SUGGESTIONS ON SOCIAL SUBJECTS. 167 



cially something after which the reformer's finger always itches. Some- 

 times there is an element of self-interest in the proposed reformation, 

 as when a publisher wanted a duty imposed on books, to keep Ameri- 

 cans from reading books which would unsettle their Americanism ; 

 and when artists wanted a tax laid on pictures, to save Americans 

 from buying bad paintings. . . . Amateur social doctors are like the 

 amateur physicians — they always begin with the question of remedies^ 

 and they go at this without any diagnosis, or any knowledge of the 

 anatomy or physiology of society. They never have any doubt of the 

 efficacy of their remedies. They never take account of any ulterior 

 effects which may be apprehended from the remedy itself. It gener- 

 ally troubles them not a whit that their remedy implies a complete 

 reconstruction of society, or even a reconstruction of human nature. 

 Against all such social quackery the obvious injunction to the quacks 

 is, to mind their own business. . . . We have inherited a vast number 

 of social ills which never came from nature. They are the compli- 

 cated products of all the tinkering, meddling, and blundering of social 

 doctors in the past. These products of social quackery are now but- 

 tressed by habit, fashion, prejudice, platitudinarian thinking, and new 

 quackery in political economy and social science. . . . Society, there- 

 fore, does not need any care or supervision. If we can acquire a 

 science of society based on observation of phenomena and study of 

 forces, we may hope to gain some ground slowly toward the elimina- 

 tion of old errors and the re-establishment of a sound and natural 

 social order. What we gain that way will be by growth, never in the 

 world by any reconstruction of society on the plan of some enthusi- 

 astic social architect. The latter is only repeating the old error over 

 again, and postponing all our chances of real improvement. Society 

 needs, first of all, to be freed from these meddlers ; that is, to be let 

 alone. Here we are, then, once more back at the old doctrine — laissez 

 faire. Let us translate it into blunt English, and it will read, * Mind 

 your own business.' It is nothing but the doctrine of liberty. Let 

 every man be happy in his own way. If his sphere of action and in- 

 terest impinges on that of any other man, there will have to be com- 

 promise and adjustment. Wait for the occasion. Do not attempt to 

 generalize those interferences, or to plan for them a priori. We have 

 a body of laws and institutions which have grown up as occasion has 

 occurred for adjusting rights. Let the same process go on. Practice 

 the utmost reserve possible in your interferences, even of this kind, 

 and by no means seize occasion for interfering with the natural adjust- 

 ments. . . . To mind one's own business is a purely negative and un- 

 productive injunction ; but, taking social matters as they are just now, 

 it is a sociological principle of the first importance. There might 

 be developed a grand philosophy on the basis of minding one's own 

 business." 



Chapter IX considers "thb Case of a Certain Man who is 



