EVOLUTION 243 



means of, and for, the whole ; and what the whole achieves 

 makes achievement on the part of the members all the 

 more easy. This doctrine is as old as Plato, who knew 

 that the best education was membership of a good state, 

 and that the good state is best realized by making it an 

 institution for educating its citizens in all virtue. From 

 this it' would evidently follow that we can never benefit 

 the individual by limiting the state's power of efficient 

 activity, nor the state by hampering the effective will and 

 limiting the opportunity for independent activity on the 

 part of its members. On this view the Individualist would 

 desire more " state interference," and the Socialist, on his 

 part, would as soon deprive the individual of his intelli- 

 gence as of his private property. The former would know 

 that a highly organized state is the means to the production 

 of strong men, and the latter that strong men alone can 

 make a powerful state. In one word, the theory that the 

 mutual limitation and artificial equilibration of individual 

 and social powers is the practical ideal is radically incon- 

 sistent with the conception of the coincidence of perfect 

 law and perfect liberty which is admitted to be the begin- 

 ning and the end, the essence and constitutive principle 

 of moral life, social and individual. 



It is inconsistent also with the actual course of civiliza- 

 tion. Impossible as it may at first seem to be, that both 

 society and its members may at the same time enlarge their 

 sphere of activity, history shows us that this has actually 

 been taking place. Indeed, I am not sure that anything 

 else of the highest moment has been taking place. For 

 this more intense integration and fuller articulation of the 

 moral cosmos, this synthesis and analysis at one stroke, 

 this growth of society as an active unit and of its members 



