
 organism, 24 (note) ; on govern- 
 ment as necessary to society, 58 
 (note) ; on Hegel's ideal State, 73 ; 
 on originality, 320. 
 
 Carlyle, his Individualism, 88 ; on 
 formulas, 320. 
 
 Categorical imperative, 84, 130 (note). 
 
 Church, included in sphere of State, 
 94 ; its rights not absolute, 236 ; 
 relation to State, 391-405 ; phases 
 of an established, 398 ; phases of a 
 voluntary, 400 ; relation to educa- 
 tion, 404. 
 
 Civil Law, 71. 
 
 Cobden, Bichard, 72. 
 
 Coercion, relations to liberty, 305, 
 308, 321 ; not necessarily evil, 308, 
 321 ; when justifiable, 434. 
 
 Colbert, 77. 
 
 Collectivism, 172, 175 (see also 
 Socialism) ; its definition according 
 to Professor Flint, 175 (note) ; is 
 based on coercion, 176 ; in Aus- 
 tralian Colonies, 204. 
 
 Communism, 172, 175 (see also 
 Socialism) ; in United States, 198. 
 
 Community (see Society). 
 
 Competition, Free (see Laissez /aire). 
 
 Comte, Auguste, his realistic doctrine 
 of humanity, 14 ; his comprehensive 
 view of the State, 60; on early 
 training, 353. 
 
INDEX 
 
 445 
 
 Oonciliwm ordinarium, 134. 
 
 Confiscation, immorality of, 330. 
 
 Constitution, 96 ; skeleton of State, 
 100 ; Hegel's view, 101 ; an ab- 
 straction, 101 ; theoretically com- 
 plete in itself, 102 ; dependent on 
 vital forces of commonwealth, 102 ; 
 its definition by Sir W. Anson, 
 104 ; relations to Government, 104 ; 
 is it a product or a, growth? HI ; 
 must define legal sovereign, 131, 
 133. 
 
 Constitution-building in France and 
 America, 117. 
 
 Contract, as origin of State, 65 (see 
 also Freedom of contract). 
 
 Conventions of the constitution, 133, 
 141. 
 
 Cunningham, William, on individual 
 rights, 239 ; on State and morality, 
 381 (note), 388 ; on the Merchant 
 Shipping Act, 423. 
 
 De Lolme, 140, 141. 
 
 Democracy, as end of State, 79 ; de- 
 pendent on moral worth of citizens, 
 96 ; relations to Socialism, 193, 306. 
 
 Democratic ideals, 73. 
 
 Dicey, Prof essor A. V., on sovereignty, 
 128, 129 ; on sovereignty in United 
 States, 136 (note) ; on legal sove- 
 reignty of Parliament, 140 ; on con- 
 ventions of constitution, 143 (note). 
 
 Dilke, Sir Charles, on Australian 
 Socialism, 205. 
 
 Divorce, 360. 
 
 Donisthorpe, Wordsworth, on the 
 family as a State, 55 ; on the germ 
 of the State, 70 ; on end of State, 
 87; on triumph of Individualism, 
 191 ; on dangers of democracy, 218; 
 on the State limiting itself, 218; 
 criticism of Herbert Spencer, 225, 
 227 (note) ; on natural rights, 241 ; 
 on province of government, 247; on 
 In^vidualism as a golden mean, 
 265 ; on local legislation, 292 (note) ; 
 dn private enterprise and local 
 government, 295. 
 
 Dualisms, no absolute, possible, 94, 
 103, 168, 305, 321. 
 
 Dyer, Henry, on municipal action and 
 free competition, 295 (note), 297 
 (note) ; on socialistic taxation, 330 
 (note). 
 
 Education, 363-376, 405 ; three atti- 
 tudes of State towards, 364 ; F. S. 
 Hoffinan on, 365 ; F. C. Montague 
 on, 365; Humboldt on, 366; Mill on. 
 
 367, 370 ; Professor Huxley on, 369 
 (note) ; Herbert Spencer on free, 
 375 ; arguments against free, 372, 
 442. 
 
 Equality, 320-340, 416; as end of 
 State, 80 ; a delusive ideal, 323 ; 
 how far required by justice, 324; 
 ambiguity of word, 325 ; civil, 325 ; 
 political, 326 ; religious, 327 ; social, 
 328 ; material, 329 ; of opportunity, 
 338 ; practical schemes for approxi- 
 mating to, 333, 338. 
 
 Essay, object of this, 4 ; philosophical 
 basis of this, 24 ; division into three 
 parts, 40. 
 
 Established Church (see under 
 Church). 
 
 Executive duties of Government, 
 122, 123; all other functions de- 
 pendent on, 121; "facultative" or 
 abnormal functions, 287. 
 
 Expediency, as a political criterion, 
 111, 432 ; does not imply hedonistic 
 utilitarianism, 432. 
 
 Fabian Essays, 289 (note), 409, 413 
 (note), 416, 418 (note), 419. 
 
 Fabian Society, 410, 414, 418, 439 ; 
 definition of Socialism, 180. 
 
 Family, a rudimentary State, 51, 55 ; 
 included in sphere of State, 93 ; its 
 disintegration, 341 ; both socialistic 
 and individualistic, 345 ; attacked 
 by SociaUats, 187, 347 ; F. S. Hoff- 
 man on, 349. 
 
 Farrer, Lord, 259 (note), 289, 412, 
 421, 426. 
 
 Federation of the world, 147, 155. 
 
 Flint, Professor, definition of Social- 
 ism, 174 (note) ; definition of Collec- 
 tivism, 175 (note) ; on inequality, 
 323 ; on women's rights, 344. 
 
 Forms of government, how far "arti- 
 ficial"? 112; how far "natural"? 
 112 ; matter of choice, according to 
 J. S. Mill, 113 ; Mill's theory criti- 
 cised, 114. 
 
 Fouill^, Alfred, conception of society, 
 118. 
 
 Fraternity, as end of State, 81. 
 
 Freedom of contract, 406 ; subject to 
 government control, 234 ; Duke of 
 Argyll on, 261 ; Lord Farrer on, 
 412; supplemented by legislation, 
 412. 
 
 Functions of Government (see under 
 Government). 
 
 Gardiner, S. R., 118 (note), 133 (note). 
 George, Henry, 173 (note), 332. 
 
446 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gosohen, Hon. G. J., on laissezfaire 
 andmorality, 98; on recent extension 
 of State action, 162 ; on individual 
 responsibility, 441, 442. 
 
 Government (see also Over-Govern- 
 ment), ambiguity of word, 47, 79, 
 105, 177 ; relations to constitution, 
 104 ; necessary in every State, 105 ; 
 exists for the public good, 109 ; 
 relation to rights of conscience, 232 ; 
 involves coercion, 306 ; Herbert 
 Spencer on, 306 ; its end, to fulfil 
 behests of State, 109 ; according to 
 Locke, 75 (and note) ; according to 
 Mr. Asquith, 119. 
 
 Government control, involved in 
 Socialism, 175, 421 ; does not in- 
 volve Socialism, 415 ; how far allow- 
 able, 164 ; legislative and executive 
 interference, 278, 415 ; contrasted 
 with government management, 268, 
 354, 415, 420-427, 439, 441 ; inter- 
 feres with private morality, 377-390. 
 
 Government, its functions, 120 ; de- 
 liberative, 121; executive (see under 
 Executive) ; legislative (see under 
 Legislature) ; judicial, 123 ; mis- 
 cellaneous, 124, 287; usual three- 
 fold division, 120 ; is the ultimate 
 applier of force, 121 ; enforces and 
 controls private contracts, 123, 352, 
 410. 
 
 Government, its province, 159 ; Shel- 
 don Amos on, 162, 169; G. J. 
 Goschen on, 162, 262; J. S. Mill 
 on, 163, 227, 245; Humboldt on, 
 163, 244 ; Herbert Spencer on, 245 ; 
 Earl of Pembroke on, 247; W. 
 Donisthorpe on, 247 ; Duke of 
 Argyll on, 261 ; opportunist solu- 
 tion of problem, 164; socialistic 
 solution, 165, 171 ; individualistic 
 solution, 166, 221, 408 (note) ; com- 
 promise solution, 166, 261 ; organic 
 solution, 167, 264, 431. 
 
 Greek States, 14 ; fell short of the 
 ideal, 70 ; experiments in Collec- 
 tivism, 197. 
 
 Green, J. R., 76. 
 
 Green, Professor T. H. , on Will as basis 
 of State, 69 (note) ; on end of State, 
 91 ; criticism of Austin, 129, 135 
 (note), 136 ; on morality as basis of 
 rights, 381, 386 ; on private pro- 
 perty, 417. 
 
 Hall, Professor, on the characteristics 
 
 of the State, 52, 57. 
 Happiness, an inadequate basis of 
 
 ethics, 82 ; "a sense of value," 82. 
 
 Happiness of greatest number, as end 
 of State, 81; individualistic assump- 
 tions involved, 82; its impractic- 
 ability as a criterion of legislation, 
 82; Professor Hastie's criticism, 85. 
 
 Hastie, Professor, criticism of Ben- 
 tham's theory, 85. 
 
 Hearn, Professor, 80, 143 (note). 
 
 Hedonism, 82, 85. 
 
 Hegel, on philosophy, 33 ; definition 
 of State, 45 ; on tlie ideal State, 70, 
 73 ; on moral nature of State, 98 ; 
 calls the State an abstraction, 101 ; 
 his use of word "abstract," 101 
 (note). 
 
 Herbert, Hon. Auberon, 244, 249, 
 284, 378 (note). 
 
 Hobbes, on origin of State, 65. 
 
 Hoffman, Professor P. S., on end of 
 State, 87 ; on Revolution, 102 ; on 
 vested interests, 235 ; on natural 
 rights, 240 ; on taxation as act of 
 sovereignty, 285 ; on family, 348, 
 349 ; on State and education, 365. 
 
 Howell, George, 81 (note), 299. 
 
 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, on main- 
 tenance of security as end of State, 
 78 ; on province of government, 
 163 ; on legitimate aims of State 
 action, 243 ; on education, 366 ; his 
 inconsistency, 366 ; on State and 
 morality, 378. 
 
 Hume, David, 66. 
 
 Huxley, Professor T. H., on society 
 as a chemical union, 15 ; on family 
 as form of State, 51; on sovereignty,. 
 130; on "regimentation," 175, 194; 
 on individuality, 321 ; on equality, 
 327 (note) ; on education, 369 
 (note). 
 
 Individual, dependent on society, 1 ; 
 necessarily the citizen of a State, 
 1, 8 ; organically related to State, 
 4, 74 ; stunts himself by withdraw- 
 ing from society, 7 ; the abstract 
 individual, 7 ; sometimes made 
 merely a means to the ends of the 
 State, 77 ; included in sphere of 
 State, 93 ; his true sphere realized 
 in the State Universal, 146 ; ab- 
 sorbed into the community by 
 Socialism, 176, 192 ; rights of, 227 ; 
 his liberty according to J. S. Mill, 
 228 ; his liberty only relative, 270 ; 
 protected by State from all local 
 authorities and voluntary associa- 
 tions, 277, 304. 
 
 Individualism, the opposite of 
 Socialism, 173, 181 ; one aspect 
 
INDEX 
 
 447 
 
 akin to Socialism, 181 (note) ; 
 word less familiar than Socialism, 
 214 ; no Utopias, 215 ; various 
 phases, 216 ; a safeguard against 
 dangers of democracy, 218 ; would 
 limit Government interference, 21 9; 
 argument from abstract rights, 221- 
 - 240 ; argument from expediency, 
 241-260 ; fails to define a province 
 peculiar to individual, 245 ; no 
 consensus of opinion, 246 ; weak- 
 ness of its arguments, 252-260, 284, 
 286 ; attitude towards local govern- 
 ment, 293 ; attitude towards mar- 
 riage, 357. 
 International Law, defines the char- 
 acteristics of States, 54 ; is the 
 herald of a State Universal, 150. 
 
 Jevons, Professor Stanley, on absolute 
 rights, 224, 238 ; on hard and fast 
 rules, 263 ; on liberty, 318. 
 
 Jowett, Professor, on duties of pro- 
 perty, 340. 
 
 Justice (abstract), as sole end of State, 
 82 ; does it involve equality? 324. 
 
 Eant, 65, 129 ; definition of State, 
 45 ; on the end of government, 75 ; 
 on abstract Right, 83 ; on welfare 
 of State, 83 ; identifies Right with 
 freedom, 84, 324 ; his doctrine of 
 legal State, 95 ; on o; world-State, 
 155 ; on the social unsociability of 
 man, 266. 
 
 Laissez faire, 406 ; G. J. Goschen on, 
 98 ; F. 0. Montague on, 182 ; J. S. 
 Mill on its limits, 253 ; its definition 
 by Professor Sidgwick, 408 (note); 
 as the sole duty of government, 406, 
 408 ; evils of unrestricted, 409, 
 414 ; contrasted with era of legis- 
 lation, 411 ; and morality, 380 ; 
 and education, 365, 404 ; needs a 
 supplement in legislation, 406, 414, 
 427 ; Lord Farrer on, 421. 
 
 Laurie, Professor S. S., on danger of 
 organic theory, 19. 
 
 Laws, various methods of enforcing, 
 274 ; not opposed to liberty, 275 ; 
 objects of, 279-284. 
 
 Legal State, doctrine of, 95 ; sup- 
 ported by Kant, 95 ; confuses State 
 with constitution, 96. 
 
 Legislation, opposed to executive in- 
 tervention, 422 ; as a supplement 
 of free contract, 406, 410, 414, 427; 
 as an expression of man's rational 
 nature, 408 ; and Socialism, 413. 
 
 Legislature, 122; duties and sphere 
 of, 279, 424. 
 
 Liberty, as end of State, 80 ; not op- 
 posed to law, 275 ; finds a counter- 
 part in coercion, 305; not necessarily 
 good, 308 ; depends on govern- 
 ment, 309 ; Herbert Spencer on, 
 316, 318 ; Sir John Seeley on, 317; 
 Professor Jevons on, 318 ; Hutchi- 
 son Stirling on, 319 ; positive and 
 negative, 317. 
 
 Liberty of individual, not opposed to 
 sovereignty of State, 23 ; necessarily 
 limited and relative, 270 ; three 
 classes of restraints upon, 271. 
 
 Local Authorities, 290-304 ; legislative 
 powers of, 290, 435 ; bye-laws, 292; 
 administrative autonomy, 293, 435 ; 
 tyranny of, 276. 
 
 Locke, John, 65, 72 ; on origin of civil 
 society, 6 ; on end of government, 
 75 (and note); preservation of pro- 
 perty the end of the State, 78 ; on 
 liberty of the press, 422. 
 
 Lorimer, Professor, 87. 
 
 Macaulay's Individualism, 77. 
 
 Maccunn, John, 268 (note). 
 
 Mackenzie, Professor J. S., 75 (note) ; 
 on types of unity, 12 (note) ; on 
 characteristics of social organism, 
 24 (note) ; on methods of social 
 philosophy, 26 (note) ; on Hedonism, 
 82 (note) ; on Socialism and In- 
 dividualism, 181 (note). 
 
 Maine, Sir H. S. , 66 ; criticism of 
 Austin, 129 ; on status and con- 
 tract, 213, 406. 
 
 Majorities, tyranny of, 219, 310, 312 
 (see also under Minorities). 
 
 Man, by nature a Social animal, 2 
 (see also Individual) ; his true 
 nature not developed in isolation, 6. 
 
 Man {The) versus the State, 18. (See 
 also under iSpencer, Herbert. ) 
 
 Marriage, Sir James Mackintosh on, 
 211; Bluntschli on, 357, 360; State's 
 right to control, 357. 
 
 Master of Balliol (see under Ccdrd) ; 
 the late (see under Jowett). 
 
 Mechanical theory of society, 14; 
 leads to despotism, 14, 313. 
 
 Mechanical theory of constitutions, 
 112. 
 
 MerrieEngland{see waAfSt Blatchford). 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 72, 167; his In- 
 dividualism, 77, 227 ; on progress 
 as end of State, 79 ; on liberty as 
 end of State, 80 ; on constitutions, 
 whether products or growths, 112 ; 
 
448 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on province of government, 163 ; on 
 tyranny of majority, 219 ; on in- 
 dividual liberty, 228 ; on self-pro- 
 tection as a criterion, 228 ; on evils 
 of over-government, 241 (note) ; on 
 limits of laissez /aire, 253 ; his 
 essentially analytical genius, 254 ; 
 his inconsistencies, 254, 366, 370 ; 
 on tyranny of opinion, 312 ; on 
 power of belief, 314 ; on education, 
 367, 370. 
 
 Miller, W. G., 337 (note), 357 (note). 
 
 Minorities, rights of, Herbert Spencer 
 on, 226 ; J. S. Mill on, 312 ; D. G. 
 Ritchie on, 315 (note) ; list of 
 authorities on, 315 (note). 
 
 Modern States, 147 ; imperfections 
 of, 72, 148 ; their complex nature, 
 100 ; dependent on others, 148. 
 
 Montague, F. C, on the abstract in- 
 dividual, 7 ; on reconstruction of 
 society, 72 ; on free competition, 
 182 ; on State and education, 
 365. 
 
 Morality, included in sphere of State, 
 94; State control over, 371-390, 
 439 ; as the basis of rights, 381 ; 
 Hon. Auberon Herbert on, 378 
 (note) ; T. H. Green on, 382, 386, 
 417. 
 
 Natural organism, characteristics, 26 
 (see also Organism). 
 
 Order, as end of State, 78. 
 
 Organic nature of society, 4, 8, 118. 
 
 Organic theory of the State, 15 ; in- 
 cludes and transcends all other 
 theories, 15 ; the ideal rather than 
 the starting-point of society, 21 ; a 
 few of its consequences, 23, 165, 
 264 ; fundamental principles in- 
 volved, 266 ; a theoretical solution 
 of province of government, 167, 
 264, 431. 
 
 Organism, as applied to the State, 8 ; 
 originally a scientific term, 8; danger 
 of misconceptions when applied to 
 society, 9, 12, 118; discrete and 
 concrete, 17. 
 
 Ostracism, 77. 
 
 Over-government, Mr. Spencer's in- 
 dictment of, 248, 256 ; ambiguity 
 of, 257. 
 
 Parliament, the legal Sovereign, 127 ; 
 
 the Long, 128. 
 Party government, division into 
 
 Socialists and Individualists a new 
 
 basis for, 160. 
 
 Plato, 148, 159; his Republic, 187, 
 418. 
 
 Politics, ambiguity of word, 26 ; some- 
 times means the unstable element 
 in a State, 28 ; as used by Plato 
 and Aristotle, 29. 
 
 Political obligation, whence its bind- 
 ing power comes, 64 (see also State, 
 its origin). 
 
 Political Science, its scope, 2, 26 ; its 
 practical bearing, 26 ; sometimes 
 called "theory of the State," 26; its 
 definition by Bluntschli, 27 ; not a 
 manual of practical maxims, 29 ; its 
 possibility, 30 ; its difficulties, 30 ; 
 its practical utility, 31 ; relations 
 to art of politics, 33 ; its four main 
 problems, 38 ; depends on economics 
 for its data, 188. 
 
 Political sovereignty (see under 
 
 Pollock, Sir Prederick, on utility of 
 political science, 32 ; on the social 
 contract, 66. 
 
 Progress, as end of State, 79. 
 
 Property, institution of private. Sir 
 James Mackintosh on, 211 ; rights 
 of, 234, 417; F. S. HoflFmau on, 235; 
 confiscation of, 331 ; philosophical 
 justification of, 337 ; its duties, 340, 
 441 ; arguments for and against, 
 416 ; T. H. Green on, 417; Aristotle 
 on, 418. 
 
 Province of government (see under 
 {Oovemment). 
 
 Puflfendorf, 65. 
 
 Puritans, their theory of government, 
 46. 
 
 Regimentation, involved in Socialism, 
 175, 194 (see also under Oovemment 
 control). 
 
 Religion, included in sphere of State, 
 84. 
 
 Responsibility, of State for citizens, 
 107, 377 ; primary and ultimate, 
 371, 419, 425 ; of individual and of 
 State, 371, 374, 376, 378, 423, 441. 
 
 Revolution, 102, 144. 
 
 Right, abstract, as end of State, 82 ; 
 place in Kant's philosophy, 83 ; 
 definition by Kant, 84, 324. 
 
 Rights of Conscience, 231-234. 
 
 Rights, natural, declared to be ab- 
 solute, 223 ; Stanley Jevons on, 238; 
 D. G. Ritchie on, 239 (note) ; F. S. 
 Hoffman on, 240. 
 
 Rights of Man, 93, 227, 237. 
 
 Rights of Minorities (see under 
 Minorities). 
 
INDEX 
 
 449 
 
 Bights of the subject, their philo- 
 sophical basis, 23, 239, 381 (see also 
 Bights of Man). 
 
 Bights of subject nationalities, Blunt- 
 schli on, 236. 
 
 Bitohie,ProfessorD.G.,237{note);on 
 the abstract individual, 7; criticism 
 of Herbert Spencer, 9, 225, 248 
 (note) ; on nature of an organic 
 whole, 23 ; on evolution as a sup- 
 plement to utilitarianism, 89 (note), 
 90 (note) ; on society as an organism 
 that makes itself, 118 ; on sove- 
 reignty, 128, 131, 132 ; on natural 
 rights, 239 (note). 
 
 Boman Empire, a mechanical State, 
 71. 
 
 Bonsseau, 65, 72 ; influence on French 
 Bevolution, 31 ; on general will, 
 138 ; on man's natural freedom, 271 ; 
 on equality, 339. 
 
 Seeley, Sir J. B., his classification of 
 States, 51 (note) ; on liberty, 317. 
 
 Self, the national, 87. 
 
 Setf-realization, as end of State, 87. 
 
 Sidgwick, Professor H., on divisions 
 of Political Science, 39 (note) ; criti- 
 cism of Austin, 135 (note) ; on 
 laissezfaire, 408 (note). 
 
 Smith, Adam, 31. 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, 49, 199 (note). 
 
 Social organism, its characteristics, 
 
 23 ; as stated by J. S. Mackenzie, 
 
 24 (note) ; as stated by Edward 
 Oaird, 24 (note) ; its analogies to 
 animal organisms, 25 ; and its points 
 of distinction, 25 (see also under 
 
 Social contract theory, 65 ; partially 
 accepted by Kant, 65 ; and by 
 Spencer, 225 ; its extreme adapta- 
 bflity, 225; demolished by Hume 
 and Burke, 227 ; its valid aspect, 
 310. 
 
 Socialism, ambiguity of word, 171, 
 413 ; various phases, 172, 415, 416; 
 implies State-ownership, 172, 415 ; 
 both a political and a social scheme, 
 174; involves "regimentation," 175, 
 421 ; Communism and Collectivism, 
 175; its chief aims, 175, 181, 415; 
 practical and ideal, 178 ; analysis of 
 R. Blatohford's exposition, 180; 
 opposed to Individualism, 181 ; one 
 aspect akin to Individualism, 181 
 (note) ; opposite of laissez jbire, 
 181 ; arguments against it, 182-195, 
 417, 420 ; its erroneous philosophic 
 basis, 182 ; opposed to received con- 
 
 2F 
 
 elusions of political economy, 188; 
 relation to slavery, 191 ; relations 
 to democracy, 193, 419 ; involves 
 increased power of officials, 194; 
 experiments in, 196-212; of Greek 
 States, 197 ; destroys the family, 
 347. 
 
 Socialism, definition of, according to 
 Bradlaugh, 172 (note) ; Henry 
 George, 173 (note) ; Mr. Hyndman, 
 174 ; Professor Flint, 174 (note) ; 
 B. de Laveleye, 175; M. Lerouse, 
 177; E. Blatchford, 178; Dr. 
 Schaffle, 180; Fabian Society, 180; 
 J. Bernard Shaw, 416; Hubert 
 Bland, 416, 419. 
 
 Socialism, its indictment ; general 
 argument, 182-195; by Herbert 
 Spencer, 184, 185, 243, 248; Sheldon 
 Amos, 184; W. H. Mallock, 184 
 (note) ; W. E. H. Lecky, 187 (note) ; 
 Charles Fairfield, 209; Professor 
 Flint, 347, 419 (note) ; T. H. Green, 
 417 ; Aristotle, 418. 
 
 Society, every society necessarily a 
 State, 4; its organic nature, 4, 8, 
 118 ; origin of, according to Locke, 
 6 ; and according to Spinoza, 67 ; 
 cannot exist without organization, 
 7 ; no analogy competent, 21 ; not 
 a merely natural or animal organism, 
 22 ; sometimes spoken of as opposed 
 to State, 58 ; a contractual organism, 
 118. 
 
 Sovereignty, doctrine of : its philo- 
 sophical basis, 23 ; not opposed to 
 individual liberty, 23 ; a necessary 
 characteristic of every State, 55 ; 
 ambiguity of word, 127 ; nominal, 
 127, 131 ; legal, 127, 131, 137 ; 
 political or real, 128, 129 ; of Parlia- 
 ment, 127, 139, 141 ; of the people, 
 128 ; of the rational will, 137, 139 ; 
 Austin's conception of, 129, 134; 
 implies right and power, 129 ; Pro- 
 fessor Huxley on, 130; Professor 
 Kitchie on, 128, 131, 132; Jean 
 Bodin on, 132 ; S. B. Gardiner on, 
 133 (note) ; must be defined by 
 constitution, 133. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 111, 117, 167, 213, 
 254, 414, 438 ; on analogies between 
 animals and societies, 9 ; on society 
 as a discrete organism, 18, 21 ; his 
 Individualism in politics, 18 ; on 
 liberty as end of State, 80 ; on 
 advent of Socialism, 161, 190 ; on 
 evils of Socialism, 184; on absolute 
 rights, 224; on incorporated society, 
 225 ; on rights of minorities, 226 ; 
 
450 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on proximate and ultimate results, 
 243 ; on province of government, 
 245 ; indictment of over-government, 
 248-256 ; on trades unions, 306 ; 
 on government and aggression, 300 ; 
 on liberty, 316, 324. 
 
 Spinoza, on origin of State, 67. 
 
 State, dependent on individuals, 2; 
 is organized society, 3 ; moulds the 
 individual, 3 ; organically related 
 to individuals, 4, 74, 100 ; considered 
 a necessary evil, 5 ; an end to itself, 
 24 ; comprises the citizens as well 
 as their organizations, 46 ; popular 
 use of word, 50 ; as used in Public 
 Law, 50, 52 ; its various forms, 51, 
 145 ; its characteristics given by 
 Public Law, 54 ; its ideal, a brother- 
 hood of men, 70 ; ambiguity of 
 word, 47, 95, 100 ; a moral agent, 
 98 ; legal responsibility for citizens, 
 107 ; moral responsibility for citi- 
 zens, 378 ; not a mere sum of wills, 
 314 ; how far an organism, 9, 13- 
 25, 118; according to Herbert 
 Spencer, 9 ; Bluntschli, 9, 56 ; Leo 
 Tolstoi, 10 ; Plato and Aristotle, 
 11 (note) ; J. S. Mackenzie, 12 
 (note) ; S. S. Laurie, 19 (note) ; 
 J. S. Mill, 113 ; D. G. Ritchie, 118 ; 
 Alfred Fouill^, 118. 
 
 State, its definition : as an independent 
 organized community, 43 ; accord- 
 ing to W. A. Watt, 44 ; Kant, 45, 
 84, 95 ; Hegel, 45, 73 ; John Locke, 
 45 ; Herbert Spencer, 45 ; Sir 
 William Anson, 47; Gold win Smith, 
 49 ; Professor Hall, 52, 57 ; Blunt- 
 schli, 54 ; Sheldon Amos, 60 ; 
 Edmund Burke, 60 (note) ; William 
 Cunningham, 60 (note) ; Professor 
 H. Sidgwick, 61 (note) ; Carlyle, 99. 
 
 State, its origin, 62 ; ambiguity of 
 the inquiry, 62 ; Hobbes' theory, 
 65 ; Locke's theory, 66 ; Spinoza's 
 theory, 67 ; theories of consent and 
 force both rest on individualistic 
 basis, 68 ; Will is the true solution, 
 68 ; Professor Green's exposition of 
 WiU as basis of State, 69 (note). 
 
 State, its end, 74, 338 ; perfect 
 realization of all its citizens, 74 ; 
 "the good of mankind," 75; in- 
 adequate theories, 75 ; to enforce 
 the commands of the Church, 78 ; 
 as a means to the ends of in- 
 dividuals, 78 ; order, or maintenance 
 of security, 78 ; progress, 79 ; de- 
 mocracy, 80 ; liberty, 80 ; equality, 
 80 ; fraternity, 81 ; happiness of 
 
 greatest number, 81 ; abstract jus- 
 tice, 82 ; utility, 82 ; must combine 
 idea of happiness with idea of right, 
 83, 85 ; self-realization, 87 ; must 
 leave room for development, 89; 
 according to Aristotle, 74, 377 ; the 
 Puritans, 76 ; Voltaire, 77; Colbert, 
 77 ; Humboldt, 78, 245 ; J. S. Mill, 
 79, 80; Socialists, 80; Bentham, 
 81, 83 ; Kant, 83; W. Donisthorpe, 
 87 ; Professor Lorimer, 87 ; P. S. 
 Hoffman, 87; Bluntschli, 87; D. 
 G. Ritchie, 89 ; T. H. Green, 91. 
 
 State, its sphere, 92; embraces the 
 sphere of every citizen, 92 ; no limit 
 can be placed to it, 92 ; exemptions 
 sometimes claimed, 93 ; includes 
 sphere of family, 93, 341 ; Church, 
 94, 391 ; morality, 94, 98, 377, 439; 
 Bluntschli's view, 97, 267 ; Hegel's 
 view, 98 ; Humboldt's view, 245. 
 
 State agencies, government the chief 
 of these, 105 ; minor agents, 106. 
 
 State interference, three methods of, 
 414-427 (see also under Qove/mmtnt 
 control). 
 
 State, the ideal, 145; identical with 
 State Universal, 145. 
 
 State Universal, 145 ; Bluntschli on, 
 150 ; Vinet and others against, 150; 
 actually exists, though imperfect, 
 150, 152 ; its rudimentary laws and 
 institutions, 150 ; Kant on, 155 
 (note). 
 
 State-ownership (see under Socialism). 
 
 Stephen, Sir James F., 36 (note), 81, 
 438 ; on liberty as an end in itself, 
 80 ; on connection between the State 
 and religion, 94; on liberty and 
 coercion, 308, 434 ; on inequality, 
 323 ; on State and morality, 379, 
 390; on legislation and religion, 
 404 (note) ; on the limits of coercion, 
 434. 
 
 Stirling, Dr. Hutchison, on the State, 
 46. 
 
 Stoic philosophy, 71. 
 
 Summum bonum, 78, 86, 338. 
 
 Theology, its influence on political 
 
 science, 36. 
 Tolstoi, Count Leo, on " organic " as 
 
 applied to society, 10. 
 Trades Unions, their despotism, 299, 
 
 300 ; their lesson to Individualists, 
 
 301. 
 Traill, H. D., 95. 
 
 United States, John Austin on sove- 
 reignty in, 135; T. H. Green on 
 
INDEX 
 
 451 
 
 sovereignty in, 136 ; constitution 
 
 of, 136. 
 Unity, various kinds of, 13-15. 
 Utility, as end of State, 82. 
 Utilitarianism, 82. 
 
 Victoria, Socialism in, 205. 
 Vinet, 150. , 
 
 Voltaire, 97. 
 Voluntary associations, compared with 
 
 municipal authorities, 293, 436 ; 
 coerce individuals, 276, 295. 
 Voluntary churches(seeunderC'A'!tr'cA). 
 
 Will, as basis and origin of State, 68, 
 98 ; volonti g6n^ale, and volonti de 
 toils, 130 ; sovereignty is a realiza- 
 tion of, 131 ; Bousseau on, 138 ; 
 legislation as expression of, 408. 
 
 Women, position of, 327, 341, 344, 
 359. 
 
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