IX. Spencer has succeeded in increasing the number of individualists so
much, that Donisthorpe says they can be counted by the thousand, though
there were scarcely enough in 1875 in England to fill an omnibus.
Transcendentalism had made individualism comparatively common long
before in America. The principle of not interfering with other people,
except to prevent their wronging us, is fully applicable, as Spencer
says, to the relation of husband with wife, and also to that of parent
and teacher with child. It could also be followed with great advantage
in the case of domestic servants. There can be no doubt of the
correctness of the position, taken in the _Principles of Sociology_,
that delight in war has a tendency to stifle love of liberty. Sparta,
Russia, and the new German Empire show that where the ideal of a nation
is military glory, "The individual is owned by the State." The citizens
are so graded, that "All are masters of those below and subjects of
those above." The workers must live for the benefit of the fighters,
and both be controlled closely by the government. Armies flourish on the
decay of individual rights. How difficult it was to avoid this, during
some bloody years, even in America, has been shown in Chapter IV. A
nation of shopkeepers is better fitted than a nation of soldiers to
develop free institutions.