What are the Functions of Government? - The question has its own
difficulties and complexities: it cannot be answered out of hand and by the
list, as the physiologist might answer the question, What are the functions of
the heart? In its nature government is one, but in its life it is many: there
are governments and governments. When asked, therefore, What are the
functions of government? we must ask in return, Of what government? Different
states have different conceptions of their duty, and so undertake different
things. They have had their own peculiar origins, their own characteristic
histories; circumstance has moulded them; necessity, interest, or caprice has
variously guided them. Some have lingered near those primitive institutions
which all once knew and upheld together; others have quite forgotten that man
ever had a political childhood and are now old in complex practices of
national self-government.