i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 9 



establishment of schools of design, or picture galleries ; 

 or by spending money upon an architectural public 

 building when a brick box would answer the purpose. 

 According to their views, not a shilling of public money 

 must be bestowed upon a public park or pleasure- 

 ground ; not sixpence upon the relief of starvation, or 

 the cure of disease. Those who hold these views support 

 them by two lines of argument. They enforce them 

 deductively by arguing from an assumed axiom, that the 

 State has no right to do anything but protect its subjects 

 from aggression. The State is simply a policeman, and 

 its duty is neither more nor less than to prevent robbery 

 and murder and enforce contracts. It is not to promote 

 good, nor even to do anything to prevent evil, except by 

 the enforcement of penalties upon those who have been 

 guilty of obvious and tangible assaults upon purses or 

 persons. And, according to this view, the proper form 

 of government is neither a monarchy, an aristocracy, nor 

 a democracy, but an asty nomocracy, or police govern- 

 ment. On the other hand, these views are supported d 

 posteriori, by an induction from observation, which pro- 

 fesses to show that whatever is done by a Government 

 beyond these negative limits, is not only sure to be done 

 badly, but to be done much worse than private enterprise 

 would have done the same thing. 



I am by no means clear as to the truth of the latter 

 proposition. It is generally supported by statements 

 which prove clearly enough that the State does a great 

 many things very badly. But this is really beside the 

 question. The State lives in a glass house ; we see what 

 it tries to do, and all its failures, partial or total, are 

 made the most of. But private enterprise is sheltered 

 under good opaque bricks and mortar. The public 

 rarely knows what it tries to do, and only hears of failures 

 when they are gross and patent to all the world. Who 



