enced at the wrong end. Society should be constructed as you erect a
house; not from the roof down, but from the foundation upwards."

"Admitting, however, that your house has been badly constructed at
first, in repairing it, would you tear away the walls at random, at the
risk of bringing all down about your ears?"

"I would first see that sufficient props were reared, and then proceed
with vigor, though always with caution. Courage in such an experiment
is less to be dreaded than timidity. Half the evils of life, social,
personal and political, are as much the effects of moral cowardice as of
fraud."

I then told the brigadier, that as his countrymen rejected the
inducements of property in the selection of the political base of their
social compact, I expected to find a capital substitute in virtue.

"I have always heard that virtue is the great essential of a free
people, and doubtless you Leaplowers are perfect models in this
important particular?"

The brigadier smiled before he answered me, first looking about to the
right and left, as if to regale himself with the odor of perfection.

"Many theories have been broached on these subjects," he replied, "in
which there has been some confusion between cause and effect. Virtue is
no more a cause of freedom, except as it is connected with intelligence,
than vice is a cause of slavery. Both may be consequences, but it is not
easy to say how either is necessarily a cause. There is a homely saying
among us monikins, which is quite to the point in this matter: 'Set a
rogue to catch a rogue.' Now, the essence of a free government is to
be found in the responsibility of its agents. He who governs without
responsibility is a master, while he who discharges the duties of a
functionary under a practical responsibility is a servant. This is the
only true test of governments, let them be mystified as they may
in other respects. Responsibility to the mass of the nation is the
criterion of freedom. Now responsibility is the SUBSTITUTE for virtue in
a politician, as discipline is the substitute for courage in a soldier.
An army of brave monikins without discipline, would be very apt to be
worsted by an army of monikins of less natural spirit, with discipline.
So a corps of originally virtuous politicians, without responsibility,
would be very apt to do more selfish, lawless, and profligate acts,
than a corps of less virtue, who were kept rigidly under the rod of
responsibility.