202 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi 



vaccination or education, will also justify it in 

 prescribing my religious belief, or my mode of 

 carrying on my trade or profession ; in deter- 

 mining the number of courses I have for dinner, 

 or the pattern of my waistcoat. 



But surely the answer is obvious that, on 

 similar grounds, the right of a man to eat when he 

 is hungry might be disputed, because if you once 

 allow that he may eat at all, there is no stopping 

 him until he gorges himself, and suffers all the ills 

 of a surfeit. In practice, the man leaves off when 

 reason tells him he has had enough; and, in a 

 properly organised State, the Government, being 

 nothin<j_but the corporatj} reason of the community, 

 will soon find out when State interferenceTias'been 

 carried far enough. And, so far as my acquaint- 

 ance with those who carry on the business of 

 Government goes, I must say that I find them far 

 less eager to interfere with the people, than the 

 people are to be interfered with. And the reason 

 is obvious. The people are keenly sensible of 

 particular evils, and, like a man suffering from 

 pain, desire an immediate remedy. The s 

 man, on the other hand, is like the physician, who 

 knows that he can stop the pain at once by an 

 opiate; but who also knows that the opiate may 

 do more harm than good in the long run. In 

 tlnve cases out of four the wisest thing he can do 

 is to wait, and leave the case to nature. But in 

 the fourth case, in which thu symptoms are 



