231. So far as the particular will is the principle of a purpose, the force, by which the universal guarantees security, is limited to the realm of mere accident, and is an external arrangement.
232. Crimes are in their nature contingent or casual, taking the form of capricious choice of evil, and must be prevented or brought to justice by the general force. Apart from them, however, arbitrary choice must be allowed a place in connection with acts in themselves lawful, such as the private use of property. Here it comes into external relation with other individuals, and also with public institutions for realizing a common end. In this way a private act is exposed to a haphazard play of circumstances, which take it beyond my control. It thus or actually does effect an injury or wrong to others.
233. This is, indeed, only a possibility of harm. But that no actual injury is done is now no longer a matter of accident, since the aspect of wrong in private acts is the ultimate ground for the right of police control.
234. The relations of external reality occur within the realm of the infinity created by the understanding, and have accordingly no inherent limit. Hence, as to what is dangerous and what not, what suspicious and what free from suspicion, what is to be forbidden, or kept under inspection, or pardoned with a reprimand, what is to be retained after pardon under police supervision, and what is to be dismissed on suspended sentence, no boundary can be laid down. Custom, the spirit of the constitution as a whole, the condition of the time, the danger of the moment, etc., furnish means for a decision.
Addition.— No fixed definition can here be given, or absolute boundary drawn. Here everything is personal and influenced by subjective opinion. To the spirit of the constitution or the danger of the times are due any more decisive characteristics. In time of war, e.g., many things morally harmless are looked on as harmful. Because of the presence of this aspect of contingency and arbitrary personality the police are viewed with odium. They can by far-fetched conclusions draw every kind of thing within their sphere; for in anything may be found a possibility of harm. Hence, the police may go to work in a pedantic spirit, and disturb the moral life of individuals. But great as the nuisance may be, an objective limit to their action cannot be drawn.
235. Although every one relies on the untrammelled possibility of satisfying his daily wants, yet, when in the indefinite multiplication and limitation of them it is sought to procure or exchange the means and it is desired to expedite the transaction, there comes into sight a common interest, which makes the business of one subserve the interest of all. There appear, likewise, ways and means, which may be of public utility. To oversee and foster the ways and means calculated to promote the public welfare is the function of a public power.
236. The different interests of producers and consumers may come into conflict, and, although the right relation between the two may on the whole arise of its own accord, yet the adjustment of the two calls for a regulation standing above both sides and put into operation consciously. The right to make such a regulation in any particular case (e.g., taxation of the articles most necessary to sustain life), consists in this, that the public offer of goods, in wide and daily use, is not to the individual, as such, but to him as a universal, i.e., to the public. The people’s right to honest dealing and inspection of goods to prevent fraud may be enforced by a public functionary. But more especially does the dependence of great branches of industry upon foreign conditions and distant combinations, which the individuals engaged in these industries cannot themselves oversee, make necessary a general supervision and control.
Note.— In contrast with freedom of business and trade in the civic community stands the other extreme of the establishment and direction of the work of all by means of official regulation. Under this head comes perhaps the construction of the pyramids and other monstrous Egyptian and Asiatic works. They were built for public ends without the intervention of any work done by the individual to further his own private interests. Private interest summons the principle of freedom against interference from above, but the more blindly it is sunk in self-seeking ends, the more it stands in need of regulation, in order that it may be led back to the universal. Thus what might be a dangerous upheaval becomes largely harmless, and shorter time is left for conflicts to adjust themselves merely by unconscious necessity.
Addition.— Police control and provision are intended to intervene between the individual and the universal pos-sibility of obtaining his wants. It takes charge of lighting the streets, building bridges, taxation of daily wants, even of health. Two main views stand out at this point. One view is that it falls to the police to look after everything the other that the police should not interfere at all, since every one will be guided by the need of others. The individual, it is true, must have the right to earn his bread in this or the other way, but on the other hand the public has a right to ask that what is necessary shall be done. Both claims should be met, and the freedom of trade ought not to be of such a kind as to endanger the general weal.
237. The possibility of sharing in the general wealth is open to the individual and secured to him by public regulations. This security, however, cannot be complete, and in any case the possibility of sharing in the general wealth is from the subjective side open to casualties, just in proportion as it presupposes conditions of skill, health, and capital.
238. In the first instance the family is the substantive whole. To it falls the duty of providing for the particular side of the individual’s life, both in regard of the means and talents requisite for winning his maintenance out of the common stock, and in regard of subsistence and provision in case of disability. But the civic community tears the individual out of the family bonds, makes its members strangers to one another, and recognizes them as independent persons. Instead of external inorganic nature and the paternal soil, from which the individual drew subsistence, the community substitutes its own ground, and subjects the whole family to fortuitous dependence upon itself. Thus the individual has become the son of the civic community, which makes claims upon him, at the same time as he has rights to it.
Addition.— The family has, of course, to provide bread for individuals; but in the civic community the family is subordinate and merely forms a basis. After that it is no longer of such extensive efficacy. Rather is the civic community the monster, which snatches man to itself, claims from him that he should toil for it and that he should exist through it and act by means of it. If man is a member of such a community, he has just such rights in it or claims upon it as he had in and upon the family. The civic community must protect its members, and defend their rights, as they in turn are engaged to obey its mandates.
239. The civic community, in its character as universal family, has the right and duty to supersede, if necessary, the will of the parents, and superintend the education of the young, at least in so far as their education bears upon their becoming members of the community. Especially is this the case if the education is to be completed not by the parents but by others. Further, the community must undertake general arrangements for education, in so far as they can be made.
Addition.— The boundary line between the rights of parents and those of the civic community is hard to define. The parents generally suppose themselves to possess complete liberty with regard to education, and to be able to do whatever they wish. Whenever instruction is made public, the chief opposition usually comes from the parents, who cry out and make acclaim about teachers and schools merely because they are displeased with them. In spite of this, the community has the right to proceed according to tried methods, and to compel parents to send their children to school, to have them vaccinated, etc. Contests occur in France between the demands of free instruction, i.e., of the pleasure of parents, on the one side, and the oversight of the state on the other.
240. Similarly, the community has the duty and right to take under its guardianship those who wantonly squander their subsistence and that of their family. In the place of this extravagance it substitutes their real end, which it seeks to promote along with the purpose of the community.
Addition.— It was a law in Athens that every citizen should give an account of his way of life. Our view is that this is no one’s business. Of course every individual is in one way independent, but he is also a member of the system of the civic community. In so far as every man has the right to ask maintenance from it, it must also protect him against himself. It is not simply that starvation must be guarded against. The wider view is that there never shall arise a rabble, or mass. Since the civic community is obliged to support individuals, it has also the right to insist that individuals should care for its subsistence.
241. Not the arbitrary will only, but accidental circumstances, which may be physical or external (§200), may bring the individual to poverty. This condition exposes him to the wants of the civic community, which has already deprived him of the natural methods of acquisition (§217), and superseded the bond of the family stock (§181). Besides, poverty causes men to lose more or less the advantage of society, the opportunity to acquire skill or education, the benefit of the administration of justice, the care for health, even the consolation of religion. Amongst the poor the public power takes the place of the family in regard to their immediate need, dislike of work, bad disposition, and other vices, which spring out of poverty and the sense of wrong.
242. The subjective element of poverty, or generally the distress, to which the individual is by nature exposed, requires subjective assistance, both in view of the special circumstances, and out of sympathy and love. Here, amidst all general arrangements, morality finds ample room to work. But since the assistance is in its own nature and in its effects casual, the effort of society shall be to discover a general remedy for penury and to do without random help.
Note.— Haphazard almsgiving and such foundations as the burning of lamps beside holy images, etc., are replaced by public poor-houses, hospitals, street lighting, etc. To charity enough still remains. It is a false view for charity to restrict its help to private methods and casual sentiment and knowledge, and to feel itself injured and weakened by regulations binding upon the whole community. On the contrary, the public system is to be regarded as all the more complete, the less remains to be done by special effort.
243. When the civic community is untrammelled in its activity, it increases within itself in industry and population. By generalizing the relations of men by the way of their wants, and by generalizing the manner in which the means of meeting these wants are prepared and procured, large fortunes are amassed. On the other side, there occur repartition and limitation of the work of the individual labourer and, consequently, dependence and distress in the artisan class. With these drawbacks are associated callousness of feeling and inability to enjoy the larger possibilities of freedom, especially the mental advantages of the civic community.
244. When a large number of people sink below the standard of living regarded as essential for the members of society, and lose that sense of right, rectitude, and honour which is derived from self-support, a pauper class arises, and wealth accumulates disproportionately in the hands of a few.
Addition.— The way of living of the pauper class is the lowest of all, and is adopted by themselves. But with different peoples the minimum is very different. In England even the poorest man believes that he has his right, and with him this standard is different from that which satisfies the poor in other lands. Poverty does not of itself make a pauper. The pauper state implies a frame of mind, associated often with poverty, consisting in inner rebellion against the wealthy, against society, and against constituted authority. Moreover, in order to descend to the class, which is at the mercy of the changes and chances of life, men must be heedless and indifferent to work, as are the Lazzaroni in Naples. Hence, in this section of the community arises the evil thing that a man has not self-respect enough to earn his own living by his work, and still he claims support as a right. No man can maintain a right against nature. Yet, in social conditions want assumes the form of a wrong done to one or other class. The important question, how poverty is to be done away with, is one which has disturbed and agitated society, especially in modern times.
245. If upon the more wealthy classes the burden were directly laid of maintaining the poor at the level of their ordinary way of life, or if in public institutions, such as rich hospitals, foundations, or cloisters, the poor could receive direct support, they would be assured of subsistence without requiring to do any work. This would be contrary both to the principle of the civic community and to the feeling its members have of independence and honour.
Again, if subsistence were provided not directly but through work, or opportunity to work, the quantity of produce would be increased, and the consumers, becoming themselves producers, would be proportionately too few. Whether in the case of over-production, then, or in the case of direct help, the evil sought to be removed would remain, and, indeed, would by either method be enhanced. There arises the seeming paradox that the civic community when excessively wealthy is not rich enough. It has not sufficient hold of its own wealth to stem excess of poverty and the creation of paupers.
Note.— These phenomena may be studied in England, where they occur on an extensive scale. In that country may also be observed the consequences of poor rates, of vast foundations, of unlimited private benevolence, and, above all, of the discontinuance of the corporation. In England, and especially in Scotland, the most direct remedy against poverty and against laziness and extravagance, which are the cause of poverty, has been proved by practical experience to be to leave the poor to their fate, and direct them to public begging. This, too, has been found to be the best means for preserving that sense of shame and honour, which is the subjective basis of society.
246. By means of its own dialectic the civic community is driven beyond its own limits as a definite and self-complete society. It must find consumers and the necessary means of life amongst other peoples, who either lack the means, of which it has a superfluity, or have less developed industries.
247. As the firm-set earth, or the soil, is the basis of family life, so the basis of industry is the sea, the natural element which stimulates intercourse with foreign lands. By the substitution for the tenacious grasp of the soil, and for the limited round of appetites and enjoyments embraced within the civic life, of the fluid element of danger and destruction, the passion for gain is transformed. By means of the sea, the greatest medium of communication, the desire for wealth brings distant lands into an intercourse, which leads to commercial exchange. In this intercourse is found one of the chief means of culture, and in it, too, trade receives world-historical significance.
Note.— Rivers are not natural boundaries, though people have in modern times tried to make them so. Rather do they, and more especially the sea, bind men together.
That Horace (Carm. I. 3) is wrong when he says:
“... deus abscidit
Prudens Oceano dissociabili
Terras,...” is shown by the general fact that basins of rivers are inhabited by one nation or race. This is proved even more conspicuously by the relations of ancient Greece with Ionia and Magna Graecia, of Brittany with Britain, of Denmark with Norway, of Sweden with Finland and Lapland, in contrast with the slight intercourse obtaining between the inhabitants of the coast and those of the interior. We have only to compare the position of the nations, who have frequented the sea, with that of the nations who have avoided it, in order to discover what a means of culture and commerce it really is. Observe how the Egyptians and Hindoos have become dull and insensible, and are sunk in the grossest and most shameful superstitions, while all the great aspiring nations press to the sea.
248. The wider connection due to the sea becomes a means for colonization, to which, be it sporadic or systematic, the full-grown civic community finds itself impelled. Thus for a part of its population it provides on a new soil a return to the family principle, and also procures for itself at the same time a new incentive and field for work.
Addition.— The civic society is forced to found colonies, owing to the increase of population, but more especially because production oversteps the needs of consumption, and the growing numbers cannot satisfy their needs by their work. Sporadic colonization occurs mainly in Germany, the colonists, finding a home in America or Russia, being without any connection with and of no benefit to their native land. A different kind of colonization is the system-atic, which is conducted by the state consciously and with suitable appliances. Of this kind of colonization many forms occurred amongst the ancients, especially the Greeks. In Greece the citizens did not engage in severe toil, but directed their energies to public affairs. When the population grew to such an extent that it was difficult to provide for them, the youth were sent into a new neighbourhood, which, was sometimes chosen for them, sometimes left to the accident of discovery. In modern times colonists have not been granted the rights possessed by the inhabitants of the parent country. The result has been war and ultimate independence, as may be read in the history of the English and Spanish colonies. The independence of the colonies has turned out to be of the greatest advantage to the mother land, just as the liberation of the slaves was of the greatest advantage to the masters.
249. The universal, which is contained in the particularity of the civic community, is realized and preserved by the external system of police supervision, whose purpose is simply to protect and secure the multitude of private ends and interests subsisting within it. It has also the higher function of caring for the interests which lead out beyond the civic community (§246). In accordance with the idea particularity itself makes the universal, which exists in its special interests, the end and object of its will and endeavour. The ethical principle thus comes back as a constituent element of the civic community. This is the corporation.