greater difficulty at just principles; but they manifest themselves ineffaceably in his actions. He who is designedly guided, receives such principles with greater facility; but still they give way before his energies, however much enfeebled.
4. All political arrangements, in that they have to bring a variety of widely-discordant interests into unity and harmony, necessarily occasion manifold collisions. From these collisions spring misproportions between men's desires and their powers; and from these, transgressions. The more active the State is, the greater is the number of these. If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, and of those which they prevent, the number of the former would, in all cases, exceed that of the latter.
5. How far the strictest search into crimes actually committed, the infliction of just, well-measured, but irremissible punishment, and the consequent rareness of moral impunity, are really practicable, has never yet been duly tried.
I have now sufficiently shown, according to my views, how questionable is every effort of the State to oppose or even to prevent any dissoluteness of morals (in so far as it does not imply injury to individual rights); how few are the beneficial results to be expected from such attempts, as regards morality; and how the exercise of such an influence on the character of a nation, is not even necessary for the preservation of security.
If now, in addition to this, we bring forward the principles before unfolded, which disapprove of all State agency directed to positive aims, and which apply here with especial force, since it is precisely the moral man who feels every restriction most deeply; reflecting, further, that if there is one aspect of development more than any other which owes its highest beauty to freedom, this is precisely the culture
