598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



of individual members, the utmost direct pressure, consciously exerted 

 by the community, is of the feeblest efficacy, and, at the best, indefi- 

 nite and precarious in the highest degree. The sphere of action of 

 the community, with respect to the former, or the acts of men, is that 

 of law. The sphere of action with respect to the latter, that is, the 

 thoughts and feelings, though not exclusive of acts, is morality. The 

 relations of these two spheres to each other will be investigated in the 

 next chapter. 



In the mean time, the following conclusions have been reached : It 

 appears that the characteristic energy of every state consists in the 

 reciprocal influence upon each other of the corporate whole, and the 

 constituent elements, in respect of certain definitely assignable classes 

 of human action. These classes of action will either have reference 

 to things or physical substances, as objects of ownership or use, or 

 have no such reference. The actually subsisting relationship to each 

 other of the corporate whole, and the constituent personal elements, 

 depends upon the form of government which casually happens to 

 prevail. 



The influence of the constituent personal elements of the state 

 upon its governing authority, as representing, at any epoch, the cor- 

 porate whole, is exhibited, first, in the selection (whether conscious or 

 unconscious) of that governing authority according to its specific 

 modifications; and, secondly, in the incessant control (conscious or 

 unconscious) of that authority, by which the limits of its free action 

 are, at every moment, defined. The influence of the governing au- 

 thority, on the other hand, on the constituent personal elements of the 

 state — that is, upon its so-called "subjects" — is exerted through two 

 separate channels : one that of administration ; the other that of law. 

 In other words, the purposes of government are efiected either through 

 the medium of occasional and, as it were, spasmodic injunctions, or 

 through general rules. 



The limits, within which any given governing authority can venture 

 to issue occasional injunctions, must be determined, as has already 

 been seen, by its actual relations to all the constituent personal ele- 

 ments of the state. These limits will never be precisely determined 

 in language, though they will be marked with tolerable exactness in 

 fact, and instinctively appreciated by all persons concerned in either 

 enlarging or protecting them. 



The determination of these limits of administrative authority might 

 be looked upon as forming one great branch of the general rules which 

 constitute the other field of the appropriate activity of the govern- 

 ment. It composes a large portion of what is called " constitutional 

 law." The anomaly, however, attaching to this extension of the term 

 " law " is obvious, inasmuch as, if the name " law " be given to the 

 body of general rules through which a government exerts its appro- 

 priate activity, the same term " law " cannot be simultaneously ap- 



