The danger of minding other people's business is twofold. First, there
is the danger that a man may leave his own business unattended to; and,
second, there is the danger of an impertinent interference with
another's affairs. The "friends of humanity" almost always run into
both dangers. I am one of humanity, and I do not want any volunteer
friends. I regard friendship as mutual, and I want to have my say about
it. I suppose that other components of humanity feel in the same way
about it. If so, they must regard any one who assumes the _rôle_ of a
friend of humanity as impertinent. The reference to the friend of
humanity back to his own business is obviously the next step.

Yet we are constantly annoyed, and the legislatures are kept
constantly busy, by the people who have made up their minds that it is
wise and conducive to happiness to live in a certain way, and who want
to compel everybody else to live in their way. Some people have decided
to spend Sunday in a certain way, and they want laws passed to make
other people spend Sunday in the same way. Some people have resolved to
be teetotalers, and they want a law passed to make everybody else a
teetotaler. Some people have resolved to eschew luxury, and they want
taxes laid to make others eschew luxury. The taxing power is especially
something after which the reformer's finger always itches. Sometimes
there is an element of self-interest in the proposed reformation, as
when a publisher wanted a duty imposed on books, to keep Americans from
reading books which would unsettle their Americanisms; and when artists
wanted a tax laid on pictures, to save Americans from buying bad
paintings.

I make no reference here to the giving and taking of counsel and aid
between man and man: of that I shall say something in the last chapter.
The very sacredness of the relation in which two men stand to one