CHAPTER XXI.

THE DUTY OF THE STATE.

§ 1. As already said (pp. 230 and 231), morality stands toward government only in the nature of a limitation-behaves negatively with regard to it, not positively-replies to all inquiries by silently indicating the conditions of existence, constitution, and conduct, under which alone it may be ethically tolerated. And thus, ignoring government altogether, the moral law can give us no direct information as to what a government ought to do-can merely say what it ought not to do. That we are left with no precise knowledge beyond this, may indeed be inferred from a preceding chapter. For if, as was shown, every man has a right to secede from the state, and if, as a consequence, the state must be regarded as a body of men voluntarily associated, there remains nothing to distinguish it in the abstract from any other incorporated society-nothing to determine its specific function; and we may conceive its members assigning to it any function that does not involve a breach of the moral law.

Immediate guidance in this matter being thus impossible, we must follow such indirect ways of arriving at the truth as are open to us. The question is no longer one of pure ethics, and is therefore incapable of solution by any exact methods: approximative ones only are available. Fortunately there are several of these; and converging as they do to the same conclusion, that conclusion assumes something like the character of certainty. Let us now successively employ them.

§ 2. Good, and perfect, and complete, are words applicable to whatever is thoroughly fitted to its purpose

man.

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and by the word moral we signify the same property in a A thing which entirely answers its end cannot be improved; and a man whose nature leads him to a spontaneous fulfilment of the Divine will cannot be conceived better. To be quite self-sufficing-to have powers exactly commensurate with what ought to be done, is to be organically moral. Given the ordained object-happiness; given the conditions under which this happiness is to be compassed; and perfection consists in the possession of faculties exactly adapted to these conditions: whilst the moral law is simply a statement of that line of conduct by which the conditions are satisfied. Hence to the rightlyconstituted man all external help is needless-detrimental

even.

Just as the healthy body wants no crutch, tonic, or stimulus, but has within itself the means of doing every thing required of it, so the normally-developed character asks no artificial aids; and indeed repudiates them as preoccupying the sphere for the exercise of faculties which the hypothesis supposes it to have. When, on the other hand, man's constitution and the conditions of his existence are not in harmony, there arise external agencies to supply the place of deficient internal faculties. And these temporary substitutes being supplementary to the faculties, and assisting the imperfect man as they do to fulfil the law of his being the moral law, as we call it— obtain a certain reflex authority from that law, varying with the degree in which they subserve its requirements. Whatever may be its special function, it is clear that government is one of these artificial aids; and the most important of them.

Or the case may perhaps be more clearly stated thus: -If government has any duty at all, that duty must be to perform a service of some kind-to confer a benefit. But every possible benefit or service which can be rendered to a man is comprehended under the general expres

sion of assisting him to fulfil the law of his being. Whether you feed the hungry, or cure the diseased, or defend the weak, or curb the vicious, you do but enable or constrain them to conform to the conditions of complete happiness more nearly than they would otherwise do. And causing conformity to the conditions of complete happiness is causing conformity to the moral law. If, therefore, all benefits that can be conferred on men are aids to the fulfilment of the moral law, the benefits to be conferred by government must be of this nature.

So much being conceded, let us next inquire how the moral law may be most essentially subserved. Practicability manifestly underlies performance. That which makes an act feasible must take precedence of the act itself. Before the injunction-Do this, there necessarily comes the postulate-It can be done. Before establishing a code for the right exercise of faculties, there must be established the condition which makes the exercise of faculties possible. Now, this condition which makes the exercise of faculties possible is-power to pursue the objects on which they are to be exercised-the objects of desire; and this is what we otherwise call liberty of action -freedom. But that which makes the exercise of faculties possible, is that which makes the fulfilment of the moral law possible. And freedom being thus the grand prerequisite to the fulfilment of the moral law, it follows that if a man is to be helped in fulfilling of the moral law, the first thing to be done is to secure to him this all-essential freedom. This aid must come before any other aidis, in fact, that which renders any other aid practicable; for no faculty to which liberty of action is denied can be assisted in the performance of its function until liberty of action has been restored. Of all institutions, therefore, which the imperfect man sets up as supplementary to his nature, the chief one must have for its office to guarantee

MEN GROW INTO POLITICAL RELATIONS.

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his freedom. But the freedom that can be guaranteed to each is bounded by the like freedom to be guaranteed to all others. This is necessitated both by the moral law and by the simultaneous claims made upon the institution itself by its clients. Hence we must infer that it is the function of this chief institution which we call a government, to uphold the law of equal freedom.

To determine the duty of the state by reverting to a supposed understanding entered into by the founders of society-a social contract-we have already seen to be impracticable (p. 222). Men did not deliberately establish political arrangements, but grew into them unconsciously -probably had no conception of an associated condition until they found themselves in it. Moreover, were the hypothesis of an original agreement reasonable, it could not help us; for it would be folly to assume that the duties imposed by a horde of savages on their chief, or council of chiefs, must necessarily be the duties of governments throughout all time. Nevertheless, if, instead of speculating as to what might have happened during the infancy of civilization, we consider what must have happened, something may be learnt. On turning to page 226, the reader will find it argued at length that for men to have remained in the associated state implies that on the whole they found it preferable to the isolated one; which means that they obtained a greater sum total of gratification under it; which means that it afforded them fuller exercise for their faculties; which means that it offered a safer guarantee for such exercise-more security for their claims to life and property; that is, for their rights. But if men could have continued in the associated state only because on the average it insured their rights better than the previous one, then the insurance of their rights becomes the special duty which society in its corporate capacity has to perform toward individuals. That function by which a thing begins to exist we may safely consider its all-essential function. Now, whilst those many aids to gratification which civilization has brought us were yet undeveloped, society must have existed only because it protected its members in the pursuit of those things which afford satisfaction to the faculties. But to protect men in the pursuit of those things which afford satisfaction to the faculties is to maintain their rights. And if it was by maintaining the rights of its members that society began to be, then to maintain their rights must ever be regarded as its primary duty.

Further confirmation may be drawn from the universal practice of mankind in this matter. Widely as people have differed respecting the proper bounds of legislative superintendence, all have held them to include the defence of the subject against aggression. Whilst, in various countries and times, a hundred different functions have been assigned to the state-whilst there have probably been no two governments that have entirely agreed in the number and nature of their functions-whilst the things specially attended to by some have been wholly neglected by others, and thereby proved non-essential, there is one office-that of protector-which has been common to them all. Did this fact stand alone it might by a stretch of incredulity be construed into an accident. But coinciding as it does with the foregoing inferences drawn from the nature of man's constitution and the necessary origin of society, we may safely take it as a further evidence that the duty of the state is to protect to enforce the law of equal freedom; to maintain men's rights, or, as we commonly express it-to administer justice.

§ 3. The question-What is the thing to be done by a government? being answered, there arises the other