Chapter XXVI: The Limits of State-Duties
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE LIMITS OF STATE-DUTIES
§ 362. During those early stages in which the Family and the State were not differentiated, there naturally arose the theory of paternal government.
Chapter XXVII: The Limits of State-Duties Continued
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE LIMITS OF STATE-DUTIES CONTINUED.
§ 368. We saw (in Chap. XXIII.) that at a later stage of evolution a society may acquire a nature fundamentally unlike the nature it had at an earlier stage; and we drew the corollary that a theory of State-duties appropriate when it had one nature must be inappropriate when it has the other nature. Here we have to draw a further corollary.
Chapter XXVIII: The Limits of State-Duties Continued
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE LIMITS OF STATE-DUTIES CONTINUED.
§ 374. “In simple matters direct perception cannot be trusted: to insure trustworthy conclusions we must use some mode of measurement by which the imperfections of the senses may be corrected. Contrariwise, in complex matters unaided contemplation suffices: we can adequately sum up and balance the evidences without reference to any general truth.”
Chapter XXIX: The Limits of State-Duties Concluded
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE LIMITS OF STATE-DUTIES CONCLUDED.
§ 380. Of the many reasons for restricting the range of governmental actions, the strongest remains to be named. The end which the statesman should keep in view as higher than all other ends, is the formation of character. And if there is entertained a right conception of the character which should be formed, and of the means by which it may be formed, the exclusion of multiplied State-agencies is necessarily implied.
Part V: Negative Beneficence
Chapter I: Kinds of Altruism
CHAPTER I.
KINDS OF ALTRUISM
§ 387. One division of an earlier work in this series of works—The Principles of Psychology—was devoted to showing that all intellectual operations are ultimately decomposable into recognitions of likeness and unlikeness, with mental grouping of the like and separation of the unlike.
Chapter II: Restraints On Free Competition
CHAPTER II.
RESTRAINTS ON FREE COMPETITION
§ 395. Beyond those limits to the actions of individuals which it is the business of the State to maintain, individuals have to impose on themselves further limits, prompted by sympathetic consideration for their struggling fellow-citizens. For the battle of life as carried on by competition, even within the bounds set by law, may have a mercilessness akin to the battle of life as carried on by violence.
Chapter III: Restraints On Free Contract
CHAPTER III.
RESTRAINTS ON FREE CONTRACT
§ 401.
Chapter IV: Restraints On Undeserved Payments
CHAPTER IV.
RESTRAINTS ON UNDESERVED PAYMENTS
§ 406. Still limiting ourselves to transactions in which money, or some equivalent, plays a part, we have here to consider a kind of negative beneficence which at first sight seems wholly unbeneficent. In daily occurring instances, immediate sympathy prompts certain actions which sympathy of a more abstract and higher form interdicts. I refer to refusals to do or to give things which are expected or asked.
Chapter V: Restraints On Displays of Ability
CHAPTER V.
RESTRAINTS ON DISPLAYS OF ABILITY
§ 411. Beyond the material advantages which men give and receive under the system of social co-operation, they give and receive non-material advantages. These are the benefits, or satisfactions, or pleasures, obtained during social intercourse; and which may or may not be apportioned in the most desirable ways. Here the office of negative beneficence is that of so restraining the actions which bring such gratifications to self, as to allow others to obtain their shares.
