is fairly taken up, that the parent's discretion in the training of the child should be left as unfettered as possible, and that Government should only intervene in a purely coercive way when the child's interests are manifestly being sacrificed, either through the greed or passion of the parents, or through gross neglect or ignorance. How far, when the parents cannot afford to support or educate their children, they should, under any conditions, receive pecuniary aid from Government to enable them to discharge these duties is, for individualists, a difficult and doubtful question. On the one hand, when it is evident that children are, through their parents' poverty, growing up in such a way as to render them likely to be burdensome or dangerous to society, it seems prima facie a prudent insurance against this result for the community to assist in their support and education. On the other hand, similar arguments may be used to justify a governmental provision of sustenance for adults, in order that they may not be driven into criminal courses: and if either kind of governmental assistance is once admitted as justifiable in principle, it seems difficult to limit the burden that may be thrown on industrious and provident individuals by the improvidence of others. At any rate it is clear that either question brings us to the debatable territory between Individualism and Socialism; which I propose to examine in the following chapters.

To the same ambiguous region belongs the discussion of another kind of governmental interference, which may be justified as indirectly individualistic: I mean the provision of machinery for bringing moral influence to bear upon members of the community. The efficacy of this in diminishing the danger of crime has been urged to justify the employment of public funds in endowing Christian churches in modern states, and it cannot be denied that there is some force in the argument: but the consideration of the proper relations of Church and State cannot be adequately conducted from this point of view alone.1

In conclusion, it may be well to point out that the 1 See chap. xiii. § 5, and chap. xxviii.

extent to which the kind of interference discussed in the present chapter should be carried in a modern state will partly depend upon a variety of considerations, the force of which cannot here be estimated. Thus, we have to consider the state of moral opinion in the country-since the repression of mischievous conduct by social disapprobation may render legislative repression unnecessary; the diffusion of knowledge in the community; the customs, industrial and social, actually prevalent; and the development of the habit of voluntary combination among the citizens. For example, where a mischievous or dangerous custom prevails, which it is difficult for an individual to avoid conforming to, there is prima facie special need for legislative interference on the other hand, in proportion as the habit of combination is developed, this need is diminished.

CHAPTER X

SOCIALISTIC INTERFERENCE

§ 1. IN the last chapter we were occupied in considering the general distinction between " individualistic" and "paternal" interference, and the exceptions to the general rule of laisser faire that should be introduced in consequence of empirical proof-in any particular case-that men cannot be trusted to take care of their own welfare. In the present chapter I propose to consider the limitations and exceptions to laisser faire, of which the primary aim is not the welfare of the particular individual restrained, but of the whole society of which he is a member; which, accordingly, it seems convenient to call, in a wide sense, "socialistic" and not "paternal."

It is to be noted that the principle which limits governmental interference to the prevention of mutual interference among the governed, if stated without qualification and maintained on utilitarian grounds, requires for its justification two distinct fundamental assumptions,—one of which belongs rather to psychology, while the other is purely sociological. It is to the first of these that chief attention has been paid; and it is this which is mainly important when the discussion relates to paternal interference. When the question is whether Government should or should not coerce an individual in his own interest, it is enough to show that, on the

I use this current phrase to mean the rule of "letting people manage their affairs in their own way, so long as they do not cause mischief to others without the consent of those others."

whole, in the matter in question, men may be expected to discover and aim at their own interests better than Government will do this for them: that from their better opportunities of learning what conduces to their own welfare, or from their keener and more sustained concern for the attainment of this, the ultimate-if not the immediateresult will be better than any that could be attained by placing them in governmental leading-strings; while, further, this habit of self-help will give not only knowledge, but also self-reliance, activity, enterprise.

But, granting all this to be generally true, it by no means follows that an aggregate of persons, seeking each his own interest in the most intelligent and active manner possible, is therefore certain to realise the greatest attainable happiness for the aggregate. Indeed, it is obvious that if the mode of action on the part of any one individual which is most conducive to his own interest diverges from that which is most conducive to the interest of all, then the more completely he is left free to pursue the former end, the more certain it is that he will not promote the latter in the highest attainable degree. Hence, to complete the theoretical argument for laisser faire, we require, besides the psychological proposition that every one can best take care of his own interest, to establish the sociological proposition that the common welfare is best attained by each pursuing exclusively his own welfare and that of his family in a thoroughly alert and intelligent manner.

Now this latter proposition has been maintained, in a broad and general way, by the main tradition of what is called "orthodox political economy," since its emergence in France in the middle of the last century. The argument may be briefly stated thus: Consumers generally-i.e. the members of the community generally, in their character as consumers-seeking each his own interest intelligently, will cause an effectual demand for different kinds of products and services, in proportion to their utility to society; while producers generally, seeking each his own interest intelligently, will be led to supply this demand in the most

economic way, each one training himself or being trained by his parents for the most useful-and therefore best rewarded -services for which he is adapted. Any excess of any class of products or services will be rapidly corrected by a fall in the price offered for them; and similarly any deficiency will be rapidly made up by the stimulus of a rise. And the more keenly and persistently each individual— whether as consumer or producer-pursues his private interest, the more certain will be the natural punishment of inertia or misdirected effort anywhere, and the more complete consequently will be the adaptation of social efforts to the satisfaction of social needs.

According to my view, both the psychological generalisation that individuals are likely to provide for their own welfare better than Government can provide for them, and the sociological generalisation that the common welfare is likely to be best promoted by individuals promoting their private interest intelligently, are to a great extent true. The motive of self-interest does work powerfully and continually in the manner above indicated; and the difficulty of finding any substitute for it, either as an impulsive or as a regulating force, appears to me a valid ground for rejecting all large schemes for reconstructing social order on some other than its present individualistic basis. I do not doubt that what I have before distinguished as the "individualistic minimum of governmental interference ought to constitute the main part of such interference, until the nature of an average civilised human being becomes very different from what it is at present; and the socialistic interference for which, in the present chapter, I propose to offer a theoretical justification, is conceived by me merely as a supplementary and subordinate element in a system mainly individualistic. the same time I think it important to maintain that there is no reason either from our general experience of human conduct or our specific experience of modern legislation-to regard either of the fundamental assumptions above distinguished as universally true; or even as so nearly true that we may confidently disregard empirical arguments for deviat

At