CHAPTER X 



LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS IN THE ADMINISTRATION 

 OF JUSTICE^ 



Amid the endless discussions that have taken place as 

 to the sphere and duties of Government, all parties are 

 agreed that there are two great and primary functions 

 which every efficient Government must perform if it 

 deserve the name : it must guard the country against 

 attack by foreign enemies ; and it must make such arrange- 

 ments for the administration of the laws, that every man 

 may obtain justice — as far as possible free and speedy 

 justice — against wilful evil-doers. 



The fact that there is an absolute unanimity as to these 

 two important functions of a good Government, while 

 almost everything else that Governments do, or attempt to 

 do, has been denounced by great thinkers as beyond their 

 proper sphere of action, renders it probable that these are, 

 at all events, the primary and most important functions of 

 the State. It may not, perhaps, be easy to determine 

 which of these two is of the greatest importance ; for even 

 admitting that conquest by a foreign foe is an evil incalcul- 

 ably greater than any wrong which individuals may suffer, 

 yet the one is of so much more frequent occurrence — 

 every member of society being daily exposed to it, while 

 attempts at conquest occur onl}' at distant and uncertain 

 intervals — that repetition in the one case may make up 

 for magnitude in the other. We are therefore pretty safe 



1 This article appeared in the Coufemporary Review of December, 

 1S73. It is now considerably extended. 



