EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



nection with his official acts : so far as 

 he does, he helps to make the action of 

 the state ethical ; so far as he does not, 

 he deprives it of an ethical character. 

 To lay down the principle that " the 

 state," abstractly considered, " has an 

 ethical nature," is vain for any practical 

 purpose, seeing that the question at once 

 arises, How is that ethical nature to 

 find expression except in the action of 

 individuals, and if these do not carry a 

 sense of duty, or their own " ethical 

 nature," into their public acts, what are 

 you going to do about it? 



We suspect, however, that Prof. Ely, 

 in asking this question, really means to 

 ask whether the state has a warrant for 

 undertaking various policies for the sim- 

 ple purpose of " doing good," as the 

 phrase is. If we grant that the state 

 has an ethical nature, he will doubtless 

 infer and ask us to infer that the state 

 should be a knight- errant for the cor- 

 rection of all evils and abuses. From 

 that point of view our answer is : The 

 state is no more and no less ethical than 

 the persons who guide its action, and 

 any ethical nature which it pos^^esses 

 simply represents on a very small scale 

 the ethical nature of the community at 

 large. All this talk about the state 

 and w^hat it could or should do di- 

 verts attention from the much more im- 

 portant question of calling into activity 

 the ethical nature of individual citizens. 

 If each citizen can only be persuaded to 

 make himself an ethical element in the 

 fullest sense, the task of government 

 will become much lighter, and many of 

 our social difficulties will completely dis- 

 appear. On the other hand, if the 

 Government is going to do the ethical 

 business for the people, the outlook is 

 not at all satisfactory : Government will 

 be overburdened, and the ethical nature 

 of the community will not be developed 

 as it otherwise might be ; in fact, it 

 will run great risk of suffering partial 

 atrophy. 



Finally, we are told that if the state 

 is a divine institution, and its authority 



comes from God, then we have a good 

 answer to the anarchist; if not, not. 

 The latter is not distinctly stated, but 

 it is distinctly imi^lied. Our answer to 

 this is that ''the state" is a divine insti- 

 tution, and derives its authority from 

 God just as much as and no more than 

 the New York Central Eailway or any 

 other corporation down to a village 

 baseball club. It may be under right- 

 eous or unrighteous control, so may the 

 I'ailway, so may the baseball club. 

 When it enacts dishonest and oppressive 

 tariff laws, it is just as well not to lay 

 too much stress on its divine mandate. 

 On the other hand, when it enacts an 

 honest law for the good of all ; when 

 it faithfully carries out its obligations, 

 national or international ; when it up- 

 holds justice between man and man, we 

 set the seal of our moral approval on 

 its action, but we do not ascribe any 

 special authority to that action on the 

 ground that "the state is a divine in- 

 stitution." We feel instinctively that 

 nothing can be more divine than jus- 

 tice, and when the state succeeds in be- 

 ing just, we simply rejoice that it has 

 been able to approximate to our con- 

 ception of the divine. The state, in 

 fact, does not, so far as this goes, differ 

 in any respect from the humblest in- 

 dividual citizen who has it in his power 

 to do right or wrong, to place himself 

 in harmony with or in opposition to 

 what he feels to be the will of God. 



As to our answer to the anarchist, 

 we need not be so particularly anxious 

 about that. Unless we honestly believe 

 we are in the right in wishing to pre- 

 serve the existing frame of society, we 

 had better give in to the anarchist and 

 take counsel with him as to how we 

 may remold things "nearer to the 

 heart's desire." If we think we are in 

 the right, we have simply to maintain 

 our position and use what dissuasives 

 we can on the anarchist fraternity. We 

 should certainly be prepared to listen to 

 any arguments they may bring forward 

 that are not of the dynamite order. 



