tolerated as the least of two evils. There are indeed some who unconditionally condemn it, and would meet invasion by non-resistance. To such there are several replies.

First, consistency requires them to behave in like fash ion to their fellow-citizens. They must not only allow themselves to be cheated, assaulted, robbed, wounded, without offering active opposition, but must refuse help from the civil power; seeing that they who employ force by proxy, are as much responsible for that force as though they employed it themselves.

Again, such a theory makes pacific relationships between men and nations look needlessly Utopian. If all agree not to aggress, they must as certainly be at peace with each other as though they had all agreed not to resist. So that, whilst it sets up so difficult a standard of behaviour, the rule of non-resistance is not one whit more efficient as a preventive of war, than the rule of non aggression.

Moreover this principle of non-resistance is not dedu cible from the moral law. The moral law says-Do not aggress. It cannot say-Do not resist; for to say this would be to presuppose its own precepts broken. As explained at the outset (Chap. I.), Morality describes the conduct of perfect men; and cannot include in its premises circumstances that arise from imperfection. That rule which attains to universal sway when all men are what hey ought to be, must be the right rule, must it not? And that rule which then becomes impossible of fulfilment must be the wrong one? Well; in an ideal state the law of non-aggression is obeyed by all-is the vital principle of every one's conduct-is fully carried out, reigns, lives; whereas in such a state the law of non-resistance neces sarily becomes a dead letter.

Lastly, it can be shown that non-resistance is abso

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utely wrong. We may not carelessly abandon our rights. We may not give away our birthright for the sake of peace. If it be a duty to respect other men's claims, so also is it a duty to maintain our own. That which is sacred in their persons is sacred in ours also. Have we not a faculty which makes us feel and assert our title to freedom of action, at the same time that, by a reflex process, it enables us to appreciate the like title in our fellows? Did we not find that this faculty can act strongly on behalf of others, only when it acts strongly on our own behalf (p. 117)? And must we assume that, whilst its sympathetic promptings are to be diligently listened to, its direct ones are to be disregarded? To suppose this, is to suppose an incurable defect in our moral constitution-is to suppose that the very sentiment intended to lead us will itself mislead us. No: we may not be passive under aggression. In the due maintenance of our claims is involved the practicability of all our duties. Without liberty of action, without rights, we cannot fully exercise our faculties; and if we cannot fully exercise our faculties; we cannot fulfil the Divine will; and if we allow ourselves to be deprived of that without which we cannot fulfil the Divine will, we virtually neglect that will.

But how, if all coercion is immoral? Will it not fol low that it is immoral to use violence in opposing a trespasser? Certainly. Then either alternative is wrong? Just so the law of right conduct has been broken, and this dilemma is the consequence. Action and reaction are equal. The blow dealt at morality in the person of the injured cannot end with itself: there must be a corresponding recoil. The first evil gives rise to an equiva lent second, whether it is met by resistance or not. The assertion looks strange-will perhaps be incredible to many; nevertheless it must be made. And all we can

say of this seeming paradox is, that it shows how actions. lapse into a moral chaos when once the equilibrium of men's relationships is destroyed.

Thus we find that the principle of non-resistance is not ethically true, but only that of non-aggression-that hence a government is justified in taking up a defensive attitude. toward foreign enemies-and that the abstract criminality undoubtedly attaching to such a proceeding is the same criminality which pervades the administration of justice, is the same criminality of which government is itself a consequence.

9. Of international arbitration we must say, as of a free constitution, or a good system of jurisprudence, that its possibility is a question of time. The same causes which once rendered all government impossible have hitherto forbidden this widest extension of it. A federation of peoples-a universal society, can exist only when man's adaptation to the social state has become tolerably complete. We have already seen (p. 219), that in the earliest stage of civilization, when the repulsive force is strong, and the aggregative force weak, only small communities. are possible; a modification of character causes these tribes, and satrapies, and gentes, and feudal lordships, and clans, gradually to coalesce into nations; and a still further modification will allow of a still further union. That the time for this is now drawing nigh, seems probable. We may gather as much from the favour with which such an arrangement is regarded. The recog nition of its desirableness foreshadows its realization. In peace societies, in proposals for simultaneous disarmament, in international visits and addresses, and in the frequency with which friendly interventions now occur, we may sce that humanity is fast growing toward such a consummation. Though hitherto impracticable, and perhaps im

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practicable at the present moment, a brotherhood of nations is being made practicable by the very efforts used to bring it about. These philanthropic enthusiasms, which the worldly-wise think so ridiculous, are essential parts of the process by which the desideratum is being wrought out. Perhaps no fact is more significant of the change going on than the spread of that non-resistance theory lately noticed. That we should find sprinkled amongst us men, who from the desire to receive this ultrahumane doctrine do violence to their perceptions of what is due to themselves, cannot but afford matter for congratulation. Unsound as the idea may be, its origin is good. It is a redundant utterance of that sympathy which transforms the savage man into the social man, the brutal into the benevolent, the unjust into the just; and, taken in conjunction with other signs of the times, prophesies that a better relationship between nations is approaching. Meanwhile, in looking forward to some all-embracing federal arrangement, we must keep in mind that the stability of so complicated a political organization depends, not upon the fitness of one nation but upon the fitness of many.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.

1. A function to each organ, and each organ to its own function, is the law of all organization. To do its work well, an apparatus must possess special fitness for that work; and this will amount to unfitness for any other work. The lungs cannot digest, the heart cannot respire, the stomach cannot propel blood. Each muscle and each gland must have its own particular nerve. There is not a

fibre in the body but what has a channel to bring it food, a channel to take its food away, an agency for causing it to assimilate nutriment, an agency for stimulating it to perform its peculiar duty, and a mechanism to take away effete matter; not one of which can be dispensed with. Between creatures of the lowest type, and creatures of the highest, we similarly find the essential difference to be, that in the one the vital actions are carried on by a few simple agents, whilst in the other the vital actions are severally decomposed into their component parts, and each of these parts has an agent to itself. In organizations of another order the same principle is apparent. When the manufacturer discovered that by confining each of his employés wholly to one process, he could immensely increase the productive powers of his establishment, he did but act upon this same rule, of one function to one organ. If we compare the mercantile arrangements of a village with those of a city, we shall find that the hucksters of the one carry on many trades each, whilst every shopkeeper of the other confines himself to a single trade; showing us how a highly-developed apparatus for the distribution of commodities is similarly distinguished by subdivision of duties. Language, too, exemplifies the same truth. Between its primitive state, in which it consisted of nothing but nouns, used vaguely to indicate all ideas. indiscriminately, and its present state, in which it consists of numerous "parts of speech," the process of growth has been that of gradually separating words into classes serving different purposes; and just as fast as this process has advanced, has language become capable of completely fulfilling its end.

May we not, then, suspect that the assigning of one function to one organ, is the condition of efficiency in all instrumentalities? If, as far as we can see, such is the law not only of natural organizations, but of what, in a