With progress it is to be hoped that there will be fewer wars, fewer crimes, fewer wrongs, so that government will have less and less to do and drop many of its functions,—­that is the sort of anarchy every one hopes for; that is the sort of anarchy the late Phillips Brooks had in mind when he said, “He is the benefactor of his race who makes it possible to have one law less.  He is the enemy of his kind who would lay upon the shoulders of arbitrary government one burden which might be carried by the educated conscience and character of the community.”

But assume that war is no more and armies are disbanded; that crimes are no more and police are dismissed; that wrongs are no more and courts are dissolved,—­what then?

My neighbor becomes slightly insane, is very noisy and threatening; my wife and children, who are terrorized, wish him restrained; but his friends do not admit that he is insane, or, admitting his peculiarities, insist my family and I ought to put up with them; the man himself is quite sane enough to appreciate the discussion and object to any restraint.  Now, who shall decide?  Suppose the entire community—­save the man and one or two sympathizing cranks—­is clearly of the opinion the man is insane and should be restrained, who is to decide the matter? and when it is decided, who is to enforce the decision by imposing the authority of the community upon the individual?  If the community asserts its authority in any manner or form, that is government.

If every institution, including government, were abolished to-morrow, the percentage of births that would turn out blind, crippled, and feeble both mentally and physically, wayward, eccentric, and insane would continue practically the same, and the community would be obliged to provide institutions for these unfortunates, the community would be obliged to patrol the streets for them, the community would be obliged to pass upon their condition and support or restrain them; in short, the abolished institutions—­including tribunals of some kind, police, prisons, asylums—­would be promptly restored.

The anarchist would argue that all this may be done by voluntary association and without compulsion; but the man arrested, or confined in the insane asylum against his will, would be of a contrary opinion.  The debate might involve his friends and sympathizers until in every close case—­as now—­the community would be divided in hostile camps, one side urging release of the accused, the other urging his detention.  Who is to hold the scale and decide?

The fundamental error of anarchists, and of most theorists who discuss “government” and “the state,” lies in the tacit assumption that “government” and “the state” are entities to be dealt with quite apart from the individual; that both may be modified or abolished by laws or resolutions to that effect.