The public in this theory is not the dispenser of law or morals, but, at best, a reserve force that may be mobilized on behalf of the method and spirit of law and morals. In denying that the public can lay down the rules I have not said that it should abandon any function which the public now exercises. I have merely said that it should abandon a pretense. When the public attempts to deal with the substance it merely becomes the dupe or unconscious ally of a special interest. For there is only one common interest: that all special interests shall act according to settled rule. The moment you ask what rule you invade the realm of competing interests of special points of view, of personal, and class, and sectional, and national bias. The public should not ask what rule because it cannot answer the question. It will contribute its part to the solution of social problems if it recognizes that some system of rights and duties is necessary, but that no particular system is peculiarly sacred. Chapter IX THE TWO QUESTIONS BEFORE THE PUBLIC The multitude of untroubled rules that men live by are of no concern to the public. It has to deal only with the failures. Customs that are accepted by all who are expected to follow them, contracts that are carried out peaceably, promises that are kept, expectations fulfilled, raise no issue. Even when there has been a breach of the rule, there is no public question if the breach is clearly established, the aggression clearly identified, the penalty determined and imposed. The aggressor may be identified because he pleads guilty. He may be identified by some due process though he denies his guilt. The rule, a term under which I mean to include the method of detection, interpretation and enforcement, as well as the precept, is in either case intact. The force of the public can be aligned without hesitation on behalf of the authorities who administer the rule. There is no question for the public unless there is doubt as to the validity of the rule,—doubt, that is to say, about its meaning, its soundness or the method of its application. When there is doubt the public requires simple, objective tests to help it decide where it will enlist. These tests must, therefore, answer two questions: First, Is the rule defective? Second, How shall the agency be recognized which is most likely to mend it? These are, I should maintain, the only two questions which the public needs to answer in order to exert the greatest influence it is capable of exerting toward the solution of public problems. They are not, please note, the only questions which anybody has to answer to solve a problem. They are the only questions which a member of the public can usefully concern himself with if he wishes to avoid ignorant meddling.