21 
yet the man who is influenced retains responsibility, ^The ^just- 
notwithstanding the injury often received. Not un- tion is often 
frequently, however, the conflicting responsible twe^nSanand 
agents would be in such confused relations to each man * 
other and to mutual results, that the apportionment of praise 
and blame, individual approval or disapproval, would lie be- 
yond the just discernment of their fellow-men. It is useless to 
complain that there should ever be this mutual influence; 
for that would be to complain that we are what we are. 
Human nature exists in and for society ; this is undeniable. 
Yet each individual is held by all others to some in- Yet man 
ternal responsibility. He is praised, he is blamed, for exists in and 
himself. This too is undeniable. The two facts are forsociety - 
before us. Every responsible agent is essentially a being of 
some self-government ; and where many such beings co-exist 
they ought not to injure the self-governance of each other, 
much less to destroy it. A multitude of self-governing beings 
would be a confusion, and not a world, or moral icoafiog, unless 
under some external regulation; and External Regulation, or 
Government of Society, has in fact always been found among 
responsible agents. 
38. Even if all men were capable of perfect self-control, yet 
they would also be capable of failure ; and thus there would 
always be a need of external government. The functions of such 
government might conceivably be limited to a settlement of 
individual rights, or a guarding against aberrations; 
but they could never be dispensed with altogether. 
In an ideal state of perfection, the best external government 1 ^ 
government of a responsible agent would be that 
which gave the fullest scope to individual action, 
taking one case with another throughout the community. And, 
on the other hand, the worst government for a community of 
personally responsible beings would be that which put the 
greatest amount of unnecessary restraint on the individual, or 
interfered coercively with him either in his acting or willing. 
A tyrannical government might so far interfere with some 
actions of men, that they could not be justly called to account 
for them at all. Again, it might even undertake, What tt 
what indeed it could never discharge, the responsi- test govern- 
bility of certain members of the community ; ment ldeaUy ’ 
(though even then it must leave a large number of actions 
for which each agent would still have entire responsi- 
bility.) It would seem that the measure in which the 
external government, or State, is able wisely and safely to 
leave our conduct to our own control is a measure of the 
character of a government as wise or unwise, just or unjust. 
B elation s of 
the external to 
the internal 
responsible 
agent9. 
