CHAPTER III - On the solicitude of the State for the positive welfare of the citizen

Summary

Keeping in view the conclusions arrived at in the last chapter, we might embody in a general formula our idea of State agency when restricted to its proper limits, and define its objects as all that a government could accomplish for the common weal, without departing from the principle just established; while, from this position, we could proceed to derive the still stricter limitation, that any State interference in private affairs, where there is no immediate reference to violence done to individual rights, should be absolutely condemned. It will be necessary, however, to examine in succession the different departments of a State's usual or possible activity, before we can circumscribe its sphere more positively, and arrive at a full solution of the question proposed.

A State, then, has one of two ends in view; it designs either to promote happiness, or simply to prevent evil; and in the latter case, the evil which arises from natural causes, or that which springs from man himself. If it restricts its concern to the second of these objects, it aims merely at security; and I would here oppose this term security to every other possible end of State agency, and comprise these last under the general heading of Positive Welfare. Further, the various means adopted by a State affect in very different degrees the extension of its activity.