You have a disorderly society, a frontier mining camp, every man armed, every man threatened by the arms of his neighbour and every man in danger. What is the first need in restoring order? More force--more revolvers and bowie knives? No; every man is fully armed already. If there exists in this disorder the germ of order some attempt will be made to move towards the creation of a police. But what is the indispensable prerequisite for the success of such an effort? It is the capacity for a nucleus of the community to act in common, to agree together to make the beginnings of a community. And unless that nucleus can achieve agreement--a moral and intellectual problem--there can be no police force. But be it noted well, this first prerequisite--the agreement among a few members necessary to create the first Vigilance Committee--is not force; it is a decision of certain minds determining how force shall be used, how combined. Even when you have got as far as the police, this device of social protection will entirely break down unless the police itself can be trusted to obey the constituted authority, and the constituted authority itself to abide by the law. If the police represents a mere preponderance of power, using that power to create a privileged position for itself or for its employers--setting itself, that is, against the community--you will sooner or later get resistance which will ultimately neutralise that power and produce a mere paralysis so far as any social purpose is concerned. The existence of the police depends upon general agreement not to use force except as the instrument of the social will, the law to which all are party. This social will may not exist; the members of the vigilance committee or town council or other body may themselves use their revolvers and knives each against the other. Very well, in that case you will get no police. 'Force' will not remedy it. Who is to use the force if no one man can agree with the other? All along the line here we find ourselves, whatever our predisposition to trust only 'force,' thrown back upon a moral factor, compelled to rely upon contract, an agreement, before we can use force at all. It will be noted incidentally that effective social force does not rest upon a Balance of Power: society does not need a Balance of Power as between the law and crime; it wants a preponderance of power on the side of the law. One does not want a Balance of Power between rival parties in the State. One wants a preponderance of power on behalf of a certain fundamental code upon which all parties, or an immense majority of parties, will be agreed. As against the Balance of Power we need a Community of Power--to use Mr. Wilson's phrase--on the side of a purpose or code of which the contributors to the power are aware.