144 THE MORAL ASPECT OF 



themselves. A comparison between the civic States of 

 Greece and the earlier and cruder Eastern despotisms on 

 the one side, and the modern state or municipality on the 

 other, shows this at once. So numerous are the functions 

 which the latter have undertaken, that we are told that 

 "Socialism has already come." And this is true if it 

 means that the organised services of society have been 

 multiplied ; but it is altogether false if it is meant to con- 

 vey, as it generally is, that the individual's sphere of 

 activity has been contracted. That he competes against 

 society on its own lines is, of course, not true; nor can it 

 be asserted that a state or municipality can take up a busi- 

 ness without affecting those already engaged in it. But 

 if it proceeds wisely, as on the whole has been done in 

 this country, the general result is that the work is placed 

 in the hands which can do it best, and that means general 

 progress. 



Owing to higher organisation and the enlarged Functions 

 of the modern state, the individual is a much more power- 

 ful agent than the member of a crude community. In 

 other words, owing to the system of institutions which the 

 state comprises and sustains, he can conceive and carry out 

 purposes utterly beyond the reach of the latter: he is a 

 deeper and more effective personality. The modern state 

 is a rich treasury of resources upon which he can draw, 

 and its organisations constitute a most powerful machinery 

 on which he can lay his hands. It supplies him with the 

 means of a larger life, and extends and deepens the sig- 

 nificance of his individuality. 



Now, this fact, which is illustrated in our daily lives as 

 well as in the history of the growth of civilisation, implies 

 that the surfac^view^jwhich represents the individual and 



