SUGGESTIONS ON SOCIAL SUBJECTS. 163 



democracy. All institutions are to be tested by the degree to which 

 they guarantee liberty. It is not to be admitted for a moment that 

 liberty is a means to social ends, and that it may be impaired for 

 major considerations. Any one who so argues has lost the bearing 

 and relation of all the facts and factors in a free state. A human 

 being has a life to live, a career to run. He is a center of powers to 

 work and of capacities to suffer. What his powers may be, whether 

 they can carry him far or not ; what his chances may be, whether 

 wide or restricted ; what his fortune may be, whether to suffer much 

 or little are questions of his personal destiny which he must work 

 out and endure as he can ; but for all that concerns the bearing 

 of the society and its institutions upon that man, and upon the sum 

 of happiness to which he can attain during his life on earth, the 

 product of all history and all philosophy up to this time is summed up 

 in the doctrine that he should be left free to do the most for himself 

 that he can, and should be guaranteed the exclusive enjoyment of all 

 that he does. If the society that is to say, in plain terms, if his fel- 

 low-men, either individually, by groups, or in a mass impinge upon 

 him otherwise than to surround him with neutral conditions of security, 

 they must do so under the strictest responsibility to justify them- 

 selves. ... It is not at all the function of the state to make men 

 happy. They must make themselves happy in their own way and at 

 their own risk. The functions of the state lie entirely in the con- 

 ditions or chances under which the pursuit of happiness is carried on, 

 so far as those conditions or chances can be affected by civil organiza- 

 tion. Hence, liberty for labor and security for earnings are the ends 

 for which civil institutions exist, not means which, may be employed 

 for ulterior ends. . . . Democracy, in order to be true to itself, and to 

 develop into a sound working system, must oppose the same cold re- 

 sistance to any claims for favor on the ground of poverty as on the 

 ground of birth and rank. It can no more admit to public discussion, 

 as within the range of possible action, any schemes for coddling and 

 helping wage-receivers than it could entertain schemes for restricting 

 political power to wage-payers. It must put down schemes for mak- 

 ing 'the rich' pay for whatever 'the poor' want, just as it tramples 

 on the old theories that only the rich are fit to regulate society. One 

 needs but to watch our periodical literature to see the danger that de- 

 mocracy will be construed as a system of favoring a new privileged 

 class of the many and the poor. ... In a free state every man is held 

 and expected to take care of himself and his family, to make no 

 trouble for his neighbor, and to contribute his full share to public in- 

 terests and common necessities. If he fails in this, he throws burdens 

 on others. He does not thereby acquire rights against the others. On 

 the contrary, he only accumulates obligations toward them ; and, if he 

 is allowed to make his deficiencies a ground of new claims, he passes 

 over into the position of a privileged or petted person emancipated 



