APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 133 



multitude to break with custom and incur the 

 manifest perils of revolt except the belief that 

 misery in this world, or damnation in the next, or 

 both, are threatened by the continuance of the 

 state of things in which they have been brought 

 up. But when they do attain that conviction, 

 society becomes as unstable as a package of dyna- 

 mite, and a very small matter will produce the 

 explosion which sends it back to the chaos of 

 savagery. 



CCLXXX 



Intelligence, knowledge, and skill are undoubtedly 

 conditions of success ; but of what avail are they 

 likely to be unless they are backed up by honesty, 

 energy, goodwill, and all the physical and moral 

 faculties that go to the making of manhood, and 

 unless they are stimulated by hope of such reward 

 as men may fairly look to ? And what dweller in 

 the slough of want, dwarfed in body and soul, 

 demoralized, hopeless, can reasonably be expected 

 to possess these qualities ? 



CCLXXXI 



I am as strongly convinced as the most pronounced 

 individualist can be, that it is desirable that every 

 man should be free to act in every way which does 

 not limit the corresponding freedom of his fellow- 

 man. But I fail to connect that great induction of 

 political science with the practical corollary which is 

 frequently drawn from it : that the State — that is, 

 the people in their corporate capacity — has no 

 business to meddle with anything but the administra- 

 tion of justice and external defence. It appears to 



