And it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the
influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that
every man will attain to the measure of his worth, to all the dignity of
his being, and that mankind will accomplish, with order and with
calmness--slowly, it is true, but with certainty--the progress decreed
to it.
I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon
which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political,
or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right,
justice, progress, responsibility, property, labour, exchange, capital,
wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of
the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same
thing--the solution of the social problem is in liberty.
And have I not experience on my side? Cast your eye over the globe.
Which are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations?
Those where the law interferes the least with private activity; where
the Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most
scope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the
administration is the least important and the least complicated; where
taxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the least
excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of
individuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if
morals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to
correct themselves; where transactions, meetings, and associations are
the least fettered; where labour, capital, and production suffer the
least from artificial displacements; where mankind follows most
completely its own natural course; where the thought of God prevails the
most over the inventions of men; those, in short, who realise the most
nearly this idea--That within the limits of right, all should flow from
the free, perfectible, and voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted
by the law or by force, except the administration of universal justice.
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