APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 135 



perfectly true. But I am not aware that it is more 

 true of the action of men in their corporate capacity 

 than it is of the doings of individuals. The wisest 

 and most dispassionate man in existence, merely 

 wishing to go from one stile in a field to the opposite, 

 will not walk quite straight he is always going a 

 little wrong, and always correcting himself; and I 

 can only congratulate the individualist who is able 

 to say that his general course of life has been of a 

 less undulatory character. To abolish State action, 

 because its direction is never more than approxi- 

 mately correct, appears to me to be much the same 

 thing as abolishing the man at the wheel altogether, 

 because, do what he will, the ship yaws more or 

 less. "Why should I be robbed of my property to 

 pay for teaching another man's children ? " is an 

 individualist question, which is not unfrequently put 

 as if it settled the whole business. Perhaps it does, 

 but I find difficulties in seeing why it should. The 

 parish in which I live makes me pay my share for 

 the paving and lighting of a great many streets that 

 I never pass through ; and I might plead that I am 

 robbed to smooth the way and lighten the darkness 

 of other people. But I am afraid the parochial 

 authorities would not let me off on this plea ; and I 

 must confess I do not see why they should. 



I cannot speak of my own knowledge, but I have 

 every reason to believe that I came into this world a 

 small reddish person, certainly without a gold spoon 

 in my mouth, and in fact with no discernible abstract 

 or concrete " rights " or property of any description. 

 If a foot was not set upon me at once, as a squalling 

 nuisance, it was either the natural affection of those 

 about me, which I certainly had done nothing to 

 deserve, or the fear of the law which, ages before 



