24 



CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. 



[I- 



or state of civilization. Doubtless it is possible to 

 imagine a true "Civitas Dei," in which every man's 

 moral faculty shall be such as leads him to control all 

 those desires which run counter to the good of mankind, 

 and to cherish .only those which conduce to the welfare 

 of society ; and in which every man's native intellect 

 shall be sufficiently strong, and his culture sufficiently 

 extensive, to enable him to know what he ought to 

 do and to seek after. And, in that blessed State, police 

 will be as much a superfluity as every other kind of 

 government. 



But the eye of man has not beheld that State, and is 

 not likely to behold it for some time to come. What we 

 do see, in fact, is that States are made up of a consider- 

 able number of the ignorant and foolish, a small pro- 

 portion 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 repres- 

 sion. And, such being the case, I do not see how any 

 limit whatever can be laid down as to the extent to 

 which, under some circumstances, the action of Govern- 

 ment may be rightfully carried. 



Was our own Government wrong in suppressing 

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

 ting down any enthusiast w T ho 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 question 

 to rlrn.w the line between those things with which 

 ought, and those with which it ought not, to 



