1871 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 53 



semi-theological grounds to any one from below doing 

 likewise neatly satirising them and their notions of 

 gentility, and quoting Plato in support of his conten- 

 tion that what is wanted even more than means to 

 help capacity to rise is " machinery by which to 

 facilitate the descent of incapacity from the higher 

 strata to the lower." He repeats in new phrase his 

 warning " that every man of high natural ability, who 

 is both ignorant and miserable, is as great a danger 

 to society as a rocket without a stick is to people 

 who fire it. Misery is a match that never goes 

 out ; genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder 

 hollow : and if knowledge, which should give that 

 power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not small 

 that the rocket will simply run amuck among friends 

 and foes." 



Another class of objectors will have it that govern- 

 ment should be restricted to police functions, both 

 domestic and foreign, that any further interference 

 must do harm. 



Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that we 

 accept the proposition that the functions of the State 

 may be properly summed up in the one great negative 

 commandment " Thou shalt not allow any man to 

 interfere with the liberty of any other man," I am 

 unable to see that the logical consequence is any such 

 restriction of the power of Government, as its supporters 

 imply. If my next-door neighbour chooses to have his 

 drains in such a state as to create a poisonous atmosphere, 

 which I breathe at the risk of typhoid and diphtheria, he 

 restricts my just freedom to live just as much as if he 



