CAUSES OF REVOLUTION.

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decided on the persons to be employed, the articles to be made, the materials to be used, and the quantities of the products-when inspectors broke the looms and burnt the goods that were not made according to law-and when improvements were illegal and inventors were fined-had no small share in producing the great revolution. Nor, amongst the causes which conspired to overthrow the government of Louis Philippe, must we forget the irritation generated by an analogous supervision, under which a mine cannot be opened without the permission of the authorities; under which a bookseller or printer may have his business suspended by the withdrawal of his licence; and under which it is penal to take a bucket of water out of the sea.

Thus, if we regard government as a means of upholding the social state, we find that, besides suffering a direct loss of power to perform its duty on attempting any thing else, there are several subsidiary ways in which the assumption of additional functions endangers the fulfilment of its original function.

§ 8. But we have not sufficiently considered the infinite presumption discernible in this attempt at regulating all the doings of men by law. To make up for defects. in the original constitution of things-this is the meaning of the scheme, nakedly stated. It is said of a certain personage, that he wished he had been consulted when the world was being made, for that he could have given good advice; and not a little historical celebrity has attached to this personage, in virtue of his so-thought unparalleled arrogance. Shallow, shallow! Why, the great majority of our statesmen and politicians do as much every day. Advice, indeed! they do not stop at advice. They actively interpose, take into their own hands matters that God seems to be mismanaging, and undertake to set them

right! It is clear to them that social wants and relation. ships have been so carelessly provided for, that without their vigilant management all will go wrong. As for any silent influences by which imperfections are in process of being removed, they do not believe in them. But by a commission, a staff of officers, and a parliamentary grant, every deficiency shall be made good, and the errors of Omniscience be rectified!

In truth it is a sad sight for any one who has been, what Bacon recommends-" a servant and interpreter of nature," to see these political schemers, with their clumsy mechanisms, trying to supersede the great laws of exist

ence.

Such an one, no longer regarding the mere outside of things, has learned to look for the secret forces by which they are upheld. After patient study, this chaos of phenomena into the midst of which he was born has begun to generalize itself to him; and where there seemed nothing but confusion, he can now discern the dim outlines of a gigantic plan. No accidents, no chance; but everywhere order and completeness. One by one exceptions vanish, and all becomes systematic. Suddenly what had appeared an anomaly answers to some intenser thought, exhibits polarity, and ranges itself along with kindred facts. Throughout he finds the same vital principles, ever in action, ever successful, and embracing the minutest details. Growth is unceasing; and though slow, all powerful: showing itself here in some rapidly-developing outline; and there, where the necessity is less, exhibiting only the fibrils of incipient organization. Irresisti ble as it is subtle, he sees in the worker of these changes, a power that bears onwards peoples and governments regardless of their theories, and schemes, and prejudices -a power which sucks the life out of their lauded institutions, shrivels up their state-parchments with a breath, paralyzes long-venerated authorities, obliterates the most

THE INHERENT ADJUSTMENTS OF THINGS.

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deeply-graven laws, makes statesmen recant and puts prophets to the blush, buries cherished customs, shelves precedents, and which, before men are yet conscious of the fact, has wrought a revolution in all things, and filled the world with a higher life. Always toward perfection is the mighty movement-toward a complete development and a more unmixed good; subordinating in its universality all petty irregularities and fallings back, as the curvature of the earth subordinates mountains and valleys. Even in evils, the student learns to recognize only a struggling beneficence. But, above all, he is struck with the inherent sufficingness of things, and with the complex simplicity of those principles by which every defect is being remedied-principles that show themselves alike in the self-adjustment of planetary perturbations, and in the healing of a scratched finger-in the balancing of social systems, and in the increased sensitiveness of a blind man's ear-in the adaptation of prices to produce, and in the acclimatization of a plant. Day by day he sees a further beauty. Each new fact illustrates more clearly some recognized law, or discloses some inconceived completeness: contemplation thus perpetually discovering to him a higher harmony, and cherishing in him a deeper faith.

And now, in the midst of his admiration and his awe, the student shall suddenly see some flippant red-tapist get upon his legs and tell the world how he is going to put a patch upon nature! Here is a man who, in the presence of all the wonders that encompass him, dares to announce that he and certain of his colleagues have laid their heads together and found out a way to improve upon the Divine arrangements! Scarcely an idea have these meddlers got of what underlies the facts with which they propose to deal; as you shall soon find on sounding their philosophy: and yet, could they carry out their preten

sions, we should see them self-appointed nurses to the uni verse! They have so little faith in the laws of things, and so much faith in themselves, that, were it possible, they would chain earth and sun together, lest centripetal force should fail! Nothing but a parliament-made agency can be depended upon; and only when this infinitelycomplex humanity of ours has been put under their ingenious regulations, and provided for by their supreme intelligence, will the world become what it ought to be! Such, in essence, is the astounding creed of these creationmenders.

§ 9. Consider it then in what light we may-morally or scientifically, with reference to its practicableness, or as a question of political prudence, or even in its bearings upon religious faith-we find this theory, that a government ought to undertake other offices besides that of protector, to be an untenable theory. It has been shown that if the maintaining of rights be regarded as the special function of the state, the state cannot fulfil any other function without a partial loss of power to fulfil its special one. When, from another point of view, the state is looked upon as an aid to adaptation, we still find that it cannot exceed its duty of guarding men's liberties, without becoming a hindrance to adaptation, instead of an aid. It turns out that to abolish the limit of legislative interposition now contended for, is in fact to abolish all limits whatever-is to give the civil power a field of action to which no bounds can be fixed, save in some arbitrary and utterly unphilosophical way. Moreover, even could certain supplementary affairs, considered fit for government supervision, be duly distinguished from the rest, there would still be the fact that all experience shows gov ernment to be an incompetent manager of such sup plementary affairs.

It is further urged, that the sys

EXTENSION OF THE ARGUMENT IN DETAIL. 325

tem of extended official control is bad, because unfavourable to social stability. And, finally, that system is repudiated, as involving an absurd and even impious presumption.

Such, then, are the general arguments brought forward to prove that whilst the state ought to protect, it ought to do nothing more than protect. By the abstract thinker they may perhaps be deemed conclusive. There are others, however, with whom they will weigh comparatively little; and, for the conviction of these, it will be needful to examine in detail each of the several cases in which legislative superintendence is commonly advocated. Let us now proceed to do this.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE.

1. Arrangements which alter the natural course of trade are of two kinds; they may be classed as either artificial stimuli or artificial restraints--bounties or restrictions.

Of bounties must here be said specially what was said in the last chapter of factitious advantages generally; namely, that a government cannot give them without indirectly reversing its function. Not being requisite for the due maintenance of the citizen's rights, the taking away of his property for the purpose of encouraging certain branches of production, would be wrong even were collateral benefits given in exchange; and as, instead of affording him collateral benefits, the commercial derange ments consequent upon it put additional limits to the ex