POLITICAL RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 661 



free of cost, to protect his person and punish criminal aggres 

 sion on him. 



And the accompanying conclusion is that there will be 

 simultaneously carried further that trait which already 

 characterizes the most industrially-organized societies the 

 performance of increasingly-numerous and increasingly-im 

 portant functions by other organizations than those which 

 form departments of the government. Already in our own 

 case private enterprise, working through incorporated bodies 

 of citizens, achieves ends undreamed of as so achievable in 

 primitive societies ; and in the future, other ends undreamed 

 of now as so achievable, will be achieved. 



581. A corollary having important practical bearings 

 may be drawn. The several changes making up the trans 

 formation above indicated, are normally connected in their 

 amounts ; and mischief must occur if the due proportions 

 among them are not maintained. There is a certain right 

 relation to one another, and a right relation to the natures of 

 citizens, which may not be disregarded with impunity. 



The days when &quot; paper constitutions &quot; were believed in 

 have gone by if not with all, still with instructed people. 

 The general truth that the characters of the units determine 

 the character of the aggregate, though not admitted overtly 

 and fully, is yet admitted to some extent to the extent that 

 most politically-educated persons do not expect forthwith 

 completely to change the state of a society by this or that 

 kind of legislation. But when fully admitted, this truth 

 carries with it the conclusion that political institutions can 

 not be effectually modified faster than the characters of 

 citizens are modified ; and that if greater modifications are by 

 any accident produced, the excess of change is sure to be 

 undone by some counter-change. When, as in France, people 

 undisciplined in freedom are suddenly made politically free, 

 they show by some plebiscite that they willingly deliver over 

 their power to an autocrat, or they work their parliamentary 



