THE REAL PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRACY. 3 



their own industry. Since each will be left in full possession of 

 all the fruits of his own toil, he will be at liberty to make just 

 such use of them as will contribute most to His happiness, thus per- 

 mitting the realization, in the only practicable way, of Bentham's 

 principle of " the greatest happiness of the greatest number." 

 Since all of them will be free to make such contracts as they be- 

 lieve will be most advantageous to them, exchanging what they 

 are willing to part with for what some one else is willing to give 

 in return, there will prevail the only equitable distribution of the 

 returns from labor and capital, ISTo one will receive more and no 

 one less than he is entitled to. Thus will benefit be in proportion 

 to merit, and the most scrupulous justice be satisfied. 



But this regime of equity in the distribution of property im- 

 plies, as I have already said, the possession of a high degree of self- 

 control, i^ot only must all persons have such a keen sense of their 

 own rights as will never permit them to submit to infringement, 

 but they must have such a keen sense of the rights of others that 

 they will not be guilty themselves of infringement. Not only will 

 they refrain from the commission of those acts of aggression whose 

 ill effects are immediate and obvious; they will refrain from those 

 acts whose ill effects are remote and obscure. Although they will 

 not, for example, deceive or steal or commit personal assaults, they 

 will not urge the adoption of a policy that will injure the unknown 

 members of other communities, like the Welsh tin-plate makers 

 and the Vienna pearl-button makers that the McKinley Bill de- 

 prived of employment. Realizing the vice of the plea of the op- 

 ponents of international copyright that cheap literature for a peo- 

 ple is better than scrupulous honesty, they will not refuse to foreign 

 authors the same protection to property that they demand. They 

 will not, finally, allow themselves to take by compulsion or by per- 

 suasion the property of neighbors to be used to alleviate suffering 

 or to disseminate knowledge in a way to weaken the moral and 

 physical strength of their fellows. But the possession of a sense 

 of justice so scrupulous assumes the possession of a fellow-feeling 

 so vivid that it will allow no man to refuse all needful aid to the 

 victims of misfortune. As suffering to others will mean suffering 

 to himself, he will be as powerfully moved to go to their rescue 

 as he would to protect himself against the same misfortune. In- 

 deed, he will be moved, as all others will be moved, to undertake 

 without compulsion all the benevolent work, be it charitable or 

 educational, that may be necessary to aid those persons less for- 

 tunate than himself to obtain the greatest possible satisfaction out 

 of life. 



But the methods of social reform now in greatest vogue do 



