_R._--What _do_ you mean, then?

125. _O._--I mean that the general tendency is right in the laws of
civilised nations; and that, in due course of time, natural sense and
instinct point out the matters they should be brought to bear upon. And
each question of legislation must be made a separate subject of inquiry
as it presents itself: you cannot fix any general principles about what
should be dealt with legally, and what should not.

_R._--Supposing it to be so, do you think there are any points in which
our English legislation is capable of amendment, as it bears on
commercial and economical matters, in this present time?

_O._--Of course I do.

_R._--Well, then, let us discuss these together quietly; and if the
points that I want amended seem to you incapable of amendment, or not in
need of amendment, say so: but don't object, at starting, to the mere
proposition of applying law to things which have not had law applied to
them before. You have admitted the fitness of my expression, "paternal
government": it only has been, and remains, a question between us, how
far such government should extend. Perhaps you would like it only to
regulate, among the children, the length of their lessons; and perhaps I
should like it also to regulate the hardness of their cricket-balls: but
cannot you wait quietly till you know what I want it to do, before
quarrelling with the thing itself?

_O._--No; I cannot wait quietly; in fact, I don't see any use in
beginning such a discussion at all, because I am quite sure from the
first, that you want to meddle with things that you have no business
with, and to interfere with healthy liberty of action in all sorts of
ways; and I know that you can't propose any laws that would be of real
use.[15]

[Note 15: If the reader is displeased with me for putting this
foolish speech into his mouth, I entreat his pardon; but he may be
assured that it is a speech which would be made by many people, and the
substance of which would be tacitly felt by many more, at this point of
the discussion. I have really tried, up to this point, to make the
objector as intelligent a person as it is possible for an author to
imagine anybody to be who differs with him.]

126. _R._--If you indeed know that, you would be wrong to hear me any
farther. But if you are only in painful doubt about me, which makes you
unwilling to run the risk of wasting your time, I will tell you
beforehand what I really do think ab