general peace (however interrupted by brief periods of warfare), have
changed the face of commerce as completely as modern artillery has
changed that of war. The merchant found himself as much burdened by
ancient protective measures as the soldier by his armour--and negative
legislation has been of as much use to the one as the stripping off
of breast-plates, greaves, and buff-coat to the other. But because the
soldier is better without his armour it does not exactly follow that
it is desirable that our defenders should strip themselves stark
naked; and it is not more apparent why _laissez-faire_--great and
beneficial as it may be in all that relates to the accumulation of
wealth--should be the one great commandment which the State is to
obey in all other matters; and especially in those in which the
justification of _laissez-faire_, namely, the keen insight given by
the strong stimulus of direct personal interest, in matters clearly
understood, is entirely absent.

Thirdly, to the indifference generated by the absence of fixed
beliefs, and to the confidence in the efficacy of _laissez-faire_,
apparently justified by experience of the value of that principle when
applied to the pursuit of wealth, there must be added that nobler and
better reason for a profound distrust of legislative interference,
which animates Von Humboldt and shines forth in the pages of Mr.
Mill's famous Essay on Liberty--I mean the just fear lest the end
should be sacrificed to the means; lest freedom and variety should be
drilled and disciplined out of human life in order that the great mill
of the State should grind smoothly.

One of the profoundest of living English philosophers, who is at the
same time the most thoroughgoing and consistent of the champions of
astynomocracy, has devoted a very able and ingenious essay[1] to the