the head of obligations may be entered the efBcient curb which our poUce system puts upon offences against person and pro- perty; our courts of law, too, with all their defects, afford a 266 THE DUTY OF THE STATE.
partial defence against civil injuries which needs setting down in the estimate; and to these must be added what far outweigh them both— that sense of habitual security, and that consequent abihty to fearlessly carry on the business of life, which are pro- duced by the mere presence of an active civil power. Even after deducting from these a heavy discount on the score of shortcomings, there unquestionably remains a large surplus of benefit for which the state may claim credit. Turn we now to the iier contra statement. As the first item on the list there stands that gigantic injustice inflicted upon nineteen-twentieths of the community by the usurpation of the soil— by the breach of their rights to the use of the earth (Chap. IX.). For this the civil power is responsible — has itself been a party to the aggression — has made it legal, and stiU defends it as right. N ext comes the trespass committed against the many by sub- ordinating them to the few, and forcing them to obey laws to which their consent was never asked. Note again the tyrannies accompanying national defence — the impressments and militia- drawings, tlie continuous abnegation of liberty in the persons of soldiers and sailors, ending not unfrequently in the sacrifice of their lives. Eemember also how our rights are trenched upon by commercial restrictions; and how men are not only prevented from buying and selhng where they please, but are debarred from following certain occupations until they have bought government permits. Nor let us forget the penalties that until lately so seriously transgressed rehgious freedom — penalties which, as the Anti-State-Church Association can show, have by no means disappeared. And all these, together with the many minor restrictions hedging us about, are accompanied by those never-ceasing incursions made upon our property by the tax-gatherer and the officers of customs and excise, by poor- rate collectors and churchwardens. Measuring wrongs, as we must, by the degree in which they limit the exercise of faculties, let us now add up the two accounts and contrast thefr sum- totals. On the one side government partially saves us (only par- tially, mind) from those assaults, robberies, murders, clieatings.
THE DUTY OF THE STATE. 267 and kindred injuries, to which, were there no such institution, the existing immorality of men would expose us. These we must imagine to he distrihuted over the community at large, and over the Ufe of each citizen, and then conceive to what average restriction on the free exercise of faculties they Avould be equivalent. On the other side government itself transgresses men's liberties by the monopoly of land, by the usurpation of power, by restrictions on trade, by the slavery and death of thousands of soldiers, by the ruin of hundreds it ought to protect, by favouritism to creeds and classes, by the civU functions it makes imperative, by petty restraints too numerous to name, but above all by a remorseless taxation, which, affecting seven-eighths of the nation as it does by abstracting a large per- centage from earnings already insufficient for necessaries, virtu- ally obliterates, in great measure, the spheres needed for the development of their natures. We have now to suppose these marufold hmitations to the free exercise of faculties averaged like the others, and then to ask ourselves whether the two averages are, or are not, equal. Is the question after all so very in-ational? Is not the answer doubtful?
Nay, indeed; consider it rightly and the answer is not at aU doubtful. It is very certain that government can not alter the total amount of injustice committed. The absurdity is in sup- posing that it can — in supposing that by some ingenious artifice we may avoid the consequences of our own natures. The civil power no more does what to the careless eye it seems to do, than the juggler really performs his apparent miracles. It is impossible for man to create force. He can only alter the mode of its manifestation, its direction, its distribution. The power that propels his steamboats and locomotives is not of his making; it was all lying latent in the coal. He telegraphs by an agent set free during the oxidation of zinc; but of which no more is obtained than is due to the number of atoms that have combined. The very energy he expends in moving Ms arm is generated by the chemical affinities of the food he eats. In no case can he do anything but avail himself of dormant forces.
268 THE DUTY OF THE STATE.
This is as true in ethics as in physics. Moral feeling is a force — a force by which men's actions are restrained within certain prescribed bounds; and no legislative mechanism can increase its results one iota. By how much this force is deficient, by so much must its work remain undone. In what- ever degree we lack the qualities needful for our state, in the same degree must we suffer. Nature will not be cheated. Whoso should think to escape the influence of gravitation by throwing bis limbs into some peculiar attitude, would not be more deceived than are those who hope to avoid the weight of their depravity by arranging themselves into this or tliat form of political organization. Every jot of the evil must in one way or other be borne — consciously or unconsciously; either in a shape that is recognised, or else under some disguise. No philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts. No apparatus of senators, judges, and police, can compensate for the want of an internal governing sentiment. No legislative manipulation can eke out an insuffi- cient morality into a sufficient one. No administrative sleight of hand can save us fi:om ourselves.
But must not this imply that government is of no use what- ever? Not at all. Although unable to alter the sum-total of injustice to be supported, it can still alter its distribution. And this is what it really does. By its aid, men to a consider- able extent equalize the evil they have to bear — spread it out more uniformly over the whole community, and over the life of each citizen. Entire freedom to exercise the faculties, inter- rupted by entire deprivations of it, and marred by the perpetual danger of these deprivations, is exchanged for a freedom on which the restrictions are constant but partial. Instead of those losses of life, of limb, or of the means of subsistence, which, under a state of anarchy, all are liable to, and many suffer, a political organization commits universal aggressions of a comparatively mild type. Wrongs that were before occasional, but crushing, are now unceasing, but bearable. The system is one of mutual assurance against moral disastere. Just as men.
THE DUTY OF THE STATE. 2G9 whilst they cannot prevent fires and shipwrecks, can yet gua- rantee each other against ruin from these, by bearing them in common, and distiibuting the injuries entailed over long pe- riods of time; so, although by uniting together for judicial purposes men cannot diminish the amount of injustice to be borne, they can, and do, insure themselves against its otherwise fatal results.
When we agreed that it was the essential function of tlie state to protect — to administer the law of equal freedom — to maintain men's rights — we virtually assigned to it the duty, not only of shielding each citizen from the trespasses of his neigh- bours, but of defending him, in common with the community at large, against foreign aggressions. An invading force may violate people's rights as much as, or far more than, an equal body of felons; and our definition requires that government shall resist transgression in the one case as much as in the other..-'Protection, — this is what men seek by poUtical com- bination; and ^whether it he against internal or external enemies matters not. /Unquestionably war is immoral. But so like- wise is the violence used in the execution of justice; so is all coercion. Ethical law is as certainly broken by the deeds of judicial authorities as by those of a defensive army. There is, in principle, no difference whatever between the blow of a pohceman's baton and the thrust of a soldier's bayonet. Both are infractions of the law of equal freedom in the persons of those injured. In either case we have force sufiicient to pro- duce submission; and it matters not whether that force be employed by a man in red, or by one in blue. Pohcemen are soldiers who act alone: soldiers are pohcemen who act in unison. Government employs the first to attack in detail ten thousand criminals who separately make war upon society; and it calls in the last when threatened by a Hke number of criminals in the shape of drilled ti'oops. Kesistauce to foreign 270 THE DUTY OF THE STATE.
foes and resistance to native ones having consequently the same object — the maintenance of men's rights, and being effected by the same means — force, are in their nature identical, and no greater condemnation can be passed upon the one than upon the other. The doings of the battle-field merely exhibit in a concentrated form that immoraUty which is ^ inherent in government, and attaches to all its functions. What is so manifest in its military acts is true of its civil acts, that it uses ■wrong to put down wrong.
Defensive warfare (and of course it is solely to this that the foregoing argument applies) must therefore be tolerated as the least of two evils. There are indeed some who unconditionally condemn it, and would meet invasion by non-resistance. To such there are several repUes.
First, consistency requires them to behave in hke fashion to their fellow-citizens. They must not only allow themselves to be cheated, assaulted, robbed, wounded, without offering active opposition, but must refuse help from the civil power; seeing that they who employ force by proxy, are as much re- sponsible for that force as though they employed it them- selves.
Again, such a theory makes pacific relationships between men and nations look needlessly Utopian. If all agree not to aggress, they must as certainly be at peace mth each other as though they had all agreed not to resist. So that, whilst it sets up so difficult a standard of behaviour, the rule of non- resistance is not one whit more efficient as a preventive of war, than the rule of non-aggression.
Moreover this principle of non-resistance is not deducible from the moral law. The moral law says — Do not aggress. It can- not say — Do not resist; for to say this would be to presup- pose its own precepts broken. As explained at the outset (Chap. I.), Morality describes the conduct of perfect men; and cannot include in its premises circumstances that arise from imperfection. That rule which attains to universal sway when all men are what they ought to be, must be the right rule.
THE DUTY OF THE STATE. 271 must it not? And that rule which then becomes impossible of fulfilment must be the wrong one? Well; in an ideal state the law of non-aggression is obeyed by all — is the vital prin- ciple of every one's conduct — is fully carried out, reigns, lives; whereas in such a state the law of non-resistance necessarily becomes a dead letter.
Lastly, it can be shown that non-resistance is absolutely wrong. We may not carelessly abandon our rights. We may not give away our birthright for the sake of peace. If it be a duty to respect other men's claims, so also is it a duty to maintain our own. That which is sacred in their persons is sacred in oin-s also. Have we not a faculty which makes us feel and assert our title to freedom of action, at the same time that, by a reflex process, it enables us to appreciate the like title in our fellows? Did we not find that this faculty can act strongly on behalf of others, only when it acts strongly on our own behalf (p. 98)? And must we assume that, whilst its sympathetic promptings are to he diligently listened to, its direct ones are to be disregarded? To suppose this, is to suppose an incurable defect in our moral constitution — is to suppose that the very sentiment intended to lead us will itself mislead us. No: we may not be passive under aggression. In the due maintenance of our claims is involved the practicability of aU our duties. Without Uherty of action, without rights, we cannot fuUy exercise our faculties; and if we cannot fully exercise our faculties we cannot fulfil the Divine will; and if we allow ourselves to be deprived of that without which we can- not fulfil the Divine will, we virtually neglect that wiU.
But how, if all coercion is immoral? WiU it notfoUow that it is immoral to use violence in opposing a trespasser? Cer- tainly. Then either alternative is wrong? Just so: the law of right conduct has been broken, and this dilemma is the con- sequence. Action; and reaction are equal. The blow dealt at morality in the person of the injured cannot end with itself: there must be.a corresponding recoil. The first evil gives rise to an equivalent second, whether it is met by resistance or not.
272 THE DUTY OF THE STATE.
The assertion looks strange — will perhaps be incredible to many; nevertheless it must be made. And all we can say of this seeming paradox is, that it shows how actions lapse into a moral chaos when once the equilibrium of men's relationships is de- stroyed.
Thus we find that the principle of non-resistance is not ethically true, but only that of non-aggi-ession — that hence a government is justified in taking up a defensive attitude to- wards foreign enemies — and that the abstract criminahty un- doubtedly attaching to such a proceeding is the same criminahty which pervades the administration of justice, is the same crimi- nality of which government is itself a consequence.
Of international arbitration we must say, as of a free con- stitution, or a good system of jurisprudence, that its possibiHty is a question of time. The same causes which once rendered all government impossible have hitherto forbidden this widest extension of it. A federation of peoples — a universal society, can exist only when man's adaptation to the social state has be- come tolerably complete. We have already seen (p. 197), that in the earhest stage of eivihzation, when the repulsive force is strong, and the aggregative force weak, only small communities are possible; a modification of character causes these tribes, and satrapies, and gientes, and feudal lordships, and clans, gradually to coalesce into nations; and a still further modification wiU aUow of a still further union. That the time for this is now drawing nigh, seems probable. We may gather as much from the favour with which such an arrangement is regarded. The recognition of its desirableness foreshadows its realization. In peace so- cieties, in proposals for simultaneous disarmment, in interna- tional visits and addresses, and in the frequency with which friendly interventions now occur, we may see that humanity is fast growing towards such a consummation. Though hitherto impracticable, and perhaps impracticable at the present moment.
THE DUTY OF THE STATE. 273 a brotherhood of nations is being made practicable by the very efforts used to bring it about. These philantliropic enthusiasms, ■which the worldly-wise think so ridiculous, are essential parts of the process by which the desideratum is being wrought out. Perhaps no fact is more significant of the change going on than the spread of that non-resistance theory lately noticed. That ■we should find sprinkled amongst us, men, who from the desire to receive this ultra-humane doctrine do violence to their per- ceptions of what is due to themselves, cannot but aiFord matter for congratulation. Unsound as the idea may be, its origin is good. It is a redundant utterance of that sympathy which transforms the savage man into the social man, the brutal into the benevolent, the unjust into the just; and, taken in con- junction -with other signs of the times, prophesies that a better relationship between nations is approaching. Meanwhile, hi looking forward to some all-embracing federal arrangement, we must keep in mind that the stability of so complicated a political organization depends, not upon the fitness of one nation but upon the fitness of many.
CHAPTEE XXII.
THE LIMIT OF STATE-DDTY.
Pa function to each organ, and each organ to its own function, ,^is the law of all organization. To do its work well, an appa- ratus must possess special fitness for that work; and this will amount to wMfitness for any other work. The lungs cannot di- gest, the heart cannot respire, the stomach cannot propel blood. Each muscle and each gland must have its own particular nerve. There is not a fibre in the body but what has a chan- nel to bring it food, a channel to take its food away, an agency for causing it to assimilate nutriment, an agency for stimulat- ing it to perform its peculiar duty, and a mechanism to take away effete matter; not one of which can be dispensed with. Between creatures of the lowest type, and creatures of the highest, we similarly find the essential difference to be, that in the one the vital actions are carried on by a few simple agents, whilst in the other the vital actions are severally de- composed into their component parts, and each of these parts has an agent to itself. In organizations of another order the same principle is apparent. "When the manufacturer discovered that by confining each of his employ6s wholly to one process, he could immensely increase the productive powers of his establishment, he did but act upon this same rule, of one function to one organ. If we compare the mercantile arrangements of a village with those of a city, we shall find that the huxters of the one carry on many trades each, whilst every shopkeeper of the other confines himself to a single trade; showing us how a highly-developed apparatus for the distribution of commodi- THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 276 ties is similarly distinguished by subdivision of duties. Lan- guage, too, exemplifies the same truth. Between its primitive state, in -which it consisted of nothing but nouns, used vaguely to indicate all ideas iadisoriminately, and its present state, in which it consists of numerous " parts of speech," the process of growth has been that of gradually separating words into classes serving different purposes; and just as fast as this process has advanced, has language become capable of com- pletely fulfilling its end.
May we not, then, suspect that the assigning of one function to one organ, is the condition of eflBciency in aU instrumentaU- ties? If, as far as we can see, such is the law not only of natural organizations, but of what, in a superficial sense, we call artificial ones, does it not seem probable that it is the uni- versal law? Will it not be the law of institutions? Will it not he the law of the state? Must we not expect that with a government also, special adaptation to one end implies non- adaptation to other ends? And is it not likely that by de- volving on a goveiTunent additional functions, the due dis- charge of its peculiar function wiU be sacrificed? And would not this imply that a government ought not to undertake such additional functions?
But laying aside analogy, let us inquire whether it is not the fact, that in assuming any office besides its original one, the state begins to lose the power of fulfilling that original one. What is it that we call the state? Men politically associated. How associated? Voluntarily. For what purpose? For mutual protection. Men voluntarily associated for mutual protection: this then is our definition. Now, when rightly ordered, the conditions on which this voluntary association offers its sei-vices, must be such as enable it to afford the greatest amount of protection possible. If otherwise — if it in- sists on non-essential conditions which prevent some men from accepting its services, or on conditions which unnecessarily compromise the liberty of those men who do accept its ser- vices, it manifestly fails to that extent iu performing its func- 276 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.
tioa. Now the moment the state undertakes a second office it does all tliis. Men leagued together for a special ohject will never unanimously agree in the pursuit of any other ob- ject. So long as our joint-stock protection-society confines itself to guaranteeing the rights of its members, it is pretty certain to be co-extensive with the nation; for whilst such an organization is needed at all, most men will sacrifice something to secure its guardiansliip. But let an additional duty be as- signed to it, and there will immediately arise more or less scliism. The dissenting minority may in such case consist of two parties; the one comprising those who have so great a repugnance to the contemplated arrangement, as to resolve upon seceding rather than consent to it; and a larger party consisting of those who grumble at the imposition of addi- tional charges for the doing what they do not wish to be done, but who think well to submit rather than give up the benefits of protection. Towards both these parlies the state fails in its duty. The one it drives away by disadvantageous terms; and from the other it exacts sacrifices beyond what are needful for the performance of its original function; and by so doing be- comes an aggressor instead of a protector. Obsei*ve how the case stands when put personally.
"Your taxes are heavier this year than last," complains a citizen to the government; " how is it?"
" The sums voted for these new school-houses, and for the salaries of the masters and mistresses, have increased the draught upon our exchequer," replies the government.
" School-houses, masters and mistresses — what have I to do with these? you are not charging me with the cost of them, are you? " "Yes."
" Why, I never authorized you to do so."
" True; but parliament, or, in other words, the majority of the nation, has decided that the education of the young shall be entrusted to us, and has authorized us to raise such funds as may be necessary for fulfilling this trust" THE LIMIT or STATE-DUTY. 277 "But suppose I -wish to superintend the education of my children myself?"
"You may do as you please; but you must pay for the privilege we offer, whether you avail yourself of it or not. Even if you have no children you must stiU pay."
" And what if I refuse? " " Why, were we to act up to old precedents, we should punish you; hut as things now stand we shall content our- selves with giving notice that you have outlawed yourself."
"Nay, I have no wish to do that; I cannot at present dis- pense with your protection."
" Very well, then you must agree to our terms, and pay your share of the new tax."
" See, now, what a dilemma you place me in. As I dare not relinquish the protection I entered into political combination to obtain, I must either give you a part of my property for nothing; or, should I make a point of having some equivalent, I must cease to do that which my natural affections prompt. Will you answer me a few questions? " " Certainly."
" What is it that you, as. a national executive, have been appointed for? Is it not to maintain the rights of those who employ you; or, in other words, to guarantee to each the fullest freedom for the exercise of his faculties compatible with the equal freedom of all others? " " It has been so decided."
"And it has been also decided that you are justified in diminishing this freedom only to such extent as may be needful for preserving the remainder, has it not? " " That is evidently a corollary."
" Exactly. And now let me ask what is this property, this money, of which in the shape of taxes you are demanding from me an additional amount? Is it not that which enables me to get food, clothing, shelter, recreation, or, to repeat the origi- ginal expression — that on which I depend for the exercise of most of my faculties? " 278 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.
"It is."
" Therefore to decrease my property is to decrease my free- dom to exercise my faculties, is it not? " " Clearly."
"Then this new impost of yours will practically decrease my freedom to exercise my faculties? " "Yes."
" Well, do you not now perceive the contradiction? Instead of acting the part of a protector you are acting the part of an aggressor. What you were appointed to guarantee me and others, you are now taking away. To see that the liberty of each man to pursue the objects of his desires is unrestricted, save by the like liberty of all, is your special function. To diminish this Hberty by means of taxes, or civil restraints more than is absolutely needful for performing such function, is wrong, because adverse to the function itself. Now youx new impost does so diminish this hberty more than is absolutely needful, and it is consequently unjustifiable."