the citizens, or of those who come under their immediate inspection. But in this way a new kind of domination is introduced, which is perhaps more oppressive than any other could be; and room is afforded for the indulgence of impertinent curiosity, bigoted intolerance, and even of hypocrisy and dissimulation. I hope I may not be accused of having endeavoured to picture abuses alone in this case. The abuses are here inseparably connected with the thing itself; and I venture to affirm that even though the laws should be the best and most philanthropic—should they allow to the superintending official nothing beyond the information to be gained through lawful channels, and the employment of advice and exhortation wholly free from coercion—and should the most perfect obedience be accorded to these laws, still such an institution would be at once useless and dangerous. Every citizen must be in a position to act without hindrance and just as he pleases, so long as he does not transgress the law; every one must have the right to maintain, in reply to every other, and even against all probability in so far as this can be judged of by another, "However closely I approach the danger of transgressing the law, yet will I not succumb." If he is deprived of this liberty, then is his right violated, and the cultivation of his faculties—the development of his individuality suffers. For the forms of morality and observance of law are infinitely different and varying; and if another person decides that such or such a course of conduct must lead to unlawful actions, he follows his own view, which, however just it may be, is still only the view of one man. But even supposing he were not mistaken in his judgment,—that the result even were such as to confirm its correctness, and that the other, yielding to coercion or following advice, wdthout internal conviction, should not for this once transgress the law which otherwise he had transgressed,—still it would be better for the transgressor to feel for once
