once, a plant unique of its species, a solitary individual of
superior and finer essence which, with its own inward structure and
its own inalienable type, can bear no other than its own characteristic
fruit. Nothing could be more adverse to the interest of the oak than to
be tortured into bearing the apples of the apple tree; nothing could be
more adverse to the interests of the apple tree than to be tortured into
bearing acorns; nothing could be more opposed to the interests of both
oak and apple tree, also of other trees, than to be pruned, shaped and
twisted so as all to grow after a forced model, delineated on paper
according to the rigid and limited imagination of a surveyor. The least
possible constraint is, therefore, everybody's chief interest; if one
particular restrictive agency is established, it is that every one may
be preserved by if from other more powerful constraints, especially
those which the foreigner and evil-doer would impose. Up to that point,
and not further, its intervention is beneficial; beyond that point, it
becomes one of the evils it is intended to forestall. Such then, if the
common weal is to be looked after, the sole office of the State is,

1. to prevent constraint and, therefore, never to use it except to
prevent worse constraints;

2. to secure respect for each individual in his own physical and moral
domain; never to encroach on this except for that purpose and then to
withdraw immediately;

3. to abstain from all indiscreet meddling, and yet more, as far as is
practicable, without any sacrifice of public security;

4. to reduce old assessments, to exact only a minimum of subsidies and
services;

5. to gradually limit even useful action;

6. to set itself as few tasks as possible;

7. to let each one have all the room possible and the maximum of
initiative;

8. to slowly abandon monopolies;

9. to refrain from competition with private parties;

10. to rid itself of functions which these private parties can fulfill
equally well--and we see that the limits assigned to the State by the
public interest (l'interet commun) correspond to those stipulated by
duty and justice.

VI. Indirect common interest.

Indirect common interest.--This consists in the most
economical and most productive employment of spontaneous
forces.--Difference between voluntary labor and forced
labor.--Sources of man's spontaneous action. Conditions of
their energy, wor