II. But  here  a  second  fundamental  distinction  suggests
itself. The  services  which  an  individual  is  legally  bound  to
render  to  others  may  be  positive  or  negative  :  they  may  con-
sist in  doing  useful  acts,  or  in  forbearing  to  do  mischievous
acts. Now  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  constant  rendering  of
reciprocal  positive  services  is  indispensable  to  the  production
of  the  greatest  attainable  happiness  for  the  human  beings
who  compose  a  modern  civiUsed  community;  all  agree,
indeed,  that  such  exchange  of  services  has  continually  to
become  more  complex  and  elaborate,  if  we  are  to  realise  the
economic  advantages  of  that  development  of  industry  which
the  progress  of  the  arts  continually  renders  possible. And
most  of  us  would  readily  accept,  as  a  moral  ideal,  what  I
may  call  ethical  as  contrasted  with  'political  socialism ;  that
is,  the  doctrine  that  the  services  which  men  have  to  render
to  others  should  be  rendered,  as  far  as  possible,  with  a
genuine  regard  to  the  interests  of  others :  that,  as  J. S. MiU,
after  Comte,  lays  down,  "  every  person  who  lives  by  any
useful  work  should  be  habituated  to  regard  himself,  not  as
an  individual  working  for  his  private  benefit,  but  as  a  public
functionary,"  working  for  the  benefit  of  society ;  and  should
regard  "  his  wages  of  whatever  sort  ... as  the  provision
made  by  society  to  enable  him  to  carry  on  his  labour."
But  it  is  generally  held  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  moralist
and  the  preacher,  not  of  the  legislator,  to  aim  at  producing
in  the  community  this  habit  of  thought  and  feeling ;  that
government  should  leave  the  terms  of  positive  social
co-operation  to  be  settled  by  private  agreement  among  the
persons  co-operating — in  short,  that  what  one  sane  adult  is
legally  compelled  to  render  to  others  should  be  merely  the
negative  service  of  non-interference,  except  s6  far  as  he  has
voluntarily  undertaken  to  render  positive  services ;  provided
that  we  include  in  the  notion  of  non-interference  the  obliga-
tion of  remedying  or  compensating  for  mischief  intentionally
or  carelessly  caused  by  his  acts — or  preventing  mischief  that
would   otherwise   result   from    some   previous    act. 