But the good of mankind is not a something which is absolute and fixed for all men, whatever their capacities or state of civilization. Doubtless it is possible to imagine a true "Civitas Dei," in which every man's moral faculty shall be such as leads him to control all those desires which run counter to the good of mankind, and to cherish only those which conduce to the welfare of society; and in which every man's native intellect shall be sufficiently strong, and his culture sufficiently extensive, to enable him to know what he ought to do and to seek after. And, in that blessed State, police will be as much a superfluity as every other kind of government. But the eye of man has not beheld that State, and is not likely to behold it for some time to come. What we do see, in fact, is that States are made up of a considerable number of the ignorant and foolish, a small proportion of genuine knaves, and a sprinkling of capable and honest men, by whose efforts the former are kept in a reasonable state of guidance, and the latter of repression. And, such being the case, I do not see how any limit whatever can be laid down as to the extent to which, under some circumstances, the action of Government may be rightfully carried. Was our own Government wrong in suppressing Thuggee in India? If not, would it be wrong in putting down any enthusiast who attempted to set up the worship of Astarte in the Haymarket? Has the State no right to put a stop to gross and open violations of common decency? And if the State has, as I believe it has, a perfect right to do all these things, are we not bound to admit, with Locke, that it may have a right to interfere with "Popery" and "Atheism," if it be really true that the practical consequences of such beliefs con be proved to be injurious to civil society? The question where to draw the line between those things with which the State ought, and those with which it ought not, to interfere, then, is one which must be left to be decided separately for each individual case. The difficulty which meets the statesman is the same as that which meets us all in individual life, in which our abstract rights are generally clear enough, though it is frequently extremely hard to say at what point it is wise to cease our attempts to enforce them. The notion that the social body should be organized in such a manner as to advance the welfare of its members, is as old as political thought; and the schemes of Plato, More, Robert Owen, St. Simon, Comte, and the modern socialists, bear witness that, in every age, men whose capacity is of no mean order, and whose desire to benefit their fellows has rarely been excelled, have been strongly, nay, enthusiastically, convinced that Government may attain its end--the good of the people--by some more effectual process than the very simple and easy one of putting its hands in its pockets, and letting them alone.