mines, building bridges, making roads, and erecting monu- THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 291 ments — who were led to regard it as the patron of science, literature, and the fine arts, and as the dispenser of honours and rewards — who found it undertaking the manufacture of gunpowder, superintending the hreeding of horses and sheep, playing the part of puhHc pawnhroker, and monopoUzing the sale of tohacco and snuff — who saw it attending to everything, from the execution of puhhc works down to the sanitary in- spection of prostitutes — was it not natural that men so circum- stanced should acquire exalted ideas of state power? And, having acquired such ideas, were they not likely to desire the state to compass for them unattainable benefits; to get angry because it did not do this; and to attempt by violent means the enforcement of their wishes? Evidently the reply must be affirmative. And if so, it is not too much to say that this overstepping of the proper sphere of government, leading as it does to that " gross delusion," a belief in " the sovereign power of political machinery," is the natural foreruimer of such schemes as those of Blanc and Cabet, and of that confusion which the attempt to realize them by state-agency must pro- duce.
There are other modes, too, in which social stability is en- dangered by this interference system. It is a very expensive system: the farther it is carried, the larger become the revenues required: and we all know that heavy taxation is inseparable from discontent. Moreover it is in its nature essentially de- spotic. In governing everything it unavoidably cramps men; and, by diminishing their liberty of action, angers them. It galls by its infinity of ordinances and restrictions; it offends by professing to help those whom it wiU not allow to help themselves; and it vexes by its swarms of dictatorial officials, who are for ever stepptag in between men and their pursuits. Those regulations by which the French manufacturers were hampered during the last century, when the state decided on the persons to be employed, the articles to be made, the materials to be used, and the qualities of the products — when inspectors broke the looms and burnt the goods that were not 292 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.
made according to law — and when improvements were illegal and inventors were fined — had no small share in producing the great revolution. Nor, amongst the causes which conspired to overthrow the government of Louis PhiUppe, must we forget the irritation generated by an analogous supervision, under which a mine cannot be opened without the permission of the authorities; under which a bookseller or printer may have his business suspended by the withdrawal of his Ucence; and under which it is penal to take a bucket of water out of the sea.
Thus, if we regard government as a means of upholding the social state, we find that, besides suffering a direct loss of power to perform its duty on attempting anything else, there are several subsidiary ways in which the assumption of ad- ditional functions endangers the fulfilment of its original function.
But we have not sufficiently considered the infinite presump- tion discernible in this attempt at regulating all the doings of men by law. To make up for defects in the original constitu- tion of things — ^this is the meaning of the scheme, nakedly stated. It is said of a certain personage, that he wished he had been consulted when the world was being made, for that he could have given good advice; and not a Uttle historical celebrity has attached to this personage, in virtue of his so- thought unparalleled arrogance. Shallow, shallow! Why, the great majority of our statesmen and politicians do as much every day. Advice, indeed! they do not stop at advice. They actively interpose, take into their own hands matters that God seems to be mismanaging, and undertake to set them right! It is clear to them that social wants and relationships have been 60 carelessly provided for, that without their vigilant manage- ment all will go wrong. As for any silent influences by which imperfections are in process of being removed, they do not beheve in them. But by a commission, a staff of officers, and a THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 293 parliamentary grant, every deficiency shall be made good, and the errors of Omniscience be rectified!
In truth it is a sad sight for any one who has been, what Bacon recommends — " a servant and interpreter of nature," to see these political schemers, with their clumsy mechanisms, trying to supersede the great laws of existence. Such an one, no longer regarding the mere outsides of things, has learned to look for the secret forces by wliich they are upheld. After patient study, this chaos of phenomena into the midst of which he was born has begun to generalize itself to him; and where there seemed nothing but confusion, he can now discern the dim outlines of a gigantic plan. No accidents, no chance; but everywhere order and completeness. One by one excep- tions vanish, and all becomes systematic. Suddenly what had appeared an anomaly answers to some intenser thought, ex- hibits polarity, and ranges itself along with kindred facts. Throughout he finds the same vital principles, ever in action, ever successfal, and embracing the minutest details. Growth is unceasing; and though slow, all powerful: showing itself here in some rapidly-developing outline; and there, where the necessity is less, exhibiting only the fibrils of incipient organ- ization. Irresistible as it is subtle, he sees in the worker of these changes, a power that bears onwards peoples and governments regardless of their theories, and schemes, and prejudices — a power which sucks the life out of their lauded institutions, shrivels up their state-parchments with a breath, paralyzes long- venerated authorities, obliterates the most deeply-graven laws, makes statesmen recant and puts prophets to the blush, buries cherished customs, shelves precedents, and which, before men are yet conscious of the fact, has wrought a revolution in aU things, and filled the world with a higher life. Always towards perfection is the mighty movement — towards a complete deve-J lopment and a more unmixed good; subordinating in its uni- versality all petty irregularities and falUngs back, as the curva- ture of the earth subordinates mountains and valleys. Even in evils, the student learns to recognise only a straggling benefi- 294 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.
cence. But, above all, he is struck -with the inherent sufficing- ness of things," and -with the complex simplicity of those prin- ciples by which every defect is being remedied — principles that show themselves ahke in the self-adjustment of planetary per- turbations, and in the heaHng of a scratched finger — in the balancing of social systems, and in the increased sensitiveness of a bhnd man's ear — in the adaptation of prices to produce, and in the acclimatization of a plant. Day by day he sees a fiirther beauty. Each new fact illustrates more clearly some recognised law, or discloses some inconceived completeness: contemplation thus perpetually discovering to him a higher harmony, and cherishing in him a deeper faith.
And now, in the midst of his admiration and his awe, the student shall suddenly see some flippant red-tapist get upon his legs and tell the world how he is going to put a patch upon nature! Here is a man who, in the presence of all the wonders that encompass him, dares to announce that he and certain of his colleagues have laid their heads together and found out a way to improve upon the Divine arrangements! Scarcely an idea have these meddlers got of what underlies the facts with which they propose to deal; as you shall soon find on sounding their philosophy: and yet, could they carry out their preten- sions, we should see them self-appointed nurses to the uni- verse! They have so little faith iu the laws of things, and so much faith in themselves, that, were it possible, they would chain earth and sun together, lest centripetal force should fail! Nothing but a parliament-made agency can be depended upon; and only when this infinitely-complex humanity of ours has been put under their ingenious regulations, and provided for by their supreme intelligence, will the world become what it ought to be! Such, in essence, is the astounding creed of these creation-menders.
Consider it then in what light we may — morally or scientifi- cally, with reference to its practicableness, or as a question of THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 295 political prudence, or even in its bearings upon religious faith — we find this theory, that a government ought to undertake other ofi&ces besides that of protector, to be an untenable theory. It has been shown that if the maintaining of rights be regarded as the special function of the state, the state cannot fulfil any other function without a partial loss of power to fulfil its special one. When, from another point of view, the state is looked upon as an aid to adaptation, we still find that it cannot exceed its duty of guarding men's Uberties, without becoming a hindrance to adaptation, instead of an aid. It turns out that to abolish the limit of legislative interposition now contended for, is in fact to abolish all hmits whatever — is to give the civil power a field of action to which no bounds can be fixed, save in some arbitrary and ntterly unphilosophical way. Moreover, even could certain supplementary affairs, considered fit for government supervision, be duly distinguished irom the rest, there would still he the fact that all experience shows govern- ment to be an incompetent manager of such supplementary affairs. It is further urged, that the system of extended oflicial control is bad, because unfavourable to social stability. And, finally, that system is repudiated, as involving an absurd and even impious presumption.
Such, then, are the general arguments brought forward to prove that whilst the state ought to protect, it ought to do nothing more than protect. By the abstract thinker they may perhaps be deemed conclusive. There are others, however, with whom they will weigh comparatively little; and, for the con- viction of these, it wOl be needful to examine in detail each of the several cases in which legislative superintendence is coiomonly advocated. Let us now proceed to do this.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE.
Arrangements whicli alter the natural course of trade are of two kinds; they may he classed as either artificial stimuli or artificial restraints — hounties or restrictions.
Of bounties must here be said specially what was said in the last chapter of factitious advantages generally; namely, that a government cannot give them without indirectly reversing its function. Not being requisite for the due maintenance of the citizen s rights, the taking away of his property for the purpose of encouraging certain branches of production, would he wrong even were collateral benefits given in exchange; and as, instead of affording him collateral benefits, the commercial derange- ments consequent upon it put additional hmits to the exer- cise of his faculties, such a measure is doubly wrong. Now that the faith in mercantile bribes is nearly extinct, it is need- less to enforce this abstract inference by any supplementary reasoning.
Of restrictions it scarcely needs saying that they are even more directly inequitable than hounties. Deducible as it is from the law of equal freedom, the right of exchange is 'as sacred as any other right (Chap. XIII.), and exists as much between members of different nations as between members of the same nation. Morahty knows nothing of geographical boundaries, or distinctions of race. You may put men on opposite sides of a river or a chain of mountains; may else part them by a tract of salt water; may give them, if you like, distinct languages; and may even colour their skins dif- THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE. 297 ferently; but you cannot change their fundamental relationships. Originating as these do in the facts of man's constitution, they are unalterable by the accidents of external condition. The moral law is cosmopoUte — is no respecter of nation ah ties: and between men who are the antipodes of each other, either in locality or anything else, there must still exist the same balance of rights as though they were next-door neighbours in all things.
Hence, in putting a veto upon the commercial intercourse of two nations, or in putting obstacles in the way of that in- tercourse, a government trenches upon men's Hberties of action; and by so doing directly reverses its function. To secure for each man the fullest freedom to exercise his faculties, compa- tible with the like freedom of all others, we find to be the state's duty. Now trade prohibitions and trade restrictions not only do not secure this freedom, but they take it away. So that in enforcing "them the state is transformed from a maintainer of rights into a violator of rights. If it be criminal in a civil power commissioned to shield us from murder to turn murderer itself; if it be criminal in it to play the thief, though set to keep off thieves; then must it be criminal in it to deprive men, in any way, of liberty to pursue the objects of desire, when it ■was appointed to ensure them that hberty. Whether it kills, or robs, or enslaves, or shackles by trade regulations, its guilt is alike in kind, and differs only in degree. In the one ex- treme it wholly destroys the power to exercise the faculties; in the other it does this partially. And in strict ethics the same species of condemnation must be visited upon it in both cases.
Not a few will be startled by this view of the matter. Let such reflect awhile upon the antecedents and associations of this tradcrruling. They will find, on doing so, that it is allied in both origin and practice to all other forms of wrong. More 298 THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE.
than once it has been pointed out, that as unjust customs and institutions derive their viciousness from a moral defect in the people living Tinder them, they must he uniformly pervaded by that viciousness — that as social laws, creeds, and arrange- ments consist merely of solidified character, the same character will be shown in all the social laws, creeds, and arrangements which co-exist; and, further, that any process of amelioration will affect them simultaneously. This truth was amply illustrated (pp. 161 and 178). We saw that tyranny in forms of govern- ment, tyranny in the conduct of lord to serf, tyranny in rehgious organizations and discipline, tyranny in the matrimonial rela- tionship, and tyranny in the treatment of children, regularly flourished together and regularly decreased at a like rate. In the same category we must now put — tyranny in commercial laws. Sinking those minor irregularities which pervade all nature's processes, we shall find that from the days when ex- portation was a capital crime, down to our own free- trade era, there has been a constant ratio kept between the stringency of mercantile restraints and the stringency of other restraints, as there has between the increase of commercial liberty and the increase of general liberty.
A few facts will sufficiently exemplify this. Take as one the instance just alluded to, in which associated with autocratic rule in chrurch, in state, and in feudal hall, we find Edward III., for the purpose of making foreigners come and buy in our markets, prohibiting his subjects from sending abroad any staple goods " under penalty of death and confiscation; " and further enacting, " that the law should be unalterable either by himself or his successors." Observe, too, how this same de^ spotic spirit was exhibited in the regulations requiring these continental traders to reside during their stay with certain in- spectors commissioned to see the cargoes sold withih a speci- fied time, and the proceeds re-invested in Enghsh goods, and charged to transmit to the Exchequer periodical statements of each merchant's bargains — ^regulations, by the way, of which the abandonment was in after times lamented by the vene- THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE. 299 raters of ancestral ■wisdom, mucli as the abolition of the sUding scale is mourned over by a certain party of our own day. Note again how, under the same regime, labourers were coerced into working for fixed wages; and then how, to keep the balance even, shopkeepers had the prices of provisions dictated to them. Mark further, that when the most tyrannical of these ordinances fell into disuse, there still continued the less burdensome ones, such as those usury laws, orders to farmers, prescribings of the material for grave-clothes, instruc- tions to manufacturers, &c., referred to iu the last chapter. But without going into further detail — without enlarging upon the fact that those intolerable restraints once borne by the manufacturing classes of France were cotemporary with intense despotism at court, and a stiU hngering feudahsm in the pro- vinces— without tracing the paraUeHsm that exists between the political and commercial bondage, under which, in spite of their revolutions, the French still live — without pointing out at length the same coimection of phenomena in Prussia, in Austria, and in other similarly-ruled countries — without doiog all this, the evidence adduced suf&ciently shows that the op- pressiveness of a nation's mercantile laws varies as the oppressiveness of its general arrangements and government. Whilst, conversely, if we glance over the annals of progress, and then contemplate the changes that have taken place within these few years, or which are yet in progress, we cannot but re- mark a similar kinship between the manifestations of a juster feeling in poHtical organization, in ecclesiastical affairs, in the family, and in our commercial code.
Thus, trade restrictions are of the same race with irrespon- sible government and slavery. An obtuse perception of, and an insufficient sympathy with, the claims of man, are the parents of all tyrannies and dishonesties, bear they what name they may. Interferences with the freedom of exchange are as certainly their progeny as are the worst violations of human rights: they are constantly found in the society of these: and though not popularly classed as crimes, they are in both origin and nature closely related to them.
THE EEGUJLATION OF COMMERCE.
There is another aspect under which these trade regulations, in common with many kindred contrivances for the management of social affairs, may be regarded. They £u:e all in essence idolatrous. The worship of dead, powerless things made with human hands is not extinct, as people flatter themselves — cannot be extinct — never will be entirely extinct. The elements of man's nature are persistent: the change is in their ratios. Typical remains of every disposition must continue traceable even to the remotest future. If, on the one band, it is an error to suppose that humanity has not altered at all, it is, on the other hand, an error to suppose that it has altered, or even will alter, so completely as to retain no traces of its bygone character.
Scientifically defined, idolatry is a mode of thought under which all causation is attributed to entities. It results from the first generahzation of the undeveloped intellect, which, having constantly seen results produced by visible, tangible objects, infers that all results are so produced. In the mind of the savage every effect is believed to be due to a special worker, because special workers have been observed to precede effects in a multitude of instances. The laws of mental action necessitate that, as all known causes have presented themselves to him as personal agencies, all unknown causes must be con- ceived by him of the same nature. Hence the original fetishism. A stone thrown by an unseen hand, a piece of wood that, when heated, bursts into flame, or an animal found in the nei<Thbour- hood of some natural catastrophe, is at once assumed to be the acting power. Here is a phenomenon — a visible change of state in some observed object: past experience inevitably sug- gests that there is a worker of this change: past experience also inevitably suggests that such worker is an entity: the entity to which the character of worker is ultimately ascribed will be that which past experience points out as most probable: aad, in the absence of other entities, this character of worker wUl attach to THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE. 301 the wood that gives out the flame, or to the stone that inflicts the blow. Thus the wood and stone, being looked upon as agents of unknown power capable of inflicting injury, are prayed to and propitiated.
From the very first, however, there begins an accumulation of facts calculated to undermine this theory of things, and certain ultimately to overthrow it For, whilst he regards aU phenomena as the doings of living beings, the primitive man necessarily attributes to such beings qualities similar to those of the beings he sees — men and brutes. Eeasoning, as he must^ from the known to the unknown, he is obliged to conceive the unknown generators of change to be like the known ones in all things: and we find that he does this; we find that he represents them by forms either human, or bestial, or both, and that he imagines their passions and habits to be like his own. Now an attiibute, possessed in common by all the beings known to him, is that of irregular volition. He sees no creature whose acts are so uniform that he can say positively what its future behaviour wiU be. Hence it happens that when certain natural events, originally ascribed by him to living agents — events such as the rising and setting of the sun and the falling of bodies to the earth — come to be perpetually repeated, and follow the same antecedents without exception, his notion of personal agency is shaken. This perfect uniformity of action is at variance with his knowledge of all known beings — is at variance with his very conception of a being. And thus in respect to the most familiar sequences, experience silently forces upon him the idea of a constant course of procedure — or what we express by the word law; and a belief in iwpersonal agency slowly supplants the original belief in personal agency. This revolution in his mode of thinking, though at first confined to the every-day in- stances of causation, extends in process of time to a wider and wider range of cases. The unceasing accumulation of facts which begins when increase of population provides a multitude of observers, continually furnishes new illustrations of that uni- formity of sequence which conflicts with the notion of special 302 THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE.
workers; and thus the domain of the so-called supernatural is step hy step usurped by the so-called natural. Still, it is only in as far as uniformity of sequence is made abundantly manifest, that the old theory is superseded. Though, amongst the Greeks, Thales taught that there were laws of matter, he nevertheless considered that a load-stone had a soul. Where the occiurence is unusual — that is, where the connection be- tween antecedent and consequent is not familiar — that is, where circumstances do not discountenance the original belief in spe- cial workers, that behef is still held. Hence it happens that, long after all ordinary phenomena have come to be considered as due to the properties of things, or, in other words, to im- personal agency, such an event as an eclipse or an earthquake is explained as a dragon eating the sun, or as a god turning over in his sleep; an epidemic is ascribed to witchcraft; a lumi- nous whiff of marsh-gas is regarded as a " Will o' the whisp; " a failure in the dairy or brewhouse is set down to fairy malice; and there are myths about Giants' Causeways andDevils' Bridges. Where the connection between cause and effect is very remote or obscure, as in matters of fortune and in certain bodily affec-