injunctions are strictly observed; and the legislator seems to have adequately discharged his duty when he has succeeded in framing wise laws, and seen how to secure their authority with the citizen. The idea of virtue, moreover, which has just been enunciated, is only true of a few classes of the political community, of those, namely, whose position enables them to devote their time and means to the process of internal development. The State has to embrace the majority in the circle of its solicitude, and these are manifestly incapable of that higher degree of morality.
It would be a sufficient answer to this reasoning, and serve to remove the ground from the objection which it suggests, to oppose the principle established in the former portion of this essay—that the State institution is not in itself an end, but is only a means towards human development; and hence, that it is not enough for the legislator to succeed in investing his dictates with authority, so long as the means through which that authority operates are not at the same time good, or, at least, innocuous. But apart from this fundamental principle, it is erroneous to suppose that the citizen's actions and their legal propriety are only important as far as the State is concerned. A State is such a complex and intricate machine, that its laws, which must always be few in number, and simple and general in their nature, cannot possibly prove adequate to the full accomplishment of its ends. The great essentials for social w r elfare are always left to be secured by the voluntary and harmonious endeavours of the citizens. To exhibit this, it is only necessary to contrast the prosperity and ample resources of a cultivated and enlightened people, with the wants and deficiencies of any ruder and less civilized community. It is for this reason that all who have occupied themselves with political affairs, have invariably been animated with the design of rendering the well-being of the
