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 1 70 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

each individual shall receive the benefits and evils of his own nature and its consequent conduct." It is only in the interpre- tation of this rule that we have differed widely from that phi- losopher.

It is especially in the bearing of the rule upon the question of the legitimate extent of social control that we are at variance with him. To us its recognition as a principle would carry with it no necessary demand for a diminution in the functions of government. Its recognition would, to be sure, imply a change in character and motive of many of the state's present activities, but would not necessarily decrease their aggregate amount. It would involve the disappearance of many forms of industrial interference that now exist, and the abandonment of all of the cruder forms of state socialism. But it would permit a vast extension of the present regulative and educational functions of the governing powers. The state's regulative powers could be made to embrace all those functions which are necessary ; first, to prevent the limitation of the freedom of individuals, such as is sometimes attempted by such organized bodies as churches, labor unions, political societies, and industrial combinations ; and, secondly, to secure competition along the highest lines, by providing that certain forms of work shall be carried on under prescribed conditions, as regards, for instance, hours of work, employment of women and children, and maintenance of hygienic conditions.

The educational functions of the state could in like manner be subjected to almost indefinite extension. They could be made to include, not only the collection and dissemination of every variety of information, statistical or otherwise, which could be of possible value to the people, but could also properly be made to embrace the more directly pedagogic task of providing for the freest and most adequate instruction in all forms of human knowledge, practical and speculative.

Such activities as the above would not necessarily be anti- competitive or socialistic in character. In my book The Nature of the State, after dividing the functions of the state into essential and non-essential duties (meaning by non-essential all those