CHAPTER V.

Legitimate Objects of the State.-Danger of intermeddling Legislation; Instances. -Primordial Rights and Claims.-Physical Life and Health.-Law of Necessity.-Personal Liberty.-Right of Individuality; no Absolute Obedience possible.-Right of Share in the Protection of the State.-Jural Reciprocity.— Right to be judged by Laws, and Laws only.-Right of Communion or Utterance.-Liberty of the Press.-Right of Morality.-Immoral Laws, no Laws. -Right of Honor, Reputation.-Family.-Religion, Creed, Worship.-Right of Property, Acquisition, Exchange. Right of Emigration. - Inalienable Rights.-State cannot take Revenge; the Crown cannot feel Wrath.-Political Absurdity of speaking of King's Anger or Nation's Revenge as Political Body.

XXXIX. THE truth with regard to what the state is, lies between two extremes. The one has been mentioned in the previous section; the other is expressed by Aristotle, namely, that the state exists before the individual; if we understand it in the way the ancients actually viewed the state. The state, according to them, was all and everything, the individual receiving his value from the state alone. The essential difference between what the ancients understood the state to be and what they considered the essence of liberty on the one hand, and the modern views on the other, will be more fully treated hereafter. Aristotle was right, if he meant to say that man cannot exist without the state, that the state is not an optional thing, or an artificial contrivance, but that it exists by necessity as an effect and consequence of our nature, as language is not conventionally made, but exists between men as a necessary consequence of their physical and intellectual nature, that the necessity of the state lies in every individual, and that every one, therefore, finds already a state, in whatever stage of development it may be. The right of society to legislate—that is, the right existing somewhere of prescribing general and imperative rules-has, I believe, never been doubted, any more than the right of breathing in the in

dividual; both flow from the same source-necessity according to our nature. They are conditions of our existence as human beings. We might live as brutes without the institution of the state, but for our existence as human beings the state is a conditio sine qua non; and this absolute necessity constitutes the ground on which is founded what is called sovereignty, that is, the self-sufficient power, which derives its vital energy from no other, is founded by no superior authority, but imparts it and extends over everything that is requisite in order to obtain the object of the state; which man has to obtain in and by society, in as far as it is founded on jural relations, i.e. on right, on terms of justice, or mutual obligations. Yet be it mentioned thus early, sovereignty means something entirely different from absolute power, unbounded power.

XL. The state (or human society organized on and according to its jural relations) has for its legitimate objects all those things that are necessary or highly important for man, and which yet he-first, cannot obtain singly; secondly, ought not to obtain singly (because he exposes himself or his fellow-citizens by doing so to great danger, for instance, by redressing privately interferences with his rights); thirdly, will not do singly, because burdensome, disagreeable, etc., e.g. to keep roads in good order, or establish common schools). Thus, life is absolutely necessary for man, and if he cannot possibly obtain medical assistance, society is bound to furnish it. Public hospitals are not a mere matter of charity, they are a matter of right. That they may be abused, and easily abused, we know; we know, too, that their abuse interferes with some sacred interests of society, for instance, lively family interest. If the Greeks thought that the development of taste was essential to the whole development of man, and that individual means were insufficient to effect the necessary cultivation of the fine arts, the state was right in promoting them by public means. If the British people believe that the love of the fine arts has the twofold salutary

effect of softening the manners, of humanizing and aiding in bringing out what is human within us, and of elevating taste and thereby raising the standard of comfort, which again is of essential importance to national industry, then parliament has a right to spend money for the improvement of the British Museum, and acts wisely in so doing, and the most scrupulous citizen must rejoice at the constantly increasing number of visitors of that interesting institution. That a museum ought not to be promoted at the expense of things more urgently important, is a matter of course. Political wisdom and honesty must decide in practice; and practice in political matters is attended with the same difficulties as in any other sphere, because in practice various interests clash, and we must choose between them. If society be convinced that institutions of deep learning, universities, are of absorbing importance to society, because science must always be far in advance of practice, and because the cultivation of the sciences for their own sake, and not with a confined view of immediate practical application, raises the standard of knowledge in general, and is a great blessing to a community, and if the state be convinced that private means must ever be insufficient for the erection of a university and the collection of large libraries, museums, etc., or if experience have shown that private exertion will not be directed to the foundation of a university, then the state has precisely the same right and the same obligation to found a university as it has to aid in the foundation of common schools, or hospitals, courts, pilots, or armies.

Everything in the state must be founded on justice, and justice rests on generality and equality. The state, therefore, has no right to promote the private interests of one and not of the other. It promotes my interests if it assists me in getting my debts paid, but it must do the same for all others. It promotes private interest if it gives a pension to the widow of a soldier, but it is done on the ground that society owes her a debt, or that it is good for society thus to encourage soldiers. If the state gives money to a traveller into distant

regions, or to study the arts in Rome, it does this because the public is believed to benefit by it, directly or indirectly, but the money is not given to the private individual as such. Though public gifts of this nature, pensions and the like, have frequently been bestowed in a shameless manner upon Somersets and Buckinghams, it was generally at least pretended that it was done for some public good, to reward loyalty, surround the throne with splendor, etc. The riches publicly lavished by a Louis XV. or Charles II. upon dishonorable characters make an exception; so does their age. I do not know that what is lawful for the state to do, and how it ought to be done, has ever been more lucidly expressed than in the following passage of Isidorus of Seville (Orig., lib. v. c. 22), in which the pleonasms are more apparent than real: “Erit lex honesta, justa, possibilis, secundum naturam, secundum consuetudinem patriæ, loco temporique conveniens, necessaria, utilis, manifesta quoque, ne aliquid per obscuritatem in captione contineat, nullo privato commodo sed pro communi utilitate civium scripta."

XLI. It is evident that, according to the principles laid down, there is no theoretical difficulty respecting the subjects which require the action of the state or not, and those which the state ought never to touch. But in practice there is much difficulty, because it is not easy to decide what is of sufficient general interest to allow of, and what of sufficient general importance to call for, public action. The choice of the subjects with which the state ought to interfere must essentially depend upon the state of civilization of the society, and the difference, as to knowledge, between the authorities of the state and the ruled. The general principle undoubtedly is, interfere as little as possible with the private affairs of the individual. This is clear from the object of the state. The intermeddling of the state with private affairs is unjust, burdensome, and dangerous, requires enormous sums, and frequently springs from other motives than a wish to be useful to those whose affairs are intermeddled with. If society have

a fair start in civilization, no principle can be sounder than to leave as much to private exertion as the public weal, comfort, and morality allow. Individual industry, private combination, and associations, which are conscious that they depend upon themselves alone, are possessed of a vigor, keenness, and detailed industry that cannot be expected of the action of the state if applied to industry or other exertions partly connected with industry. The American packets to Liverpool and Havre ply more swiftly than, or at least as swiftly as, any government packet; but it must not be forgotten that this requires a general free action. Nothing is more common than that single branches are badly conducted by the people in countries in which government has in general annihilated the independent exertion and native individual vigor. A similar principle applies to the affairs of government matters themselves, as will be seen in the sequel. On the other hand, the state, that is, its public authorities have frequently means of obtaining correcter, wider views, ampler and more detailed knowledge, in short, official information unattainable by the individual, and can command the aid of better qualified persons, so that interfering becomes just, because demanded by public interest. Experience alone shows in practice which is the true limit and mean, provided only that the first principles of the state, of right, are always kept in view. The task of a Peter the Great of Russia, to unite and raise a barbarous nation, is very different from the problem to be solved in a country like England. Nothing can be more preposterous than a police interference with the cooking of the people; yet in times of a devastating plague no community would hesitate to interfere with the choice of food, if such a measure were considered essential to public health. In general, it may be said that views respecting this subject are fast becoming more correct. During the latter part of the last century and the beginning of the present, the more active governments on the continent of Europe carried the intermeddling principle to such an extent that no affair, however private, seemed to be considered as not belonging to police inspection. It has been