VI 



ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 



L'C!) 



should be the one great commandment which the 

 State is to obey in all other matters ; and especi- 

 ally in those in which the justification of laissez- 

 fairc, namely, the keen insight given by the strong 

 stimulus of direct personal interest, in matters 

 clearly understood, is entirely absent. 



Thirdly, to the indifference generated by the 

 y absence of fixed beliefs, and to' the confidence in 

 the efficacy of laissez-faire, apparently justified by 

 experience of the value of 'that principle when 

 applied to the pursuit of wealth, there must be 

 added that nobler and better reason for a profound 

 distrust of legislative interference, which "animates 

 Von Humboldt and shines' forth in the pages of 

 Mr. Mill's famous Essay on Liberty I mean the 

 just fear lest the end should, be sacrificed to 

 the means ; lest freedom and variety should be 

 drilled and disciplined out of human life in order 

 that the great mill of the State should grind 

 smoothly. 



One of the profoundest of living .English 

 philosophers, who is at the same time the most 

 thoroughgoing .and consistent of the . champions 

 of astynoinocracy^Tias devoted a very able and 

 ingenious essay l tp the drawing out of a com- 

 parison between the process by which men have, 

 advanced from the savage state to the h: 

 civilisation, and that by which an animal passes 

 from the condition of an almost shapeless and 

 1 The Social Organism : Essays: Second Series. 



