served. Knowledge developing into science, which has
become so vast in mass that no one can grasp a tithe of it, and which
now guides productive activities at large, has resulted from the
workings of individuals prompted not by the ruling agency, but by
their own inclinations. So, too, has been created the still vaster
mass distinguished as literature, yielding the gratifications filling
so large a space in our lives. Nor is it otherwise with the literature
of the hour. That ubiquitous journalism which provides satisfactions
for men's more urgent mental wants has resulted from the activities of
citizens severally pursuing private benefits. And supplementing these
come the innumerable companies, associations, unions, societies,
clubs, subserving enterprise, philanthropy, culture, art, amusement;
as well as the multitudinous institutions annually receiving millions
by endowments and subscriptions: all of them arising from the unforced
cooperations of citizens.

II

SELF-DEPENDENCE AND PATERNALISM[46]

The enthusiastic philanthropist urgent for some act of parliament to
remedy this evil or secure the other good, thinks it a very trivial
and far-fetched objection that the people will be morally injured by
doing things for them instead of leaving them to do things themselves.
He vividly realizes the benefit he hopes to get achieved, which is a
positive and readily imaginable thing: he does not realize the
diffused, invisible, and slowly accumulating effect wrought on the
popular mind, and so does not believe in it; or, if he admits it,
thinks it beneath consideration. Would he but remember, however, that
all national character is gradually produced by the daily action of
circumstances, of which each day's result seems so insignificant as
not to be worth mentioning, he would see that what is trifling when
viewed in its increments, may be formidable when viewed in its sum
total. Or if he would go into the nursery, and watch how repeated
actions--each of them apparently unimportant--create, in the end, a
habit which will affect the whole future life; he would be reminded
that every influence brought to bear on human nature tells, and if
continued, tells seriously. The thoughtless mother who hourly yields
to the requests: "Mama, tie my pinafore," "Mama, button my shoe," and
the like, can not be persuaded that each of these concessions is
detrimental; but the wiser spectator sees that if this policy be long
pursued, a