Another direction in which there is urgent need of the substitution of law and order for anarchy is international relations.  At present, each sovereign state has complete individual freedom, subject only to the sanction of war.  This individual freedom will have to be curtailed in regard to external relations if wars are ever to cease.

But when we pass outside the sphere of material possessions, we find that the arguments in favor of public control almost entirely disappear.

Religion, to begin with, is recognized as a matter in which the state ought not to interfere.  Whether a man is Christian, Mahometan, or Jew is a question of no public concern, so long as he obeys the laws; and the laws ought to be such as men of all religions can obey.  Yet even here there are limits.  No civilized state would tolerate a religion demanding human sacrifice.  The English in India put an end to suttee, in spite of a fixed principle of non-interference with native religious customs.  Perhaps they were wrong to prevent suttee, yet almost every European would have done the same.  We cannot effectively doubt that such practices ought to be stopped, however we may theorize in favor of religious liberty.

In such cases, the interference with liberty is imposed from without by a higher civilization.  But the more common case, and the more interesting, is when an independent state interferes on behalf of custom against individuals who are feeling their way toward more civilized beliefs and institutions.

“In New South Wales,” says Westermarck, “the first-born of every lubra used to be eaten by the tribe ‘as part of a religious ceremony.’  In the realm of Khai-muh, in China, according to a native account, it was customary to kill and devour the eldest son alive.  Among certain tribes in British Columbia the first child is often sacrificed to the sun.  The Indians of Florida, according to Le Moyne de Morgues, sacrificed the first-born son to the chief....’"[4]

[4] Op cit., p. 459.

There are pages and pages of such instances.

There is nothing analogous to these practices among ourselves.  When the first-born in Florida was told that his king and country needed him, this was a mere mistake, and with us mistakes of this kind do not occur.  But it is interesting to inquire how these superstitions died out, in such cases, for example, as that of Khai-muh, where foreign compulsion is improbable.  We may surmise that some parents, under the selfish influence of parental affection, were led to doubt whether the sun would really be angry if the eldest child were allowed to live.  Such rationalism would be regarded as very dangerous, since it was calculated to damage the harvest.  For generations the opinion would be cherished in secret by a handful of cranks, who would not be able to act upon it.  At last, by concealment or flight, a few parents would save their children from the sacrifice.