VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 275 



atoms thus associated resumes the freedom which 

 it lias renounced, and follows some external attrac- 

 tion, the molecule is broken up, and all the peculiar 

 properties which depended upon its constitution 

 vanish. 



Every society, great or small, resembles such 

 a complex molecule, in which the atoms are re- 

 presented by meft> possessed of all those multifar- 

 ious attractions and repulsions which are mani- 

 fested in their desires and volitions, the unlimited 

 power of satisfying which, we call freedom. The 

 social molecule exists in virtue of the renuncia- 

 tion of more or less of this freedom by every 

 individual. It is decomposed, when the attraction 

 of desire leads to the resumption of that freedom, 

 the suppression of which is essential to the exist- 

 ence of the social molecule. And the great 

 'problem of that social chemistry we calLpolitka* 

 is to discover what desires oi^jmankind may be 



atifiec^jmcLjidiat- -must, ba suppressed, if the 

 highly complex compound^ society, is to avoid 

 decomposition./ That the gratification of some of 

 men's desires shall be renounced is essential to 

 order ; that the satisfaction of others shall be per- . 

 mitted is no less essential to progress yand the 

 business of the sovereign authority \vliich is, >r 

 ought to be, simply a delegation of the people 

 appointed to act for its good appears to me 

 to be, not only to enforce the renunciation of 

 the anti-social desires, but, wherever it may bo 



r -2 



