among its citizens, in character (to use the familiar expression) of their chief guardian.
Having before sufficiently treated of security against foreign enemies, I believe I have now succeeded in marking out all the objects towards which the State is to direct its active solicitude. Far from pretending to penetrate at all profoundly into all the great and difficult subjects I have enumerated, I shall be content to develope the fundamental principles in each, as briefly as possible, and as far as comes within the scope of my present design. It is only when this has been done that we can regard our endeavour as complete—that we can suppose ourselves to have attempted to exhaust the proposed question in all its important bearings, and to trace on all sides the proper boundary-lines of political activity.
