io6 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



is the expression of the opinion of the majority; and 

 it is law, and not mere opinion, because the many are 

 strong enough to enforce it. 



I am as strongly convinced as the most pronounced 

 individualist can be, that it is desirable that every man 

 should be free to act in every way which does not limit 

 the corresponding freedom of his fellow-man. But I 

 fail to connect that great induction of political science 

 with the practical corollary which is frequently drawn 

 from it: that the State that is, the people in their 

 corporate capacity has no business to meddle with 

 anything but the administration of justice and external 

 defence. It appears to me that the amount of freedom 

 which incorporate society may fitly leave to its members 

 is not a fixed quantity, to be determined a priori by 

 deduction from the fiction called "natural rights"; but 

 that it must be determined by, and vary with, circum- 

 stances. I conceive it to be demonstrable that the higher 

 and the more complex the organization of the social 

 body, the more closely is the life of each member bound 

 up with that of the whole; and the larger becomes the 

 category of acts which cease to be merely self -regarding, 

 and which interfere with the freedom of others more or 

 less seriously. 



If a squatter, living ten miles away from any neigh- 

 bour, chooses to burn his house down to get rid of 

 vermin, there may be no necessity (in the absence of 

 insurance offices) that the law should interfere with his 

 freedom of action; his act can hurt nobody but himself. 

 But, if the dweller in a street chooses to do the same 

 thing, the State very properly makes such a proceeding 

 a crime, and punishes it as such. He does meddle with 

 his neighbour's freedom, and that seriously. So it might, 

 perhaps, be a tenable doctrine, that it would be needless, 

 and even tyrannous, to make education compulsory in 



