Chapter VI: Part 6

The plan may be tempting, but has its disadvantages. There are injustices, if we call all inequality injustice, which we can only attribute to nature or to the unknown power which makes men and monkeys, Shakespeares and Stephens. And one result is that the character and conduct of human beings depend to a great extent upon circumstances, which are accidental in the sense that they are circumstances other than the original endowment of the individual. In this sense, maternal love, for example, is unjust. The mother loves her child because it is her own, not because it is better (though of course it is better) than other children. So, as Adam Smith, I think, observed, we are more moved by our neighbour's suffering from a corn on his great toe than by the starvation of millions in China. In other words, the affections, which are the great moving forces of society, are unjust in so far as they cause us to be infinitely more interested in our own little circle than in the remoter members of humanity known to us only by report. Without discussing the "justice" of this arrangement, we shall have, I think, to admit that it is inevitable. For I, at least, hold that the vague and vast organism of humanity depends for its cohesion upon the affinities and attractions, and not _vice versâ_. My interests are strongest where my power of action is greatest. The love of mothers for children is a force of essential value, and therefore to be cultivated rather than repressed, for no force known to us could replace it. And what is pre-eminently true in this case is, of course, true to a degree in others. Burke stated this with admirable force in his attack upon the revolutionists who expounded the opposite principle of abstract equality. "To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle," he says, "the germ, as it were, of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and mankind." The assertion that they desired to invert this order, to destroy every social link in so far as it tended to produce inequalities, was the pith of his great indictment against the French "metaphysical" revolutionists. They had perverted the general logical precept of the sufficient reason for all inequalities by converting it into an assuming of the equality of concrete units. They fell into the fallacy of which I have spoken; and many radicals, utilitarians, and others have followed them. They assumed that all the varieties of human character, or all those due to the influence of the social environment, through whose structure and inherited instincts every full-grown man has been moulded, might be safely disregarded for the purpose of political and social construction. They have spoken, in brief, as if men were the equal and homogeneous atoms of physical inquiry and social problems capable of solution by a simple rearrangement of the atoms in different orders, instead of remembering that they are dealing with a complex organism, in which not only the whole order but every constituent atom is also a complex structure of indefinitely varying qualities. In the recognition of this truth lies, as I believe, the true secret of any satisfactory method of treatment.

Does this fact justify inequality in general? Or does not the principle of equality still remain as essentially implied in the Utopia which we all desire to construct? We have to take it for granted that to each man the first and primary moving instinct is and must be the love of the little "platoon" of which he is a member; that the problem is, not to destroy all these minor attractions, to obliterate the structure and replace society by a vast multitude of independent atoms, each supposed to aim directly at the good of the whole, but so to harmonise and develop or restrain the smaller interests of families, of groups and associations, that they may spontaneously co-operate towards the general welfare. It is a long and difficult task to which we have to apply ourselves; a task not to be effected by the demonstration or application of a single abstract dogma, but to be worked out gradually by the co-operation of many classes and of many generations. If it is fairly solved in the course of a thousand years or so, I for one shall be very fairly satisfied. But distant as the realisation may be, we may or rather ought to consider seriously the end to which we should be working. The conception implies a distinction of primary importance towards any clear treatment of the problem. We have, that is, two different, though not altogether distinct, provinces of what I may, perhaps, call organic and functional morality. We may take the existing order for granted, and ask what is then our duty; or we may ask how far the structure itself requires modification, and, if so, what kind of modification. A man who assumes the existence of the present structure may act justly or unjustly within the limits so prescribed. He must generally be guided in a number of cases by some principle of equality. The judge should endeavour to give the same law to rich and poor; the parent should not make arbitrary distinctions between his children; the statesman should try to distribute his burdens without favouring one particular class, and so forth. A man who, in such a sense, acts justly may be described as up to the level of his age and its accepted established moral ideas, and is, therefore, entitled at least to the negative praise of not being corrupt or dishonest. He fulfils accurately the functions imposed upon him, and is not governed by what Bentham called the sinister interests which would prevent them from being effectually discharged for the welfare of the community. But the problem which we have to consider is the deeper and more difficult one of organic justice; and our question is what justice means in this case, or what are the irrelevant considerations to be excluded from our motives of conduct.

Between these two classes of justice there are distinctions which it is necessary to state briefly. Justice, as we generally use the word, implies that the unjust man deserves to be hanged, or, at least, is responsible for his actions. What "responsibility" precisely implies is, of course, a debatable question. I only need assume that, in any case, it implies that somebody is guilty of wrong-doing, for which he should receive an appropriate penalty. But in organic questions it is not the individual, but the race which is responsible; and we require a reform, not a penalty. An impatient temper leads us to generalise too hastily from the case of the individual to that of the country. We bestow the blame for all the wrongs of an oppressed nation, for example, upon the nation which oppresses. But in simple point of fact, the oppressed nation generally deserves (if the word can be fairly used) to share the blame. The trodden worm would not have been trodden upon if it had been a bit of a viper. Whatever the duty of turning the second cheek, it is clearly not a national duty. If we admire a Tell or Robert Bruce for resisting oppressors, we implicitly condemn those who submitted to oppressors. If a nation is divided or wanting in courage, public spirit, and independence, it will be trampled down; and though we may most rightfully blame the tramplers, it is idle to exonerate the trampled. It is easy, in the same way, to make the rich solely responsible for all the misery of the poor. The man who has got the booty is naturally regarded as the robber. But, speaking scientifically, that is, with the desire to state the plain facts, we must admit that if the poor are those who have gone to the wall in the struggle for wealth; then, whatever unjust weapons have been used in that struggle, the improvidence and vice and idleness have certainly been among the main causes of defeat. Here, as before, the question is not, who is to be punished? We can only settle that when dealing with individual cases. It is the question, what is the cause of certain evils? and here we must resist the temptation of supposing that the class which in some sense appears to profit by them, or, at least, to be exempt from them, has, therefore, any more to do with bringing them about than the class which suffers from them.

The reflection may put us in mind of what seems to be a general law. The ultimate cause of the adoption of institutions and rules of conduct is often the fact of their utility to the race; but it is only at a later period that their utility becomes the conscious or avowed reason for maintaining them. The political fabric has been clearly built up, in great part, by purely selfish ambition. Nations have been formed by energetic rulers, who had no eye for anything beyond the gratification of their own ambition, although they were clear-headed enough to see that their own ambition could best secure its objects by taking the side of the stronger social forces, and by giving substantial benefit to others. The same holds good pre-eminently of industrial relations. We all know how Adam Smith, sharing the philosophical optimism of his time, showed how the pursuit of his own welfare by each man tended, by a kind of pre-ordained harmony, to contribute to the welfare of all. Since his time we have ceased to be so optimistic, and have recognised the fact that the building up of modern industrial systems has involved much injury to large classes. And yet we may, I think, in great measure adopt his view. The fact that each man was rogue enough to think first of himself and of his own wife and family is not a proof or a presumption that he did not flourish because, in point of fact, he was contributing (quite unintentionally perhaps) to the comforts of mankind in general. What we have to reflect is that, while the bare existence of certain institutions gives a strong presumption of their utility, there is also a probability that when the utility becomes a conscious aim or a consciously adopted criterion of their advantage, they will require a corresponding modification intended to secure the advantages at a minimum cost of evil.

Premising these remarks as to the meaning of organic justice, we can now come to the question of equality. Justice in its ordinary sense may be regarded from one point of view as the first condition of the efficiency of the social organ. In saying that a judge is just, we imply that he is so far efficiently discharging his part in society--the due application of the law--without reference to irrelevant considerations. He is a machine which rightly parts the sheep and goats--taking the legal definition of goats and sheep--instead of putting some goats into the sheepfold, and _vice versâ_. That is, he secures the accurate application of the purely legal rule. Organic justice involves an application of the same principle because it equally depends upon the exclusion of irrelevant considerations. It implies such a distribution of functions and of maintenance as may secure the greatest possible efficiency of society towards some end in itself good. Society of course may be organised with great efficiency for bad or doubtful ends. A purely military organisation, however admirable for its purpose, may imply a sacrifice of the highest welfare of the nation. Assuming, however, the goodness of the end, the greatest efficiency is of course desirable. We may, for our purposes, assume that the efficiency of a nation regarded as a society for the production of wealth is a desirable end. There are, of course, many other purposes which must not be sacrificed to the production of wealth. But power of producing wealth, meaning roughly whatever contributes to the physical support and comfort of the nation, is undoubtedly a necessary condition of all other happiness. If we all starve we can have neither art nor science nor morality. What I mean, therefore, is that a nation is so far better as it is able to raise all necessary supplies with the least expenditure of labour, leaving aside the question how far the superfluous forces should be devoted to raising comparative luxuries or to some purely religious or moral or intellectual purposes. The perfect industrial organisation is, I shall assume, compatible with or rather a condition of a perfect organisation of other kinds. In the most general terms we have to consider what are the principles of social organisation, which of course implies a certain balance between the various organs and a thorough nutrition of all, while yet we may for a moment confine our attention to the purely industrial or economic part of the question. How, if at all, does the principle of equality or of social justice enter the problem?

We may assume, in the first place, from this point of view, that one most obvious condition is the absence of all purely useless structures, whether of the kind which we call "survivals" or such as may be called parasitic growths. The organ which has ceased to discharge corresponding functions is simply a drag upon the vital forces. When a class, such as the old French aristocracy, ceases to perform duties while retaining privileges, it will be removed,--too probably, as in that case, it will be removed by violent and mischievous methods,--if the society is to grow in vigour. The individuals, as I have said, may or may not deserve punishment, for they are not personally responsible for the general order of things; but they are not unlikely to incur severe penalties, and what we should really hope is that they may be in some way absorbed by judicious medical treatment, instead of extirpated by the knife. At the other end of the scale, we have the parasitic class of the beggars or thieves. They, too, are not personally responsible for the conditions into which they are born. But they are not only to be pitied individually, but to be regarded, in the mass, as involving social disease and danger. More words upon that topic are quite superfluous, but I may just recall the truth that the two evils are directly connected. We hear it often said, and often denied, that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. So far, however, as it is true, it is one version of the very obvious fact that where there are many careless rich people, there will be the best chance for the beggars. The thoughtless expenditure of the rich without due responsibilities, provides the steady stream of so-called charity,--the charity which, as Shakespeare (or somebody else) observes, is twice cursed, which curses him that gives and him that receives; which is to the rich man as a mere drug to still his conscience and offer a spurious receipt in full for his neglect of social duties, and to the poor man an encouragement to live without self-respect, without providence, a mere hanger-on and dead-weight upon society, and a standing injury and source of temptation to his honest neighbours.

Briefly, a wholesome social condition implies that every social organ discharges a useful function; it renders some service to the community which is equivalent to the support which it derives; brain and stomach each get their due share of supply; and there is a thorough reciprocity between all the different members of the body. But what kind of equality should be desired in order to secure this desirable organic balance? We have to do, I may remark, with the case of a homogeneous race. By this I mean not only that there is no reason to suppose that there is any difference between the innate qualities of rich and poor, but that there is the strongest reason for believing in an equality; that is to say, more definitely, that if you took a thousand poor babies and a thousand rich babies, and subjected them to the same conditions, they would show great individual differences, but no difference traceable to the mere difference of class origin. I therefore may leave aside such problems as might arise in the Southern States of America, or even in British India, where two different races are in presence; or, again, the case of the sexes, where we cannot assume as self-evident, that the organic differences are irrelevant to political or social ends. So far as we are concerned, we may take it for granted that the differences which emerge are not due to any causes antecedent to and overriding the differences due to different social positions. If we can say justly (as has been said) that a poor man is generally more charitable in proportion to his means, or, again, that he is, as a rule, a greater liar or a greater drunkard than the rich man, the difference is not due to a difference of breed, but to the education (in the widest sense) which each has received. So long as that difference remains, we must take account of it for purposes of obtaining the maximum efficiency. We must not make the poor man a professor of mathematics, or even manager of a railway, because he has talents which, if trained, would have qualified him for the post; but we may and must assume that an equal training would do as much for the poor man as for the rich; and the question is, how far it is desirable or possible to secure such equality.

Now, from the point of view of securing a maximum efficiency, it seems to be a clearly desirable end that the only qualities which should indisputably help to determine a man's position in life, should also be those which determine his fitness for working in it efficiently. In Utopia, it should be the rule that each man shall do what he can do best. If one man is a gamekeeper and another a prime minister, it should be because one has the gifts of a gamekeeper and the other the gifts of a prime minister: whereas, in the actual state, as we all know, the gamekeeper often becomes the prime minister, while the potential prime minister is limited to looking after poachers. But I also urge that we must take into account the actual and not the potential qualities at any given moment. The inequality may be obviated by raising the grade of culture in all classes; but we must not assume that there is an actual equality where, in fact, there is the widest possible difference. In short, I assert that it is our duty to try to make men equal; though I deny that we are clearly justified in assuming an equality. By making them equal, I do not, of course, mean that we should try to make them all alike. I recognise, with Mill and every sensible writer on the subject, that such a consummation represents rather a danger than an advantage. I wish to see individuality strengthened, not crushed, to encourage men to develop the widest possible diversity of tastes, talents, and pursuits, and to attain unity of opinion, not by a calm assumption that this or that creed is true, but by encouraging the sharpest and freest collision of opinions. The equality of which I speak is that which would result, if the distinction into organs were not of such a nature as to make one class more favourable than another to the full development of whatever character and talents a man may possess. In other words, the distribution into classes would correspond purely and simply to the telling off of each man to the duties which he is best fitted to discharge. The position into which he is born, the class surroundings which determine his development, must not carry with them any disqualification for his acquiring the necessary aptitude for any other position. It was, I think, Fourier who argued that a man ought to be paid more highly for being a chimney-sweep than for being a prime minister, because the duties of a sweep are the more disagreeable,--a position which some prime ministers may, perhaps, see reason to doubt. My suggestion is, that in Utopia every human being would be so placed as to be capable of preparing himself for any other position, and should then go to the work for which he is best fitted. The equality as thus defined would, I submit, leave no room for a sense of injustice, because the qualities which determine a man's position would be the qualities for which he deserves the position, desert in this sense being measurable by fitness. Discontent with class distinctions must arise so long as a man feels that his position in a class limits and cramps his capacities below the level of happier fortunes. Discontent is not altogether a bad thing, for it is often an _alias_ for hope; remove all discontent and you remove all guarantee for improvement. But discontent is of the malignant variety when it is allied with a sense of injustice; that is, of restrictions imposed upon one class for no assignable reason. The only sufficient reason for classes is the efficient discharge of social functions. The differences between the positions of men in social strata, supply some of the most effective motives for the struggle of life; and the effort of men to rise into the wealthy or the powerful class is not likely to cease so long as men are men; but they take an unworthy form so long as the ambition is simply to attain privileges unconnected with or disproportioned to the duties involved, and which therefore generate hatred to the social structure. If a class could be simply an organ for the discharge of certain functions, and each man in the whole body politic able to fit himself for that class, the injustice, and therefore the malignant variety of discontent, would disappear. Of course, I am speaking only of justice. I do not attempt to define the proper ends of society, or regard justice in itself as a sufficient guarantee for all desirable results. Such justice may exist even in a savage tribe or a low social type. There may be a just distribution of food among a shipwrecked crew, but the attainment of such justice would not satisfy all their wants. The abolition of misery, the elevation of a degraded class to a higher stage is a good thing in itself, unless it can be shown to involve some counterbalancing evil. I only argue that the ideal society would have this, among other attributes, and, therefore, that to secure such equality is a legitimate object of aspiration.

I am speaking of "Utopia". The time is indefinitely distant when a man will choose to be a sweep or a prime minister according to his aptitudes, and be equally able to learn his trade whether he is the son of a prime minister or a sweep. I only try to indicate the goal to which our efforts should be directed. But the goal thus defined implies methods different from that of some advocates of equality. They propose at once to assume the non-existence of a disagreeable difficulty, and to take men as equal in a sense in which they are not, in fact, equal. To me the problem appears to be, not the instant introduction of a new system, but a necessarily long and very gradual process of education directed towards the distant goal of making men equal in the desirable sense; and that problem, I add, is in the main a moral problem. It is idle to make institutions without making the qualities by which they must be worked. I do not say--far from it--that we are not to propose what may roughly be called external changes: new regulations and new forms of association, and so forth. On the contrary, I believe, as I have intimated, that this method corresponds to the normal order of development. The new institution protects and stimulates the germs of the moral instincts by which it must be worked. But I also hold that no mere rearrangement does any permanent good unless it calls forth a corresponding moral change, and, moreover, that the moral change, however slow and imperceptible, does incomparably more than any external change.

If we assume our present institutions to be permanent, a slight improvement in moral qualities, a growth of sobriety, of chastity, of prudence and intellectual culture, would make an almost indefinite improvement in the condition of the masses. If, for example, Englishmen ceased to drink, every English home might be made reasonably comfortable. The two kinds of change imply each other; but it is the most characteristic error of the designers of Utopias to suppose a mere change of regulations without sufficiently attending to the moral implication. To attain equality, as I have tried to define the word, would imply vast moral changes, and therefore a long and difficult elaboration. We have not simply to make men happy, as they now count happiness, but to alter their views of happiness. The good old copy-books tell us that happiness is as common in poor men's huts as in rich men's palaces. We are apt to reply that the statement is a mockery and a lie. But it points to the consummation which in some simple social states has been partly realised, and which in some distant future may come to be an expression of facts. It is conceivable surely that rich men may some day find that there are modes of occupation which are more interesting as well as more useful than accumulation of luxuries or the keeping of horses for the turf; that, in place of propitiating fate by supporting the institution of beggary, there is an indefinite field for public-spirited energy in the way not of throwing crumbs to Lazarus, but of promoting national culture of mind, of spirit, and of body; that benevolence does not mean simple self-sacrifice, except to the selfish, but the pursuit of a noble and most interesting career; that men's duty to their children is not to enable them to lead idle lives, but to fit them for playing a manly part in the great game of life; and that their relation to those whom they employ is not that of persons exploiting the energies of inferior animals, but of leaders of industry with a common interest in the prosperity of their occupation. People, no doubt, will hardly pursue business from motives of pure benevolence to others, and I do not think it desirable that they should. But the recognition that the pursuit of an honourable business is useful to others may, nevertheless, guide their energies, make the mere scramble for wealth disreputable, and induce them to labour for solid and permanent advantages. Such moral changes are, I conceive, necessary conditions of the equality of which I have spoken; they must be brought about to some extent if the industrial organism is to free itself from the injustice necessarily implied in a mere blind struggle for personal comfort.

Moreover, however distant the final consummation may be, there are, I think, many indications of an approximation. Nothing is more characteristic of modern society than the enormous development of the power of association for particular purposes. In former days a society had to form an independent organ, a corporation, a college, and so forth, to discharge any particular function, and the resulting organ was so distinct as to absorb the whole life of its members. The work of the fellow was absorbed in the corporate life of his corporation, and he had no distinct personal interests. Now we are all members of societies by the dozen, and society is constantly acquiring the art of forming associations for any purpose, temporary or permanent, which imply no deep structural division, and unite people of all classes and positions. As the profounder lines are obliterated, the tendency to form separate castes, defended by personal privileges, and holding themselves apart from other classes, rapidly diminishes; and the corresponding prejudices are in process of diminution. But I can only hint at this principle.

A correlative moral change in the poor is, of course, equally essential. America is described by Mr. Lowell in the noblest panegyric ever made upon his own country, as "She that lifts up the manhood of the poor". She has taken some rather queer methods of securing that object lately; yet, however imperfect the result, every American traveller will, I believe, sympathise with what Mr. Bryce has recently said in his great book. America is still the land of hope--the land where the poor man's horizon is not bounded by a vista of inevitable dependence on charity; where--in spite of some superficially grotesque results--every man can speak to every other without the oppressive sense of condescension; where a civil word from a poor man is not always a covert request for a gratuity and a tacit confession of dependence. "Alas," says Wordsworth, in one of his pregnant phrases, "the gratitude of men has oftener left me mourning" than their cold-heartedness; because, I presume, it is a painful proof of the rarity of kindness. When one man can only receive a gift and another can only bestow it as a payment on account of a long accumulation of the arrears of class injustice, the relations hardly admit of genuine gratitude on either side. What grates most painfully upon me, and, I suppose, upon most of us, is the "servility" of man; the acceptance of a beggar's code of morals as natural and proper for any one in a shabby coat. The more prominent evil just now, according to conservatives and pessimists, is the correlative one of the beggar on horseback; of the man who has found out that he can squeeze more out of his masters, and uses his power even without considering whether it is wise to drain your milch cow too exhaustively.

A hope of better things is encouraged by schemes for arbitration and conciliation between employers and employed. But we require a moral change if arbitration is to imply something more than a truce between natural enemies, and conciliation to be something different from that employed by Hood's butcher when, after hauling a sheep by main force into the slaughter-house, he exclaimed, "There, I've conciliated _him_!" The only principle on which arbitration can proceed is that the profits should be divided in such a way as to be a sufficient inducement to all persons concerned to give their money or their labour, mental or physical, to promote the prosperity of the business at large. But the reconciliation can only be complete when the capitalist is capable of employing his riches with enough public spirit and generosity to disarm mere envy by his obvious utility, and the poor man justifies his increased wages by his desire to secure permanent benefits and a better standard of life. In Utopia, the question will still be, what plan shall be a sufficient inducement to the men who co-operate as employers or labourers, but the inducement will appeal to better motives, and the positions be so far equalised that each will be most tolerable to the man best fitted for it.

Here a vast series of problems opens about which I can only suggest the briefest hint. The principle I now urge is the old one, namely, that the usual mark of a quack remedy is the neglect of the moral aspect of a question. We want a state of opinion in which the poor are not objects to be slobbered over, but men to help in a manly struggle for moral as well as material elevation. A great deal is said, for example, about the evils of competition. It is remarkable indeed that few proposals for improvement even, so far as I can discover, tend to get rid of competition. Co-operation, as tradesmen will tell us, is not an abolition of competition, but a competition of groups instead of units. "Profit-sharing" is simply a plan by which workmen may take a direct share in the competition carried on by their masters. I do not mention this as any objection to such schemes, for I do not think that competition is an evil. I do not doubt the vast utility of schemes which tend to increase the intelligence and prudence of workmen, and give them an insight into the conditions of successful business. Competition is no doubt bad so far as it means cheating or gambling. But competition is, it seems to me, inevitable so long as we are forced to apply the experimental method in practical life, and I fail to see what other method is available. Competition means that thousands of people all over the world are trying to find out how they can supply more economically and efficiently the wants of other people, and that is a state of things to which I do not altogether object. Equality in my sense implies that every one should be allowed to compete for every place that he can fill. The cry is merely, as it seems to me, an evasion of the fundamental difficulty. That difficulty is not that people compete, but that there are too many competitors; not that a man's seat at the table has to be decided by fair trial of his abilities, but that there is not room enough to seat everybody. Malthus brought to the front the great stumbling-block in the way of Utopian optimism. His theory was stated too absolutely, and his view of the remedy was undoubtedly crude. But he hit the real difficulty; and every sensible observer of social evils admits that the great obstacle to social improvement is that social residuum, the parasitic class, which multiplies so as to keep down the standard of living, and turns to bad purposes the increased power of man over nature. We have abolished pestilence and famine in their grimmest shape; if we have not abolished war, it no longer involves usurpation or slavery or the permanent desolation of the conquered; but one result is just this, that great masses can be regularly kept alive at the lowest stage of existence without being periodically swept away by a "black death" or a horde of brutal invaders. If we choose to turn our advantages to account in this way, no nostrums will put an end to poverty; and the evil can only be met--as I venture to assume--by an elevation of the moral level, involving all that is implied in spreading civilisation downward.

The difficulty shows itself in discussions of the proper sphere of government. Upon that vast and most puzzling topic I will only permit myself one remark. In former times the great aim of reformers was the limitation of the powers of government. They came to regard it as a kind of bogy or extra-natural force, which acted to oppress the poor in order to maintain certain personal privileges. Some, like Godwin of the "Political Justice," held that the millennium implied the abolition of government and the institution of anarchy. The early utilitarians held that government might be reformed by placing power in the hands of the subjects, who would use it only for their own interests, but still retained the prejudices engendered in their long struggle against authority, and held that its functions should still be gradually restricted on pain of developing a worse tyranny than the old. The government has been handed over to the people as they desired, but with the natural result that the new authorities not only use it to support their interests, but retain the conviction of its extra-natural, or perhaps supernatural, efficacy. It is regarded as an omnipotent body which can not only say (as it can) that whatever it pleases shall be legal, but that whatever is made a law in the juridical sense shall at once become a law of nature. Even their individualist opponents, who profess to follow Mr. Herbert Spencer, seem often to regard the power of government, not as one result of evolution, but as something external which can constrain and limit evolution. It corresponds to a kind of outside pressure which interferes arbitrarily with the so-called natural course of development, and should therefore be abolished. To me, on the contrary, it seems that government is simply one of the social organs, with powers strictly limited by its relation to others and by the nature of the sentiment upon which it rests. There are obvious reasons, in the centralisation of vast industrial interests, the "integration," as Mr. Spencer calls it, which is the correlative of differentiation, in the growing solidarity of different classes and countries, in the consequent growth of natural monopolies, which give a solid reason for believing that the functions of the central government may require expansion. To decide by any _à priori_ principle what should be the limits of this expansion is, to my mind, hopeless. The problem is one to be worked out by experiment,--that is, by many generations and by repeated blundering. A fool, said Erasmus Darwin, is a man who never makes an experiment; an experiment is a new mode of action which fails in its object ninety-nine times out of a hundred; therefore, wise men make more blunders, though they also make more discoveries than fools. Now, experiments in government and social organisation are as necessary to improvement as any other kind of experiment, and probably still more liable to failure. One thing, however, is again obvious. The simple remedy of throwing everything upon government, of allowing it to settle the rate of wages, the hours of labour, the prices of commodities, and so forth, requires for success a moral and intellectual change which it is impossible to over-estimate. I will not repeat the familiar arguments which, to my mind, justify this statement. It is enough to say that there is no ground in the bare proposal for putting all manner of industrial regulations into the hands of government, for supposing that it would not drag down every one into pauperism instead of raising everybody to comfort. I often read essays of which the weakness seems to be that while they purpose to establish equality, they give no real reason for holding that it would not be an equality of beggary. If every one is to be supported, idle or not, the natural conclusion is universal pauperism. If people are to be forced to work by government, or their numbers to be somehow restricted by government, you throw a stress upon the powers of government which, I will not say, it is impossible that it should bear, but which, to speak in the most moderate terms, implies a complete reconstruction of the intelligence, morality, and conceptions of happiness of human beings. Your government would have to be omniscient and purely benevolent as well as omnipotent, and I confess that I cannot see in the experience of those countries where the people have the most direct influence upon the government, any promise that this state of things will be realised just yet.

Thus, I return to my conclusion,--to my platitude, if you will. Professor Fawcett used to say that he could lay down no rules for the sphere of government influence, except this rule, that no interference would do good unless it helped people to help themselves. I think that the doctrine was characteristic of his good sense, and I fully subscribe to it. I heartily agree that equality in the sense I have given, is a most desirable ideal; I agree that we should do all that in us lies to promote it; I only say that our aims should be always in consistence with the principle that such equality is only possible and desirable in so far as the lowest classes are lifted to a higher standard, morally as well as physically. Of course, that implies approval of every variety of new institutions and laws, of co-operation, of profit sharing, of boards of conciliation, of educational and other bodies for carrying light into darkness and elevating popular standards of life: but always with the express condition that no such institution is really useful except as it tends to foster a genuine spirit of independence, and to supply the moral improvement without which no outward change is worth a button. This is a truism, you may say. Yet, when I read the proposals to get rid of poverty by summarily ordering people to be equal, or to extirpate pauperism by spending a million upon certain institutions for out-door relief, I cannot help thinking that it is a truism which requires to be enforced. The old Political Economy, you say, is obsolete; meaning, perhaps, that you do not mean to be bothered with its assertions; but the old Economists had their merits. They were among the first who realised the vast importance of deeper social questions; they were the first who tried to treat them scientifically; they were not (I hope) the last who dared to speak unpleasant truths, simply because they believed them and believed in their importance. Perhaps, indeed, they rather enjoyed the practice a little too much, and indulged in it a little too ostentatiously. Yet, I am sure that, on the whole, it was a very useful practice, and one which is now scarcely as common as it should be. People are more anxious to pick holes in their statement of economic laws than to insist upon the essential fact that, after all, there are laws, not "laws" made by Parliament, but laws of nature, which do, and will, determine the production and distribution of wealth, and the recognition of which is as important to human welfare as the recognition of physiological laws to the bodily health. Holding this faith, the old Economists were never tired of asserting what is the fundamental truth of so-called "individualism," that, after all we may say about the social development, the essential condition of all social improvement is not that we should have this or that system of regulations, but that the individual should be manly, self-respecting, doing his duty as well as getting his pay, and deeply convinced that nothing will do any permanent good which does not imply the elevation of the individual in his standards of honesty, independence, and good conduct. We can only say to Lazarus: "You are probably past praying for, and all we can do is to save you from starving, by any means which do not encourage other people to fall into your weaknesses; but we recognise the right of your class for any and every possible help that can be given towards making men of them, and putting them on their legs by teaching them to stand upright".

ETHICS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE.

In his deeply-interesting Romanes lecture, Professor Huxley has stated the opinion that the ethical progress of society depends upon our combating the "cosmic process" which we call the struggle for existence. Since, as he adds, we inherit the "cosmic nature" which is the outcome of millions of years of severe training, it follows that the "ethical nature" may count upon having to reckon with a tenacious and powerful enemy as long as the world lasts. This is not a cheerful prospect. It is, as he admits, an audacious proposal to pit the microcosm against the macrocosm. We cannot help fearing that the microcosm may get the worst of it. Professor Huxley has not fully expanded his meaning, and says much to which I could cordially subscribe. But I think that the facts upon which he relies admit or require an interpretation which avoids the awkward conclusion.

Pain and suffering, as Professor Huxley tells us, are always with us, and even increase in quantity and intensity as evolution advances. The fact had been recognised in remote ages long before theories of evolution had taken their modern form. Pessimism, from the time of the ancient Hindoo philosophers to the time of their disciple, Schopenhauer, has been in no want of evidence to support its melancholy conclusions. It would be idle to waste rhetoric in the attempt to recapitulate so familiar a position. Though I am not a pessimist, I cannot doubt that there is more plausibility in the doctrine than I could wish. Moreover, it may be granted that any attempt to explain or to justify the existence of evil is undeniably futile. It is not so much that the problem cannot be answered, as that it cannot even be asked in any intelligible sense. To "explain" a fact is to assign its causes--that is, to give the preceding set of facts out of which it arose. However far we might go backwards, we should get no nearer to perceiving any reason for the original fact. If we explain the fall of man by Adam's eating the apple, we are quite unable to say why the apple should have been created. If we could discover a general theory of pain, showing, say, that it implied certain physiological conditions, we shall be no nearer to knowing why those physiological conditions should have been what they are. The existence of pain, in short, is one of the primary data of our problem, not one of the accidents, for which we can hope in any intelligible sense to account. To give any "justification" is equally impossible. The book of Job really suggests an impossible, one may almost say a meaningless, problem. We can give an intelligible meaning to a demand for justice when we can suppose that a man has certain antecedent rights, which another man may respect or neglect. But this has no meaning as between the abstraction "nature" and the concrete facts which are themselves nature. It is unjust to meet equal claims differently. But it is not "unjust" in any intelligible sense that one being should be a monkey and another a man, any more than that part of me should be a hand and another head. The question would only arise if we supposed that the man and the monkey had existed before they were created, and had then possessed claims to equal treatment. The most logical theologians, indeed, admit that as between creature and creator there can be properly no question of justice. The pot and the potter cannot complain of each other. If the writer of Job had been able to show that the virtuous were rewarded and the vicious punished, he would only have transferred the problem to another issue. The judge might be justified, but the creator would be condemned. How can it be just to place a being where he is certain to sin, and then to damn him for sinning? That is the problem to which no answer can be given; and which already implies a confusion of ideas. We apply the conception of justice in a sphere where it is not applicable, and naturally fail to get any intelligible answer.

It is impossible to combine the conceptions of God as the creator and God as the judge; and the logical straits into which the attempt leads are represented by the endless free-will controversy. I will not now enter that field of controversy: and I will only indicate what seems to me to be the position which we must accept in any scientific discussion of our problem. Hume, as I think, laid down the true principle when he said that there could be no _à priori_ proof of a matter of fact. An _à priori_ truth is a truth which cannot be denied without self-contradiction, but there can never be a logical consideration in supposing the non-existence of any fact whatever. The ordinary appeal to the truths of pure mathematics is, therefore, beside the question. All such truths are statements of the precise equivalence of two propositions. To say that there are four things is also to say that there are two pairs of things: to say that there is a plane triangle is also to say that there is a plane trilateral. One statement involves the other, because the difference is not in the thing described, but in our mode of contemplating it. We, therefore, cannot make one assertion and deny the other without implicit contradiction. From such results, again, is evolved (in the logical sense of evolution) the whole vast system of mathematical truths. The complexity of that system gives the erroneous idea that we can, somehow, attain a knowledge of facts, independently of experience. We fail to observe that even the most complex mathematical formula is simply a statement of an exact equivalence of two assertions; and that, till we know by experience the truth of one statement, we can never infer the truth, in fact, of the other. However elaborate may be the evolutions of mathematical truth, they can never get beyond the germs out of which they are evolved. They are valid precisely because the most complex statement is always the exact equivalent of the simpler, out of which it is constructed. They remain to the end truths of number or truths of geometry. They cannot, by themselves, tell us that things exist which can be counted or which can be measured. The whole claim, however elaborate, still requires its point of suspension. We may put their claims to absolute or necessary truth as high as we please; but they cannot give us by themselves a single fact. I can show, for example, that a circle has an infinite number of properties, all of which are virtually implied in the very existence of a circle. But that the circle or that space itself exists, is not a necessary truth, but a datum of experience. It is quite true that such truths are not, in one sense, empirical; they can be discovered without any change of experience; for, by their very nature, they refer to the constant element of experience, and are true on the supposition of the absolute changelessness of the objects contemplated. But it is a fallacy to suppose that, because independent of particular experiences, they are, therefore, independent of experience in general.

Now, if we agree, as Huxley would have agreed, that Hume's doctrine is true, if we cannot know a single fact except from experience, we are limited in moral questions, as in all others, to elaborating and analysing our experience, and can never properly transcend it. A scientific treatment of an ethical question, at any rate, must take for granted all the facts of human nature. It can show what morality actually is; what are, in fact, the motives which make men moral, and what are the consequences of moral conduct. But it cannot get outside of the universe and lay down moral principles independent of all influences. I am well aware that in speaking of ethical questions upon this ground, I am exposed to many expressions of metaphysical contempt. I may hope to throw light upon the usual working of morality; but my theory of the facts cannot make men moral of itself. I cannot hope, for example, to show that immorality involves a contradiction, for I know that immorality exists. I cannot even hope to show that it is necessarily productive of misery to the individual, for I know that some people take pleasure in vicious conduct. I cannot deduce facts from morals, for I must consistently regard morals as part of the observed consequences of human nature under given conditions. Metaphysicians may, if they can, show me a more excellent method. I admit that their language sometimes enables them to take what, in words at least, is a sublimer position than mine. Kant's famous phrase, "Thou must, therefore thou canst," is impressive. And yet, it seems to me to involve an obvious piece of logical juggling. It is quite true that whenever it is my duty to act in a certain way, it must be a possibility; but that is only because an impossibility cannot be a duty. It is not my duty to fly, because I have not wings; and conversely, no doubt, it would follow that _if_ it were my duty I must possess the organs required. Thus understood, however, the phrase loses its sublimity, and yet, it is only because we have so to understand it, that it has any plausibility. Admitting, however, that people who differ from me can use grander language, and confessing my readiness to admit error whenever they can point to a single fact attainable by the pure reason, I must keep to the humbler path. I speak of the moral instincts as of others, simply from the point of view of experience: I cannot myself discover a single truth from the abstract principle of non-contradiction; and am content to take for granted that the world exists as we know it to exist, without seeking to deduce its peculiarities by any high _à priori_ road.