Page:Roads to freedom.djvu/200

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198
Roads to Freedom

mental hospital until it is thought that they are no longer a danger. By education and freedom and the abolition of private capital, the number of crimes can be made exceedingly small. By the method of individual curative treatment, it will generally be possible to secure that a man's first offence shall also be his last, except in the case of lunatics and the feeble-minded, for whom of course a more prolonged but not less kindly detention may be necessary.

Government may be regarded as consisting of two parts: the one, the decisions of the community or its recognized organs; the other, the enforcing of those decisions upon all who resist them. The first part is not objected to by Anarchists. The second part, in an ordinary civilized State, may remain entirely m the background: those who have resisted a new law while it was being debated will, as a rule, submit to it when it is passed, because resistance is generally useless in a settled and orderly community. But the possibility of governmental force remains, and indeed is the very reason for the submission which makes force unnecessary. If, as Anarchists desire, there were no use of force by Government, the majority could still band themselves together and use force against the minority. The only difference would be that their army or their police force would be ad hoc, instead of being permanent and professional. The result of this would be that every one would have to learn how to fight, for fear a well-drilled minority should seize power and establish an old-fashioned oligarchic State. Thus the aim of the Anarchists