VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 279 



come. What we do see, in fact, is that States 

 are made up of a considerable number of the 

 ignorant and foolish, a small proportion of genuine 

 knaves, and a sprinkling of capable and honest 

 men, by whose efforts the former are kept in a 

 reasonable state of guidance, and the latter of 

 repression. ^A_nd, such being the case, I do not 

 ysee how any limit whatever can be laid down as - 

 / to the extent to which, under some circumstances, 

 the action of Government may be rightfully 

 / carried. \S 



Was our own Government wrong in suppressing 

 Thuggee in India ? If not, would it be wrong in 

 putting down any enthusiast who attempted to 

 set up the worship of Astarte in the Haymarket ? 

 Has the State no right to put a stop to gross and 

 open violations of common decency ? And if the 

 State has, as I believe it has, a perfect right to do 

 all these things, are we not bound to admit, with 

 Locke, that it may have a right to interfere with 

 "Popery" and "Atheism," if it be really true that 

 the practical consequences of such beliefs can be 

 proved to be injurious to civil society? The 

 juestion ^here to draw the line between those 

 things with which the State ought, and those 

 with which it ought not, to interfere, then, is one 

 which must be left to be decided s< 'p;u-atelv_for 

 eachjndividuai^case.^/rhe difficulty which meets 

 TO^^aEesman is the same as that which meets 

 us all in individual life, in which our abstract 



