THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 185 



men who are placed under a temptation to make them, but these men 

 are guarded against penalties apt to be brought on them by abusing 

 their power. A poor woman who proceeds against one of them, for 

 making a groundless accusation ruinous to her character, does so with 

 this risk before her : that, if she fails to get a verdict, she has to pay 

 the defendant's costs (not taxed costs hut full costs) ; whereas a ver- 

 dict in her favor does not give her costs : only by a special order of 

 the judge does she get costs ! And this is the "even-handed jus- 

 tice " provided by a government freer in form than any we have ever 

 had ! " ' 



Let it not be supposed that in arguing thus I am implying that 

 forms of government are unimportant. While contending that they 

 are of value only in so far as a national character gives life to them, it 

 is consistent also to contend that they are essential as agencies through 

 which that national character may work out its effects. A boy cannot 

 wield to purpose an implement of size and weight fitted to the hand 

 of a man. A man cannot do effective work with the boy's implement : 

 he must have one adapted to his larger grasp and greater strength. 

 To each the implement is essential ; but the results which each achieves 

 are not to be measured by the size or make of the implement alone, 

 but by its adaptation to his powers. Similarly with political instru- 

 mentalities. It is possible to hold that a political instrumentality is 

 of value only in proportion as there exists a strength of character 

 needful for using it, and at the same time to hold that a fit political 

 instrumentality is indispensable. Here, as before, results are not pro- 

 portionate to appliances ; but they are proportionate to the force for 

 due operation of which certain appliances are necessary. 



One other still more genei*al and more subtle kind of political bias 

 has to be guarded against. Beyond that excess of faith in laws and in 

 political forms which is fostered by awe of regulative agencies, there 



1 When, in dealing with the vitiation of evidence, I before referred to the legislation 

 here named, I commented on the ready acceptance of those one-sided statements made 

 to justify such legislation, in contrast with the contempt for those multitudinous proofs 

 that gross abuses would inevitably result from the arrangements made. Since that pas- 

 sage was written, there has been a startling justification of it. A murder has been com- 

 mitted by a gang of sham-detectives (one of them a government employe) ; and the trial 

 has brought out the fact that for the last three years the people of Lille have been sub- 

 ject to an organized terrorism which has grown out of the system of prostitute-inspec- 

 tion. Though, during those three years, five hundred women are said by one of these 

 criminals to have fallen into their clutches though the men have been blackmailed 

 and the women outraged to this immense extent, yet the practice went on for the 

 reason (obvious enough, one would have thought, to need no proof by illustration) that 

 those aggrieved preferred to submit rather than endanger their characters by complain- 

 ing ; and the practice would doubtless have gone on still but for the murder of one of the 

 victims. To some this case will carry conviction : probably not, however, to those who, 

 in pursuance of what they are pleased to call " practical legislation," prefer an induction 

 based on a Blue Book to an induction based on universal history. 



