FROM THE EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY. 31 



themselves need not on that account be abandoned. The 

 voluntary cooperation of those who favour them is 

 generally a sufficient guarantee of their being carried into 

 successful execution ; and it is in this direction that we 

 must look for their successful inauguration. 



The object of state control, as we have seen, is to prevent 

 citizens from encroaching on one another's rights. Accord- 

 ing to the evolution philosophy, however, the spirit of 

 aggression and hostility must decline as civilization 

 advances ; hence when men attain to the high state of 

 moral development pre-supposed by the ideal society, the 

 need of such external restraints on freedom as it is the 

 duty of government to impose will, in a great measure, if 

 not entirely, cease. Internal restraints will supply the 

 place of legislative coercion. We may say then that if 

 there are any functions at all for a government to perform 

 in an ideal society they must be such as consist with the 

 most complete human development such as insist upon 

 the least possible state control and the greatest possible 

 personal freedom. The practical import of which is that 

 we ought always to keep this standard of government in 

 view as the goal to be attained ; and whatever compromises 

 between individualism and state control we may be induced 

 to advocate as a present need ought not to blind us to the 

 fact we shall never attain the perfect form of government 

 until the control needful to make good citizens comes from 

 within and not from without. And thus, incidentally, we 

 are brought to see the true purpose of social evolution. It 

 does lut aim to lead men out of the condition of freedom and 

 desire to injure their fellow-men back again into the original 

 state of freedom with none of the original desire. J- 

 ''^But how is this goal to be attained ? Not indeed by any 

 magic means. Simply and solely through natural agencies, 



