THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 61 1 



is better that they should be gone through once than gone through 

 twice, as they have to be when any relaxation of these conditions per- 

 mits retrogression. 



Thus, that which sundry precepts of the current religion embody 

 that which ethical systems, intuitive or utilitarian, equally urge, is 

 also that which Biology, generalizing the laws of life at large, dictates. 

 All further requirements are unimportant compared with this primary 

 requirement, that each shall so live as neither to burden others nor to 

 injure others. And all further appliances for influencing the actions 

 and natures of men are unimportant compared with those serving to 

 maintain and increase the conformity to this primary requirement. 

 But, unhappily, legislators and philanthropists, busy with schemes 

 which, instead of aiding adaptation, indirectly hinder it, give little at- 

 tention to the enforcing and improving of those arrangements by 

 which adaptation is effected. 



And here, on behalf of the few who uphold this policy of natural 

 discipline, let me emphatically repudiate the name of laissez-faire as 

 applied to it, and emphatically condemn the counter-policy as involv- 

 ing a laissez-faire of the most vicious kind. While holding that, when 

 the State leaves each citizen to get what good for himself he can, and 

 to suffer what evil he brings on himself, such a let-alone policy is 

 eventually beneficial, I contend that, when the State leaves him to 

 bear the evils inflicted by other citizens, and can be induced to defend 

 him only at a ruinous cost, such a let-alone policy is both immediately 

 and remotely injurious. When a Legislature takes from the worthy 

 the things they have labored for, that it may give to the unworthy 

 the things they have not earned when cause and consequence, joined 

 in the order of Nature, are thus divorced by statesmen then may 

 properly come the suggestion, " Cease your interference." But when, 

 in any way, direct or indirect, the unworthy deprive the worthy of 

 their dues, or impede them in the quiet pursuit of their ends, then 

 may properly come the demand, " Interfere promptly and effectual- 

 ly, and be in fact the protectors which you are in name." Our poli- 

 ticians and philanthropists, impatient with a salutary laissez-faire, 

 tolerate and even defend a laissez-faire that is in the highest degree 

 mischievous. Without hesitation, this regulative agency we call the 

 Government takes from us some 100,000 a year to pay for art-teach- 

 ing and to establish art-museums ; while, in guarding us against rob- 

 bers and murderers, it makes convictions difficult by demurring to 

 the cost of necessary evidence : even the outlay for a plan, admitted 

 by the tax-master, being refused by the Treasury ! Is not this a dis- 

 astrous laissez-faire? While millions are voted without a murmur 

 for an expedition to rescue a meddling consul from a half-savage king, 

 our Executive resists the spending of a few extra thousands to pay 

 more judges : the result being not simply vast arrears and long de- 

 lays, but immense injustices of other kinds costs being run up in 



