Page:Sphere and Duties of Government.djvu/82

Rh

seen in a preceding chapter that it is not only a justifiable but necessary end of Government to provide for the mutual security of the citizens, it here becomes our duty to enter on a more profound and explicit investigation into the nature of such a solicitude, and the means through which it acts. For it does not seem enough merely to commit the care for security to the political power as a general and unconditional duty, but it further becomes us to define the especial limits of its activity in this respect; or, at least, should this general definition be difficult or wholly impossible, to exhibit the reasons for that impossibility, and discover the characteristics by which these limits may, in given cases, be recognized.

Even a very limited range of observation is sufficient to convince us that this care for preservation may either restrict its efforts to a very narrow sphere, or launch into bolder measures, and embrace wide and indefinite means of influence to reach its design. Confined sometimes to the reparation of irregularities actually committed and the infliction of appropriate punishment, it may embrace, at others, precautions for preventing their occurrence, or even suggest the policy of moulding the mind and character of the citizen after the fashion most suitable to its preconceived scheme of social order. This very extension even of the