The experience of ages shows that the ameliorating, helpful agencies and influences that lift communities up to higher levels, often operate silently as the leaven, till the whole lump is leavened. In many tribes the advance from savagery and the usurpation by irresponsible leaders, of absolute power toward complete civil liberty and personal rights, has been slow. The change has come by means almost imperceptible, or by struggles that seemed at the time fruitless. The improved condition of society does not bring entire security, or freedom from assault. The yoke once taken from the neck, and the heavy burdens from the shoulders, new ideas of property, justice, and personal rights are developed. The spirit of enterprise is awakened, because each finds himself in the position of affluence and influence, to which his talents, industry and self-denial entitle him. Men become competitors, and inequalities of condition are inevitable. Incompetence, idleness, and extravagance bring want and misery. Wealth and poverty exist side by side, the rich growing richer, and the poor poorer. Class distinctions become odious. Capital and labor, that should be allies, are often in conflict, to the great injury of both. There may be occasion for complaint against those “who oppress the hireling in his wages,” and “grind the faces of the poor.” But many are envious without cause, and suffer only the penalty of their idleness and extravagance, become enemies of the community, and are deaf to remonstrance if they see, or think they see, any way of relieving themselves at the expense of those who have acted more wisely, and possess large estates. Here come in the functions of government, that is of society, with its better notions of right and justice, and power to enforce them. True “social science,” founded on the experience of ages, recognizes the necessity of government, the obligations of the citizen, and the right of all to the property they have lawfully and honestly acquired. It demonstrates that real progress is in the way of a safe conservatism, while it admits the possibility of change and improvement, fully justifying the work of the reformer where reformation is needed. If existing institutions are inadequate because of some radical defect, have outlasted their usefulness, or become oppressive, revolution may be demanded. But any government, though unjust and despotic, is better than anarchy, and should be repudiated only when it is, under all the circumstances, possible to establish a better. When legitimate authority is resisted in the spirit of lawlessness or efforts at revolution prompted by an evil ambition, the actors are guilty. There have been many attempts, mostly abortive, to solve the problem of government, and reconstruct the social fabric. Some of them by good men, whose schemes were simply theoretical and impractical; others by malcontents and destructionists who mistake license for liberty. Plato,