3 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



order of nature. It is not positive and objective ; therefore it is 

 not capable of constant and easy verification. It is historical and 

 institutional. That means, however, that it is in the flux and 

 change of civilization, wherefore the reason and conscience of 

 men are kept in constant activity to re-examine accepted princi- 

 ples, and to reach new and more correct solution of problems. On 

 account of this activity, institutions are modified constantly, and 

 the concrete contents of the public creed, about rights and duties, 

 are undergoing constant change. It does not appear that this ever 

 can be otherwise. There is an assumption that we can attain to 

 social stability by finding out the right " form of government," 

 or the correct " social system," but no ground for such a notion 

 can be found in philosophy or history.* The equilibrium of rights 

 and duties constitutes the terms on which the struggle for existence 

 is carried on in a given society, after the reason and conscience of 

 the community have pronounced judgment on those terms. The 

 very highest conception of the state is that it is an organization 

 for bringing that judgment to an expression in the Constitution 

 and laws. A state, therefore, is good, bad, or indifferent, accord- 

 ing to the directness and correctness with which it brings to an 

 expression the best reason and conscience of the people, and em- 

 bodies their judgment in institutions and laws. The state, there- 

 fore, lives by deliberation and discussion, and by tacit or overt 

 expressions of the major opinion. 



The fact that laws and institutions must be constantly re- 

 molded, in the progress of time, by the active reason and con- 

 science of the people, is what has probably given rise to the notion, 

 just now so popular, that ethical considerations do, or ought to, 

 regulate legislation and social relations. The doctrine, however, 

 that institutions must, in the course of generations, slowly change 

 to conform to social conditions and social forces, according to the 

 mature convictions of great masses of men, is a very different 

 thing from the notion that rights and duties should be at the sport 

 of all the crude notions which, from time to time, may gain the 

 assent of even an important group of the population. 



Among the most important tides of thought at the present 

 time which are hostile to liberty are socialism, which always has 

 to assume a controlling organ to overrule personal liberty and set 

 aside civil liberty, in order to bring about what the socialist au- 

 thorities have decided shall be done ; nationalism, really a cognate 

 of socialism, with opposition to emigration or immigration ; state 



* One of the most remarkable signs of the confusion reigning in social science is the 

 fact that current discussion is marked by an attempt to force positive character upon the 

 doctrines of the state, or to make a science of " political science," which never can be any- 

 thing but historical and institutional, and at the same time to deny scientific character to 

 economic laws, and to insist that they are historical and institutional. 



