or ought not, to regulate the distribution of wealth.  If it ought not, then all legislation which regulates inheritance—­the statute of Mortmain, and the like—­is wrong in principle; and, when a rich man dies, we ought to return to the state of nature, and have a scramble for his property.  If, on the other hand, the authority of the State is legitimately employed in regulating these matters, then it is an open question, to be decided entirely by evidence as to what tends to the highest good of the people, whether we keep our present laws, or whether we modify them.  At present the State protects men in the possession and enjoyment of their property, and defines what that property is.  The justification for its so doing is that its action promotes the good of the people.  If it can be clearly proved that the abolition of property would tend still, more to promote the good of the people, the State will have the same justification for abolishing property that it now has for maintaining it.

Again, I suppose it is universally agreed that it would be useless and absurd for the State to attempt to promote friendship and sympathy between man and man directly.  But I see no reason why, if it be otherwise expedient, the State may not do something towards that end indirectly.  For example, I can conceive the existence of an Established Church which should be a blessing to the community.  A Church in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before men’s minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares, should find a moment’s rest in the contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, though attained by so few; a place in which the man of strife and of business should have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he covets compared with peace and charity.  Depend upon it, if such a Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it.

Whatever the State may not do, however, it is universally agreed that it may take charge of the maintenance of internal and external peace.  Even the strongest advocate of administrative nihilism admits that Government may prevent aggression of one man on another.  But this implies the maintenance of an army and navy, as much as of a body of police; it implies a diplomatic as well as a detective force; and it implies, further, that the State, as a corporate whole, shall have distinct and definite views as to its wants, powers, and obligations.

For independent States stand in the same relation to one another as men in a state of nature, or unlimited freedom.  Each endeavours to get all it can, until the inconvenience of the state of war suggests either the formation of those express contracts we call treaties, or mutual consent to those implied contracts which are expressed by international law.  The moral rights of a State rest upon the same basis as those