248 SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL 



cases I am obliged to contribute to the maintenance of the 

 public machinery whether I employ it or not. But in all 

 cases alike, even when I contribute to public education, 

 or to the maintenance of judges or of prisons or hospitals, 

 without myself making use of them, it would be difficult 

 for me to show that I do not derive any advantage from 

 these institutions ; and it would be impossible for me to 

 show that their end is not personal, individual, even though 

 I should not happen to be one of those individuals for 

 whom the State directly provides. In one word, all social 

 activities are means and not ends ; and organized society, 

 in this respect, occupies the middle place between the indi- 

 vidual's will and the individual's perfected purpose, as all 

 instruments do. 



I postpone for the present the other aspect of this truth, 

 in order to indicate the consequences that follow from what 

 I have just said. If State or municipal action occupies 

 the place I have indicated, then the problem of its extension 

 is a much more simple matter than it is generally supposed 

 to be. Once it is clearly seen that the individual is not 

 supplanted but served by the State, and that the State, in 

 all its activities, has no other aim than this service, the 

 bitterness of the controversy between Socialists and Indi- 

 vidualists might be expected to disappear. Any new j 

 proposal would be estimated from the point of view of* 

 its utility as means, and of its effectiveness as an instru- 

 ment ; and the great questions of individual and social 

 rights 1 would not be raised, as they are at present, whenever 



1 Society has no right which is so unconditioned as the right to make 

 the most of its members : and the individual has no right which can 

 compare wjth_his right to do his duty, which is to fulfil his part as a 

 member of society, and therefore to serve society. 



