t was Louis XV's immediate predecessor who made the famous
remark, "The state is myself." But the English king could not impose
taxes; the only power in England that could do that was the House of
Commons, and accordingly it is correct to say that in England, at the
time of which we are speaking, the government was (as it still is) in
the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: Difference between taxation and robbery.]
I say, then, the most essential feature of a government--or at any
rate the feature with which it is most important for us to become
familiar at the start--is its power of taxation. The government is
that which taxes. If individuals take away some of your property for
purposes of their own, it is robbery; you lose your money and get
nothing in return. But if the government takes away some of your
property in the shape of taxes, it is supposed to render to you an
equivalent in the shape of good government, something without which
our lives and property would not be safe. Herein seems to lie the
difference between taxation and robbery. When the highwayman points
his pistol at me and I hand him my purse and watch, I am robbed. But
when I pay the tax-collector, who can seize my watch or sell my house
over my head if I refuse, I am simply paying what is fairly due from
me toward supporting the government.

[Sidenote: Sometimes taxation _is_ robbery.]
In what we have been saying it has thus far been assumed that the
government is in the hands of upright and competent men and is
properly administered. It is now time to observe that robbery may be
committed by governments as well as by individuals. If the business of
governing is placed in the hands of men who have an imperfect sense of
their duty toward the public, if such men raise money by taxation and
then spend it on their own pleasures, or to increase their political
influence, or for other illegitimate purposes, it is really robbery,
just as much as if these men were to stand with pistols by the
roadside and empty the wallets of people passing by. They make a
dishonest use of their high position as members of government, and
extort money for which they make no return in the shape of services
to the public. History is full of such lamentable instances of
misgovernment, and one of the most important uses of the study of
history is to teach us how they have occurred, in order that we may
learn how to avoid them, as far as possible, in the future.

[Sidenote: The st