Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/523

Rh, it seems to me, on the American side of the Atlantic, to misinterpret this principle, and to discredit too much the immense power for good in proper governmental activity. And even Herbert Spencer himself, gazing too steadily upon the slavery of socialism and the mischief of protection and prohibition, warrants in a measure such a misinterpretation. It is true that governmental activity run wild is as harmful as a thunderbolt, but, when chained to the right sort of service, it is as useful as the electric current. It is possible to apply the salutary principle laid down in the volume on Justice in a manner that will avoid the evils of both paternalism and of too great passivity. Nor is this playing with fire. The line between legitimate and illegitimate governmental activity is easily drawn. What is mandatory in government must not much exceed the Decalogue, or it trespasses on that individual liberty which it is the sole function of government to promote. But the field of action is not so narrow as this. There is a large region of what may be called permissives, in which an intelligent Government may with perfect propriety make individual actions possible, which would otherwise be quite impracticable, and this is very different from the spirit of the Decalogue. Every free Government does at the present time extend a large measure of mere verbal permission to its citizens, but this is rather a gratuitous bit of graciousness, if it do nothing to see that adequate means are obtainable.

We have, then, an easily applied test of the propriety of any governmental action. If it compel, beyond the primal social necessaries—the prevention of murder, theft, adultery, and the like—it is mischievous, and is to be resisted as an encroachment upon individual liberty. But if it render intelligent assistance in making desirable individual action possible, it is to be hailed as a legitimate extension of individual liberty, and is to be utilized as a fruit of the progress of civilization in precisely the same spirit that we would utilize the inventions of Siemens or Edison. One is free, for instance, to write a letter to any one in any place, but he is the more free in that Government delivers it for him at a cost so small that the very poorest may write. There is much that is most desirable to be accomplished in America through national action, and it seems to me that we cheat ourselves sadly if we hesitate to use so powerful a means out of fear that it shall be misused. The more it is properly used, the better will its function be understood, and the less likely to be abused.

Viewing the function of Government in this light, I still believe that the nationalization of university extension is highly desirable, for I believe that, by supplying adequate means for the carrying out of a great idea, it would add immensely to that