Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/724

704 for themselves. Closely following upon the necessity for common laws is the necessity for common action ia various matters pertaining to the good order and health of the community. A true test of that which belongs to the sphere of government and that which belongs to the sphere of individual action lies in the essentially restrictive character of governmental action. Government says, "Thou shalt not "; but when we come to the proper sphere of individual liberty, we find numberless openings for positive constructive action. Government does not say, "Thou shalt go to church"; but individual enterprise gives us churches to go to if we feel so disposed. Even in the matter of education the mandate of Government is not so much "Thou shalt be educated" as "Thou shalt not through ignorance be a menace to society." If the Government says, "Thou shalt be vaccinated," the real meaning is, "Thou shalt not become a means of spreading infectious disease."

It is quite true that the state in our time manifests a disposition to betake itself to many lines of constructive work; but how far, in doing so, it makes a profitable use of the capital it disposes of—capital taken in taxes from the free industry of the country—we are not prepared to say; though we doubt much whether in any case the balance sheet is a favorable one. With large means at their command it is easy for public functionaries to show material results of a more or less imposing kind; but what we do not see is the amount of individual initiative and resourcefulness which the rival activity of the state obscures and suppresses. The post office is often pointed to as a very beneficent form of state activity; but it is certain that it is not an illustration of the profitable employment of capital.

Were all the functions of modern life carried on upon similar financial principles, there would be much more poverty in the land than there is. Tlie free industry of the country amasses capital upon which the Government draws, and, so long as industry is in the main free, the Government can afford to commit many follies without inflicting fatal evil on the community; but tie up industry in socialistic bonds, and many singular and undesirable results might follow.

We do not feel much encouraged, therefore, by the assurance our correspondent gives that, under socialism, individual competition would still flourish, and that exceptional talents would still reap exceptional rewards. We are not specially interested in competition as such, nor do we sympathize any more with the man of exceptional than with the man of ordinary ability. What we are interested in is the freedom of the individual citizen to use, and develop, and profit by, and render profitable to others, such natural faculties as he may possess to the utmost extent. What we are also interested in is the free development of the moral life of the community, under the action of a growing sense of responsibility of man to man. We do not want stereotyped characters or enforced virtues; we want men to grow into a recognition of their duties to one another, and we believe they will do so if the political power will only keep its hands off matters that do not belong to it. There is no agency more effectual in repressing the better instincts of the human heart than compulsion or the threat of compulsion; and the air to-day is full of threats of compulsion. We are not doing good or getting good fast enough, and a lot of extra-good people—as they think themselves—are going to help forward our moral