i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIlTfff ^ 26 



interfere, then, is one which must be left to be decided 

 separately for each individual case. The difficulty which 

 meets the statesman is the same as that which meets us 

 all in individual life, in which our abstract rights arc 

 generally clear enough, though it is frequently extremely 

 hard to say at what point it is wise to cease our attempts 

 to enforce them. 



The notion that the social body should be organized in 

 such a manner as to advance the welfare of its members, 

 is as old as political thought ; and the schemes of Plato, 

 More, Robert Owen, St. Simon, Comte, and the modern 

 socialists, bear witness that, in every age, men whose 

 capacity is of no mean order, and whose desire to benefit 

 their fellows has rarely been excelled, have been strongly, 

 nay, enthusiastically, convinced that Government may 

 attain its end the good of the people by some more 

 effectual process than the very simple and easy one 

 of putting its hands in its pockets, and letting them 

 alone. 



It may be, that all the schemes of social organization 

 which have hitherto been propounded are impracticable 

 follies. But if this be so, the fact proves, not that the 

 idea which underlies them is worthless, but only that the 

 science of politics is in a very rudimentary and imperfect 

 state. Politics, as a science, is not older than astronomy ; 

 but though the subject-matter of the latter is vastly less 

 complex than that of the former, the theory of the moon's 

 motions is not quite settled yet. 



Perhaps it may help us a little way towards getting 

 clearer notions of what the State may and what it may 

 not do, if, assuming the truth of Locke's maxim that 

 " the end of Government is the good of mankind," we 

 consider a little what the good of mankind is. 



I take it that the good of mankind means the attain- 

 ment, by every man, of all the happiness which he can 



