134 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



me that the amount of freedom which incorporate 

 society may fitly leave to its members is not a fixed 

 quantity, to be determined a priori by deduction from 

 the fiction called " natural rights " ; but that it must 

 be determined by. and vary with, circumstances. I 

 conceive it to be demonstrable that the higher and 

 the more complex the organization of the social 

 body, the more closely is the life of each member 

 bound up with that of the whole ; and the larger 

 becomes the category of acts which cease to be 

 merely self-regarding, and which interfere with the 

 freedom of others more or less seriously. 



If a squatter, living ten miles away from any 

 neighbour, chooses to burn his house down to get 

 rid of vermin, there may be no necessity (in the 

 absence of insurance offices) that the law should 

 interfere with his freedom of action ; his act can 

 hurt nobody but himself. But, if the dweller in a 

 street chooses to do the same thing, the State very 

 properly makes such a proceeding a crime, and 

 punishes it as such. He does meddle with his 

 neighbour's freedom, and that seriously. So it 

 might, perhaps, be a tenable doctrine, that it would 

 be needless, and even tyrannous, to make education 

 compulsory in a sparse agricultural population, living 

 in abundance on the produce of its own soil ; but, 

 in a densely populated manufacturing country, 

 struggling for existence with competitors, every 

 ignorant person tends to become a burden upon, and, 

 so far, an infringer of the liberty of, his fellows, and 

 an obstacle to their success. Under such circum- 

 stances an education rate is, in fact, a war tax, 

 levied for purposes of defence. 



CCLXXXII 



That State action always has been more or less 

 misdirected, and always will be so, is, I believe, 



