PATTERNS FOR LIVING TOGETHER 119 



"An evil seldom comes alone. A portion of evil can hardly 

 fall upon an individual, without spreading on every side, as from 

 a centre. As it spreads, it takes different forms. We see an evil of 

 one kind coming out of an evil of another kindj we even see 

 evil coming out of good, and good out of evil. It is important 

 to know and to distinguish all these kinds of evil, for in this the 

 very essence of legislation consists." 



It is a major tragedy of the world today that this distinction 

 so wisely urged by Bentham has been so completely forgotten. 

 The souls and bodies of millions of innocent and harmless 

 human beings are being tortured because self-righteous and self- 

 seeking men in temporary possession of power ruthlessly and 

 contemptuously disregard the fact that all regimentation, 

 whether it be by law or not, is an evil in itself. And this fact is 

 in no smallest degree altered by asseverations of nobility of 

 purpose. 



The practical difficulty in framing a working pattern of human 

 sociality has always been, and probably will continue to be for 

 a long time in the future, the achievement of a satisfactory steady 

 state of equilibrium between what is good from the standpoint 

 of the group on the one hand, and what is evil from the stand- 

 point of the individual on the other hand. Compromise is the 

 only possible way of dealing with such an issue. Because it is 

 gives the reasons why law and government have always been 

 compromises in their essential nature. If the pattern is formed 

 solely in the interest of either the group or the individual it 

 has little stability or power to survive. 



The actual machinery of operation of government and rule- 

 making, the basic social organization, has exhibited in all human 

 history only two really different fatterns. One of these is the 

 autocratic, oligarchic pattern, the other the democratic. The 

 difference between them in theory and in fact — whenever it has 

 seemed worth while to translate the theory into fact — is that 

 in the one case the laws and government are made and adminis- 

 tered by a few individuals in the group without let, hindrance, 

 or advice from the rest of the group ; while in the other case all 

 the individuals in the group have a direct first-hand share in the 



