You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat: it sticks up a little here toward the left—"cockles," as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. "Well, here is a hammer, and I give it a blow as you advise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke? Well, there is one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see—the evil is as great as ever. But this is not all. Look at the warp which the plate has got near the opposite edge: where it was flat before it is now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it. Instead of curing the original defect, we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practised in "planishing," as it is called, he would have told us no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting part. He would have taught us how to give variously-directed and specially-adjusted blows with a hammer elsewhere: so attacking the evil not by direct but by indirect actions. The required process is less simple than you thought. Even a sheet of metal is not to be successfully dealt with after those common-sense methods in which you have so much confidence. What, then, shall we say about a society? "Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?" asks Hamlet. Is humanity more readily straightened than an iron plate?
Many, I doubt not, failing to recognize the truth that, in proportion as an aggregate is complex, the effects wrought by an incident force become more multitudinous, complicated, and incalculable, and that, therefore, a society is, of all kinds of aggregates, the kind most difficult to affect in an intended way and not in unintended ways—many such will ask evidence of the difficulty. Response would perhaps be easier were the evidence less abundant. It is so familiar as seemingly to have lost its significance; just as perpetually-repeated salutations and prayers have done. The preamble to nearly every act of Parliament supplies it; in the report of every commission it is presented in various forms; and, for any one asking instances, the direction might be—Hansard passim. Here I will give but a single example which might teach certain rash enthusiasts of our day, were they teachable. I refer to measures for the suppression of drunkenness.
Not to dwell on the results of the Maine Law, which, as I know from one who lately gave me his personal experience, prevents the obtainment of stimulants by travellers in urgent need of them, but does not prevent secret drinking by residents—not to dwell, either, upon the rigorous measures taken in Scotland in 1617, "for the restraint of the vile and detestable vice of drunkenness daily increasing," but which evidently did not produce the hoped-for effect—I will limit myself to the case of the Licensing Act, 9 George II., chapter 23, for the arresting the sale of spirituous liquors (chiefly gin) by prohibitory licenses:
