ew. The right man is
put at the helm; every available hand is set to the oars; the sick are
tended, and the vicious restrained, at once, and decisively; or if
not, the end is near.

66. Now, the circumstances of every associated group of human society,
contending bravely for national honors and felicity of life, differ
only from those thus supposed, in the greater, instead of less,
necessity for the establishment of restraining law. There is no point
of difference in the difficulties to be met, nor in the rights
reciprocally to be exercised. Vice and indolence are not less, but
more, injurious in a nation than in a boat's company; the modes in
which they affect the interests of worthy persons being far more
complex, and more easily concealed. The right of restraint, vested in
those who labor, over those who would impede their labor, is as
absolute in the large as in the small society; the equal claim to
share in whatever is necessary to the common life (or commonwealth) is
as indefeasible; the claim of the sick and helpless to be cared for by
the strong with earnest self-sacrifice, is as pitiful and as
imperative; the necessity that the governing authority should be in
the hands of a true and trained pilot is as clear and as constant. In
none of these conditions is there any difference between a nation and
a boat's company. The only difference is in this, that the
impossibility of discerning the effects of individual error and crime,
or of counteracting them by individual effort, in the affairs of a
great nation renders it tenfold more necessary than in a small society
that direction by law should be sternly established. Assume that your
boat's crew is disorderly and licentious, and will, by agreement,
submit to no order;--the most troublesome of them will yet be easily
discerned; and the chance is that the best man among them knocks him
down. Common instinct of self-preservation will make the rioters put a
good sailor at the helm, and impulsive pity and occasional help will
be, by heart and hand, here and there given to visible distress. Not
so in the ship of the realm. The most troublesome persons in _it_ are
usually the least recognized for such, and the most active in its
management; the best men mind their own business patiently, and are
never thought of; the good helmsman never touches the tiller but in
the last extremity; and the worst forms of misery are hidden, not only
from every eye, but from every thought.