x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 159 



events, with full command of the most recent knowledge, 

 and with open eyes ; yet we will not submit to such 

 interference. But, strange to say, we do submit, and 

 almost pride ourselves in submitting, to have various 

 important social matters determined for us by self-chosen 

 dead men, who are therefore necessarily behind the age, 

 and who were sometimes too ignorant, conceited, or 

 superstitious to be up to the intellectual level even of the 

 age in which they lived. It is by such blind guides that 

 we to this day submit to be, in great part, governed in 

 the all-important matters of religion, education, and the 

 administration of charity; and in submission to the 

 immutable laws of these dead rulers we have allowed vast 

 wealth to be misemployed or wasted in the hands of 

 irresponsible and antiquated corporations, which, well 

 bestowed, might have enlightened our people or beautified 

 our land. Who can doubt that the nation would have 

 greatly benefited had our churches and colleges, our 

 schools and charities, our guilds and companies, been free 

 to develop, from age to age, in accordance with the wants 

 and feelings of the living, untrammelled by any slavish 

 adherence to the expressed or implied wishes of the 

 dead? 



From the considerations now adduced, it will be evident 

 that the cessation of State interference in the way here 

 objected to, would produce other beneficial results besides 

 that of facilitating the administration of justice. These 

 may be briefly summarized as follows : 



It would take away one of the existing inducements to 

 a life-long devotion to the pursuit of wealth, for if a man 

 could neither make use of it himself nor enjoy the sense 

 of power felt in directing absolutely how it should be 

 employed by others, he would pause in his career of 

 accumulation, and perhaps endeavour to do something 

 useful with it during his own lifetime, rather than run the 

 risk of having it all go entirely beyond his control. 



It would have the effect of inducing many who now 

 leave their wealth for charitable and philanthropic purposes 

 at their death, to found such institutions as they wished 

 to have established, during their own life- time, in order to 



