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 LIBRARY OF 
 
 THE SAGE SCHOOL 
 
 OF 
 
 PHILOSOPHY 
 
Cornell University 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 LIBEAEY EDITION 
 
 CONTAINING SEVEN ESSAYS NOT BEFORE REPUBLISHED 
 AND VARIOUS OTHER ADDITIONS 
 
 VOL. Ill 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
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\l~- V 
 
 ( 3 
 
 Authorized Editioti, 
 
CONTENTS or VOL. III. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MANNERS AND FASHION ... ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY ... ... ... 52 
 
 THE MORALS OF TRADE ... ... ... ... ... 113 
 
 PRISON-ETHICS ... ... ... ... ... ... 152 
 
 THE ETHICS OF KANT ... ... ... ... ... 192 
 
 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS ... ... ... ... 217 
 
 OVER-LEGISLATION 229 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 283 
 
 STATE-TAMPE RINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS ... ... 32G 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM : THE DANGERS AND THE SAFE- 
 GUARDS ... ... ... ... ... ... 358 
 
 "the COLLECTIVE WISDOM " ... ... ... ... 387 
 
 POLITICAL FETICHISM ... ... ... ... ... 393 
 
 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION ... ... ... ... 401 
 
 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE ... ... ... ... 445 
 
 THE AMERICANS ... ... ... ... ... ... 471 
 
 THE INDEX. 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 [First puhlished in The Westminster Review for April 1854.J 
 
 Whoever has studied the physiognomy of political meet- 
 ings, cannot fail to have remarked a connexion between 
 democratic opinions and peculiarities of costume. At a 
 Chartist demonstration, a lecture on Socialism, or a soiree 
 of the Friends of Italy, there will be seen many among the 
 audience, and a still larger ratio among the speakers, wlio 
 get themselves up in a style more or less unusual. One 
 gentleman on the platform divides his hair down the centre, 
 instead of on one side ; another brushes it back off the fore- 
 head, in the fashion known as ^'bringing out the intellect;" 
 a third has so long forsworn the scissors, that his locks 
 sweep his shoulders. A sprinkling of moustaches may be 
 observed ; here and there an imperial ; and occasionally 
 some courageous breaker of conventions exhibits a full- 
 grown beard.* This nonconformity in hair is countenanced 
 by various nonconformities in dress, shown by others of the 
 assemblage. Bare necks, shirt-collars a la Byron, waist- 
 coats cut Quaker fashion, wonderfully shaggy great coats, 
 numerous oddities in form and colour, destroy the monotony 
 usual in crowds. Even those exhibiting no conspicuous 
 peculiarity, frequently indicate by something in the pattern 
 of their clothes, that they pay small regard to what their 
 
 * This was written before moustaches and beards had become general 
 
2 MANNEES AND FASHION. 
 
 tailors tell them about the preyailing taste. And when the 
 gathering breaks up, the varieties of head gear displayed— 
 the number of caps, and the abundance of felt hats- 
 suffice to prove that were the world at large like-minded, 
 the black cylinders which tyrannize over us would soon 
 be deposed. 
 
 This relationship between political discontent and dis- 
 regard of customs exists on the Continent also. Eed 
 republicanism is everywhere distinguished by its hirsute- 
 ness. The authorities of Prussia, Austria, and Italy, alike 
 recognize certain forms of hat 'as indicative of disaffection, 
 and fulminate against them accordingly. In some places 
 the wearer of a blouse runs a risk of being classed among 
 the suspects; and in others, he who would avoid the bureau 
 of police, must beware how he goes out in any but the 
 ordinary colours. Thus, democracy abroad, as at home, 
 tends towards personal singularity. Nor is this association 
 of characteristics peculiar to modern times, or to reformers 
 of the State. It has always existed ; and it has been 
 manifested as much in religious agitations as in political 
 ones. The Puritans, disapproving of the long curls of the 
 Cavaliers, as of their principles, cut their own hair short, 
 and so gained the name of '^ Roundheads." The marked 
 religious nonconformity of the Quakers was accompanied 
 by an equally-marked nonconformity of manners — in attire, 
 in speech, in salutation. The early Moravians not only 
 believed differently, but at the same time dressed differently, 
 and lived differently, from their fellow Christians. That 
 the association between political independence and inde- 
 pendence of personal conduct, is not a phenomenon of 
 to-day ouly, we may see alike in the appearance of Franklin 
 at the French court in plain clothes, and in the white hats 
 worn by the last generation of radicals. Originality of 
 nature is sure to show itself in more ways than one. The 
 mention of George Fox's suit of leather, or Pestalozzi's 
 school name, "Harry Oddity," will at once suggest the 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 3 
 
 remembrance that men who have in great things diverged 
 from the beaten track, have frequently done so in small 
 tilings likewise. Minor illustrations may be gathered in 
 almost every circle. We believe that whoever will number 
 up his reforming and rationalist acquaintances, will find 
 among them more than the usual proportion of those who in 
 dress or behaviour exhibit some degree of what the world 
 calls eccentricity. 
 
 If" it be a fact that men of revolutionary aims in politics 
 or religion^ are commonly revolutionists in custom also, it is 
 not less a fact that those whose office it is to uphold 
 established arrangements in State and Church, are also 
 those who most adhere to the social forms and observances 
 bequeathed to us by past generations. Practices elsewhere 
 extinct still linger about the head quarters of government. 
 The monarch still gives assent to Acts of Parliament in the 
 old French of the Normans; and Norman French terms are 
 still used in law. Wigs, such as those we see depicted in 
 old portraits, may yet be found on the heads of judges and 
 barristers. The Beefeaters at the Tower wear the costume 
 of Henry Yllth's body-guard. The University dress of the 
 present year varies but little from that worn soon after the 
 Eeformafcion. The claret-coloured coat, knee-breeches, 
 lace shirt-frills, white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, 
 which once formed the usual attire of a gentleman, still 
 survive as the court-dress. And it need scarcely be said 
 that at levees and drawing-rooms, the ceremonies are pre- 
 scribed with an exactness, and enforced with a rigour, not 
 elsewhere to be found. 
 
 Can we consider these two series- of coincidences as acci- 
 dental and unmeaning? Must we not rather conclude that 
 some necessary relationship obtains between them? Are 
 there not such things as a constitutional conservatism, and 
 a constitutional tendency to change ? Is there not a class 
 which clings to the old in all things; and another class so in 
 love with progress as often to mistake novelty for improve- 
 
4 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 ment? Do we not find some men ready to bow to established 
 autkority of whatever kind ; while others demand of every 
 such authority its reason^ and reject it if it fails to justify 
 itself ? And must not the minds thus contrasted tend to 
 become respectively conformist and nonconformist^ not only 
 in politics and religion, but in other thiugs ? Submission, 
 whether to a government, to the dogmas of ecclesiastics, or 
 to that code of behaviour which society at large has set up, 
 is essentially of the same nature ; and the sentiment which 
 induces resistance to the despotism of rulers^ civil or 
 spiritual, likewise induces resistance to the 'despotism of the 
 world's usages. All enactments, alike of the legislature, 
 the consistory, and the saloon — all regulations, formal or 
 virtual, have a common character: they are all limitations 
 of men^s freedom. '^ Do this — Refrain from that,^^ are the 
 blank forms into which they may severally be written ; and 
 throughout the understanding is that obedience will bring 
 approbation here and paradise hereafter; while disobedience 
 will entail imprisonment, or sending to Coventry, or eternal 
 torments^ as the case may be. And if restraints, however 
 named, and through whatever apparatus of means exercised, 
 are one in their action upon men, it must happen that those 
 who are patient under one kind of restraint, are likely to be 
 patient under another; and conversely, that those impatient 
 of restraint in general, will, on the average, tend to show 
 their impatience in all directions. 
 
 That Law, Eeligion, and Manners are thus related, and 
 that they have in certain contrasted characteristics of men 
 a common support and a common danger, will, however be 
 most clearly seen on discovering that they have a common 
 origin. Little as from present appearances we should 
 suppose it, we shall yet find that at first, the control of 
 religion, the control of laws, and the control of manners 
 were all one control. Strange as it now seems, we believe 
 it to be demonstrable that the rides of etiquette, the 
 provisions of the statute-book, and the commands of the 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 5 
 
 decaloguG; have grown from the same root. If we go far 
 enough back into the ages of primeval Fetishism, it becomes 
 manifest that originally Deity, Chief, and Master of the 
 Ceremonies were identical. To make good these positions, 
 and to show their bearing on what is to follow, it will be 
 necessary here to traverse ground that is in part somewhat 
 beaten, and at first sight irrelevant to our topic. We 
 will pass over it as quickly as consists with the exigencies 
 of the argument. 
 
 That the earliest social aggregations were ruled solely by 
 the will of the strong man, few dispute.* That from the 
 strong man proceeded not only Monarchy, but the concep- 
 tion of a God, few admit : much as Carlyle and others have 
 said in evidence of it. If, however, those who are unable 
 to believe this, will lay aside the ideas of God and man in 
 which they have been educated, and study the aboriginal 
 ideas of them, they will at least see some probability in the 
 hypothesis. Let them remember that before experience 
 had yet taught men to distinguish between the possible and 
 the impossible ; and while they were ready on the slightest 
 suggestion to ascribe unknown powers to any object and 
 make a fetish of it ; their conceptions of humanity and its 
 capacities were necessarily vagae, and without specific 
 limits. The man who by unusual strength, or cunning, 
 achieved something that others had failed to achieve, or 
 something which they did not understand, was considered 
 by them as differing from themselves ; and, as we see in 
 the belief of some Polynesians that only their chiefs have 
 souls, or in that of the ancient Peruvians that their nobles 
 were divine by birth, the ascribed difference was apt to be 
 not one of degree only, but one of kind. Let them 
 remember next, how gross were the notions of God, or 
 
 * The few who disputed it would be right however. There are stage 
 preceding that in which chiefly power becomes established ; and in many 
 cases it never does become established. 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 rather of godsj prevalent during the same era and after- 
 wards — how concretely gods were conceiyed as men of 
 specific aspects dressed in specific ways — how their names 
 were literally ''the strong," ''the destroyer/' "the power- 
 ful one/' — how, according to the Scandinavian mythology, 
 the "sacred duty of blood-revenge" was acted on by the 
 gods themselves, — and how they were not only human in 
 their vindictiveness, their cruelty, and their qnarrels with 
 each other^ bnt were supposed to have amours on earth, 
 and to consume the viands placed on their altars. Add to 
 which, that in various mythologies, Greek, Scandinavian, 
 and others, the oldest beings are giants ; that according to 
 a traditional genealogy the gods, demi-gods, and in some 
 cases men, are descended from these after the human 
 fashion ; and that while in the East we hear of sons of God 
 who saw the daughters of men that they were fair, the 
 Teutonic myths tell of unions between the sons of men and 
 the daughters of the gods. Let them remember, too, that 
 at first the idea of death differed widely from that which 
 we have ; that there are still tribes who, on the decease of 
 one of their number, attempt to make the corpse stand, 
 and put food into its mouth ; that the Peruvians had feasts 
 at which the mummies of their dead Incas presided, when, 
 as Prescott says, they paid attention " to these insensible 
 remains as if they were instinct with life ;" that among the 
 Fijians it is believed that every enemy has to be killed 
 twice ; that the Eastern Pagans give extension and figure 
 to the soul, and attribute to it all the same members all 
 the same substances, both solid and liquid, of which our 
 bodies are composed; and that it is the custom among most 
 barbarous races to bury food, weapons, and trinkets along 
 with the dead body, under the manifest belief that it will 
 presently need them. Lastly, let them remember that 
 the other world, as originally conceived, is simply some 
 distant part of this world — some Elysiau fields, some happy 
 hanting-ground, accessible even to the living, and to which 
 
MANNEES AND FASHION. 7 
 
 after deatli, men travel in anticipation of a life analogous 
 in general cliaracter to that which they led before. Then^ 
 co-ordinating these general facts — the ascription of un- 
 known powers to chiefs and medicine men ; the belief in 
 deities having human forms, passions, and behaviour; the 
 imperfect comprehension of death as distinguished from 
 life ; and the proximity of the future abode to the present, 
 both in position and character — let them reflect whether 
 they do not almost unavoidably suggest the conclusion 
 that the aboriginal god is the dead chief: the chief not 
 dead in our sense, but gone away, carrying with him food 
 and weapons to some rumoured region of plenty, some 
 promised land, whither he had long intended to lead 
 his followers, and whence he will presently return to 
 fetch them. This hypothesis once entertained, is seen to 
 harmonize with all primitive ideas and practices. The 
 sons of the deified chief reigning after him, it necessarily 
 happens that all early kings are held descendants of the 
 gods; and the fact that alike in Assyria, Egypt, among 
 the Jews, Phoenicians, and ancient Britons, kings' names 
 were formed out of the names of the gods, is fully ex- 
 plained. The genesis of Polytheism out of Fetishism, by 
 the successive migrations of the race of god-kings to the 
 other world — a genesis illustrated in the G-reek mythology, 
 alike by the precise genealogy of the deities, and by the 
 specifically-asserted apotheosis of the later ones— tends 
 further to bear it out. It explains the fact that in the old 
 creeds, as in the still extant creed of the Otaheitans, every 
 family has its guardian spirit, who is supposed to be one of 
 their departed relatives ; and that they sacrifice to these as 
 minor gods — a practice still pursued by the Chinese and 
 even by the Russians. It is perfectly congruous with the 
 Grecian myths concerning the wars of the Gods with the 
 Titans and their final usurpation ; and it similarly agrees 
 with the fact that among the Teutonic gods proper was one 
 Freir who came among them by adoption, '^ but was born 
 
8 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 among tlie Vanes, a somewhat mysterious other dynasty of 
 godsj wlio had been conquered and superseded by the 
 stronger and more warlike Odin dynasty/" It harmonizes, 
 too, with the belief that there are different gods to different 
 territories and nations, as there were different chiefs; that 
 these gods contend for, supremacy as chiefs do; and it 
 gives meaning to the boast of neighbouring tribes — '' Our 
 god is greater than your god." It is confirmed by the 
 notion universally cui^rent in early times, that the gods 
 come from this other abode, in which they commonly live, 
 and appear among men — speak to them, help them, punish 
 them. And remembering this^ it becomes manifest that 
 the prayers put up by primitive peoples to their gods for 
 aid in battle, are meant literally — that their gods are 
 expected to come back from the other kingdom they are 
 reigning over, and once more fight the old enemies they 
 had before warred against so implacably ; and it needs but 
 to name the Iliad, to remind every one how thoroughly they 
 believed the expectation fulfilled."^ 
 
 All government, then, being originally that of the strong 
 man who has become a fetish by some manifestation of 
 superiority, there arises, at his death — his supposed de- 
 parture on a long-projected expedition^ in which he is 
 accompanied by the slaves and concubines sacrificed at his 
 tomb — there arises, then, the incipient division of religious 
 
 * In this paragraph, which I have purposely left standing word for word 
 as it did when republished with other essays in Dec. 1857, will be seen the 
 outline of the ghost-theory. Though there are references to fetishism as a 
 primitive form of belief, and though at that time I had passively accepted 
 the current theory (though never with satisfaction, for the origin of fetishism 
 as then conceived seemed incomprehensible) yet the belief that inanimate 
 objects may possess supernatural powers (which is what was then understood 
 as fetishism) is not dwelt upon as a primitive belief. The one thing which 
 is dwelt upon is the belief in the double of the dead man as continuing to 
 exist, and as becoming an object of propitiation and eventually of worship. 
 There are clearly marked out the rudiments which, when supplied with the 
 mass of facts collected in the Descriptive Sociology developed into the 
 doctrine elaborated in Part I. of The Principles of Sociology, 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 9 
 
 from political control^ of spiritual rule from civil. His son 
 becomes deputed chief during his absence ; his authority 
 is cited as that by which his son acts; his vengeance is 
 invoked on all who disobey his son; and his commands^, as 
 previously known or as asserted by his son^ become the 
 germ of a moral code : a fact we shall the more clearly 
 perceive if we remember^ that early moral codes inculcate 
 mainly the virtues of the warrior^ and the duty of exter-- 
 minating some neighbouring tribe whose existence is an 
 offence to the deity. From this point onwards, these 
 two kinds of authority, at first complicated together as 
 those of principal and agent, become slowly more and 
 more distinct. As experience accumulates, and ideas of 
 causation grow more precise, kings lose their super- 
 natural attributes ; and, instead of God-king, become God- 
 descended king, God-appointed king, the Lord^s anointed, 
 the vicegerent of Heaven, ruler reigning by Divine right. 
 The old theory, however, long clings to men in feeling, 
 after it has disappeared in name ; and ^^ such divinity 
 doth hedge a king,^"* that even now, many, on first 
 seeing one, feel a secret surprise at finding him. an ordi- 
 nary sample of humanity. The sacredness attaching to 
 royalty attaches, afterwards to its appended institutions — 
 to legislatures, to laws. Legal and illegal are synonymous 
 with right and wrong ; the authority of Parliament is held- 
 unlimited ; and a lingering faith in governmental power 
 continually generates unfounded hopes from its enactments. 
 Political scepticism, however, having destroyed the divine 
 'prestige of royalty, g*oes on ever increasing, and promises 
 ultimately to reduce the State to a purely secular institution, 
 whose regulations are limited in their sphere, and have no 
 other authority than the general will. Meanwhile, the 
 religious control has been little by little separating itself 
 from the civil, both in its essence and in its forms. While 
 from the God-king of the barbarian have arisen in one 
 direction, secular rulers who, age by age, have been losing 
 
10 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 tlie sacred attributes men ascribed to them ; there has 
 arisen in another direction, the conception of a deity^ who, 
 at first human in all things, has been gradually losing 
 human materiality, human form, human passions, human 
 modes of action : until now, anthropomorphism has become 
 a reproach. Along with this wide divergence in men's 
 ideas of the divine and civil ruler has been taking place 
 a corresponding divergence in the codes of conduct 
 respectively proceeding from them. While the king was a 
 deputy-god — a governor such as the Jews looked for m the 
 Messiah — a governor considered, as the Czar still is, ^^our 
 God upon earth,'' — it, of course, followed that his commands 
 were the supreme rules. But as men ceased to believe in 
 his supernatural origin and nature, his commands ceased to 
 be the highest; and there arose a distinction between the 
 regulations made by him, and the regulations handed down 
 from the old god-kings, \^o were rendered ever more 
 sacred by time and the accumulation of myths. Hence 
 came respectively. Law and Morality : the one growing ever 
 more concrete, the other more abstract ; the authority of 
 the one ever on the decrease, that of the other ever on the 
 increase ; originally the same, but now placed daily in more 
 marked antagonism. Simultaneously there has been going 
 on a separation of the institutions administering these two 
 codes of conduct. While they were yet one, of course 
 Church and State were one : the king was arch-priest, not 
 nominally, but really — alike the giver of new commands 
 and the chief interpreter of the old commands; and the 
 deputy-priests coming out of his family were thus simply 
 expounders of the dictates of their ancestry : at first as 
 recollected, and afterwards as ascertained by professed 
 interviews with them. This union between sacred and 
 secular — which still existed practically during the middle 
 ages, when the authority of kings was mixed up with the 
 authority of the pope, when there were bishop- rulers having 
 all the powers of feudal lords, and when priests punished 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 11 
 
 by penances — has been^ step by step, becoming less close. 
 Thougli monarchs are still " defenders of the faith," and 
 ecclesiastical chiefs, they are but nominally such. Thouo-h 
 bishops still have civil power, it is not what they once had. 
 Protestantism shook loose the bonds of union ; Dissent has 
 long been busy in organizing a mechanism for rehgious 
 control, wholly independent of law; in America, a separate 
 organization for that purpose already exists ; and if any- 
 thing is to be hoped from the Anti-State-Ohurch Association 
 — or, as it has been newly nanaed, '^The Society for the 
 Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control " 
 — we shall presently have a separate organization here also. 
 Thus, in authority, in essence, and in form, political and 
 spiritual rule have been ever more widely diverging from 
 the same root. That increasing division of labour which 
 marks the progress of society in other things, marks it also 
 in this separation of government into civil and religious ; 
 and if we observe how the morality which now forms the 
 substance of religions in general, is beginning to be purified 
 from the associated creeds, we may anticipate that this 
 division will be ultimately carried much further. 
 
 Passing now to the third species of control — that of 
 Manners — we shall find that this, too, while it had a common 
 genesis with the others, has gradually come to have a 
 distinct sphere and a special embodiment. Among early 
 aggregations of men before yet social observances existed, 
 the sole forms of courtesy known were the signs of sub- 
 mission to the strong man ; as the sole law was his will, and 
 the sole religion the awe of his supposed supernaturaluess. 
 Originally, ceremonies were modes of behaviour to the god- 
 king. Oar commonest titles have been derived from his 
 names. And all salutations were primarily worship paid to 
 him. Let us trace out these truths in detail, beginning 
 with titles. 
 
 The fact already noticed, that the names of early kings 
 among divers races are formed by the addition of certain 
 
12 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 syllab e to the names of their gods — whicli certain syllables, 
 like our 3£aG and Fitz, probably mean ^' son of/^ or 
 "descended from" — at once gives meaning to the term 
 Father as a divine title. And when we read, in Selden, 
 that "the composition out of these names of Deities was 
 not only proper to Kings : their Grandes and more honor- 
 able Subjects'' (no doubt members of the royal race) " had 
 sometimes the like ; '' we see how the term Father ^ properly 
 used by these also, and by their multiplying descendants, came 
 to be a title used by the people in general. As bearing 
 on this pointj it is significant that in the least advanced 
 country of Europe, where belief in the divine nature of the 
 ruler still lingers, Father in this higher sense, is still a regal 
 distinction. When, again, we remember how the divinity 
 at first ascribed to kings was not a complimentary fiction 
 but a supposed fact ; and how, further, the celestial bodies 
 were believed to be personages who once lived among men; 
 we see that the appellations of oriental rulers, " Brother to 
 the Sun,'^ &c., were probably once expressive of a genuine 
 belief; and have simply, like many other things, continued 
 in use after all meaning has gone out of them. We may 
 infer, too, that the titles God, Lord, Divinity, were given 
 to primitive rulers literally — that the nostra divinitas 
 applied to the Koman emperors, and the various sacred 
 designations that have been borne by monarchs, down to 
 the still extant phrase, " Our Lord the King," are the dead 
 and dying forms of what were once living facts. From 
 these names, God, Father, Lord, Divinity, originally be- 
 longing to the God-king, and afterwards to God and the 
 king, the derivation of our commonest titles of respect is 
 traceable. There is reason to think that these titles were 
 originally proper names. Not only do we see among the 
 Egyptians, where Pharaoh was synonymous with kino-^ and 
 among the Romans, where to be C^sar, meant to be 
 Emperor, that the proper names of the greatest men were 
 transferred to their successors, and so became class-names • 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 13 
 
 but in the Scandinavian mythology we may trace a human 
 title of honour up to the proper name of a divine personage. 
 In Anglo-Saxon bealdor, or haldoVy means Lord ; and Balder 
 is the name of the favourite of Odin's sons. How these 
 names of honour became general is easily understood. The 
 relatives of the primitive kings — the grandees described by 
 Selden as having names formed on those of the gods^ and 
 shown by this to be members of the divine race — neces- 
 sarily shared in the epithets descriptive of superhuman 
 relationships and nature. Their ever-multiplying offspring 
 inheriting these, gradually rendered them comparatively 
 common. And then they came to be applied to every man 
 of power : partly from the fact that, in those early days 
 when men conceived divinity simply as a stronger kind of 
 humanity, great persons could be called by divine epithets 
 with but little exaggeration ; partly from the fact that the 
 unusually potent were apt to be considered as unrecognised 
 or illegitimate descendants of '^ the strong, the destroyer, 
 the powerful one;'^ and partly, also, from compliment and 
 the desire to propitiate. As superstition diminished, this last 
 became the sole cause. And if we remember that it is the 
 nature of compliment^ to attribute more than is due — that 
 in the ever widening application of ^^ esquire,^'* in the per- 
 petual repetition of '' your honour " by the fawning Irishman, 
 and in the use of the name " gentleman " to any coalheaver 
 or dustman by the lower classes of London, we have current 
 examples of the depreciation of titles consequent on com- 
 pliment — and that in barbarous times, when the wish to 
 propitiate was stronger than now, this effect must have been 
 greater; we shall see that there naturally arose from this 
 cause an extensive misuse of all early distinctions. Hence the 
 facts that the Jews called Herod a god ; that Father, in its 
 higher sense, was a term used among them by servants to 
 masters ; that Lord was applicable to any person of worth 
 and power. Hence, too, the fact that, in the later periods 
 of the Roman Empire, every man saluted his neighbour as 
 
14 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 Dominus or Bex. But it is in the titles of tlie middle ages, 
 and in the growth of our modern ones out of them^ that the 
 process is most clearly seen. Eerr, Don^ Signor, Seigneur, 
 SenoTj were all originally descriptive names of rulers. 
 By the complimentary use of these names to all who couldj 
 on any pretence^ be supposed to merit them, and by 
 successive descents to still lower grades^ they have come 
 to be common forms of address. At first the phrase in which 
 a serf accosted his despotic chief^ mein Herr is now familiarly 
 applied in Germany to ordinary people. The Spanish title 
 Dorij once proper to noblemen and gentlemen only^ is now 
 accorded to all classes. So^ too, is it with Signer in Italy. 
 Seigneur and Monseigneur, by contraction in Sieur and 
 MonsieuTj have produced the term of respect claimed by 
 every Frenchman. And whether Sire be or be not a like 
 contraction of Sir/nor, it is clear that^ as it was borne by 
 sundry of the ancient feudal lords of France, who, as Selden 
 says, '^ affected rather to bee stiled by the name of Sire 
 than Baron, as Le Sire de Montmorencley Le Sire de Beaujeu, 
 and the like," and as it has been commonly used to 
 monarchSj our word Sir, which is derived from it, originally 
 meant lord or king. ThuSj too, is it with feminine titles. 
 Lady, which, according to Home Tooke, means exalted, and 
 was at first given only to the few, is now given to all women 
 of education. Dame, once an honourable name to which 
 in old books, we find the epithets of ^'high-born" and 
 " stately " affixed, has now, by repeated widenings of its 
 application, become relatively a term of contempt. And 
 if we trace the compound of this, via Dame, through its 
 contractions — Madam, ma^am, main, murn.j we find that the 
 *' Yes'm'' of Sally to her mistress is originally equivalent to 
 '' Yes, my exalted," or ''Yes, your highness." Throughout, 
 therefore, the genesis of words of honour has been the same. 
 Just as with the Jews and with the Eomans, has it been 
 with the modern Europeans. Tracing these everyday names 
 to their primitive significations of lord and hing, and 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 15 
 
 remembering that in aboriginal societies these were applied 
 only to the gods and their descendants^ we arrive at the 
 conclusion that our familiar Sir and Monsieur are, in their 
 primary and expanded meanings, terms of adoration. 
 
 Further to illustrate this gradual depreciation of titles, 
 and to confirm the inference drawn, it may be well to notice 
 in passing, that the oldest of them have, as might be 
 expected, been depreciated to the - greatest extent. Thus^ 
 Master — a word proved by its derivation, and by the 
 similarity of the connate words in other languages (Fr., 
 maitre for maistre ; Dutch, meester ; Dan., mester ; Ger., 
 meister) to have been one of the earliest in use for express- 
 ing lordship — has now become applicable to children only, 
 and, under the modification of " Mister," to persons next 
 above the labourer. Again, knighthood, the oldest kind of 
 dignity, is also the lowest; and Knight Bachelor, which is 
 the lowest order of knighthood, is more ancient than any 
 other of the orders. Similarly, too, with the peerage : 
 Baron is alike the earliest and least elevated of its divisions. 
 This continual degradation of all names of honour has, 
 from time to time, made it requisite to introduce new ones 
 having the distinguishing effects which the originals had 
 lost by generality of use; just as our habit of misapplying 
 superlatives has, by gradually destroying their force, 
 entailed the need for" fresh ones. And if, within the last 
 thousand years, this process has worked results thus marked, 
 we may readily conceive how, during previous thousands, 
 the titles of gods and demi-gods came to be used to all 
 persons exercising power ; as they have since come to be 
 used to persons of respectability. 
 
 If from names of honour we turn to phrases of honour, 
 we -find similar facts. The oriental styles of address, 
 applied to ordinary people — "I am your slave," ^^Ail I 
 have is yours," "I am your sacrifice" — attribute to the 
 individual spoken to the same greatness that Monsieur and 
 My Lord do : they ascribe to him the character of an all- 
 
16 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 powerful ruler^ so immeasurably superior to tlie speaker as 
 to be his owner. So, likewise, with the Polish expressions 
 of respect — " I throw m jself under your feet/' '^ I kiss 
 your feet.-" In our now meaningless subscription to a 
 formal letter—'' Your most obedient servant "—the same 
 thing is visible. Nay, even in the familiar signature 
 " Yours faithfully/' the " yours/' if interpreted as origin- 
 ally meant, is the expression of a slave to his master. All 
 these dead forms were once living embodiments of fact ; 
 were pi'imarily the genuine indications of that submission 
 to authority which they verbally assert; were afterwards 
 naturally used by the weak and cowardly to propitiate 
 those above them; gradually grew to be considered the 
 due of such; and, by a continually wider misuse, have lost 
 their meanings, as Sir and Master have done. That, like 
 titles, they were in the beginning used only to the God- 
 king, is indicated by the fact that, like titles, they were 
 subsequently used in common to God and the king. 
 Religious worship has ever largely consisted of professions 
 of obedience, of being God's servants, of belonging to liim 
 to do what he will with. Like titles, therefore, these 
 common phrases of honour bad a devotional origin. Per- 
 haps, however, it is in the use of the word you as a singular 
 pronoun that the popularizing of what were once supreme 
 distinctions is most markedly illustrated. This addressing 
 of a single individual in the plural, was originally an honour 
 given only to the highest — was the reciprocal of the imperial 
 ''we" assumed by such. Yet now, by being applied to 
 successively lower and lower classes, it has become all but 
 universal. Only by one sect of Christians, and in a few 
 secluded districts, is the prinaitive thou still used. And the 
 you, in becoming common to all ranks, has simultaneously 
 lost every vestige of the distinction once attachino- to it. 
 
 But the genesis of Manners out of forms of allegiance and 
 worship, is above all sbown in modes of salutation. Note 
 first the sigmificance of the word. Among the Romans the 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 17 
 
 salutatio was a daily homage paid by clients and inferiors 
 to their superiors. This was alike the case with civilians 
 and in the army. The very derivation of our word, there- 
 fore, is suggestive of submission. Passing to particular 
 forms of obeisance (mark the word again) ^ let us begin with 
 the Eastern one of baring the feet. This was, primarily, 
 a mark of reverence, alike to a god and a king. The act 
 of Moses before the burning bush, and the practice of 
 Mahometans, who are sworn on the Koran with their shoes 
 o3, exemplify the one employment of it; the custom of the 
 Persians, who remove their shoes on entering the presence 
 of their monarch, exemplifies the other. As usual, however, 
 this homage, paid next to inferior rulers, has descended 
 from grade to grade. In India it is a common mark of 
 respect ; the lower orders of Turks never enter the presence 
 of their superiors but in their stockings ; and in Japan, this 
 baring of the feet is an ordinary salutation of man to man. 
 Take another case. Selden, describing the ceremonies of 
 the Romans, says: — "For whereas it was usuall either to 
 kiss the Images of their Gods, or, adoring them, to stand 
 somewhat off before them, solemnly moving the right hand 
 to the lips, and then, casting it as if they had cast kisses, to 
 turne the body on the same hand (which was the right 
 forme of Adoration), it grew also by custom, first that the 
 Emperors, being next to Deities, and by some accounted as 
 Deities, had the like done to them in acknowledgment 
 of their G-reatness." If, now, we call to mind the awkward 
 salute of a village school-boy, made by putting his open 
 hand up to his face and describing a semicircle with his 
 forearm ; and if we remember that the salute thus used as 
 a form of reverence in country districts, is most likely 
 a remnant of the feudal times ; we shall see reason 
 for thinking that our common wave of the hand to a 
 friend across the street, represents what was primarily 
 a devotional act. 
 
 Similarly have originated all forms of respect depending 
 
18 MANNERS AND FASHIOIT. 
 
 upon inclinations of the body. Entire prostration is the 
 aboriginal sign of submission. The passage of Scripture — 
 '' Thou hast put all under his feet," and that other one^ so 
 suggestive in its anthropomorphism — " The Lord said unto 
 my Lordj sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine 
 enemies thy footstool," imply, what the Assyrian sculptures 
 bear out, that it was the practice of the ancient god-kings 
 of the East to trample on the conquered. As there are 
 existing savages who signify submission by placing the 
 neck under the foot of the person submitted to, it becomes 
 obvious that all prostration, especially when accompanied 
 by kissing the foot, expressed a willingness to be trodden 
 upon — was an attempt to mitigate wrath by saying, in 
 signs, "Tread on me if you will." Remembering, too, 
 that kissing the foot, as of the Pope and of a saint's statue, 
 still continues in Europe to be a mark of extreme rever- 
 ence; that prostration to feudal lords was once general, 
 and that its disappearance must have taken place, not 
 abruptly, but by gradual change into something else ; we 
 have ground for deriving from these deepest of humilia- 
 tions all inclinations of respect : especially as the transition 
 s traceable. The reverence of a Russian serf, who bends 
 his head to the ground, and the salaam of the Hindoo, are 
 abridged prostrations ; a bow is a short salaam ; a nod is 
 a short bow. Should any hesitate to admit this conclusion, 
 then perhaps, on being reminded that the lowest of these 
 obeisances are common where the submission is most 
 abject; that among ourselves the profundity of the bow 
 marks the amount of respect ; and lastly, that the bow is 
 even now used devotionally in our churches — by Catholics 
 to their altars, and by Protestants at the name of Christ— 
 they will see sufficient reason for thinking that this saluta- 
 tion also was originally worship. 
 
 The same may be said, too, of the curtsy, or courtesv as 
 it is otherwise written. Its derivation from courtoisie 
 courteousnesSj that is, behaviour like that at court, at once 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 19 
 
 shows that it was primarily the reverence paid to a 
 monarch. And if we call ' to mind that falling on the 
 knees^ or on one knee^ has been a common obeisance of 
 subjects to rulers ; that in ancient manuscripts and 
 tapestrieSj servants are depicted as assuming this attitude 
 while offering the dishes to their masters at table; and 
 that this same attitude i^ assumed towards our own queen 
 at every presentation ; we may infer, what the character of 
 the curtsy itself suggests, that it is an abridged act of 
 kneeling. As the word has been contracted from courtoisie 
 into curtsy; so the motion has been contracted from a 
 placing of the knee on the floor, to a lowering of the knee 
 towards the floor. Moreover, when we compare the curtsy 
 of a lady with the awkward one a peasant girl makes, 
 which, if continued, would bring her down on both knees, 
 we may see in this last a remnant of that greater reverence 
 required of serfs. And when, from considering that simple 
 kneeling of the West, still represented by the curtsy, we 
 pass Eastward, and note the attitude of the Mahommedan 
 worshipper, who not only kneels but bows his head to the 
 ground, we may infer that the curtsy also, is an evanescent 
 form of the aboriginal prostration. In further evidence of 
 this it may be remarked, that there has but recently 
 disappeared from the salutations of men, an action having 
 the same proximate derivation with the curtsy. That 
 backward sweep of the right foot with which the con- 
 ventional stage-sailor accompanies his bow — a movement 
 which prevailed generally in past generations, when ^^ a 
 bow arid a sci^ape " went together, and which, within the 
 memory of living persons, was made by boys to their 
 master when entering school, with the effect of wearing a 
 hole in the floor — is pretty clearly a preliminary to going 
 on one knee. A motion so ungainly could never have 
 been intentionally introduced ; even if the artificial intro- 
 duction of obeisances were possible. Hence we must 
 regard it as the remnant of something antecedent : and 
 43 
 
20 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 that this something antecedent was humiliating may he 
 inferred from the phrase, *'*' scraping an acquaintance; 
 which, being used to denote the gaining of favour by 
 obsequiousness, implies that the scrape was considered a 
 mark of servility — that is, of servile position. 
 
 Consider, again, the uncovering of the head. Almost 
 everywhere this has been a sign of reverence, alike in 
 temples and before potentates ; and it yet preserves among 
 us some of its original meaning. Whether it rains, hails^ 
 or shines, you must keep your head bare while speaking to 
 the monarch ; and no one may keep his hat on in a place 
 of worship. As usual, however, this ceremony, at first a 
 submission to gods and kings, has become in process of 
 time a common civility. Once an acknowledgment of 
 another's unlimited supremacy, the removal of the hat is 
 now a salute accorded to very ordinary persons; and that 
 uncovering" originally reserved for entrance into ^' the house 
 of God '^ or the residence of the ruler, good manners now 
 dictates on entrance into a labourer's cottage. 
 
 Standing, too, as a mark of respect, has undergone like 
 extensions in its application. Shown, by the practice in 
 our churches, to be intermediate between the humiliation 
 signified by kneeling and the self-respect which sitting 
 implies, and used at courts as a form of homage when 
 more active demonstrations of it have Been made this 
 posture is now employed in daily life to show considera- 
 tion; as seen alike in the attitude of a servant before 
 a master, and in that rising which politeness prescribes on 
 the entrance of a visitor. 
 
 Many other threads of evidence might have been woven 
 into our argument. As, for example, the significant fact, 
 that if we trace back our still existing law of primogeniture 
 — if we consider it as displayed by Scottish clans, in which 
 not only ownership but government devolved from the 
 beginning on the eldest son of the eldest — if -we look 
 further back, and observe that the old titles of lordship 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 21 
 
 bignoTy Seigneur^ 8enor, Sire, Sieur, all originally mean 
 senior^ or elder — if we go Eastward, and find that Sheich 
 lias a like derivation, and that the Oriental names for 
 priests, as PiV, for instance, are literally interpreted old 
 man — if we note in Hebrew records how far back dates 
 the ascribed superiority of the first-born, how great the 
 authority of elders, and how sacred the memory of patriarchs 
 — and if, then, we remember that among divine titles are 
 *' Ancient of Days," and '^ Father of Gods and men;" — we 
 see how completely these facts harmonize with the hy- 
 pothesis, that the aboriginal god is the first man sufficiently 
 great to become a tradition, the earliest whose power and 
 deeds made him remembered; that hence antiquity un- 
 avoidably became associated with superiority, and age 
 with nearness in blood to " the powerful one ; " that so 
 there naturally arose that domination of the eldest which 
 characterizes the history of all the higher races, and that 
 theory of human degeneracy which even yet survives. 'We 
 might further dwell on. the facts, that Lord signifies high- 
 born, or, as the same root gives a word meaning heaven, 
 possibly heaven-born ; that, before it became common, Sir 
 or Sire^ as well as Father, was the distinction of a priest; 
 that worship, originally worth-ship — a term of respect that 
 has been used commonly, as well as to magistrates — is 
 also our term for the act of attributing greatness or worth 
 to the Deity ; so that to ascribe worth-ship to a man is to 
 worship him. We might make much of the evidence that 
 all early governments are more or less distinctly theocratic ; 
 and that among ancient Eastern nations even the com- 
 monest forms and customs had religious sanctions. We 
 might enforce our argument respecting the derivation of 
 ceremonies, by tracing out the aboriginal obeisance made 
 by putting dust on the head, which symbolizes putting 
 the head in the dust ; by afiiliating the practice found in 
 certain tribes, of doing another honour by presenting him 
 with a portion of hair torn from the head — an act which 
 
22 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 seems tantamount to saying, '' I am your slave ; by 
 investigating the Oriental custom of giving to a visitor any 
 object he speaks of admiringly, which is pretty clearly a 
 carrying oul of the compliment, '' All I have is yours/' 
 
 Without enlarging^ however, on these and minor facts, 
 we venture to think that the evidence assigned is suffi- 
 cient. Had the proofs been few, or of one kind, little 
 faith could have been placed in the inference. But numer- 
 ous as they are, alike in the case of titles, in that of 
 complimentary phrases, and in that of salutes — similar 
 and simultaneous, too, as the process of depreciation has 
 been in all of these ; the evidences become strong by 
 mutual confirmation. And when we recollect, also, that 
 not only have the results of this process been visible in 
 various nations and in all times, but that they are occurring 
 among ourselves at the present moment, and that the 
 causes assigned for previous depreciations may be seen 
 daily working out others — when we recollect this, it 
 becomes scarcely possible to doubt that the process has 
 been as alleged; and that our ordinary words, acts, and 
 phrases of civility originally expressed submission to 
 another's omnipotence. 
 
 Thus the general doctrine, that all kinds of government 
 exercised over men were at first one government — that the 
 political, the religious, and the ceremonial forms of control 
 are divergent branches of a general and once indivisible 
 control — begins to look tenable. When, with the above 
 .facts fresh in mind, we read tbat in Eastern traditions 
 Nimrod, among others, figures in all the characters of 
 hero, kingj and divinity — when we turn to the sculptures 
 exhumed by Mr. Layard, and contemplating in them the 
 effigies of kings driving over enemies, and adored by prostrate 
 slaves, then observe how their actions correspond to the 
 primitive names for gods, " the strong,^' ''the destroj^er,'* 
 ''^ the powerful one '^ — and when, lastly, we discover that 
 among races of men still living, there are current super- 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION, 23 
 
 stitions analogous to those which old records and old 
 buildings indicate; we begin to realize the probability of 
 the hypothesis that has been sei forth. Representing to 
 ourselves the conquering chief as figured in ancient mythsj 
 and poemSj and ruins; we may see that all ruies of conduct 
 spring from his will. Alike legislator and judge^ quarrels 
 among his subjects are decided by him; and his words 
 become the Law. Awe of him is the incipient Religion ; and 
 his maxims furnish his first precepts. Submission is made 
 to him in the forms he prescribes ; and these give birth to 
 Manners. From the firsts time developes political allegiance 
 and the administration of justice ; from the second^ the 
 worship of a being whose personality becomes ever more 
 vague^ and the inculcation of precepts ever more abstract ; 
 from the thirds forms and names of honour and the rules of 
 etiquette. In conformity with the law of evolution of all 
 organized bodies, that general functions are gradually 
 separated into the special functions constituting them, there 
 have grown up in the social organism for the better per- 
 formance of the governmental office, an apparatus of law- 
 courts, judges, and barristers ; a national church, with its 
 bishops and priests ; and a system of caste, titles, and 
 ceremonies, administered by society at large. By the 
 first, overt aggressions are cognized and punished ; by 
 the second, the disposition to commit such aggressions 
 is in some degree checked; by the third, those minor 
 breaches of good conduct which the others do not notice, 
 are denounced and chastised. Law and Religion control 
 behaviour in its essentials; Manners control it in its details. 
 For regulating those daily actions which are too numerous 
 and too unimportant to be officially directed there comes 
 into play this subtler set of restraints. And when we con- 
 sider what these restraints are — when we analyze the words, 
 and phrases, and movements employed, we see that in 
 origin as ia effect, the system is a setting up of temporary 
 
24 MANNEKS AND EASHION. 
 
 governments between all men who come in contact^ for the 
 purpose of better managing the intercourse between them. 
 
 » 
 
 From the proposition, that these several kinds of govern- 
 ment are essentially one, both in genesis and function, may 
 be deduced several important corollaries, directly bearing 
 on our special topic. 
 
 Let us first notice, that there is not ouly a common origin 
 and office for all forms of rule, but a common necessity for 
 them. The aboriginal man, coming fresh from the killing 
 of bears and from lying in ambush for his enemy, has, by 
 the necessities of his condition, a nature requiring to be 
 curbed in its every impulse. Alike in war and in the 
 chase, his daily discipline has been that of sacrificing other 
 creatures to his own needs and passions. His character, 
 bequeathed to him by ancestors who led similar liveSj is 
 moulded by this discipline — is fitted to this existence. The 
 unlimited selfishness, the love of inflicting pain, the blood- 
 thirstiness, thus kept active, he brings with him into the 
 social state. These dispositions put him in constant danger 
 of conflict with his equally savage neighbour. In small 
 things as in gi'eat, in words as in deeds, he is aggressive ; 
 and is hourly liable to the aggressions of others like natured. 
 Only, therefore, by rigorous control exercised over all 
 actions, can the primitive unions of men be maintained. 
 There must be a ruler strong, remorseless, and of indomit- 
 able will; there must be a creed terrible in its threats to 
 the disobedient ; there must be servile submission of inferiors 
 to superiors. The law must be cruel; the religion must be 
 stern; the ceremonies must be strict. The co-ordinate 
 necessity for these several kinds of restraint might be 
 largely illustrated from history were there space. Suffice 
 it to point out that where the civil power has been weak 
 the multiplication of thieves, assassins, and banditti has 
 indicated the approach of social dissolution ; that when 
 
MANNERS AND TASHION, 25 
 
 from the corruptness of its ministry, religion has lost its 
 influence, as it did just before the Flagellants appeared, the 
 State has been endangered ; and that the disregard of 
 established social observances has ever been an accompani- 
 ment of political revolutions. Whoever doubts the necessity 
 for a government of manners proportionate in strength to 
 the co-existing political and religious governments^ will be 
 convinced on calling to mind that until recently even elabo- 
 rate codes of behaviour failed to keep gentlemen from 
 quarrelling in the streets and fighting duels in taverns; 
 and on remembering that even now people exhibit at the 
 doors of a theatre, where there is no ceremonial law to rule 
 them, an aggressiveness which would produce confusion if 
 carried into social intercourse. 
 
 As might be expected, we find that, having a common 
 origin and like general functions, these several controlling 
 agencies act during each era with similar degrees of vigour. 
 Under the Chinese despotism, stringent and multitudinous 
 in its edicts and harsh in the enforcement of them, and 
 associated with which there is an equally stern domestic 
 despotism exercised by the eldest surviving male of the 
 family, there exists a system of observances alike com- 
 plicated and rigid. There is a tribunal of ceremonies. 
 Previous to presentation at court, ambassadors pass many 
 days in practising the required forms. Social intercourse 
 is cumbered by endless compliments and obeisances. Class 
 distinctions are strongly marked by badges. And if there 
 wants a definite measure of the respect paid to social 
 ordinances, we have it in the torture to which ladies submit 
 in having their feet crushed. In India, and indeed through- 
 out the East, there exists a like connexion between the 
 pitiless tyranny of rulers, the dread terrors of immemorial 
 creeds, and the rigid restraint of unchangeable customs. 
 Caste regulations continue still unalterable; the fashions 
 of clothes and furniture have remained the same for ages ; 
 suttees are so ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo aud 
 
26 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 Diodoms Siculus; justice is'still administered at the palace- 
 gates as of old; in short, *' every usage is a precept of 
 religion and a maxim of jurisprudence/^ A similar relation- 
 ship of phenomena was exhibited in Europe during the 
 Middle Ages. While its governments, general and local, 
 were despotic, while the Church was unshorn of its power, 
 while the criminal code was full of horrors and the hell of 
 the popular creed full of terrors, the rules of behaviour 
 were both mOre numerous and more carefully conformed to 
 than now. Differences of dress marked divisions of rank. 
 Men were limited by law to certain widths of shoe-toes ; 
 and no one below a specified degree might wear a cloak 
 less than so many inches long. The symbols on banners 
 and shields were carefully attended to. Heraldry was an 
 important branch of knowledge. Precedence was strictly 
 insisted on. And those various salutes of which we now 
 use the abridgments, were gone through in full. Even 
 during our own last century, with its corrupt House of 
 Commons and little-curbed monarchs, we may mark a 
 correspondence of social formalities. Gentlemen were still 
 distinguished from lower classes by dress; and children 
 addressed their parents as Sir and Madam. 
 
 A further corollary naturally following this last, and 
 almost, indeed, forming part of it-, is, that these several 
 kinds of government decrease in stringency at the same 
 rate. Simultaneously with the decline in the influence of 
 priesthoods, and in the fear of eternal torments — simulta- 
 neously with the mitigation of political tyranny, the growth 
 of popular power, and the amelioration of criminal codes ; 
 has taken place that diminution of formalities and that 
 fading of distinctive marks, now so observable. Looking at 
 home, we may note that there is less attention to precedence 
 than there used to be. No one in our day ends an inter- 
 view with the phrase " your humble servant," The employ- 
 ment of the word Sir, once general in social intercourse, is 
 at present considered bad breeding ; and on the occasions 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 27 
 
 calling for them, it is held vulgar to use the words ^^ Your 
 Majesty," or ^^Your Eoyal Highness/' more than once 
 in a conversation. People no longer formally drink one 
 another's healths ; and even the taking wine with one 
 another at dinner has ceased to be fashionable. It is 
 remarked of us by foreigners, that we take off our hats less 
 than any other nation in Europe — a remark which should 
 be coupled with the other, that we are the freest nation in 
 Europe. As already implied, this association of facts is 
 not accidental. These modes of address and titles and 
 obeisances, bearing about them, as they all do, something 
 of that servility which marks their origin, become distasteful 
 in proportion as men become more independent themselves, 
 and sympathize more with the independence of others. 
 The feeling which makes the modern gentleman tell the 
 labourer standing bareheaded before him to put on his hat 
 — the feeling which gives us a dislike to those who cringe 
 and fawn — the feeling which makes us alike assert our own 
 dignity and respect that of others — the feeling which thus 
 leads us more and more to discountenance forms and names 
 which confess inferiority and submission ; is the same feeling 
 which resists despotic power and inaugurates popular 
 government, denies the authority of the Church ' and esta- 
 blishes the right of private judgment. 
 
 A fourth fact, akin to the foregoing, is, that with 
 decreasing coerciveness in these several kinds of govern- 
 ment, their respective forms lose their meanings. The 
 same process which has made our monarch put forth as his 
 own acts what are the acts of ministers approved by the 
 people, and has thus changed him from master into agent — 
 the same process which, making attendance at church very 
 much a matter of respectability, has done away with the 
 telling of beads, the calling on saints, and the performance 
 of penances ; is a process by which titles and ceremonies 
 that once had a meaning and a power have been reduced to 
 empty forms. Coats of arms which served to distinguish 
 
28 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 men in battle, now figure on the carriage panels of retired 
 merchants. Once a badge of higli military rank, the 
 shodder-knot has become, on the modern footman^ a mark 
 of servitude. The name Banneret, which originally marked 
 a partially-created Baron — a Baron who had passed his 
 military "little go" — is now, under the modification of 
 Baronet, applicable to any one favoured by wealth or interest 
 or party feeling. Knighthood has so far ceased to be an 
 honour, that men honour themselves by declining it. The 
 military dignity Escuyer has, in the modern Esquire, 
 become a wholly unmilitary affix. 
 
 But perhaps it is in that class of social observances com- 
 prehended under the term Fashion (which we must here 
 discuss parenthetically) that this process is seen with the 
 greatest distinctness. As contrasted with Manners, which 
 dictate our minor acts in relation to other persons, Eashion 
 dictates our minor acts in relation to ourselves. While the 
 one prescribes that part of our deportment which directly 
 affects our neighbours ; the other prescribes that part of 
 our deportment which is primarily personal, and in which 
 our neighbours are concerned only as spectators. Thus 
 distinguished as they are, however, the two have a common 
 source. For while, as we have shown, Manners originate 
 by imitation of the behaviour pursued towards the great ; 
 Fashion originates by imitation of the behaviour of the 
 great. While the one has its derivation in the titles, 
 phrases, and salutes used to those in power ; the other is 
 derived from the habits and appearances exhibited hy those 
 in power. The Carrib mother who squeezes her child's 
 head into a shape like that of the chief; the young savage 
 who makes marks on himself similar to the scars carried by 
 the warriors of his tribe; the Highlander who adopts the 
 plaid worn by the head of his clan; the courtiers who affect 
 greyness, or limp, or cover their necks, in imitation of their 
 king, and the people who ape the courtiers ; are alike acting 
 under a kind of government connate with that of Manners, 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 29 
 
 and, like it too, primarily beneficial. For notwithstanding 
 the numberless absurdities into wbicli this copying has led 
 people, from nose-rings to ear-rings, from painted faces to 
 beauty-spots, from shaven heads to powdered wigs, from 
 filed teeth and stained nails to bell-girdles, peaked shoes, 
 and breeches stuffed with bran, it must yet be concluded 
 that as the men of will, intelligence, and originality, who 
 have got to the top, are, on the average, more likely to 
 show judgment in their habits and tastes than the mass, the 
 imitation of such is advantageous. By and by, however. 
 Fashion, decaying like these other forms of rule, almost 
 wholly ceases to be an imitation of the best, and becomes 
 an imitation of quite other than the best. As those who 
 take orders are not those having a special fitness for the 
 priestly office, but those who hope to get livings ; as 
 legislators and public functionaries do not become such by 
 virtue of their political insight and power to rule, but by 
 virtue of birth, acreage, and class influence ; so, the self- 
 elected clique who set the fashion, do this, not by force of 
 nature, by intellect, by higher worth or better taste, but 
 solely by unchecked assumption. Among the initiated are 
 to be found neither the noblest in rank, the chief in power, 
 the best cultured, the most refined, nor those of greatest 
 genius, wit, or beauty ; and their reunions, so far from being 
 superior to others, are noted for their inanity. Yet, by the 
 example of these sham great, and not by that of the truly 
 great, does society at large now regulate its habits, its 
 dress, its small usages. As a natural consequence, these 
 have generally little of that suitableness which the theory of 
 fashion implies they should have. Instead of a progress 
 towards greater elegance and convenience, which might be 
 expected to occur did people copy the ways of the really 
 best, or follow their own ideas of propriety, we have a reign 
 of mere whim, of unreason, of change for the sake of change, 
 of wanton oscillations from either extreme to the other. 
 And so life d la mode, instead of being life conducted in the 
 
30 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 most rational manner^ is life regalated by spendthrifts and 
 idlers, milliners and tailors, dandies and silly women. 
 
 To these several corollaries — that the various orders of 
 control exercised over men have a common origin and a 
 common function, are called out by co-ordinate necessities 
 and co-exist in like stringency, decline together and decay 
 together — it now only remains to add that they simul- 
 taneously become less needful. The social discipline which 
 has already wrought out great changes in men, must go on 
 eventually to work out greater ones. That daily curbing 
 of the lower nature and culture of the higher, which out of 
 cannibals and devil-worshippers has evolved philanthropists, 
 lovers of peace, and haters of superstition, may be expected 
 to evolve out of these^ men as much superior to them as 
 they are to their progenitors. The causes that have 
 produced past modifications are still in action ; must 
 continue in action as long as there exists any incongruity 
 between men^s desires and the requirements of the social 
 state; and must eventually make them organically fit for 
 the social state. As it is now needless to forbid man- 
 eating, so will it ultimately become needless to forbid 
 murder, theft, and the minor offences of our criminal code. 
 Along with growth of human nature into harmony with the 
 moral law, there will go decreasing need for judges and 
 statute-books ; when the right course has become the 
 course spontaneously chosen, prospects of future reward or 
 punishment will not be wanted as incentives ; and when 
 due regard for others has become instinctive, there will 
 need no code of ceremonies to say how behaviour shall 
 be regulated. 
 
 Thus, then, may be recognized the meaning of those 
 eccentricities of reformers which we set out by describing. 
 They are not accidental ; they are not mere personal 
 caprices. They are inevitable results of the law of relation- 
 ship above illustrated. That conimanity of genesis, function 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 31 
 
 and decay wliicli all forms of restraint exhibit, is simply 
 the obverse of the fact at first pointed out, that they hare 
 m two sentiments of human nature a comimon preserver 
 and a common destroyer. Awe of power originates and 
 cherishes them all ; love of freedom undermines and 
 weakens them all. The one defends despotism and asserts 
 the supremacy of laws, adheres to old creeds and supports 
 ecclesiastical authority, pays respect to titles and conserves 
 forms ; the other, pntting rectitude above legality, achieves 
 periodical instalments of political liberty, inaugurates Pro- 
 testantism and works out its consequences, ignores the 
 senseless dictates of Fashion and emancipates men from 
 dead customs. To the true reformer no institution is 
 sacred, no belief above criticism. Everything shall conform 
 itself to equity and reason ; nothing shall bo saved by its 
 prestige. Conceding to each man liberty to pursue his own 
 ends and satisfy his own tastes, he demands for himself 
 like liberty ; and consents to no restrictions on this, save 
 those which other men^s equal claims involve. No matter 
 whether it be an ordinance of one man, or an ordinance of 
 all men, if it trenches on his legitimate sphere of action, be 
 denies its validity. The tyranny that would impose on 
 him a particular style of dress and a set mode of behaviour, 
 he resists equally with the tyranny that would limit his 
 buyings and sellings, or dictate his creed. Whether the 
 regulation be formally made by a legislature, or informally 
 made by society at large — whether the penalty for dis- 
 obedience be imprisonment, or frowns and social ostracism, 
 he sees to be a question of no moment. He will utter his 
 belief notwithstanding the threatened punishment ; he will 
 break conventions spite of the petty persecutions that will 
 be visited on him. Show him that his actions are inimical 
 to his fellow-men, and he will pause. Prove that he is 
 disregarding their legitimate claims, and he will alter his 
 course. But until you do this — until you demonstrate 
 that his proceedings are essentially inconvenient or 
 
32 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 inelegantj essentially irrational^ unjust^ or ungenerous, he 
 will persevere. 
 
 Some, indeed, argue that his conduct is unjust aud 
 UD generous. They say that he has no right to annoy other 
 people by his whims ; that the gentleman to whom his 
 letter comes with no " Esq." appended to the address, and 
 the lady whose evening party he enters with gloveless 
 hands, are vexed at what they consider his want of respect 
 or want of breeding; that thus his eccentricities cannot 
 be indulged save at the expense of his neighbours' 
 feelings; and that hence his nonconformity is in plain 
 terms selfishness. 
 
 He answers that this position, if logically developed, 
 would deprive men of all liberty whatever. Each must 
 conform all his acts to the public taste, and not his own. 
 The public taste on every point having been once ascertained, 
 men's habits must thenceforth remain for ever fixed ; 
 seeing that no man can adopt other habits without sinning 
 against the public taste, and giving people disagreeable 
 feelings. Consequently, be it an era of pig-tails or high- 
 heeled shoes, of starched ruffs or trunk-hose, all must 
 continue to wear pig-tails, high-heeled shoes, starched 
 ruffs, or trunk-hose to the crack of doom. 
 
 If it be still urged that he is not justified in breaking 
 through others' forms that he may establish his own, and 
 so sacrificing the wishes of many to the wishes of one, 
 he replies that all religious and political changes might be 
 negatived on like grounds. He asks whether Luther's 
 sayings and doings were not extremely offensive to the 
 mass of his cotemporaries ; whether the resistance of 
 Hampden was not disgusting to the time-servers around 
 him; whether every reformer has not shocked men's 
 prejudices and given immense displeasure by the opinions 
 he uttered. The affirmative answer he follows up by 
 demanding what right the reformer has, then, to utter 
 these opinions — whether he is not sacrificing the feelin"-s 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 83 
 
 of many to the feelings of one ; and so lie proves 
 that, to be consistent, his antagonists must condemn not 
 only all nonconformity in actions^ but all nonconformity 
 in beliefs. 
 
 His antagonists rejoin that Ms position, too, may be 
 pnshed to an absurdity. They argue that if a man may 
 offend by the disregard of some forms, he may as legiti- 
 mately do so by the disregard of all ; and they inquire — 
 Why should he not go out to dinner in a dirty shirt, and 
 "with an unshorn chin ? Why should he not spit on the 
 drawing-room carpet, and stretch his heels up to the 
 mantle-shelf ? 
 
 The convention-breaker answers, that to ask this, implies 
 a confounding of two widely -different classes of actions — 
 the actions which are essentially displeasurable to those 
 around, with the actions which are but incidentally dis- 
 pleasurable to them. He whose skin is so unclean as to 
 offend the nostrils of his neighbours, or he who talks so 
 loudly as to disturb a whole room, may be justly complained 
 of, and rightly excluded by society from its assemblies. 
 But he who presents himself in a surtout in place of a 
 dress-coat, or in brown trousers instead of black, gives 
 offence not to men^s senses, or their innate tastes, but 
 merely to their bigotry of convention. It cannot be said 
 that his costume is less eleg'aut or less intrinsically appro- 
 priate than the one prescribed; seeing that a few hours 
 earlier in the day it is admired. It is the implied rebellion, 
 therefore, which annoys. How little the cause of quarrel 
 has to do with the dress itself, is seen in the fact that a 
 century ago black clothes would have been thought pre- 
 posterous for hours of recreation, and that a few years 
 hence some now forbidden style may be nearer the require- 
 ments of Fashion than the present one. Thus the reformer 
 explains that it is not against the natural restraints, but 
 against the artificial ones, that he protest^ ; and that 
 manifestly the fire of angry glances which he has to bear. 
 
84 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 is poured upon him because be will not bow down to the 
 idol wbich society has set up. 
 
 Sbould he be asked how we are to distinguish between 
 conduct which is in itself disagreeable to others, and 
 conduct which is disagreeable by its implication^ he 
 answers, that they will distinguish themselves^ if men will 
 let them. Actions intrinsically repugnant will erer be 
 frowned upon, and must ever remain as exceptional as 
 now. Actions not intrinsically repugnant will establish 
 themselves as proper. No relaxation of customs will 
 introduce the practice of going to a party in muddy 
 bootsj and with unwashed hands; for the dislike of dirt 
 would continue were Fashion abolished to-morrow. That 
 love of approbation which now makes people solicitous to 
 be en regie would still exist — would still make them careful 
 of their personal appearance — would still induce them to 
 seek admiration by making themselves ornamental — would 
 still cause them to respect the natural laws of good 
 behaviour, as they now do the artificial laws. The change 
 would simply be from a repulsive monotony to a picturesque 
 variety. And if there be any regulations respecting 
 which it is uncertain whether they are based on reality 
 or on convention, experiment will soon decide, if due scope 
 be allowed. 
 
 When at length the controversy comes round, as 
 controversies often do, to the point whence it started, and 
 the "party of order'' repeat their charge against the 
 rebel, that he is sacrificing the feelings of others to 
 gratify his own wilfulness, he replies once for ail that 
 they cheat themselves by mis-statements. He accuses 
 them of being so despotic, that, not content with being 
 masters over their own ways and habits, they would be 
 masters over his also ; and grumble because he will not let 
 them. He merely asks tho same freedom which they 
 exercise ; they, however, propose to regulate his course as 
 well as their own — to cut and clip his mode of life into 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 35 
 
 agreemeBt witli their approred pafctern ; and tlien charge 
 him with wilfulness and selfishness^ because he does not 
 quietly submit ! He warns them that he shall resist, never- 
 theless ; and that he shall do so, not only for the assertion 
 of his own independence, but for their good. He tells 
 them that they are slaves, and know it not ; that they are 
 shackled, and kiss their chains; that they have lived all 
 their days in prison, and complain because thB walls are 
 being broken down. He says he must persevere, how- 
 ever, with a view to his own release ; and, in spite of 
 their present expostulations, he prophesies that when 
 they have recovered from the fright which the prospect 
 of freedom produces, they will thank him for aiding in 
 their emancipation. 
 
 Unamiable as seems this find-fault mood, offensive as is 
 this defiant attitude, we must beware of overlooking the 
 truths enunciated, in dislike of the advocacy. It is an 
 unfortunate hindrance to all innovation, that in virtue of 
 their very function, the innovators stand in a position of 
 antagonism; and the disagreeable manners, and sayings, 
 and doings, which this antagonism generates, are commonly 
 associated with the doctrines promulgated. Quite forget- 
 ting that whether the thing attacked be good or bad, the 
 combative spirit is necessarily repulsive ; and quite forget- 
 ting that the toleration of abuses seems amiable merely 
 from its passivity ; the mass of men contract a bias against 
 advanced views, and in favour of stationary ones, from 
 intercourse with their respective adherents. '^ Conserva- 
 tism," as Emerson says, ^' is debonnair and social ; reform 
 is individual and imperious.^' And this remains true, 
 however vicious the system conserved, however righteous 
 the reform to be effected. Nay, the indignation of the 
 purists is usually extreme in proportion as the evils to 
 be got rid of are great. The more urgent the required 
 change, the more intemperate is the vehemence of its 
 promoters. Let no one, then^ confound with the principles 
 
36 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 of this social nonconformity the acerbity and the dis- 
 agreeable self-assertion of those who first display it. 
 
 The most plausible objection raised against resistance to 
 ' conventions^ is grounded on its impolicy, considered even 
 from the progressist's point of view. It is urged by many 
 of the more liberal and intelligent — -usually those who have 
 themselves* shown some independence of behaviour in 
 earlier days — that to rebel in these small matters is to 
 destroy your own power of helping on reform in greater 
 matters. '^ If you show yourself eccentric in manners or 
 dress, the world/' they say, " will not listen to you. You 
 will be considered as crotchety, and impracticable. The 
 opinions you express on important subjects, which might 
 have been treated with respect had you conformed on 
 minor points, will now inevitably be put down among your 
 singularities; and thus, by dissenting 'in trifles, you disable 
 yourself from spreading dissent in essentials. '^ 
 
 Only noting, as we pass, that this is one of those antici- 
 pations which bring about their own fulfilment — that it 
 is because most who disapprove these conventions do not 
 show their disapproval, that the few who do show it look 
 eccentric — and that did all act out their convictions, no such 
 argument as the above would have force ; — noting this as 
 we pass, we go on to reply that these social restraints are 
 not small evils but among the greatest. Estimate their 
 sum total, and we doubt whether they would not exceed 
 most others. Could we add up the trouble, the cost, the 
 jealousies, vexations, misunderstandings, the loss of time 
 and the loss of pleasure, which these conventions entail — 
 we should perhaps come to the conclusion that the tyranny 
 of Mrs. Grundy is worse than any other tyranny. Let us 
 look at a few of its hurtful results ; beginning with those of 
 minor importance. 
 
 It produces extravagance. The desire to be comme il 
 faut, which underlies all conformities, whether of manners 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION, 87 
 
 dress^ or styles of entertainment^ is tlie desire which makes 
 many a spendthrift and many a bankrupt. To '' keep up 
 appearances/' to have a house in an approved quarter- 
 furnished in the latest taste, to give expensive dinners and 
 crowded soirees ^ is an ambition forming the natural outcoQie 
 of the conformist spirit. It is needless to enlarge on these 
 follies : they have been satirized by hosts of writers^ and 
 in every drawing-room. All which here concerns us, is to 
 point out that the respect for social observances, which 
 men think so praiseworthy, has the same root with this 
 effort to be fashionable in mode of living j and that^ other 
 things equal, the last cannot be diminished without the 
 first being diminished also. If, now, we consider what 
 this extravagance entails— if we count up the robbed 
 tradesmen, the stinted governesses, the ill-educated children, 
 the fleeced relatives, who have to suffer from it— if we mark 
 the anxiety and the many moral delinquencies which its 
 perpetrators involve themselves in ; we shall see that this 
 regard for conventions is not quite so innocent as it looks. 
 
 Again, it decreases the amount of social intercourse. 
 Passing over the reckless, and those who make a great 
 display on speculation with the occasional result of getting 
 on in the world to the exclusion of better men, we come to 
 the far larger class who, being prudent and honest enough 
 not to exceed their means, and yet wishing to be '''respect- 
 able,'' are obliged to limit their entertainments to the 
 smallest possible number; and that each of these may be 
 turned to the greatest advantage in meeting the claims on 
 their hospitality, issue their invitations with little or no 
 regard to the comfort or mutual fitness of their guests. A 
 few inconveniently-large assemblies, made up of people 
 mostly strange to each other or but distantly acquainted, 
 are made to serve in place of many small parties of friends 
 intimate enough to have some bond of sympathy. Thuji 
 the quantity of intercourse is diminished, and the quality 
 deteriorated. Because it is the custom to make costly 
 
38 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 preparations and provide costly refresliments ; and because 
 it entails both less expense and less trouble to do this for 
 many persons on few occasions than for few persons on 
 many occasions ; the reunions of our less wealthy classes 
 are rendered alike infrequent and tedious. 
 
 Let it be further observed, that the existing formalities 
 of social intercourse drive away many who most need its 
 refining influence; and drive them into injurious habits 
 and associations. Not a few men, and not the least sensible 
 men either^ give up in disgust this going out to stately 
 dinners and stiff evening-parties; and instead, seek society 
 in clubs, and cigar-divans, and taverns. " I 'm sick of this 
 standing about in drawing-rooms, talking nonsense, and 
 trying to look happy," will answer one of them when taxed 
 with his desertion. ^^ Why should I any longer waste time 
 and money, and temper ? Once I was ready enough to 
 rush home from the office to dress ; I sported embroidered 
 shirts, submitted to tight boots, and cared nothing for 
 tailors' and haberdashers^ bills. I know better now. My 
 patience lasted a good while; for though I found each night 
 pass stupidly, I always hoped the next would make amends. 
 But I 'm undeceived. Cab-hire and kid gloves cost more 
 than any evening party pays for; or rather — it is worth the 
 cost of them to avoid the party. No, no ; I '11 no more of 
 it. Why should I pay five shillings a time for the privilege 
 of being bored?" If, now, we consider that this very 
 common mood tends towards billiard-rooms, towards long 
 sittings over cigars and brandy-and-water, towards Evans's 
 and the Coal Hole; it becomes a question whether these 
 precise observances which hamper our set meetings, have 
 not to answer for much of the prevalent dissoluteness. 
 Men must have excitements of some kind or other; and if 
 debarred from higher ones will fall back upon lower. It 
 is not that those who thus take to irregular habits are 
 essentially those of low tastes. Often it is quite the reverse. 
 Among half a dozen intimate friends, abandoning for- 
 
MANNERS AND JPASHION. 89 
 
 malities and sitting at ease round tlie fire, none will enter 
 with greater enjoyment into tlie highest kind of social 
 intercourse — the genuine communion of thought and feel- 
 ing J and if the circle includes women of intelligence and 
 refinement, so much the greater is their pleasure. It is 
 because they will no longer be choked with the mere dry 
 husks of- conversation which society offers them, that they 
 fly its assemblies, and seek those with whom they may have 
 discourse that is at least real, though unpolished. The men 
 who thus long for substantial mental sympathy, and will go 
 where they can get it, are often, indeed, much better at the 
 core than the men who are content with the inanities of 
 gloved and scented party-goers — men who feel no need to 
 come morally nearer to their fellow-creatures than they can 
 come while standing, tea-cup in hand, answering trifles 
 with trifles; and who, by feeling no such need, prove 
 themselves shallow-thoughted and cold-hearted. It is true, 
 that some who shun drawing-rooms do so from inability to 
 bear the restraints prescribed by a genuine refinement, and 
 that they would be greatly improved by being kept under 
 these restraints. But it is not less true that, by adding to 
 the legitimate restraints, which are based on convenience 
 and a regard for others, a host of factitious restraints based 
 only on convention, the refining discipline, which would 
 else have been borne with benefit, is rendered unbearable, 
 and so misses its end. Excess of government defeats itself 
 by driving away those to be governed. And if over all who 
 desert its entertainments in disgust either at their emptiness 
 or their formality, society thus loses its salutary influence — 
 if such not only fail to receive that moral culture which the 
 company of ladies, when rationally regulated, would give 
 them, but, in default of other relaxation, are driven into 
 habits and companionships which often end in gambling 
 and drunkenness ; must we not say that here, too, is an evil 
 not to be passed over as insignificant ? 
 
 Then consider what a blighting efiect these multi- 
 
40 MANNEEa AND FASHION. 
 
 tudinous preparations and ceremonies Lave upon the 
 pleasures they profess to subserve. Who^ on calling to 
 mind tlie occasions of His highest social enjoyments^ does 
 not find them to have been wholly informal^ perhaps 
 impromptu? How delightful a pic-nic of friends, who 
 forget all observances save those dictated by good nature I 
 How pleasant the unpretending gatherings of small book- 
 societies, and the like ; or those purely accidental meetings 
 of a few people well known to each other ! Then^ indeed, 
 we may see that '^ a man sharpeneth the countenance of 
 his friend/^ Cheeks flush, and eyes sparkle. The witty 
 grow brilliant, and even the dull are excited into saying 
 good things. There is an overflow of topics ; and the 
 right thought, and the right words to put it in, spring 
 up unsought. Grave alternates with gay : now serious 
 converse, and now jokes, anecdotes, and playful raillery. 
 Everyone's best nature is shown; everyone''s best feelings 
 are in pleasurable activity ; and, for the time, life seems 
 well worth having. Go now and dress for some half-past 
 eight dinner, or some ten o'clock ^^at home;'' and present 
 yourself in spotless attire, with every hair arranged to per- 
 fection. How great the difference I The enjoyment seems 
 in the inverse ratio of the preparation. These figures, got 
 up with such finish and precision, appear but half alive. 
 They have frozen each other by their primness ; and your 
 faculties feel the numbing effects of the atmosphere the 
 moment you enter it. All those thoughts, so nimble and 
 so apt awhile since, have disappeared — have suddenly 
 acquired a preternatural power of eluding you. If you 
 venture a remark to your neighbour, there comes a trite 
 rejoinder, and there it ends. No subject you can hit upon 
 outlives half a dozen sentences. Nothing that is said 
 excites any real interest in you; and you feel that all you 
 say is listened to with apathy. By some strange magic, 
 things that usually give pleasure seem to have lost all 
 charm. You have a taste for art. Weary of frivolous 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION, 41 
 
 talk, you turn to the table, and find that the book of 
 engravings and the portfolio of photographs are as flat as 
 the conversation. You are fond of music. Yet the singing, 
 good as it is, you hear with utter indifference ; and say 
 "Thank you" with a sense of being a profound hypocrite. 
 Wholly at ease though you could be, for your own part, 
 you find that your sympathies will not let you. You see 
 young gentlemen feeling whether their ties are properly 
 adjusted, looking vacantly round, and considering what 
 they shall do next. You see ladies sitting disconsolately, 
 waiting for some one to speak to them, and wishing they 
 had the wherewith to occupy their fingers. You see the 
 hostess standing about the doorway, keeping a factitious 
 smile on her face, and racking her brain to find the requisite 
 nothings with which to greet her guests as they enter. 
 You see numberless traits of weariness and embarrassment ; 
 and, if you have any fellow feeling, these cannot fail to 
 produce a sense of discomfort. The disorder is catching ; 
 and do what you will, you cannot resist the general 
 infection. You struggle against it; you make spasmodic 
 eff'orts to be lively ; but none of your sallies or your good 
 stories do more than raise a simper or a forced laugh : 
 intellect and feeling are alike asphyxiated. And when, at 
 length, yielding to your disgust, you rush away, how great 
 is the relief when you get into the fresh air, and see the 
 stars ! How you " Thank God, that's over ! " and half 
 resolve to avoid all such boredom for the future I What, 
 now, is the secret of this perpetual miscarriage and dis- 
 appointment ? Does not the fault lie with these needless 
 adjuncts — these elaborate dressings, these set forms, these 
 expensive preparations, these many -devices and arrange- 
 ments that imply trouble and raise expectation? Who 
 that has lived thirty years in the world has not discovered 
 that Pleasure is coy ; and must not be too directly pursued, 
 but must be caught unawares ? An air from a street-piano, 
 heard while at work, will often gratify more than the 
 
42 MANNERS AND PASHION. 
 
 clioicest music played at a concert by the most accomplished 
 musicians. A single good picture seen in a dealer s 
 window, may give keener enjoyment than a whole exhi- 
 bition gone through with catalogue and pencil. By the 
 time we have got ready our elaborate apparatus by which 
 to secure happiness, the happiness is gone. It is too subtle 
 to be contained in these receivers, garnished with compli- 
 ments, and fenced round with etiquette. The more we 
 multiply and complicate appliances^ the more certain are 
 we to drive it away. The reason is patent enough. These 
 higher emotions to which social intercourse ministers, are 
 of extremely complex nature ; they consequently depend 
 for their production upon very numerous conditions'; the 
 more numerous the conditions^ the greater the liability that 
 one or other of them will not be fulfilled. It takes a 
 considerable misfortune to destroy appetite ; but cordial 
 sympathy with those around may be extinguished by a look 
 or a word. Hence it follows, that the more multiplied the 
 unnecessary requirements with which social intercourse is 
 surrounded, the less likely are its pleasures to be achieved. 
 It is difficult enough to fulfil continuously all the essentials 
 to a pleasurable communion with others : how much more 
 difficult, then, must it be continuously to fulfil a host of 
 non-essentials also ! What chance is there of getting any 
 genuine response from the lady who is thinking of your 
 stupidity in taking her in to dinner on the wrong arm ? 
 How are you likely to have agreeable converse with the 
 gentleman who is fuming internally because he is not 
 placed next to the hostess ? Formalities, familiar as they 
 may become, necessarily occupy attention — necessarily 
 mult'ply the occasions for mistake, misunderstanding, and 
 jealousy, on the part of one or other — necessarily distract 
 all minds from the thoughts and feelings which should 
 occupy them — necessarily, therefore, subvert those conditions 
 under which only any sterling intercourse is to be had. 
 And this, indeed, is the fatal mischief which these 
 
llANNERS AND FASHION. 43 
 
 conventions entail — a mischief to which every other is 
 secondary. They destroy those pleasures which they pro- 
 fess to subserve. All institutions are alike in this, that 
 however useful, and needful even, they originally were, they 
 in the end cease to be so, but often become detrimental. 
 While humanity is growing, they continue fixed ; daily get 
 more mechanical and unvital ; and by and by tend to 
 strangle what they before preserved. Old forms of govern- 
 ment finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown 
 off even at the risk of reigns of terror. Old creeds end 
 in being dead formulas, which no longer aid but distort 
 and arrest the general mind; while the State-churches 
 administering them, come to be instruments for subsidizing 
 conservatism and repressing progress. Old schemes of 
 education, incarnated in public schools and colleges, con- 
 tinue filling the heads of new generations with what has 
 become relatively useless knowledge, and, by consequence, 
 excluding knowledge which is useful. Not an organization 
 of any kind — political, religious, literary, philai^thropic — ■ 
 but what, by its ever-multiplying regulations, its accumu- 
 lating wealth, its yearly addition of ofiicers, and the 
 creeping into it of patronage and party feeling, eventually 
 loses its original spirit, and sinks into a lifeless mechanism, 
 worked with a view to private ends — a mechanism which 
 not merely fails of its first purpose, but is a positive hind- 
 rance to it. Thus is it, too, with social usages. We read 
 of the Chinese that they have '^ponderous ceremonies 
 transmitted from time immemorial,'^ which make social 
 intercourse a burden. The court forms prescribed by 
 monarchs for their own exaltation, have, in all times and 
 places, ended in consuming the comfort of their lives. 
 And so the artificial observances of the dining-room and 
 saloon, in proportion as they are many and strict, extinguish 
 that agreeable communion which they were intended to 
 secure. The dislike with which people commonly speak of 
 society that is ''formal,'' and "stiff/' and ''ceremonious,'' 
 44 
 
44 MANNEES AND FASHION. 
 
 implies a general recognition of this fact ; and this recog- 
 nition involves the inference that all usages of behaviour 
 which are not based on natural requirements, are injurious. 
 That these conventions defeat their own ends is no new 
 assertion. Swift, criticising the manners of his day, says — 
 " Wise men are often more uneasy at the over-civility of 
 these refiners than they could possibly be in the conversa- 
 . tion of peasants and mechanics." 
 
 But it is not only in these details that the self-defeating 
 action of our arrangements is traceable ; it is traceable in 
 the very substance and nature of them. Our social inter- 
 course, as commonly managed, is a mere semblance of the 
 reality sought. What is it that we want ? Some sj^mpathetic 
 converse with our fellow-creatures :— some converse that 
 shall not be mere dead words, but the vehicle of living 
 thoughts and feelings — converse in which the eyes and the 
 face shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of mean- 
 ing — converse which shall make us feel no longer alone^ 
 but shall draw us closer to others, and double our own 
 emotions by adding their's to them. Who is there that 
 has not, from time to time, felt how cold and fiat is all this 
 talk about politics and science, and the new books and the 
 new men, and how a genuine utterance of fellow-feeling 
 outweighs the whole of it ? Mark the words of Bacon : — 
 " For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery 
 of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is 
 no love.'' If this be true, then it is only after acquaintance 
 has grown into intimacy, and intimacy has ripened into 
 friendship^ that the real communion which men need 
 becomes possible. A rationally-formed circle must consist 
 almost wholly of those on terms of familiarity and regard, 
 with but one or two strangers. What folly, then, underlies 
 the whole system of our grand dinners, our '^at homes," our 
 evening parties — crowds made up of many who never met 
 before, many who just bow to one another, many who 
 though well known feel mutual iudifferpnce, with just a few 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 45 
 
 real friends lost in the general mass ! You need but look 
 round at the artificial expressions of face, to see at once how 
 it is. All have their disguises on; and how can there be 
 sympathy between masks ? No wonder that in private every 
 one exclaims against the stupidity of these gatherings. No 
 wonder that hostesses get them up rather because they 
 must tlian because they wish. No wonder that the 
 invited go less from the expectation of pleasure than 
 from fear of giving ofiPence. The whole thing is an 
 organized disappointment. 
 
 And then note, lastly, that in this case, as in others, 
 an organization inoperative for its proper purpose, it is 
 employed for quite other purposes. What is the usual 
 plea put in for giving and attending these tedious assem- 
 blies ? '* I admit that they are dull and frivolous enough," 
 replies every man to your criticisms ; " but then, you know, 
 one must keep up one's connexions.'^ And could you get 
 from his wife a sincere answer, it would be — "Like yoa, I 
 am sick of these formal parties ; but then, we must get our 
 daughters married." The one knows that there is a 
 profession to push, a business to extend ; or parliamentary 
 influence, or county patronage, or votes, or office, to 
 be got : position, berths, favours, profit. The other's 
 thoughts run upon husbands and settlements, wives and 
 dowries. Worthless for their ostensible purpose of daily 
 bringing human beings into pleasarable relations with 
 each other, these cumbrous appliances of our social inter- 
 course are now perseveringly kept in action with a view 
 to the pecuniary and matrimonial results which they 
 indirectly produce. 
 
 Who then shall say that the reform of our system of 
 observances is unimportant ? When we see how this system 
 induces fashionable extravagance, with its occasional ruin — 
 when we mark how greatly it limits the amount of social 
 intercourse among the less wealthy classes — when we find 
 that many who most need to be disciplined by mixing 
 
46 MANNERS AND FASHION, 
 
 with the refined are driven away hy it, and led into bad 
 courses — when we count up the many minor evils it inflicts, 
 the extra work which its costliness entails on all pro- 
 fessional and mercantile men, the damage to public taste 
 in dress and decoration by the setting up of its absurdities 
 as standards for imitation, the injury to health indicated 
 in the faces of its devotees at the close of the London season_, 
 the mortality of milliners and the like, which its sudden 
 exigencies yearly involve ; — and when to all these we add 
 its fatal sin, that it withers up and kills that high enjoy- 
 ment it professedly ministers to — shall we not conclude that 
 to rationalize etiquette and fashion, is an aim yielding to 
 few in urgency ? 
 
 There needs, then, a protestantism in social usages. 
 Porms which have ceased to facilitate and have become 
 obstructive — have to be swept away. Signs are not 
 wanting that some change is at hand. A host of satirists, 
 led on by Thackeray, have long been engaged in bringing 
 our sham-festivities, and our fashionable follies, into con- 
 tempt; and in their candid moods, most men laugh at the 
 frivolities with which they and the world in general are 
 deluded. Eidicule has always been a revolutionary agent. 
 Institutions that have lost their roots in men's respect and 
 faith are doomed ; and the day of their dissolution is not 
 far off. The time is approaching, then, when our system of 
 social observances must pass through some crisis, out of 
 which it will come purified and comparatively simple. 
 
 How this crisis will be brought about, no one can say. 
 Whether by the continuance and increase of individual 
 protests, or whether by the union of many persons for the 
 practice and diffusion of better usages, the future alone 
 can decide. The influence of dissentients acting without 
 co-operation, seems inadequate. Frowned on by con- 
 formists, and expostulated with even by those who secretly 
 sympathize with them; subject to petty persecutions, and 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 47 
 
 unable to trace any benefit produced by tbeir example ; 
 they are apt, one by one, to give up tbeir attempts as 
 hopeless. The young convention-breaker eventually finds 
 that he pays too heavily for his nonconformity. Hating, 
 for example, everything that bears about it any remnant 
 of servility, he determines, in the ardour of his indepen- 
 dence, that he will uncover to no one. But what he means 
 simply as a general protest, he finds that ladies interpret 
 into a personal disrespect. In other cases his courage 
 fails him. Such of his unconventionalities as can be attri- 
 buted only to eccentricity, he has no qualms about; for, on 
 the whole, he feels rather complimented than otherwise in 
 being considered a disregarder of public opinion. But 
 when they are liable to be put down to ignorance, to ill- 
 breeding, or to poverty, he becomes a coward. However 
 clearly the recent innovation of eating some kinds of fish 
 with knife and fork proves the fork-and-bread practice to 
 have had httle but caprice for its basis, yet he dares not 
 wholly ignore that practice while fashion partially main- 
 tains it.* Though he thinks that a silk handkerchief is 
 quite as appropriate for drawing-room use as a %rhite 
 cambric one, he is not altogether at ease in acting out his 
 opinion. Then, too, he begins to perceive that his resist- 
 ance to prescription brings round disadvantageous results 
 which he had not calculated upon. He had expected that 
 it would save him from a great deal of social intercourse 
 of a frivolous kind — that it would ofiend the silly people, 
 but not the sensible people ; and so would serve as a self- 
 acting test by which those worth knowing would be sepa- 
 rated from those not worth knowing. But the silly people 
 prove to be so greatly in the majority that, by offending 
 them, he closes against himself nearly all the avenues 
 through which the sensible people are to be reached. Thus 
 he finds, that his nonconformity is frequently misinter- 
 preted; that there are but few direction? in which he dares 
 * This was written before the introduction of silver fish-knives. 
 
48 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 to carry it consistently out; that tlie disadvantages it 
 entails are greater than he anticipated; and that the 
 chances of his doiug any good are very remote. Hence he 
 gradually loses resolution, and lapses, step by step, into the 
 ordinary routine of observances. 
 
 Abortive as individual protests thus generally turn out, 
 it may possibly be that nothing effectual will be done until 
 there arises some organized resistance to this invisible 
 despotism^ by which our modes and habits are dictated. 
 It may happen, that the government of Manners and 
 Fashion will be rendered less tyrannical, as the political and 
 religious governments have been, by -some antagonistic 
 union. Alike in Church and State, men^s first emanci- 
 pations from excesses of restriction were achieved by 
 numbers, bound together by a common creed or a common 
 political faith. What remained undone while there were 
 but individual schismatics or rebels, was effected when 
 there came to be many acting in concert. It is tolerably 
 clear that these earliest instalments of freedom could not 
 have been obtained in any other way ; for so long as the 
 feeling" of personal independence was weak and the rule 
 strong, there could never have been a sufficient number of 
 separate dissentients to produce the desired results. Only 
 in these later times, during which the secular and spiritual 
 controls have been growing less coercive, and the tendency 
 towards individual liberty greater, has it become possible 
 for smaller and smaller sects and parties to fight against 
 established creeds and laws ; until now men may safely 
 stand even alone in their antagonism. The failure of 
 individual nonconformity to customs, suggests that an 
 analogous series of changes may have to be gone throucr]i 
 ia this case also. It is true that the lex non scripta differs 
 from the lex scripta in this, that, being unwritten, it ia 
 more readily altered; and that it has, from time to time 
 been quietly ameliorated. Nevertheless, we shall find that 
 the analogy holds substantially good. For in this case, as 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 49 
 
 in the others^ tlie essential revolution is not the substituting 
 of any one set of restraints for any other, but the limiting 
 or abolishing the authority which prescribes restraints. 
 Just as the fundamental change inaugurated by the 
 Reformation, was not a superseding of one creed by 
 another, but an ignoring of the arbiter who before dictated 
 creeds — just as the fundamental change which Democracy 
 long ago commenced, was not from this particular law to 
 that, but from the despotism of one to the freedom of allj 
 so, the parallel change yet to be wrought out in this 
 supplementary government of which we are treating, is not 
 the replacing of absurd usages by sensible ones, but the 
 dethronement of that power which now imposes our usages, 
 and the assertion of the rights of individuals to choose 
 their own usages. In rules of living, a West-end clique is 
 our Pope ; and we are all papists, with but a mere sprink- 
 ling of heretics. On those who decisively rebel, comes 
 down the penalty of excommunication, with its long 
 catalogue of disagreeable and, indeed, serious consequences. 
 The liberty of the subject asserted in our constitution, and 
 ever on the increase, has yet to be wrested from this 
 subtler tyranny. The right of private judgment, which 
 our ancestors wrung from the church, remains to be 
 claimed from this dictator of our habits. Or, as before 
 said, to free us from these idolatries and superstitious 
 conformities, there has still to come a protestantism in 
 social usages. Parallel, therefore, as is the change to be 
 wrought out, it seems not improbable that it may be 
 wrought out in an analogous way. That influence which 
 solitary dissentients fail to gain, and that perseverance 
 which they lack, may come into existence when they unite. 
 That persecution which the world now visits upon them 
 from mistaking their nonconformity for ignorance or dis- 
 respect, may diminish when it is seen to result from 
 principle. The penalty which exclusion now entails may 
 disappear when they become numerous enough to form 
 
50 MANNERS AND FASHION. 
 
 visiting circles of their own. And wlien a successful stand 
 has been made^ and the brunt of the opposition has passed^ 
 that large amount of secret dislike to our observances 
 which now pervades society, may manifest itself with 
 sufficient power to effect the desired emancipation. 
 
 Whether such will be the process, time alone can decide. 
 That community of origin, growth, supremacy, and deca- 
 dence, which we have found among all kinds of govern- 
 ment, suggests a community in modes of change also. 
 On the other hand, Nature often performs substantially 
 similar operations, in ways apparently different. Hence 
 these details can never be foretold. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us glance at the conclusions that have 
 been reached. On the one side, government, originally 
 one, and aftei^wards subdivided for the better fulfilment of 
 its function, must be considered as having ever been, in all 
 its branches — political, religious, and ceremonial — bene- 
 ficial; and, indeed, absolutely necessary. On the other 
 side, government, under all its forms, must be regarded as 
 subserving an office, made needful by the unfitness of 
 aboriginal humanity for social life ; and the successive 
 diminutions of its coerciveness in State, in Church, and in 
 Custom, must be looked upon accompanying the increasing 
 adaptation of humanity to its conditions. To complete the 
 conception, there requires to be borne in mind the third fact, 
 that the genesis, the maintenance, and the decline of all 
 governments, however named, are alike brought about by 
 the humanity to be controlled; from "which may be drawn the 
 inference that, on the average, restrictions of every kind 
 cannot last much longer than they are wanted, and cannot 
 be destroyed much faster than they ought to be. Society, 
 in all its developments, undergoes the process of exuviation. 
 These old forms which it successively throws off, have all 
 been once vitally united with it — have severally served as 
 the protective envelopes within which a higher humanity 
 
MANNERS AND FASHION. 51 
 
 was being evolved. They are cast aside only when they 
 become hindrances — only when some inner and better 
 envelope has been formed; and they bequeath to us all that 
 there was in them of good. The periodical abolitions of 
 tyrannical laws have left the administration of justice not 
 only uninjured, but purified. Dead and buried creeds 
 have not carried with them the essential morality they 
 contained, which still exists, uncontaminated by the sloughs 
 of superstition. And all that there is of justice and 
 kindness and beauty, embodied in our cumbrous forms of 
 etiquette, will live perennially when the forms themselves 
 have been forgotten. 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AKD RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 [First puMished in the Edinbiirgli Review /or October 1854.] 
 
 Believers in the intrinsic virtues of political forms^ might 
 draw an instructive lesson from the politics of our railways. 
 If there needs a conclusive proof that the most carefully- 
 framed constitutions are worthless, unless they be embodi- 
 ments of the popular character — if there needs a conclusive 
 proofj that governmental arrangements in advance of the 
 time will inevitably lapse into congruity with the time ; 
 such proof may be found over and over again repeated in 
 the current history of joint-stock enterprises. As devised 
 by Act of Parliament, the administrations of our public 
 companies are almost purely democratic. The representative 
 system is carried out in them with scarcely a check. 
 Shareholders elect their directors^ directors their chairman; 
 there is an annual retirement of a certain proportion of 
 members of the board, giving facilities for superseding 
 them ; andj by this means, the whole ruling body may be 
 changed in periods varying from three to five years. Yet, 
 not only are the characteristic vices of our political state 
 reproduced in each of these mercantile corporations — some 
 even in an intenser degree — but the very form of govern- 
 ment, while remaining nominally democratic, is substantially 
 so remodelled as to become a miniature of our national 
 constitution. The direction, ceasing to fulfil its theory as a 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 53 
 
 council formed of members wlio possess equal powers, falls 
 under the control of some one member of superior cunning, 
 will, or wealtli, to whom the majority become so subordinate, 
 that the decision on every question depends on the course 
 he takes. Proprietors, instead of constantly exercising 
 their franchise, allow it to become- on all ordinary occasions 
 a dead letter. Retiring directors are so habitually re-elected 
 without opposition, and have so great a power of insuring 
 their own election when opposed, that the board becomes 
 practically a close body ; and it is only when the mis- 
 government grows extreme enough to produce a revolu- 
 tionary agitation among the shareholders, that any change 
 can be efected. Thus, a mixture of the monarchic, the 
 aristocratic, and the democratic elements, is repeated with 
 such modifications only as the circumstances involve. The 
 modes of action, too, are substantially the same ; save in 
 thiSj that the copy outruns the original. Threats of 
 resignation, which ministries hold out in extreme cases, 
 are commonly made by railway-boards to stave off dis- 
 agreeable inquiries. By no means regarding themselves as 
 servants of the shareholders, directors rebel against dictation 
 from them; and construe any amendment to their proposals 
 into a vote of want of confidence. At half-yearly meetings, 
 disagreeable criticisms and objections are met by the chair- 
 man with the remark, that if the shareholders cannot trust 
 his colleagues and himself, they had better choose others. 
 With most, this assumption of offended dignity tells ; and, 
 under fear that the company''s interests may suffer from 
 any disturbance, measures quite at variance with the wishes 
 of the proprietary are allowed to be carried. The parallel 
 holds yet further. If it be true of national administrations, 
 that those in power have the support of public employes; 
 it is not less true of incorporated companies, that the 
 directors are aided by the officials in their struggles with 
 shareholders. If, in times past, there have been ministries 
 who spent public money to secure party ends j there are, in 
 
54 EAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 times present, railway-boards who use tlie funds of tlie 
 shareliolders to defeat the ehareliolders. Nay, even in 
 detail, the similarity is maintained. Like their prototype, 
 joint-stock companies have their expensive election con- 
 tests, managed by election committees, employing election 
 agents ; they have their canvassing with its sundry 
 illegitimate accompaniments ; they have their occasional 
 manufacture of fraudulent votes. And, as a general result, 
 that class-legislation, which has been habitually charged 
 against statesmen, is now habitually displayed in the 
 proceedings of these trading associations : constituted 
 though they are on purely representative principles. 
 
 These last assertions will surprise not a few. The 
 general public who never see a railway-journal, and who 
 skip the reports of half-yearly mebtings which appear in 
 the daily papers, are under the impression that dishonesties 
 like those gigantic ones so notorious during the mania, are 
 no longer committed. They do not forget the doings of 
 etags and stock-jobbers and runaway-directors. They 
 remember how men-of-straw held shares amounting to 
 £100,000, and even £200,000; how numerous directorates 
 were filled by the same persons — one having a seat at 
 twenty-three boards; how subscription-contracts were 
 made up with signatures bought at 10s and even 45 each, 
 and porters and errand-boys made themselves liable for 
 £30,000 and £40,000 a-piece. They can narrate how 
 boards kept their books in cipher, made false registries, 
 and refrained from recording their proceedings in minute- 
 books ; how in one company, half-a-million of capital was 
 put down to unreal names; how in another, directors 
 bought for account more shares than they issued, and so 
 forced up the price; and how in many others, they re- 
 purchased for the company their own shares, paying 
 themselves with the depositors"* money. But, though more 
 or less aware of the iniquities which have been practised, 
 the generality think of them solely as the accompaniments 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 55 
 
 of bubble schemes. More recent enterprises tbey know to 
 have been bond fide ones, mostly carried out by old-estab- 
 lished companies ; and knowing this, they do not suspect 
 that in the getting-up of branch lines and extensions, 
 there are chicaneries near akin to those of Capel Court; 
 and quite as disastrous in their ultimate results. Associat- 
 ing the ideas of wealth and respectability, and habitually 
 using respectability as synonymous with morality, it seems 
 to them incredible that many of the large capitalists and 
 men of station who administer railway a:ffairs, should be 
 guilty of indirectly enriching themselves at the expense 
 of their constituents. True, they occasionally meet with 
 a law-report disclosing some enormous fraud ; or read a 
 Times leader, characterising directorial acts in terms 
 which are held libellous. But they regard the cases thus 
 brought to light as entirely exceptional; and, under that 
 feeling of loyalty which ever idealises men in authority, 
 they constantly tend towards the conviction, if not that 
 directors can do no wrong, yet that they are very unlikely to 
 do wrong. 
 
 A history of railway management and railway intrigue, 
 however, would quickly undeceive them. In such a history, 
 the tricks of projectors and' the mysteries of the share- 
 market would occupy less space than the analysis of the 
 multiform dishonesties which have been committed since 
 1845, and the genesis of that elaborate system of tactics by 
 which companies are betrayed into ruinous undertakings 
 which benefit the few at the cost of the many. Such a 
 history woiild not only have to detail the doings of the 
 personage famed for "making things pleasant; " nor would 
 it have merely to add the misdeeds of his colleagues ; but 
 it would have to describe the kindred corruptness of other 
 railway administrations. From the published report of an 
 investigation-committee, it would be shown how, not many 
 years since, the directors of one of our lines allotted among 
 themselves 15,000 now shares then at a premium in the 
 
56 RAILWAY MOEALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 market; how to pay tlie deposits on these shares they used 
 the company^s funds ; and how one of their number thus 
 accommodated himself in meeting both deposits and calls 
 to the extent of more than £80,000. We should read in 
 it of one railway chairman who^ with the secretary's con- 
 nivance^ retained shares exceeding a quarter of a million 
 in amount^ intending to claim them as his allotment if 
 they rose to a premium ; and who, as they did not do 
 so, left them as unissued shares on the hands of the 
 proprietors, to their vast loss. We should also read 
 in it of directors who made loans to themselves out of 
 the company^s floating balances at a low rate of interest, 
 when the market rate was high ; and who paid themselves 
 larger salaries than those assigned : entering the difference 
 in an obscure corner of the ledger under the head of 
 ''' petty disbursements.'^ There would be a description of 
 the manoeuvres by which a delinquent board, under impend- 
 ing investigation, gets a favourable committee nominated — - 
 ^^ a whitewashing committee/' There would be documents 
 showing that the proxies enabling boards to carry contested 
 measures, have in some cases been obtained by garbled 
 statements ; and, again, that proxies given for a specified 
 purpose have been used for other purposes. One of our 
 companies would be proved to have projected a line, serving 
 as a feeder, for which it obtained shareholders by offering a 
 guaranteed dividend, which, though understood by the public 
 to be unconditional, was really contingent upon a condition 
 not likely to be fulfilled. The managers of another company 
 would be convicted of having carried party measures by the 
 aid of preference-shares standing in the names of station- 
 masters ; and of being aided by the proxies of the secretary's 
 children too young to write. 
 
 That the corruptions here glanced at are not exceptional 
 evils, but result from some deep-seated vice in our system 
 of railway-government, is sufiBciently proved by the fact, 
 that notwithstanding the falling of railway-dividends pro- 
 
RAILWAY MOEALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 57 
 
 duced by the extension policy^ that policy has been year 
 after year continued. Does any tradesman, who, having 
 enlarged his shop, finds a proportionate diminution in 
 his rate of profits, go on, even under the stimulus of 
 competition, making further enlargements at the risk of 
 further diminutions ? Does any merchant, however strong 
 his desire to take away an opponent's markets^ make succes- 
 sive mortgages on his capital, and pay for each sum thus 
 raised a higher interest tban he gains by trading with it? 
 Yet this course, so absurd that no one would insult a private 
 individual by asking him to follow it, is the course which 
 I'ailway-boards, at meeting after meeting, persuade their 
 clients to pursue. Since 1845, when the dividends of our 
 leading lines ranged from 8 to 10 per cent., they have, 
 notwithstanding an ever-growing traffic, fallen from 10 per 
 cent, to 5, from 8 to 4, from 9 to 3^ ; and yet the system 
 of extensions, leases, and guarantees, notoriously the 
 cause of this, has been year by year persevered in. Is 
 there not something needing explanation here — something 
 more than the world is allowed to see ? If there be any 
 one to whom the broad fact of obstinate persistence in 
 unprofitable expenditure does not alone carry the conviction 
 that sinister influences are at work, let him read the seductive 
 statements by which shareholders are led to authorize new 
 projects, and then compare these with the proved results. 
 Let him look at the estimated cost, anticipated traffic, and 
 calculated dividend on some proposed branch line ; let him 
 observe how the proprietary before whom the scheme is laid, 
 are induced to approve it as promising a fair return; and 
 then let him contemplate, in the resulting depreciation of 
 stock, the extent of their loss. Is there any avoiding the 
 inference ? Railway-shareholders can never have habitually 
 voted for new undertakings which they knew would be in- 
 jurious to them. Every one knows, however, that these new 
 undertakings have almost uniformly proved injurious to 
 them. Obviously, therefore, railway-shareholders have been 
 
58 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 continually deluded by false representations. The only 
 possible escape from this conclusion is in the belief that 
 boards and their officers have been themselyes deceived ; 
 and were the discrepancies between promises and results 
 occasional only, there would be grounds for this lenient 
 interpretation. But to suppose that a railway-government 
 should repeatedly make such mistakes, and yet gain no 
 wisdom from disastrous experiences — should after a dozen 
 disappointments again mislead half-yearly meetings by 
 bright anticipations into dark realities, and all in good 
 faith — taxes credulity somewhat too far. Even, then, 
 were there no demonstrated iniquities to rouse suspicion, 
 we think that the continuous depreciation in the value 
 of railway-stock, the determined perseverance of boards in 
 the policy which has produced this depreciation, and the 
 proved untruth of the statements by which they have 
 induced shareholders to sanction this policy, would of 
 themselves suffice to- show the viciousness of railway- 
 administration. 
 
 That the existing evils, and the causes conspiring to 
 produce them, may be better understood, it will be needful 
 to glance at the mode in which the system of extensions 
 grew up. Earliest among the incentives to it was a feeling 
 of rivalry. Even while yet their main lines were unfinished, 
 a contest for supremacy arose between our two greatest 
 companies. This presently generated a confirmed antagon- 
 ism ; and the same impulse which in election contests has 
 sometimes entailed the squandering of a fortune to gain a 
 victory, has largely aided to make each of these great rivals 
 submit to repeated sacrifices rather than be beaten. Feuds 
 of like nature are in other cases perpetually prompting 
 
 boards to make aggressions on each other's territories 
 
 every attack on the one side leading to a reprisal on the 
 other ; and so violent is the hostility occasionally produced 
 that directors might be pointed out whose votes are wholly 
 determined by the desire to be revenged on their opponents. 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 69 
 
 Among the first methods used by leading companies to 
 strengthen themselves and weaken their competitors, was 
 the leasing or purchase of subordinate neighbouring lines. 
 Of course those to whom overtures were made, obtained 
 bids from both sides ; and it naturally resulted that the 
 first sales thus effectedj being at prices far above the real 
 values, brought great profits to the sellers. "What resulted ? 
 A few recurrences of this proceeding, made it clear to 
 quick-witted speculators, that constructing lines so circum- 
 stanced as to be bid for by competing companies, would be 
 a lucrative policy. Shareholders who had once pocketed 
 these large and easily-made gains, were eager to repeat the 
 process ; and cast about for districts in which it might be 
 done. Even the directors of the companies by whom these 
 high pricee were given, were under the temptation to aid in 
 this ; for it was manifest to them that by obtaining a larger 
 interest in any such new undertaking than they possessed 
 in the purchasing company, and by using their influence in 
 the purchasing company to obtain a good price or guarantee 
 for the new undertaking, a great advantage would be 
 gained. That this motive has been largely operative, rail- 
 way history abundantly proves. Once commenced, sundry 
 other influences conspired to stimulate this making of 
 feeders and extensions. The non-closure of capital-accounts 
 rendered possible the " cooking " of dividends, which was 
 at one period carried to a great extent. Expenditure that 
 should have been charged against revenue was charged 
 against capital ; works and rolling stock were allowed to go 
 unrepaired, or insufficient additions made to them, by which 
 means the current expenses were rendered delusively small; 
 long-credit agreements with contractors permitted sundry 
 disbursements that had virtually been made, to be kept out 
 of the accounts ; and thus the net returns were made to 
 appear greater than they really were. Naturally new 
 undertakings put before the moneyed world by companies 
 whose stock and dividends had been thus artificially raised. 
 
60 RAILWAY MOEALS AND RAILWAY POLTCY. 
 
 were received witli proportionate favour. Under tlie pres- 
 tige of their parentage their shares came out at high pre- 
 miums^ bringing large profits to the projectors. The hint 
 was soon taken ; and it presently became an established 
 policjj under the auspices of a prosperity either real or 
 mock^ to get up these subsidiary lines — '^ calves/^ as they 
 were called in the slang of the initiated — and to traffic in 
 the premiums their shares commanded. Meanwhile had 
 been developingj a secondary set of influences which also 
 contributed to foster unwise enterprises ; namely^ the busi- 
 ness interests of the lawyers^ engineerSj contractors^ and 
 others directly or indirectly employed in railway con- 
 struction. The ways of g*etting up and carrying new 
 schemes, could not fail, in the course of years, to become 
 familiar to all concerned ; and there could not fail to grow 
 up among them a system of concerted tactics for achieving 
 their common end. Thus, partly from the jealousy of rival 
 boards, partly from the greediness of shareholders in pur- 
 chased lines, partly from the dishonest schemings of direc- 
 tors, partly from the manoeuvres of those whose occupation 
 it is to carry out the projects legally authorized, partly, and 
 perhaps mainly, from the delusive appearance of prosperity 
 maintained by many established companies, there came the 
 wild speculations of 1844 and 1845. The consequent dis- 
 asters, while they pretty well destroyed the last of these 
 incentives, left the rest much as they were. Though the 
 painfully-undeceived public have ceased to aid as they once 
 did, the various private interests that had grown up have 
 since been working together as before — have developed 
 their methods of co-operation into still more complex and 
 subtle forms; and are even now daily thrusting unfortunate 
 shareholders into losing undertakings. 
 
 Before proceeding to analyze the existing state of things, 
 however, we would have it clearly understood that we do 
 not suppose those implicated to be on the average morally 
 lower than the community at large. Men takun at random 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 61 
 
 from any class^ would, in all probability, behave much in 
 the same way when placed in like positions. There are 
 unquestionably directors grossly dishonest. Unquestionably 
 also there are others whose standard of honour is far higher 
 than tliat of most persons. And for the remainder, they 
 are, doubtless, as good as the' mass. Of the engineers, 
 parliamentary agents, lawyers, contractors, and others 
 concerned, it may be admitted that though custom has 
 induced laxity of principle, yet they would be harshly 
 judged were the transactions which may be recorded 
 against them, used as tests. Those who do not see how in 
 these involved affairs, bad deeds may be wrought out by 
 men not correspondingly bad, will readily do so on con- 
 sidering all the conditions. In the first place, there is the 
 familiar fact that the corporate conscience is inferior to the 
 individual conscience — that a body of men will commit as a 
 joint act, that which each one of them would shrink from, 
 did he feel personally responsible. And it may be remarked 
 that not only is the conduct of a corporate body thus 
 comparatively lax, but also the conduct towards one. There 
 is ever a more or less distinct perception, that a broad- 
 backed company scarcely feels what would be ruinous to a 
 private person; and this perception is in constant operation 
 on all railway-boards and their employes, as well as on all 
 contractors, landowners, and others concerned : leading 
 them to show a want of principle foreign to their general 
 behaviour. Again, the indirectness and remoteness of the 
 evils produced, greatly weaken the restraints on wrong- 
 doing. Men's actions are proximately caused by mental 
 representations of the results to be anticipated; and the 
 decisions come to, largely depend on the vividness with 
 which these results can be imagined. A consequence, good 
 or bad, that is immediate and clearly apprehended, in- 
 fluences conduct far more potently than a consequence 
 that has to be traced through a long chain of actions or 
 influences, and, as eventually reached, is not a particular and 
 
62 RAILWAY MORALS AND EAILWAT POLICY, 
 
 readily conceivable one, but a general and vaguely con- 
 ceivable one. Hence, in railway affairs^ a questionable 
 sbare-transactioUj an exorbitant charge, a proceeding wMch 
 brings great individual advantage without apparently 
 injuring any one^ and whicli, even if traced to its ultimate 
 results, can but very circuitously affect unknown persons 
 living no one knows where, may be brought home to men 
 who, could the results be embodied before them, would be 
 shocked at the cruel injustices they had committed — men 
 who in their private business, where the results can be thus 
 embodied, are sufficiently equitable. Further, it requires 
 to be noted that most of these great delinquencies are 
 ascribable not to the extreme dishonesty of any one man or 
 group of men, but to the combined self-interest of many 
 men and groups of men^ whose minor delinquencies are 
 cumulative. Much as a story which, passing from mouth 
 to mouth, and receiving a slight exaggeration at each 
 repetition, comes round to the original narrator in a form 
 scarcely to be recognised; so, by a little improper influence 
 on the part of landowners, a little favouritism on the part 
 of members of Parhament, a little intriguing of lawyers, 
 a little manoeuvring by contractors and engineers, a little 
 self-seeking on the part of directors, a little under-statement 
 of estimates and over-statement of traffic, a little magnifying 
 of the evils to be avoided and the benefits to be gained — it 
 happens that shareholders are betrayed into ruinous under- 
 takings by grossly untrue representations, without any one 
 being guilty of more than a small portion of the fraud. 
 Bearing in mind then, the comparative laxity of the cor- 
 porate conscience; the diffusion and remoteness of the evils 
 which malpractices produce ; and the composite origin of 
 these malpractices ; it becomes possible to understand how, 
 in railway affairs, gigantic dishonesties can be perpetrated 
 by men who, on the average, are little if at all below the 
 generality in moral character. 
 
 With this preliminary mitigation we proceed to detail the 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY TOLICY. 63 
 
 various illegitimate influences by whicli these seemingly- 
 insane extensions and this continual squandering of share- 
 holders' property are brought about. 
 
 Conspicuous among these is the self-interest of land- 
 owners. Once the greatest obstacles to railway enterprise, 
 owners of estates have of late years been among its chief 
 promoters. Since the Liverpool and Manchester line was 
 first defeated by landed opposition, and succeeded with its 
 second bill only by keeping out of sight of all mansions, 
 and avoiding game preserves — since the time when the 
 London and Birmingham Company, after seeing their pro- 
 ject thrown out by a committee of peers who ignored the 
 evidence, had to " conciliate " opponents by raising the 
 estimate for land from £250,000 to £750,000— since the 
 time when Parliamentary counsel justified resistance by 
 the flimsiest excuses, even to reproaching engineers with 
 having '^ trodden down the corn of widows^' and "destroyed 
 the strawberry-beds of gardeners ''^since then, a marked 
 change of policy has taken place. Nor was it in human 
 nature that it should be otherwise. When it became known 
 that railway-companies commonly paid for ^^ land and 
 compensation," sums varying from £4000 to £8000 per 
 mile ; that men were indemnified for supposed injury to 
 their property, by suras so inordinate that the greater part 
 has been known to be returned by the heir as conscience- 
 money; that in one case £120,000 was given for land said 
 to be worth but £5000 — when it was noised abroad that 
 large bonuses in the shape of preference shares and the 
 like, were granted to buy off opposition — when it came to 
 be an established fact that estates are greatly enhanced in 
 value by the proximity of railways ; it is not surprising 
 that country gentlemen should have become active friends 
 of schemes to which they were once the bitterest enemies. 
 On considering the many temptations, we shall see nothing 
 wonderful in the fact that in 1845 they were zealous pro- 
 
64 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 visional committee-men; nor in the fact that their influence 
 as promoters enabled them to get large sums for their own 
 acres. I£ we are told of squires soliciting interviews with 
 the engineer of a projected railway ; prompting him to 
 take their side of the country; promising support if he 
 did^ and threatening opposition if he did not; dictating 
 the course to be followed through their domains ; and hint- 
 ing that a good price would be expected ; we are simply 
 told of the special modes in which certain private interests 
 show themselves. If we hear of an extensive landowner 
 using his influence as chairman of a board of directors^ to 
 project a branch running for many miles through his own 
 estate, and putting his company to the cost of a parlia- 
 mentary contest to carry this line; we hear only of that 
 which was likely to occur under such circumstances. If 
 we find now before the public^ a line proposed by a large 
 capitalist, serving among other ends to effect desirable 
 communications with his property_, and the estimates for 
 which line, though considered by the engineering world 
 insufficientj are alleged by him to be ample ; we have but 
 a marked case of the distorted representations which under 
 such conditions self-interest is sure to engender. If we 
 discover of this or that scheme, that it was got up by the 
 local nobility and gentry — that they employed to make the 
 survey a third-rate engineer, who was ready in anticipation 
 of future benefit to do this for his bare expenses — that 
 principals and agent wearied the directors of an adjacent 
 trunk-line to take lip their project ; threatened that if they 
 did not their great rival would; alarmed them into con- 
 cession ; asked for a contribution to their expenses ; and 
 would have gained all these points but for shareholders' 
 resistance — we do but discover the organized tactics which 
 in course of time, naturally grow up under such stimuli. 
 It is not that these facts are particularly remarkable. From 
 the gross instance of the landowner who asked £8000 for 
 that which he eventually accepted £80 for, down to the 
 
RAILWAY MORAXS AND RAILWAY POLICY. G5 
 
 every-day instances of influence used to get railway accom- 
 modation for the neighbourhood, the acts of the landed 
 class are simply manifestations of the average character 
 acting under special conditions. All that it now behoves 
 us to notice^ is^ that we have here a large and powerful 
 body whose interests are ever pressing on railway extension^ 
 irrespective of its intrinsic propriety. 
 
 The great change in the attitude of the Legislature to- 
 wards railways, from ^^ the extreme of determined rejection 
 or dilatory acquiescence^ to the opposite extreme of unlimited 
 concession/' was simultaneous with the change above 
 described. It could not well fail to be so. Supplying, as 
 the landowning community does, so large a portion of both 
 Houses of Parliament, it necessarily follows that tho play 
 of private interests seen in the first, repeats itself in the last 
 under modified forms, and complicated by other influences. 
 Kemembering the extent to which legislators were them- 
 selves implicated in the speculations of the mania, it is 
 unlikely that they should since have been free from personal 
 bias. A return proved, that in 1845 there were 157 mem- 
 bers of Parliament whose names were on the registers of new 
 companies for sums varyingfrom £291,000 downwards. The 
 supporters of new projects boasted of the numbers of votes 
 they could command in the House. Members were person- 
 ally canvassed, and peers were solicited. It was publicly 
 complained in the upper chamber, that " it was nearly im- 
 possible to bring together a jury, some members of which 
 were not interested in the railway they were about to 
 assess." Doubtless this state of things was in a great 
 degree exceptional ; and there has since been not only a 
 diminution of the temptations, but a marked increase of 
 equitable feeling. Still, it is not to be expected that private 
 interests should cease to act. It is not to be expected that 
 a landowner who, out of Parliament, exerts himself to get 
 a railway for his district, should, when in Parliament, not 
 employ the power his new position gives him to tho same 
 
66 RAILWAY MORALS AND EATLWAY POLICY. 
 
 end. It is not to be expected that tlie accumulation of 
 sucli individual actions should leave the legislative policy 
 unchanged. Hence the fact^ that the influence once used 
 to throw out railway bills is now used to carry them. 
 Hence the fact, that railway committees no longer require a 
 good traffic case to be made out in justification for the 
 powers asked. Hence the fact, that railway directors 
 having seats in the House of Commons, are induced to 
 pledge their companies to carry out extensions. We could 
 name a member of Parliament who, having bought an estate 
 fitly situated, offered to an engineer, also in Parliament, the 
 making of a railway running through it ; and having 
 obtained the Act (in doing which the influence of himself 
 and his friend was of course useful), pitted three railway 
 companies against each other for the purchase of it. We 
 could name another member of Parliament who, having 
 projected and obtained powers for an extension through 
 his property, induced the directors of the main line, with 
 whom he had great influence, to subscribe half the capital 
 for his extension, to work it for fifty per cent, of the gross 
 receipts, and to give up all trafiic brought by it on to the 
 main line until he received four per cent, on his capital; 
 which was tantamount to a four per cent, guarantee. But 
 it is not only, nor indeed mainly, from directly personal 
 motives that legislators have of late years unduly fostered 
 railway enterprises. Indirectly personal motives of various 
 kinds have been largely operative. The wish to satisfy 
 constituents has been one. Inhabitants of an unaccom- 
 modated district, are naturally urgent with their repre- 
 sentatives to help them to a line. Not unfrequently such 
 representatives are conscious that their next elections may 
 perhaps turn upon their successful response to this appeal. 
 Even when there is no popular pressure there is the pressure 
 of their leading political supporters — of large landholders 
 whom it will not do to neglect ; of local lawyers, important 
 as electioneering friends, to whom a railway always brino*s 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 67 
 
 business. Thus^ without haviug imruediately private ends, 
 members of Parliament are often almost coerced into 
 urging forward scliemes wliicHj from a national point of 
 view, or from a shareholder's point of view^ are very unwise 
 ones. Then there come the still less direct stimuli. Where 
 neither personal nor political ends are to be gained, there 
 are still the interests of a relative to be subserved; or, if not 
 those of a relative, still those of a friend. And where there 
 is no decided impulse to the contrary, these motives, of 
 course, have their weight. Moreover, it requires in fairness 
 to be said, that possessed as most members of Parliamenfc 
 are, with the belief that all railway-making is nationally 
 beneficial, there exist in their minds few or no reasons for 
 resisting' the influences brought to bear on them. True, 
 shareholders may be injured; but that is their own affair. 
 The public will be better served; constituents will be 
 satisfied; friends will be pleased; perhaps private ends 
 gained : and under some or all of these incentives, 
 affirmative votes are readily given. Thus, from the Legis- 
 lature also, there has of late years proceeded a factitious 
 stimulus to railway extensions. 
 
 From Parliament to Parliamentary agents, and the 
 general body of lawyers concerned in railway enterprise, 
 is a ready transition. "With these, the getting up and 
 carrying of new lines and branches is a matter of business. 
 Whoever traces the process of obtaining a railway Act, or 
 considers the number of legal transactions involved in the 
 execution of railway works, or notes the large sums that 
 figure in half-yearly reports under the head of '^ law 
 charges ; '^ will at once see how strong are the temptations 
 which a new project holds out to solicitors, conveyancers, 
 and counsel. It has been shown that in past years, 
 parliamentary expenses have varied from £650 to £3000 
 per mile; of which a large proportion has gone into the 
 pockets of the profession. In one contest, £57,000 was 
 spent among six counsel and twenty solicitors. At a late 
 45 
 
QS EAILWAT MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 meeting of one of our companies it was pointed ontj that 
 tlie sum expended in legal and parliamentary expenses 
 during nine years, liad reached £480,000 ; or had averaged 
 £53,500 a-year. With these and scores of like facts 
 before them, it would be strange did not so acute a body 
 of men as lawyers use vigorous eSorts and sagacious 
 devices to promote fresh enterprises. Indeed, if we look 
 back at the proceedings of 1845, we shall suspect, not 
 only that lawyers are still the active promoters of fresh 
 enterprises, but often the originators of them. Many have 
 heard how in those excited times the projects daily 
 announced were not uncommonly set afloat by local soli- 
 citors — bow these looked over maps to see where plausible 
 lines could be sketched out — how they canvassed the local 
 gentry to obtain provisional committeemen — how they 
 agreed with engineers to make trial surveys — how, under 
 the wild hopes of the day, they found little difficulty in 
 forming companies — and how most of them managed to 
 get as far as the Committee on Standing Orders, if no 
 farther. Remembeinng all this, and remembering that 
 those who were successful are not likely to have forgotten 
 their cunning, but rather to have yearly exercised and 
 increased it, we may expect to find railway lawyers among 
 the most influential of the many parties conspiring to urge 
 railway proprietaries into disastrous undertakings ; and 
 we shall not be deceived. To a great extent they are in 
 league with engineei's. From the proposal to the com- 
 pletion of a new line, the lawyer and the engineer work 
 together ; and their interests are throughout identical. 
 While the one makes the survey, the other prepares the 
 book of reference. The parish plans which the one gets 
 ready, the other deposits. The notices to owners and 
 occupiers which the one fills in, the other serves upon 
 those concerned. And there are frequent consultations 
 between them as to the dealing with local opposition and 
 the obtainment of local support. In the getting up of 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY, 69 
 
 their case for Parliament, they necessarily act in concert. 
 While, before committee, the one gets his ten guineas 
 per day for attending to give evidence, the other makes 
 profits on all the complicated transactions which carrying 
 a bill involves. During the execution of the works they 
 are in constant correspondence; and alike profit by any 
 expansion of the undertaking. Thus there naturally arises 
 in each, the perception that in aiding the other he is 
 aiding himself; and gradually as, in course of years, the 
 proceedings come to be often .repeated, and a perfect 
 familiarity with railway politics gained, there grows up a 
 well-organized system of co-operation between them — a 
 system rendered the more efficient by the wealth and 
 influence which each has year by year accumulated. 
 
 Among the manoeuvres employed by railway solicitors 
 thus established and thus helped, not the least remarkable 
 is that of getting their own nominees elected as directors. 
 It is a fact, which we state on good authority, that there 
 are puppet-directors who vote for this or that at " the 
 instigation of the company's lawyer. The obtainment of 
 such tools is not difficult. Vacancies are about to occur in 
 the directorate. Almost always there are men over whom 
 a solicitor, conducting the extensive law-business of a 
 railway, has considerable power : not only connexions and 
 friends, but persons to whom in his legal capacity he can 
 do great benefit or great injury. He selects the most 
 suitable of these ; giving the preference^ if other things 
 are equal, to one living in the country near the line. On 
 opening the matter to him, he points out the sundry 
 advantages attendant on a director's position — the free 
 pass and the many facilities it gives ; the annual £100 or 
 so which the office brings ; the honour and influence 
 accruing ; the opportunities for profitable investment that 
 are likely to occur ; and so forth. Should ignorance of 
 railway affairs be raised as an objection, the tempter, in 
 whose eyes this ignorance is a chief recommendation, 
 
70 RAILWAY MOEALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 replies that he shall always be at hand to guide his votes. 
 Should non-possession of a due amount of the company's 
 stock be pleaded^ the tempter meets the difficulty by 
 offering himself to furnish the needful qualification. Thus 
 incited and flattered, and perhaps conscious that it would 
 be dangerous to refuse, the intended puppet allows himself 
 to be put in nomination; and as it is the habit of half- 
 yearly meetings, unless under great indignation, to elect 
 any one proposed to them by those in authority, ths 
 nomination is successful. On subsequent occasions this 
 proceeding can, of course, be repeated ; and thus the 
 company's legal agent and those leagued with him, may 
 command sufficient votes to turn the scale in their 
 own favour. 
 
 Then, to the personal interest and power of the head 
 solicitor, have to be added those of the local solicitors, 
 with whom he is in daily intercourse. They, too, profit by 
 new undertakings ; they, therefore, are urgent in pressing 
 them forwards. Acting in co-operation with their chief, 
 they form a dispersed staff of great influence. They are 
 active canvassers ; they stimulate and concentrate the 
 feeling of their districts ; they encourage rivalry with 
 other lines; they alarm local shareholders with rumours of 
 threatened competition. When the question of extension 
 or non-extension comes to a division, they collect proxies 
 for the extension party. They bring pressure to bear on 
 their shareholding clients and relatives. Nay, so deep an 
 interest do they feel in the decision, as sometimes to create 
 votes with the view of influencing it. We have before us 
 the case of a local solicitor, who, before the special 
 meeting called to adopt or reject a contemplated branch 
 transferred portions of his own shares into the names of 
 sundry members of his family, and so multiplied his seven- 
 teen votes into forty-one ; all of which he recorded in 
 favour of the new scheme. 
 
 The morality of railway engineers is not much above 
 
EAILWAT MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 71 
 
 that of railway lawyers. The gossip of Great George 
 Street is fertile in discreditable revelations. It tells how 
 So-and-so^ like others before hinij testified to estimates 
 which he well knew were insufficient. It makes jocose 
 allusion to this man as being employed to do his senior's 
 " dirty work " — his hard-swearing ; and narrates of the 
 other thatj when giving evidence before committee, he was 
 told by counsel that he was not to be believed even on his 
 knees. It explains how cheaply the projector of a certain 
 line executed the parliamentary survey, by employing on it 
 part of the staff in the pay of another company to which 
 he was engineer. Kow it alludes to the suspicion attach- 
 ing to a certain member of the fraternity from his having 
 let a permanent-way contract, for a term of years, at an 
 extravagant sum per mile. Again it rumours the great 
 profits which some of the leaders of the profession made in 
 1845, by charging for the use of their names at so much 
 the prospectus : even up to a thousand guineas. And then, 
 it enlarges on the important advantages possessed by 
 engineers who have seats in the House of Commons. 
 
 Thus lax as is the ethical code of engineers, and greatly 
 as they are interested in railway enterprise, it is to be 
 expected that they should be active and not very scrupulous 
 promoters of it. To illustrate the vigour and skill with 
 which they further new undertakings, a few facts may be 
 cited. Not far from London, and lying between two lines 
 of railway, is an estate lately purchased by one of our 
 engineers. He has since obtained Acts for branches to 
 both of the adjacent lines. One of these branches he has 
 leased to the company whose line it joins ; and he has tried 
 to do the like with the other, but as yet without success. 
 Even as it is, however, he is considered to have doubled the 
 value of his property. Again, an engineer of celebrity 
 once nearly succeeded in smuggling through Parliament, 
 in the bill for a proposed railway, a clause extending the 
 limits of deviation, to several miles on each side of the line, 
 
72 EAILWAY MORALS AND EAILWAT POLICY. 
 
 througliout a certain district — tbe usual limits being but 
 ^ve chains on eacH side; and tlie attempt is accounted for 
 by tlie fact^ that this engineer possessed mines in this 
 district. To press forward extensions by the companies with 
 which they are connected^ they occasionally go to great 
 lengths. Not long since^ at a half-yearly meeting, certain 
 projects which the proprietary had already once rejected, 
 were again brought forward by two engineers who attended 
 in their capacity of shareholders. Though known to be 
 personally interested, one of them moved and the other 
 seconded, that soiae new proposals from the promoters of 
 these schemes be considered without delay by the directors. 
 The motion was carried ; the directors approved the pro- 
 posals ; and again, the proprietors negatived them. A 
 third time a like effort was made ; a third time a conflict 
 arose ; and within a few days of the special meeting at 
 which the division was to take place, one of these engineers 
 circulated among the shareholders a pamphlet denying the 
 allegations of the dissentient party and making counter- 
 statements which it was then too late to meet. Nay, 
 he did more : he employed agents to canvass the share- 
 holders for proxies in support of the new undertaking ; and 
 was obliged to confess as much when charged with it at 
 the meeting. 
 
 Turn we now to contractors. Eailway-enterprise has 
 given to this class of men a gigantic development; not only 
 in respect of numbers, but in respect of the vast wealth to 
 which some of them have acquired. Originally, half a 
 dozen miles of earthwork, fencing, and bridges, was as much 
 as any single contractor undertook. Of late years, however 
 it has become common for one man to engage to construct 
 an entire railway ; and deliver it to the company in a fit 
 condition for opening. Great capital is required for this. 
 Great profits are made by it. And the fortunes accumulated 
 in course of time have been such, that sundry contractors 
 are named as being each able to make a railway at his own 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 73 
 
 cost. But thej are as insatiable as millionaires in general ; 
 and so long as they continue in business at all^ are, in some 
 sort^ forced to provide new undertakings to keep their 
 plant employed. As may be imagined^ enormous stocks of 
 working appliances are needed : many hundreds of earth- 
 waggons and of horses ; many miles of temporary rails and 
 sleepers ; some dozen locomotive engines^ and several fixed 
 ones ; innumerable tools ; besides vast stores of timber^ 
 bricksj stone^rails, and other constituents of permanent works^ 
 that have been bought on speculation. To keep the capital 
 thus invested, and also a large staff of employes, standing 
 idle, entails loss, partly negative, partly positive. The 
 great contractor, therefore, is both under a strong stimulus 
 to get fresh work, and enabled by his wealth to do this. 
 Hence the not unfrequent inversion of the old arrangement 
 under which companies and engineers employed contrac- 
 tors, into an arrangement under which contractors employ 
 engineers and form companies. Many recent undertakings 
 have been thus set on foot. The most gigantic project 
 which private enterprise has yet dared, originated with a 
 distinguished contracting firm. In some cases this mode 
 of procedure niay, perhaps, be advantageous ; but in far 
 more numerous cases its results are disastrous. Interested 
 in promoting railway extensions, even in a greater degree 
 than engineers and lawyers, contractors habitually co-operate 
 with these, either as agents or as coadjutors. Lines are 
 fostered into being, which it is known from the beginning, 
 will not pay. Of late, it has become common for land- 
 owners, merchants, and others personally interested, who, 
 under the belief that their indirect gains will compensate 
 for their meagre dividends, have themselves raised part of 
 the capital for a local railway, but cannot raise the rest — it 
 has become common for such to make an agreement with a 
 wealthy contractor to construct the line, taking in part 
 payment a portion of the shares, amounting to perhaps a 
 third of the whole, and to charge for his work according to 
 
74 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 a schedule of prices to be thereafter settled between himself 
 and the engineer. By this last clause the contractor 
 renders himself secure. It would never answer his purpose 
 to take part payment in shares likely to return some £2 per 
 ceut.^ unless he compensated himself by unusually high 
 profits ; and this subsequent settlement of prices with one 
 whose interests, like his own, are wrapped up in the 
 prosecution of the undertaking, ensures him high profits. 
 Meanwhile, it is noised abroad that all the capital has been 
 subscribed and the line contracted for ; these facts unduly 
 raise the public estimate of the scheme ; the shares are 
 quoted at much above their true worth; unwary persons 
 buy ; the contractor from time to time parts with his 
 moiety at fair prices ; and the new shareholders ultimately 
 find themselves part owners of a railway which, unprofitable 
 as it originally promised to be, had been m.ade yet more 
 unprofitable by expensiveness of construction. Nor are 
 these the only cases in which contractors gain after this 
 fashion. They do the like with lines of their own project- 
 ing. To obtain Acts for these, they sign the subscription- 
 contracts for large amounts ; knowing that in the way 
 above described, they can always make it answer to do 
 this. So g-eneral had the practice latterly become, as to 
 attract the attention of committees. As was remarked by 
 a personage noted for his complicity in these transactions — 
 '^ Committees are getting too knowing ; they won't stand 
 that dodge now." Nevertheless, the thing is still done 
 under a disguised form. Though contractors no longer 
 enter their own names on subscription lists for thousands 
 of shares ; yet they effect the same end by making nominal 
 holders of their foremen and others : themselves being the 
 real ones. 
 
 Of directorial misdoings some samples have already been 
 given ; and more might be added. Besides those arising 
 from directly personal aims, there are sundry others. One 
 of these is the increasing community between railway 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 75 
 
 boards and the House of Commons, There are eighty-one 
 directors sitting in Parliament ; and though some of these 
 take little part in the affairs of their respective railways, many 
 of them are the most active members of the boards to 
 which they belong. We have but to look back a few years, 
 and mark the unanimity with which companies adopted the 
 policy of getting themselves represented in the Legislature, 
 to see that the furtherance of their respective interests — 
 especially in cases of competition — was the incentive. How 
 well this policy is understood by the initiated, may be 
 judged from the fact, that gentlemen are now in some cases 
 elected on boards, simply because they are members of 
 Parliament. Of course this implies that railway legislation 
 is affected by a complicated play of private influences ; and 
 that these influences generally work towards the facilitation 
 of new enterprises, is obvious. It naturally happens that 
 directors having seats in the House of Commons can more 
 or less smooth the way of their annual batch of new tills 
 through committees. It naturally happens that those 
 whose companies are not opposed, exchange good oflices. 
 Not only do they aid the passing of schemes in which they 
 are interested, but they are solicited to undertake further 
 schemes by those around them. It is a common-sense 
 conclusion that representatives of small towns and country 
 districts needing railway accommodation, who are daily 
 thrown in contact with the chairman of a company capable 
 of giving this accommodation, do not neglect the oppor- 
 tunity of furthering their ends. It is a common-sense 
 conclusion that by hospitalities, by favours, by flattery, by 
 the many means used to bias men, they seek to obtain his 
 assistance. And it is an equally common-sense conclusion 
 that in many cases they succeed — that by some complication 
 of persuasions and temptations they swerve him from his 
 calmer judgment; and so introduce into the company he 
 represents, influences at variance with its welfare. 
 
 Under some motives however — whether those of direct 
 
76 EAILWAT MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 self-interest^ of private favour, or of antagonistic feeling", 
 matters not here — it is certain that directors are constantly 
 committing their constituents to unwise enterprises ; and 
 that they frequently employ unjustifiable means for either 
 eluding or overcoming their opposition. Shareholders 
 occasionally find that their directors have given to Parlia- 
 ment, pledges of extension much exceeding any they were 
 authorised to give ; and they are then persuaded that they 
 are bound to endorse the promises made for them by 
 their ag'ents. In some cases, among the misleading state- 
 ments laid before shareholders to obtain their consent to 
 a new project, will be found an abstract of the earnings 
 of a previously-executed branch to which the proposed 
 one bears some analogy. These earnings are shown (not 
 always without ^^ cooking '■') to be tolerably good and im- 
 proving; and it is argued that the new project, having like 
 prospects, offers a fair investment. Meanwhile, it is not 
 staled that the capital for this previously-executed branch 
 was raised on debentures or by guaranteed shares at a 
 higher rate of interest than the dividend pays ; it is not 
 stated that as the capital for this further undertaking will 
 be raised on like terms, the annual interest on debt will 
 swallow up more than the annual revenue ; and thu3 
 unsuspecting shareholders — some unacquainted with the 
 company's antecedents, some unable to understand its 
 complicated accounts — give their proxies, or raise their 
 hands, for new works which will tell with disastrous effect 
 on their futare dividends. In pursuit of their ends, 
 directors will from time to time go directly in the teeth of 
 established regulations. Where it has been made a rule 
 that proxies shall be issued only by order of a meeting of 
 the proprietors, they will yet issue them without any such 
 order, when by so doing they can steal a march on dis- 
 sentients. If it suits their purpose, they will occasionally 
 bring forward moat important measures without due notice. 
 In stating the amount of the company's stock which has 
 
EAILWAT MOKALS AND EAILWAY POLICY, 77 
 
 voted with tliem on a division^ they have been known to 
 include thousands of shares on which a small sum only was 
 paid up, counting them as though fully paid up. 
 
 To complete the sketch, something must be said on the 
 management of board meetings and meetings of share- 
 holders. For the first — their decisions are affected by 
 various manoeuvres. Of course, on fit occasions, there is a 
 whipping-up of those favourable to any project which it is 
 desired to carry. Were this all, there would be little to 
 complain of; but something more than this is done. There 
 are boards in which it is the practice to defeat opposition 
 by stratagem. The extension party having summoned their 
 forces for the occasion, and having entered on the minutes 
 of business a notice worded with the requisite vagueness, 
 shape their proceedings according to the character of the 
 meeting. Should their antagonists muster more strongly 
 than was expected, this vaguely-worded notice serves 
 simply to introduce some general statement or further 
 information concerning the project named in it ; and the 
 matter is passed over as though nothing more had been 
 meaut. On the contrary, should the proportion of the 
 two sides be more favourable, the notice becomes the 
 basis of a definite motion committing the board to some 
 important act. If due precautions have been taken, the 
 motion is passed ; and once passed, those who, if present, 
 would have resisted it, have no remedy; for in railway 
 government there is no ^' second reading,^^ much less ii, 
 third. So determiued and so unscrupulous are the efforts 
 sometimes made by the stronger party to overcome and 
 silence their antagonists, that when a contested measure, 
 carried by them at the board, has to go before a general 
 meeting for confirmation, they have been known to pass a 
 resolution that their dissentient colleagues shall not address 
 the proprietary ! 
 
 That, at half-yearly and special meetings, shareholders 
 should be so readily misled by boards, even after repeated 
 
/O RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 experience of their untrustwortliinesSj seems at first sight 
 difficult to understand. The mystery disappears^ however^ 
 on inquiry. Yery frequently, contested measures are 
 carried against the sense of the meetings before which they 
 are laid, by means of the proxies previously collected by 
 the directors. These proxies are obtained from proprietors 
 scattered everywhere throughout the kingdom, who are 
 mostly weak enough to sign the first document sent to 
 them. Then, of those present when the question is brought 
 to an issue, not many dare attempt a speech. Of those 
 who dare, but few are clear-headed enough to see the full 
 bearings of the measure they are about to vote upon ; and 
 such as can see them are often prevented by nervousness 
 from doing justice to the views they hold. Moreover, 
 it must be borne in mind that proprietors displaying 
 antagonism to the board are usually regarded by their 
 brother proprietors with more or less reprobation. Unless 
 the misconduct of the governing body has been very glaring 
 and very recent, there ever arises in the mass a prejudice 
 against all playing the part of an opposition. They are 
 condemned as noisy, and factious, and obstructive ; and 
 often only by determined courage avoid being put down. 
 Besides these negative reasons for the general inefficiency 
 of shareholders' resistance, there are sundry positive ones. 
 As writes to us a Member of Parliament who has been an 
 extensive holder of stock in many companies from the 
 first days of railway enterprise : — '"'' My large and long 
 acquaintance with Ptailway Companies^ afeirs, enables me 
 to say, that a larg-e majority of shareholders trust wholly 
 to their directors, having little or no information, nor 
 
 caring to have any opinion of their own Some others, 
 
 better informed but timid, are afraid, by opposing the 
 directors, of causing a depreciation of the value of their 
 stock in the market, and are more alarmed at the prospect 
 of this temporary depreciation than at the permanent loss 
 entailed on the company by the useless, and therefore 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 79 
 
 unprofitable, outlay of additional capital Otliers 
 
 again^ believing that the impending permanent evil is 
 inevitable, resolve on the spot to sell out immediately, and 
 to keep np the prices of their shares, also give their support 
 to the directors." Thus, from lack of organization and 
 efficiency among those who express their opposition, and 
 from the timidity and double-facedness of those who do 
 not, it happens that extremely unwise projects are carried 
 by large majorities. Nor is this all. The tactics of the 
 aggressive party are commonly as skilful as those of their 
 antagonists are bungling. The chairman, who is generally 
 the chief promoter of the contested scheme, has it in his 
 power to favour those who take his own side, and to throw 
 difficulties in the way of opponents ; and this he not unfre- 
 quently does to a great extent — refusing to hear, putting 
 down on some plea of breach of order, browbeating^ even 
 using threats. "^ It generally turns out too, that, whether 
 intentionally or not, some of the most important motions 
 are postponed until nearly the close of the meeting, when the 
 greater part of the shareholders are gone. Large money- 
 votes, extensive powers, unlimited permits to directors to 
 take, in certain matters, ^*'such steps as in their judgment 
 they may deem most expedient," — these, and the like, are 
 hurried over during the last half-hour, when the tired and 
 impatient remnant will no longer listen to objectors ; and 
 when those who have personal ends to serve by outstaying 
 the rest, carry everything their ov/n way. Indeed, in some 
 cases, the arrangements are such as almost ensure the 
 meeting becoming a pro-extension one towards the end. 
 
 * We may remark in passing, that the practice of making the chairman 
 of the board also chairman of the half-yearly m.eetings, is a very injudicious 
 one. The directors are the servants of the proprietary ; and meet them 
 from time to time to render an account of their stewardship. That the chief 
 of these servants, whose proceedings are about to be examined, should 
 himself act as chief of the jury is absurd. Obviously, the business of each 
 meeting should be conducted by some one independently chosen for the 
 purpose ; as the Speaker is chosen by the House of Commons. 
 
80 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 Tliis result is brouglit about thus : — A certain portion of 
 the general body of proprietors are also proprietors of some 
 subordinate work — some brancb line, or canal, or steam- 
 boats, which the Company has purchased or leased ; and 
 as holders of guaranteed stock, ready to take up further 
 such stock if they can get it, these lean towards projects 
 that are to be executed on the preference-share system. 
 They hold their meeting for the declaration of dividend, 
 &c., as soon as the meeting of the Company at large has 
 been dissolved ; and in the same room. Hence it happens 
 that being* kept together by the prospect of subsequent 
 business, they gradually, towards the close of the general 
 meeting, come to form the majority of those present ; and 
 the few ordinary shareholders who have been patient 
 enough to stay, are outvoted by those having interests 
 distinct from their own and quite at variance with the 
 welfare of the Company, 
 
 And here this allusion to the preference-share system, 
 introduces us to a fact which may fitly close this detail of 
 private interests and questionable practices — a fact serving 
 at once to illustrate the subtlety and concert of railway 
 ofiicialism, and the power it can exert. That this fact may 
 be fully appreciated, it must be premised, that though 
 preference-shares do not usually carry votes, they are 
 sometimes specially endowed with them ; and further, that 
 they occasionally remain unpaid up until the expiration of 
 a time after which no further calls can be legally made. 
 In the case in question, a large number of £50 preference- 
 shares had thus long stood with but £5 paid. Promoters 
 of extensions, &c., had here a fine opportunity of getting 
 great power in the Company at small cost ; and, as we shall 
 see, they duly availed themselves of it. Already had their 
 party twice tried to thrust the proprietors into a new 
 undertaking of great magnitude. Twice had they entailed 
 on them an expensive and harassing contest. A third time 
 notwithstanding a professed relinquishment of it, they 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 81 
 
 brought forward substantially the same scheme^ and were 
 defeated only by a small majority. The following extracts 
 from the division lists we take from the statement of one of 
 the scrutineers. 
 
 50^. Pre- 
 ference 
 Shares 
 
 with 5L 
 paid up. 
 
 The Company's solicitor ,, . 
 
 Ditto in joint account with 
 another 
 
 The solicitor's partner 
 
 The Company's engineer 
 
 The engineer's partner 
 
 One of the Company's par- 
 liamentary counsel 
 
 Another ditto, ditto 
 
 Local solicitor for the pro- 
 posed extension 
 
 The Company's contractor 
 for permanent-way 
 
 The Company's conveyancer 
 
 The Company's, furniture 
 printer 
 
 The Company's surveyor. 
 
 The Company's architect. 
 
 One of the Company's car- 
 riers . . . 
 
 The Company's bankers :— 
 
 One partner 
 
 Another partner 
 
 Ditto in jiijut account with 
 another 
 
 500 
 
 778 
 
 60 
 
 350 
 
 1,354 
 
 200 
 125 
 
 347 
 1,003 
 
 35 
 
 300 
 217 
 
 Additional Stock or 
 Shares. 
 
 7,500Z. stnck,and^ 
 100 501. shares, 
 with 421. 10s. 
 paid up. 
 
 None. 
 None. 
 None. 
 4,20tjL stock. 
 
 l,Cno?. stock. 
 200L stock. 
 
 None. 
 
 52,833?. 
 3B31. stock. 
 
 10,OOOL stock. 
 
 1,250/. stock. 
 14,01GZ. stnck; 119 
 50?. shares, witli 
 427. lO.s'. p.Tid up ; 
 nnd 13 401. shares 
 with 34?. paid up. 
 
 83.3?. stock. 
 
 Recorded 
 
 Stock at 
 the Poll 
 as held. 
 
 Total 
 
 actual 
 Capital 
 paid up. 
 
 Number 
 of Votes 
 
 scored 
 for the 
 
 Exten- 
 sion. 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 
 75,G50 
 
 18,140 
 
 188 
 
 8,000 
 7,500 
 71,006 
 
 300 
 
 750 
 
 11,030 
 
 20 
 33 
 101 
 
 11,000 
 6,450 
 
 2,000 
 825 
 
 40 
 30 
 
 350 
 
 35 
 
 7 
 
 70,183 
 50,483 
 
 54,503 
 5,343 
 
 158 
 
 lis 
 
 11,750 
 l'."i,'J-,0 
 32,230 
 
 10,175 
 3,fJ50 
 20,410 
 
 41 
 82 
 
 1,6S3 
 
 918 
 
 14 
 
 33,P66 
 2,500 
 
 32,3r,6 
 2,500 
 
 00 
 18 
 
 1,000 
 
 850 
 
 12 
 
 To this list^ some seven or eight of the Company's 
 tradesmen, similarly armed^ might be added ; raising the 
 number of the almost factitious shares held by function- 
 aries to about 5200, and increasing the votes commanded 
 by them, from its present total of 1068 to upwards of 1100. 
 If now we separate the £380,000, which these gentlemen 
 bring to bear against their brother shareholders, into real 
 and nominal ; we find that while not quite £120,000 of it is 
 bond fide property invested, the remaining £260,000 is nine 
 
82 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 parts shadow and one part substance. And thus it results, 
 tliat by virtue of certain stock actually representing but 
 £26,000, these lawyers, engineers, counsel, conveyancers, 
 contractors, bankers, and others interested in the promotion 
 of new schemes, outweigh more than a quarter of a million 
 of the real capital held by shareholders whom these 
 schemes will injure ! 
 
 Need we any longer wonder, then, at the persistence of 
 Railway Companies in seemingly reckless competition and 
 ruinous extensions ? Is not this obstinate continuance of 
 a policy that has year after year proved disastrous, 
 suflBciently explicable on contemplating the many illegi- 
 titnate influences at work ? Is it not manifest that the 
 small organized party always out-manoeuvres the large 
 unorganized one ? Consider their respective characters 
 and circumstances. Here are the shareholders diffused 
 throughout the kingdom, in towns and country houses ; 
 knowing nothing of each other, and too remote to co- 
 operate were they acquainted. Very few of them see a 
 railway journal; and scarcely any know much of railway 
 politics. Necessarily a fluctuating body, only a small 
 number are familiar with the Company's history— its acts, 
 engagements, policy, management. A great proportion 
 are incompetent to judge of the matters that come before 
 them, and lack decision to act out such judgments as they 
 may form — executors who do not like to take steps in- 
 volving much responsibility ; trustees fearful of interfering 
 with the property under their care, lest possible loss should 
 entail a lawsuit ; widows who have never in their lives 
 acted for themselves in any affair of moment ; maiden 
 ladies, alike nervous and innocent of all business knowledge; 
 clerg'ymen whose daily discipline has been little calculated 
 to make them acute men of the world ; retired tradesmen 
 whose retail transactions have given them small ability 
 for grasping large considerations; servants possessed of 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND E^VILWAT POLICY. 88 
 
 accumulated savings and cramped notions ; witH sundry- 
 others of like helpless characters — all of them rendered 
 more or less conservative by ignorance or timidity^ and 
 proportionately inclined to support those in authority. To 
 these should be added the temporary shareholders^ who, 
 having bought stock on speculation, and knowing that a 
 revolution in the Company is likely to depress prices for a 
 time, liave an interest in supporti*ng the board irrespective 
 of the goodness of its policy. Turn now to those whose 
 efforts are directed to railway expansion. Consider the 
 constant pressure of local populations — of small towns, 
 of rural districts, of landowners : all of them eao-er for 
 branch accommodation; all of them with great and definite 
 advantages in view; few of them conscious of the loss 
 those advantages may entail on others. Remember the 
 influence of legislators, prompted, some by their consti- 
 tuents, some by personal aims, and encouraged by the 
 belief that additional railway facilities are in every case 
 nationally beneficial ; and tken infer the extent to which, 
 as stated to Mr. Cardwell's committee, Parliament has 
 '^ excited and urged forward ^^ Companies into rivalry. 
 Note the temptations under which lawyers are placed — the 
 vast profits accruing to them from every railway contest, 
 whether ending in success or failure ; and then imagine 
 the range and subtlety of their extension manoeuvring. 
 Conceive the urgency of engineers ; to the richer of whom 
 more railway-making means more wealth ; to the mass of 
 whom more railway-making means daily bread. Estimate 
 the capitalist-power of contractors ; whose unemployed 
 plant brings heavy loss ; whose plant when employed brings 
 great gain. Then recollect that to lawyers, engineers, 
 and contractors tke getting up and executing of new 
 undertakings is a business — a business to which every 
 energy is directed ; in which, many years of practice have 
 given great skill ; and to th.e facilitation of which, all means 
 tolerated by men of the world are thought justiOable, 
 
84 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 Finally, consider that the classes interested in carrying out 
 new schemes, are in constant communication, and have 
 every facility for combined action. A great part of them 
 live in London, and most of these have of&ces at "West- 
 minster — in G-reat George Street, in Parliament Street^ 
 clustering round the Legislature. Not only are they thus 
 concentrated — not only are they throughout the year in 
 frequent business intercourse ; but during the session they 
 are daily together, in Palace-Yard Hotels, in the lobbies^ 
 in the committee-rooms, in the House of Commons 
 itself. Is it any wonder then, that the wide-spread, ill- 
 informed unorganized body of shareholders, standing 
 severally alone, and each pre-occupied with his private 
 affairs, should be continually out-generalled by the com- 
 paratively small but active, skilful, combined body opposed 
 to them, whose very occupation is at stake in gaining 
 the victory ? 
 
 "But how about the directors?" it will perhaps be 
 asked. ^^ How can they be parties to these obviously 
 unwise undertakings ? They are themselves shareholders ; 
 they gain by whatever benefits the proprietary at large; 
 they lose by whatever injures it. And if without their 
 consent, or rather their agency, no new scheme can be 
 adopted by the Company, the classes interested in fostering 
 railway enterprise are powerless to do harm/^ 
 
 This belief in the identity of directorial and proprietary 
 interests, is the fatal error commonly made by share- 
 holders. It is this which, in spite of bitter experiences, 
 leads them to be so careless and so trustful. ^^ Their 
 profit is our profit ; their loss is our loss ; they know more 
 than we do ; therefore let us leave the matter to them/' 
 Sach is the argument which more or less definitely passes 
 through the shareholding mind — an argument of which the 
 premises are delusive, and the inference disastrous. Let 
 us consider it in detail. 
 
 Not to dwell on the disclosures that have in years past 
 
EAILWAT MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 85 
 
 been made respecting the share-trafficking of directors, 
 and the large profits realized by it — disclosures which 
 alone suffice to disprove the assumed identity between the 
 interests of board and proprietary — and taking for granted 
 that little, if any, of this now takes place; let us go on 
 to notice the still-prevailing influences which render this 
 apparent community of aims illusive. The immediate 
 interests which directors have in the prosperity of the 
 Company, are often much less than is supposed. Occa- 
 sionally they possess only the bare qualification of £1000 
 worth of stock. In some instances even this is partly 
 nominal. Admitting, however, as we do frankly, that in 
 the great majority of cases the full qualification, and much 
 more than the qualification, is held ; yet it must be borne 
 in mind that the indirect advantages which a wealthy 
 member of a board may gain from the prosecution of a 
 new undertaking, will often far outweigh the direct injury 
 it will inflict on him by lowering the value of his shares. 
 A board usually consists, to a considerable extent, of 
 gentlemen residing at different points throughout the tract 
 of country traversed by the railway they control : some of 
 them landowners ; some merchants or manufacturers ; some 
 owners of mines or shipping. Almost always some or all 
 of them are advantaged by a new branch or feeder. 
 Those in close proximity to it, gain either by enhanced 
 value of their lands, or by increased facilities of transit for 
 their commodities. Those at more remote parts of the 
 main line, though less directly interested, are still fre- 
 quently interested in some degree ; for every extension 
 opens up new markets either for produce or raw materials ; 
 and if it is one effecting a junction with some other 
 system of railways, the greater mercantile conveniences 
 afforded to directors thus circumstanced, become important. 
 Obviously, therefore, the indirect profits accruing to such 
 from one of these extensions, may more than counter- 
 balance the direct loss upon their railway investments; 
 
86 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 and though there are^ doubtless, men too honourable to let 
 such considerations sway them^ yet the generality can 
 scarcely fail to be affected by temptations so strong. 
 Then we have to remember the influences brought to bear 
 upon directors having seats in Parliament. Already 
 these have been noticed ; and we recur to them only for 
 the purpose of pointing out that the immediate evil of 
 an increased discount on his £1000 worth of stock, may be 
 to a director of much less consequence than the favours, 
 patronage, connexions, which his aid in carrying a new 
 scheme will bring him. So that here too the supposed 
 identity of interests between directors and shareholders 
 does not hold. 
 
 Moreover, this disunion of interests is increased by the 
 system of preference-stock. Were there no other cause in 
 action, the raising of capital for supplementary undertak- 
 ings, by issuing shares bearing a guaranteed interest of 5, 6, 
 and 7 per cent., would destroy that community of motives 
 supposed to exist between a railway proprietary and its 
 executive. Little as the fact is recognized, it is yet readily 
 demonstrable that by raising one of these mortgages, a 
 Company is forthwith divided into two classes ; the one 
 consisting of the richer shareholders, inclusive of the 
 directors, and the other of the poorer shareholders ; of 
 which classes the richer one can protect itself from the 
 losses which the poorer one bas to bear — nay, can even 
 profit by the losses of the poorer one. This assertion, 
 startling as it will be to many, we will proceed to prove. 
 
 When the capital required for a branch or extension is 
 raised by means of guaranteed shares, it is the custom to 
 give each proprietor the option of taking up a number of 
 such shares proportionate to the number of his original 
 shares. By availing himself of this offer, he partially 
 protects himself against any loss which the new under- 
 taking may entail. Should this, not fulfilling the promises 
 of its advocates, diminish in some degree the general 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 87 
 
 dividend ; jet, a high dividend on the due proportion of 
 preference-stocky may nearly or quite compensate for this. 
 Hence^ it becomes the policy of all who can do so, to take 
 up as many guaranteed shares as they can get. But what 
 happens when the circular announcing this apportionment 
 of guaranteed shares is sent round ? Those who possess 
 much stock, being generally capitalists, accept as many as 
 are allotted to them. On the other hand, the smaller 
 holders, constituting as they do the bulk of the Company, 
 having no available funds with which to pay the calls on 
 new shares, are obliged to part with their letters of allot- 
 ment. What results ? When this additional line Las been 
 opened, and it turns out, as usual, that its revenue is 
 insufficient to meet the guaranteed dividend on its shares — 
 when the general income of the Company is laid under 
 contribution to make up this guaranteed dividend — when 
 as a consequence, the dividend on the original stock is 
 diminished ; then the poorer shareholders who possess 
 original stock only, find themselves losers ; while the richer 
 ones, possessing guaranteed shares in addition, find that 
 their gain on preference-dividends nearly or quite counter- 
 balances their loss on general dividends. Indeed^ as above 
 hinted, the case is even worse. For as the large share- 
 proprietor who has obtained his proportion of guaranteed 
 stock, is not obliged to retain his original stock — as, if he 
 doubts the paying character of the new undertaking, he 
 can always sell such of his shares as will suffer from it; 
 it is obvious that he may, if he pleases, become the possessor 
 of preference-shares only ; and may so obtain a handsome 
 return for his money at the expense of the Company at 
 large and the small shareholders in particular. How far 
 this policy is pursued we do not pretend to say; though 
 the table given some pages back suggests extensive pursuit 
 of it. All which it here concerns ns to notice, is, that 
 directors, being mostly men of large means, and being 
 therefore able to avail themselves of this guaranteed 
 
88 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 stocky are liable to be swayed by motives different from 
 those of tlie general proprietary. And that tbey often are 
 so swayed there cannot be a doubt. Without assuming 
 that any of tbem deliberately intend to benefit at the cost 
 of their co-proprietors; and believing, as we do, that few 
 of them duly perceive tbat the protection they will liave^ is 
 a protection not available by the shareholders at large ; we 
 think it is a rational deduction from common experience^ 
 that this prospect of compensation often turns the scale in 
 the minds of those who are hesitating, and diminishes the 
 opposition of those who disapprove. 
 
 Thus, the belief which leads most railway shareholders 
 to place implicit faith in their directors, is an erroneous one. 
 It is not true that there is an identity of interest between 
 the proprietary and its executive. It is not true that the 
 board forms an efficient guard against the intrigues of 
 lawyers, engineers^ contractors^ and others who profit by 
 railway-making. Contrariwise, its members are not only 
 liable to be drawn from their line of duty by various 
 indirect motives, but by the system of guaranteed shares 
 they are placed under a positive temptation to betray 
 their constituents. 
 
 And now what is the proximate origin of these corrup- 
 tions ? and what is the remedy for them ? What error 
 in railway legislation is it that has made possible such 
 complicated chicaneries ? Whence arises this facility with 
 which interested persons thrust companies into unwise 
 enterprises ? We believe there is a very simple answer to 
 these questions. It is an answer, however, which will at 
 first sight seem quite irrelevant ; and we doubt not that the 
 corollary we propose drawing from it, will be forthwith 
 condemned by so-called practical men. Nevertheless, we 
 are not without hope of showing, both that the evils laboured 
 under would be excluded were this corollary recognized, 
 and that recognition of it is not only feasible, but would 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND EAILWAY POLICY. 89 
 
 even open tlie way out of sundry perplexities in wliich 
 railway legislation is at present involyed. 
 
 We conceive, then, that the fundamental vice of our 
 system, as hitherto carried out, lies in the misinterpretation 
 of the proprietary contract — the contract tacitly entered into 
 between each shareholder and the body of shareholders 
 with whom he unites ; and that the remedy for these evils 
 which have now become so great, lies simply in the 
 enforcement of an equitable interpretation of this con- 
 tract. In reality the contract is a strictly limited one. In 
 practice it is treated as altogether unlimited. And the 
 thing needed is, that it should be clearly defined and 
 abided by. 
 
 Our popular form of government has so habituated us to 
 seeing public questions decided by the voice of the majority, 
 and the system is so manifestly equitable in the cases daily 
 before us, that there has been produced in the general 
 mind, an unhesitating belief that the majority's right is 
 unbounded. Under whatever circumstances men co-operate, 
 it is held that if difference of opinion arises among them, 
 justice requires that the will of the greater number shall 
 be executed rather than that of the smaller number ; be 
 the question at issue what it may. So confirmed is this 
 conviction, that to most this mere suggestion of a doubt will 
 cause astonishment. Yet it needs but a brief analysis to 
 show that the conviction is little better than a political 
 superstition. Instances may readily be selected which 
 prove, by reductio ad ahsurdtim, that the right of a majority 
 is a purely conditional right, valid only within specific limits. 
 Let us take a few. Suppose that at the general meeting 
 of some philanthropic association, it was resolved that in 
 addition to relieving distress the association should employ 
 home-missionaries to preach down popery. Might the sub- 
 scriptions of Catholics, who had joined the body with charit- 
 able views, be rightfully used for this end ? Suppose that 
 of the members of a book-club, the greater numbei^, thinking 
 
90 RAILWAY MOEALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 that under existing circumstances rifle-practice is more 
 important than reading, should decide to change the purpose 
 of their union^ and to apply the funds in hand for the purchase 
 of powder^ ball, and targets. Would the rest be bound bj 
 this decision ? Suppose that under the excitement of news 
 from Australia, the majority of a Freehold Land Society 
 should determine, not simply to start in a body for the gold 
 diggings, but to use their accumulated capital to provide 
 outfits. Would this appropriation of property be just to the 
 minority ? and must these join the expedition ? Scarcely 
 any one would venture an affirmative answer even to the 
 first of these questions ; much less to the others. And 
 why ? Because everyone must perceive that by joining 
 with others, no man can equitably be committed to acts 
 utterly foreign to the purpose for which he joined them. 
 Each of these supposed minorities would properly reply to 
 those seeking to coerce them : — ^' We combined with you 
 for a defined object; we gave money and time for the 
 furtherance of that object; on all questions thence arising^ 
 we tacitly agreed to conform to the will of the greater 
 number; but we did not agree to conform on any other 
 questions. If you induce us to join you by professing a 
 certain end, and then undertake some other end of which 
 we were not apprised, you obtain our support under false 
 pretences ; you exceed the expressed or understood compact 
 to which we committed ourselves : and we are no lona'er 
 bound by your decisions." Clearly this is the only rational 
 interpretation of the matter. The general principle under- 
 lying the right government of every incorporated body, is, 
 that its members contract with each other severally to 
 submit to the will of the majority in all matters concerning 
 the fidfihnent of the objects for which they are incorporated ; 
 hut in no others. To this extent only can the contract hold. 
 For as it is implied in the very nature of a contract, that 
 those entering into it must know what they contract to do ; 
 and as those who unite with others for a specified object^ 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 91 
 
 cannot contemplate all the unspecified objects whicli it is 
 hypothetically possible for tlie union to undertake ; it 
 follows that the contract entered into cannot extend to 
 sucb unspecified objects. And if there exists no expressed 
 or understood contract between the union and its members 
 respecting unspecified objects, then for the majority to 
 coerce the minority into undertaking them, is nothing less 
 than gross tyranny. 
 
 Now this almost self-evident principle is wholly ignored, 
 alike in our railway legislation and the proceedings of our 
 companies. Definite as is the purpose with which the pro- 
 moters of a public enterprise combine, many other purposes 
 not dreamed of at the outset are commonly added to it ; and 
 this, apparently, without any suspicion that such a course 
 is unwarrantable, unless taken with the ^manimous consent 
 of the proprietors. The unsuspecting shareholder who 
 signed the subscription contract for a line from Great- 
 borough to Grandport, did so under the belief that this line 
 would not only be a public benefit but a good investment. 
 He was familiar with the country. He had been at some 
 trouble to estimate the traffic. And, fully believing that he 
 knew what he was embarking in, he put down his name for 
 a large amount. The line has been made ; a few years of 
 prosperity have justified his foresight; when, at some fatal 
 special meeting, a project is put befoi-e him for a branch 
 from Littlehomestead to Stonyfield. The will of the board 
 and the intrigues of the interested, overbear all opposition ; 
 and in spite of the protests of many who like him see its 
 impolicy, he presently finds himself involved in an under- 
 taking which, when he joined the promoters of the original 
 line, he had not the remotest conception would ever be pro- 
 posed. From year to year this proceeding is repeated. His 
 dividends dwindle and his shares go down ; and eventually 
 the congeries of enterprises to which he is committed, grows 
 so vast that the first enterprise of the series becomes but 
 a small fraction of the whole. Yet it is in virtue of his 
 46 
 
92 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 consent to this first of tlie series, that all the rest are thrust 
 upon him. He feels that there is injustice somewhere ; but, 
 believing in the unlimited right of a majority, fails to detect 
 it. He does not see that when the first of these extensions 
 was proposed, he should have denied the power of his 
 brother-shareholders to implicate him in an undertaking not 
 named in their deed of incorporation. He should have told 
 its proposers that they were perfectly free to form a separate 
 Company for the execution of it ; but that they could not 
 rightfully compel dissentients to join in a new undertaking, 
 any more than they could rightfully have compelled dissen- 
 tients to join in the original. Had such a shareholder 
 united with others for the specified purpose of mahing 
 railwaySj he would have had no ground for protest. But 
 he united with others for the specified purpose of mahing a 
 particular railway. Yet such is the confusion of ideas on 
 the subject, that there is absolutely no difference recognized 
 between these cases ! 
 
 It will doubtless be alleged in defence of all this, that 
 these secondary enterprises are supplementary to the 
 original one — are in part undertaken for the furtherance of 
 it ; professedly minister to its prosperity ; cannot, therefore, 
 be regarded as altogether separate enterprises. And it is 
 true that they have this for their excuse. But if it is a 
 sufficient excuse for accessories of this kind, it may be 
 made a sufficient excuse for any accessories whatever. 
 Already, Companies have carried the practice beyond the 
 making of branches and extensions. Already, under the 
 plea of bringing traffic to their Hues, they have constructed 
 docks ; bought lines of steam-packets ; built vast hotels ; 
 deepened river-channels. Already, they have created small 
 towns for their workmen ; erected churches and schools ; 
 salaried clergymen and teachers. Are these warranted on 
 the ground of advancing the Companies^ interests ? Then 
 thousands of other undertakings are similarly warranted. 
 If a view to the development of traffic, justifies the making 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 93 
 
 of a branch to some neighbouring coal-mines; then, should 
 the coal-mines be inefficiently worked, the same view would 
 justify the purchase of them — would justify the Company in 
 becoming coal-miner and coal-seller. If anticipated increase 
 of goods and passengers is a sufficient reason for carrying 
 a feeder into an agricultural district; then, it is a sufficient 
 reason for organizing a system of coaches and waggons to 
 run in connexion with this feeder; for making the requisite 
 horse-breeding establishments ; for hiring the needful 
 farms ; for buying estates ; for becoming agriculturists. 
 If it be allowable to purchase steamers plying in conjunc- 
 tion with the railway ; it must be allowable to purchase 
 merchant vessels to trade in conjunction with it ; it must 
 be allowable to set up a yard for building such vessels ; it 
 must be allowable to erect depots at foreign ports for the 
 receipt of goods ; it must be allowable to employ commis- 
 sion agents for collecting such goods ; it must be allowable 
 to extend a mercantile organization all over the world. 
 From making its own engines and carriages, a Company 
 may readily progress to manufacturing its own iron and 
 growing its own timber. From giving its employes secular 
 and religious instruction, and providing houses for them, 
 it may go on to supply them with food_, clothing, medical 
 attendance, and all the needs of life. Beginning simply as 
 a corporation to make and work a railway between A and 
 B ; it may become a miner, manufacturer, merchant, ship- 
 owner, canal-proprietor, hotel-keeper, landowner, house- 
 builder, farmer, retail-trader, priest, teacher — an organi- 
 zation of indefinite extent and complication. There is no 
 logical alternative between permitting this, and strictly 
 limiting the corporation to the object first agreed upon. 
 A man joining with others for a specific purpose, must be 
 held to commit himself to that purpose only ; or else to all 
 purposes whatever which they may choose to undertake. 
 
 Bat proprietors dissenting from one of these supple- 
 mentary projects are told that they have the option of 
 
94 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 selling out. So might the dissentients from a new Stat^^- 
 enforced creed be told, that if they did not like it they might 
 leave the country. The one reply is little more satisfactory 
 than the other would be. The opposing shareholder sees 
 himself in possession of a good investment — one perhaps 
 which, as an original subscriber, he ran some risk in 
 obtaining. This investment is about to be endangered by 
 an act not named in the deed of incorporation. And his 
 protests are met by saying, that if he fears the danger he 
 may part with his investment. Surely this choice between 
 two evils scarcely meets his claims. Moreover, he has not 
 even this in any fair sense. It is often an unfavourable 
 time to sell. The very rumour of one of these extensions 
 frequently causes a depreciation of stock. And if many of 
 the minority throw their shares on the market, this depre- 
 ciation is greatly increased ; a fact which further hinders 
 them from selling. So that each is in a dilemma : he has 
 to part with a good investment at much less than its value; 
 or to run the risk of having its value greatly diminished. 
 
 The injustice thus inflicted on minorities is, indeed, 
 already recognized in a vague way. The recently-established 
 Standing Order of the House of Lords, that before a Com- 
 pany carry out any new undertaking, three-fourths of the 
 votes of the proprietors shall be recorded in its favour, 
 clearly implies a perception that the usual rule of the 
 majority does not apply. And again, in the case of The 
 Great Western Railway Company versus Rushout, the 
 decision that the funds of the Company could not be used 
 for purposes not originally authorized, without a special 
 legislative permit, involves the doctrine that the will of the 
 greater number is not of unlimited validity. In both these 
 cases, however, it is taken for granted that a State-warrant 
 can justify an act which without it would be unjustifiable. 
 We must take leave to question this. If it be held that an 
 Act of Parliament can make murder proper, or can give 
 rectitude to robbery ; it may be consistently held that it 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 95 
 
 can sanctify a breacli of contract ; but not otherwise. We 
 are not about to enter upon the vexed question of the 
 standard of right and wrong ; and to inquire whether it is 
 the function of a government to make rules of conduct^ or 
 simply to enforce rules deducible from the laws of social 
 life. We are content, for the occasion, to adopt the 
 expediency-hypothesis ; and adopting it, must yet contend 
 that^ rightly interpreted, it gives no countenance to this 
 supposed power of a Government to alter the limits of 
 an equitable contract against the wishes of some of the 
 contracting parties. For, as understood by its teachers 
 and their chief disciples, the doctrine of expediency is 
 not a doctrine implying that each particular act is to 
 be determined by the particular consequences that may 
 be expected to flow from it; but that the general conse- 
 quences of entire classes of acts having been ascertained 
 by induction from experience, rules shall be framed for the 
 regulation of such classes of acts, and each rule shall be 
 uniformly applied to every act coming under it. Our whole 
 administration of justice proceeds on this principle of 
 invariably enforcing an ordained course, regardless of 
 special results. Were immediate consequences to be con- 
 sidered, the verdict gained by the rich creditor against the 
 poor debtor would generally be reversed; for the starvation 
 of the last is a much greater evil than the inconvenience of 
 the first. Most thefts arising from distress would go 
 unpunished ; a large proportion of men's wills would be 
 cancelled ; many of the wealthy would be dispossessed of 
 their fortunes. But it is clearly seen that were judges thus 
 guided by proximate evils and benefits, the ultimate result 
 would be social confusion; that what was immediately 
 expedient would be ultimately inexpedient; and hence the 
 aim at rigorous uniformity, spite of incidental hardships. 
 Now, the binding nature of agreements is one of the com- 
 monest and most important principles of civil law. A large 
 part of the causes daily heard in our courts, involve the 
 
96 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY, 
 
 question^ whether in virtue of some expressed or understood 
 contract^ some of those concerned are, or are notj bound to 
 certain acts or certain payments. And when it has been 
 decided what the contract implies^ the matter is settled. 
 The contract itself is held sacred. This sacredness of a 
 contract being, according to the expediency-hypothesis, 
 justified by the experience of all nations in all times that it 
 is generally beneficial, it is not competent for a Legislature 
 to declare that contracts are violable. Assuming that the 
 contracts are themselves equitable, there is no rational 
 system of ethics which warrants the alteration or dissolving 
 of them, save by the consent of all concerned. If then it 
 be shown, as we think it has been shown, that the contract 
 tacitly entered into by railway shareholders with each 
 other, has definite limits ; it is the function of the Grovem- 
 ment to enforce, and not to abolish, those limits. It cannot 
 decline to enforce them without running counter, not 
 only to all theories of moral obligation, but to its own 
 judicial system. It cannot abolish them without glaring 
 self-stultification . 
 
 Returning, now, to the manifold evils of which the cause 
 was asked ; it only remains to point out that, were the just 
 construction of the proprietary contract insisted upon, such 
 evils would, in great part, be excluded. The various 
 illicit influences by which Companies are daily betrayed 
 into disastrous extensions, would necessarily be inoperative 
 when such extensions could not be undertaken by them. 
 When such extensions had to be undertaken by inde- 
 pendent bodies of shareholders, with no one to guarantee 
 them good dividends, those who are locally and profes- 
 sionally interested would find it a less easy matter than at 
 present to aggrandize themselves at the expense of others. 
 
 And now as to the policy of thus modifying railway 
 legislation — the commercial policy we mean. Leaving out 
 of sight the more general social interests, let us glance at 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 97 
 
 the effects on business interests — tlie proximate instead of 
 tlie ultimate effects. The implication contained in the last 
 paragraph, that the making of supplementary lines would 
 no longer be so facile^ will be thought to prove the 
 disadvantage of any such limit as the one advocated. 
 Many will argue, that to restrict Companies to their 
 original undertakings would fatally cripple railway enter- 
 prise. Many others will remark, that, however detrimental 
 to shareholders this extension system may have been, it 
 has manifestly proved beneficial to the public. Both these 
 positions seem to us more than questionable. We will first 
 look at the last of them. 
 
 Even were travelling accommodation the sole thing to 
 be considered, it would not be true that prodigality in new 
 lines has been advantageous. The districts supplied have, 
 in many cases, themselves been injured by it. It is shown 
 by the evidence given before the Select Committee on 
 Railway and Canal Bills, that in Lancashire, the existence 
 of competing lines has, in some cases, both diminished the 
 facilities of commanication and increased the cost. It is 
 further shown by this evidence, that a town obtaining 
 branches from two antagonist Companies, by-and-by, in 
 consequence of a working arrangement between these 
 Companies, comes to be worse off than if it had but one 
 branch ; and Hastings is quoted as an example. It is 
 again shown that a district may be wholly deprived of 
 railway accommodation by granting a superfluity of lines ; 
 as in the ease of Wilts and Dorset. In 1844-5, the Great 
 Western and the South Western Companies projected 
 rival systems of lines, supplying these and parts of the 
 adjacent counties. The Board of Trade, ^^ asserting that 
 there was not sufficient traffic to remunerate an outlay for 
 two independent railways," reported in favour of the Great 
 Western schemes ; and bills were granted for them : a 
 certain agreement, suggested by the Board of Trade, being 
 at the same time made with the South Western, which, in 
 
98 RAILWAY MOEALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 return for specified advantages^ conceded this district to 
 its rival. Notwithstandinsr this ao:reement, the South. 
 Western, in 1847, projected an extension calculated to 
 take most of the traffic from the Great Western extensions; 
 and in 1848, Parliament, though it had virtually suggested 
 this agreement, and though the Great Western Company 
 had already spent a million aud a half in part execution 
 of the new lines, authorized the South Western project. 
 The result was, that the Great Western Company sus- 
 pended their works; the South Western Company were 
 unable, from financial difficulties, to proceed with theirs; 
 the district has remained for years unaccommodated; and 
 only since the powers granted to the South Western have 
 expired from delay, has the Great Western recommenced 
 its long-suspended undertakings. 
 
 And if this undue multiplication of supplem.entary lines 
 has often directly decreased the facilities of communication, 
 still more has it done this indirectly, by maintaining the 
 cost of travelling on the main lines. Little as the public 
 are conscious of the fact, it is nevertheless true, that they 
 pay for the accommodation of unremunerative districts, 
 by high fares in remunerative districts. Before this reck- 
 less branch-making commenced, 8 and 9 per cent, were 
 the dividends returned by our chief railways ; and these 
 dividends were rapidly increasing. The maximum dividend 
 allowed by their Acts is 10 per cent. Had there not been 
 unprofitable extensions, this maximum would have been 
 reached many years since ; and in the absence of the 
 power to undertake new works, the fact that it had been 
 reached could not have been hidden. Lower rates for 
 goods and passengers would necessarily have followed. 
 These would have caused much additional traffic ; and 
 with the aid of the natural increase otherwise going on^ 
 the maximum would shortly again have been reached. 
 There can scarcely be a doubt that repetitions of this 
 process would, before now^ have reduced the fares and 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 99 
 
 freights on our main lines by at least one-third. This 
 reduction, be it remembered, would have affected those 
 railways which subserve commercial and social intercourse 
 in the greatest degree — would, therefore, have applied to 
 the most important part of the traflac throughout the 
 kingdom. As it is, however, this greater proportion of 
 the traffic has been heavily taxed for the benefit of the 
 smaller proportion. That the tens who travel on branches 
 might have railway communication, the hundreds who 
 travel along main lines have been charged 30, or 40 per 
 cent, extra. Nay, worse : that these few might be accom- 
 modated, the many who would have been brought on to 
 the main lines by lower fares have gone unaccommodated. 
 Is it then so clear that undertakings which have been 
 disastrous to shareholders have yet been beneficial to 
 the public ? 
 
 But it is not only in greater cost of transit that the evil 
 has been felt; it has been felt also in diminished safety. 
 The multiplication of railway accidents, which has of late 
 yea.rs drawn so much attention, has been in no inconsider- 
 able degree caused by the extension policy. The relation 
 is not obvious; and we had ourselves no conception that 
 such a relation existed, until the facts illustrative of it 
 were furnished to us by a director who had witnessed the 
 whole process of causation. When preference-share divi- 
 dends and guarantees began to make large draughts upon 
 half-yearly returns — when original stock was greatly depre- 
 ciated, and the dividends upon it fell from 9 and 8 per 
 cent, to 4^ and 4 and 3|-, great dissatisfaction necessarily 
 arose among shareholders. There were stormy meetings, 
 motions of censure, and committees of investigation. 
 Retrenchment was the general cry ; and retrenchment 
 was carried to a most imprudent extent. Directors with 
 an indignant proprietary to face, and under the fear that 
 their next dividend would be no greater, perhaps less, than 
 the last, dared not to lay out money for the needful repairs* 
 
100 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 Permanent way, reported to them as requiring to be re- 
 placed, was made to serve awhile longer. Old rolling 
 stock was not superseded by new to the proper extent; 
 nor increased in proportion to the demand. Committees, 
 appointed to examine where the expenditure could be cut 
 down, went round discharging a porter here, dispensing 
 with a clerk there, and diminishing the salaries of the 
 officials in general. To such a length was this policy 
 carried, that in one case, to effect a saving of £1200 
 per annum, the working staff was so crippled as to cause, 
 in the course of a few years, a loss of probably £100,000: 
 such, at least, is the opinion of the gentleman on whose 
 authority we make this statement, who was himself one 
 of the retrenchment committee. What, now, was the 
 necessary result of all this? With the line out of condition; 
 with engines and carriages neither sufficient in number 
 nor in the best working order ; with drivers, guards, 
 porters, clerks, and the rest, decreased to the smallest 
 number with which it was possible to work; with inex- 
 perienced managers in place of the experienced ones 
 driven away by reduced salaries; what was likely to occur? 
 Was it not certain that an apparatus of means just 
 competent to deal with the ordinary traffic, would be 
 incompetent to deal with extraordinary traffic ? that a 
 decimated body of officials under inferior regulation, would 
 fail in the emergencies sure from time to time to occur ? 
 that with way and works and rolling stock all below par, 
 there would occasionally be a concurrence of small defects, 
 permitting something to go wrong ? Was not a multi- 
 plication of accidents inevitable ? No one can doubt it. 
 And if we trace back this result step by step to its original 
 cause — the reckless expenditure on new lines — we shall 
 see further reason to doubt whether such expenditure 
 has been as advantageous to the public as is supposed. 
 We shall hesitate to indorse the opinion of the Select 
 Committee on Eailway and Canal Bills, that it is de- 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. lOl 
 
 sirable '^ to increase the facility for obtaining lines of 
 local convenience." 
 
 Still more doubtful becomes the alleged benefit accruing 
 to the public from extensions which cause loss to share- 
 holders, when, from considering the question as one of 
 traffic, we turn to consider it as a general commercial 
 question — a question of political economy. Were there no 
 facts showing that the travelling facilities gained were 
 counterbalanced, if not more than counterbalanced, by 
 the travelling facilities lost ; we shoiild still contend that 
 the making of branches which do not return fair dividends, 
 is a national evil, and not a national good. The prevalent 
 error committed in studying matters of this nature, consists 
 in looking at them separately, rather than in connexion 
 with other social wants and social benefits. Not only 
 does one of these undertakings, when executed, affect 
 society in various ways, but the effort put forth in the 
 execution of it affects society in various ways; and to 
 form a true estimate, the two sets of results must be 
 compared. The axiom that ^^ action and re-action are equal, 
 and in opposite directions," is true, not only in mechanics 
 — it is true everywhere. No power can be put forth by a 
 nation to achieve a given end, without producing, for the 
 time being, a corresponding inability to achieve some other 
 end. No amount of capital can be abstracted for one 
 purpose, without involving an equivalent lack of capital 
 for another purpose. Every advantage wrought out by 
 labour, is purchased by the relinquishment of some alter- 
 native advantage which that labour might else have 
 wrought out. In judging, therefore, of the benefits 
 fiowiug from any public undertaking, it is requisite to 
 consider them not by themselves, but as compared with 
 the benefits which the invested capital would otherwise 
 have secured. But how can these relative benefits be 
 measured ? it may be asked. Very simply. The rate of 
 interest which the capital will bring as thus respectively 
 
102 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLJCT, 
 
 employed, is the measure. Money wtich, if used for a 
 certain end, gives a smaller return than it would give if 
 otherwise used, is used disadvantageously^ not only to 
 its possessors, but to the community. This is a corollary 
 from the commonest principles of political economy — a 
 corollary so obvious that we can scarcely understand how, 
 after the free-trade controversy, a committee, numbering 
 among its members Mr. Bright and Mr. Cardwell, should 
 have overlooked it. Have we not been long ago taught, 
 that in the mercantile world capital goes where it is most 
 wanted — that the business which is at any time attracting 
 capital by unusually high returns, is a business proved 
 by that very fact to be unusually active — that its unusual 
 activity shows society to be making great demands upou 
 it; giving it high profits; wanting its commodities or 
 services more than other commodities or services ? Do 
 not comparisons among our railways demonstrate that 
 those paying large dividends are those subserving the 
 public needs in a greater degree than those paying small 
 dividends ? and is it not obvious that the efforts of 
 capitalists to get these large dividends led them to supply 
 the greater needs before the lesser needs ? Surely, the 
 same law which holds in ordinary commerce, and also 
 holds between one railway investment and another, holds 
 likewise between railway investments and other invest- 
 ments. If the money spent in making branches and 
 feeders is yielding an average return of from 1 to 2 per 
 cent. ; while if employed in land-draining or ship-building, 
 it would return 4 or 5 per cent. ; it is a conclusive 
 proof that money is more wanted for land-di^aining and 
 sbip-building than for branch-making. And the general 
 conclusions to be drawn are, that tliat large proportion of 
 railway capital which does not pay the current rate of 
 interest, is capital ill laid out ; that if the returns on such 
 proportion were capitalized at the current rate of interest, 
 the resulting sum would represent its real value ; and that 
 
EATLWAT MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 103 
 
 the difference between this sum and the amount expended, 
 would indicate the national loss — a loss which, on the lowest 
 estimate, would exceed £100^000,000. And however true 
 ifc may be that the sum invested in unprofitable lines will go 
 on increasing in productiveness ; yet as^ if more wisely 
 invested, it would similarly have gone on increasing in 
 productiveness, perhaps even at a greater rate, this vast 
 loss must be regarded as a permanent and not as a tem- 
 porary one. 
 
 Again then, we ask, is it so obvious that undertakings 
 which have been disastrous to shareholders have been 
 advantageous to the public ? Is it not obvious, rather, 
 that, in this respect, as in others, the interests of 
 shareholders and the public are in the end identical ? 
 And does it not seem that instead of recommending 
 "incre^ased facilities for obtaining lines of local con- 
 venience,^' the Select Committee might properly have 
 reported that the existing facilities are abnormally great, 
 and should be decreased ? 
 
 There remains still to be considered the other of the two 
 objections above stated as liable to be raised against the 
 proposed interpretation of the proprietary contract — the 
 objection, namely^ that it would be a serious hindrance to 
 railway enterprise. After what has already been said, it is 
 scarcely needful to reply, that the hindrance would be no 
 greater than is natural and healthful — no greater than is 
 requisite to hold in check the private interests at variance 
 with public ones. This notion that railway enterprise will 
 not go on with due activity without artificial incentives — 
 that bills for local extensions '^ rather need encouragement," 
 as the Committee say, is nothing but a remnant of protec- 
 tionism. The motive which has hitherto led to the formation 
 of all independent railway companies — the search of 
 capitalists for good investments— may safely be left to form 
 others as fast as local requirements become great enough to 
 promise fair returns — as fast, that is, as local requirements 
 
104 RAILWAY MORALS AND BAILWAT POLICY. 
 
 should be satisfied. This would be manifest enougb witKout 
 illustration ; but there are facts proving it. 
 
 Already we have incidentally referred to the circumstance, 
 that it has of late become common for landowners^ merchants,, 
 and others locally interested, to get up railways for their own 
 accommodation, which they do not expect to pay satisfactory 
 dividends; and in which they are yet content to invest 
 considerable sums, under the belief that the indirect profits 
 accruing to them from increased facilities of trafiic, will out- 
 balance the direct loss. To so great an extent is this policy 
 being carried that, as stated to the Select Committee, '^in 
 Yorkshire and Northumberland, where branch lines are 
 being made through mere agricultural districts, the land- 
 owners are giving their land for the purpose, and taking 
 shares." With such examples before us, it cannot rationally 
 be doubted that there will always be capital forthcoming for 
 making local lines as soon as* the sum of the calculated 
 benefits, direct and indirect, justifies its expenditure. 
 
 '' But," it will be urged, **" a branch that would be 
 unremnnerative as an independent property, is often remu- 
 nerative to the company which, has made it, in virtue of the 
 traffic it brings to the trunk line. Though yielding meagre 
 returns on its own capital, yet, by increasing tbe returns on 
 the capital of the trunk line, it compensates, or more than 
 compensates. Were the existing company, however, for- 
 bidden to extend its undertaking, such a branch, would not 
 be made ; and injury would result." This is all true, with 
 the exception of the last assertion, that such a branch. 
 would not be made. Though in its corporate capacity the 
 company owning the trunk line would be unable to execute 
 a work of this nature, there would be nothing to prevent 
 individual shareholders in the trunk line from unitino* 
 
 o 
 
 to execute it ; and were the prospects as favourable as is 
 assumed, this course, being manifestly advantageous to 
 individual shai-eholders, would be pursued by many of 
 them, lij acting in concert with others similarly circum- 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 105 
 
 stanced^ the owner of £10,000 worth of stock in the trunk 
 line, could aid the carrying out of a proposed feeder 
 promising to return only 2 per cent, on its cost, by taking 
 shares to the extent of £1000, it would answer his purpose 
 to do this, providing the extra traffic it brought would raise 
 the trunk-line dividend by one-fourth per cent. Thus, 
 under a limited proprietary contract, companies would still, 
 as now, foster extensions where they were wanted : the 
 only difference being that, in the absence of guaranteed 
 dividends, due caution would be shown ; and the poorer 
 shareholders would not, as at present, be sacrificed to 
 the richer. 
 
 In brief, our position is, that whenever, by the efforts 
 of all parties to be advantaged — local landowners, manu- 
 facturers, merchants, trunk-line shareholders, &c., the 
 capital for an extension can be raised — whenever it becomes 
 clear to all such, that their indirect profits plus their 
 direct profits will make the investment a paying one ; 
 the fact is proof that the line is wanted. On the contrary, 
 whenever the prospective gains to those interested are 
 insufficient to induce them to undertake it, the fact is proof 
 that the line is not wanted so much as other things are 
 wanted, and therefore ought not to he made. Instead, 
 then, of the principle we advocate being objectionable as 
 a check to railway enterprise, one of its merits is, that 
 by destroying the artificial incentives to such enterprise, 
 it would confine it within normal limits. 
 
 A perusal of the evidence given before the Select 
 Committee will show that it has sundry other merits, which 
 we have space only to indicate. 
 
 It is estimated by Mr. Laing — and Mr. Stephenson, 
 while declining to commit himself to the estimate, " does 
 not believe he has overstated it," — that out of the 
 £280,000,000 already raised for the construction of our 
 railways, £70,000,000 has been needlessly spent in contests, 
 in duplicate lines, in "the multiplication of an immense 
 number of schemes prosecuted at an almost reckless 
 
lOG RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 expense ; " and Mr. Stephenson believes that tliis sum is 
 " a very inadequate representative of the actual loss in 
 point of convenience^ economyj and other circumstances 
 connected with traffic, which the public has sustained by 
 reason of parliamentary carelessness in legislating for rail- 
 ways." Under an equitable interpretation of the proprietary 
 contract, the greater part of this would have been avoided. 
 
 The competition between rival companies in extension 
 and branch -making, which has already done vast injury, 
 and the effects of which, if not stopped, will, in the opinion 
 of Mr. Stephenson, be such that " property now paying 5^ 
 per cent, will in ten years be worth only 3 per cent., and 
 that on twenty-one millions of money"— this competition 
 could never have existed in its intense and deleterious 
 form under the limiting principle we advocate. 
 
 Prompted by jealousy and antagonism, our companies 
 have obtained powers for 2000 miles of railway which 
 they have never made. The millions thus squandered in 
 surveys and parliamentary contests — ''food for lawyers and 
 engineers" — would nearly all have been saved, had each 
 supplementary line been obtainable only by an independent 
 body of proprietors with no one to shield them from the 
 penalties of reckless scheming. 
 
 It is admitted that the branches and feeders constructed 
 from competitive motives have not been laid out in the best 
 directions for the public. To defeat, or retaliate upon, 
 opponents, having been one of the ends — often the chief 
 end — in making them, routes have been chosen especially 
 calculated to effect this end; and the local traffic has in 
 consequence been ill provided for. Had these branches and 
 feeders, however, been left to the enterprise of their 
 respective districts, aided by such other enterprise as they 
 could attract, the reverse would have been the fact ; seeing 
 that on the average, in these smaller cases as in the greater 
 ones, the routes which most accommodate the public must 
 be the routes most profitable to projectors. 
 
 Were the illegitimate competition iu extension-making 
 
RAILWAY MOEALS AND EAILWAY POLICY. 107 
 
 done away, there would remain between companies just 
 that normal competition which is ady5;ntageous to all. It 
 is not true, as is alleged, that there cannot exist between 
 railways a competition analogous to that which exists 
 between traders. The evidence of Mr. Saunders, the 
 secretary of the Great Western Company, proves the 
 contrary. He shows that where the Great Western and the 
 North Western railways communicate with the same towns, 
 as at Birmingham and Oxford, each has tacitly adopted the 
 fare which the other was charging ; and that while there is 
 thus no competition in fares, there is competition in speed 
 and accommodation. The results are, that each takes that 
 portion of the traffic which, in virtue of its position and 
 local circumstances, naturally falls to its share ; that each 
 stimulates the other to. give the greatest advantages it can 
 afford ; and that each keeps the other in order by threaten- 
 ing to take away its natural share of the traffic if, by 
 ill-behaviour or inefficiency, it counterbalances the special 
 advantages it offers. Now, this is just the form which 
 competition eventually assumes between traders. After it 
 has been ascertained by underselling what is the lowest 
 remunerative price at which any commodity can be sold, 
 the general results are, that that becomes the established 
 price ; that each trader is content to supply those only who, 
 from proximity or other causes, naturally come to him ; and 
 that only when he treats his customers ill, need he fear that 
 they will inconvenience themselves by going elsewhere for 
 their goods. 
 
 Is there not, then, pressing need for an amendment of 
 the laws affecting the proprietary contract—an amendment 
 which shall transform it from an unlimited into a limited 
 contract; or rather — not transform it into such, but recognize 
 it as such ? If there be truth in our argument, the absence 
 of any limitation has been the chief cause of the manifold 
 evils of our railway administration. The share-trafficking 
 
108 RAILWAY ITORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 of directors; the complicated intrigues of lawyers^ engineers, 
 contractors^ and others ; tlie betrayal of proprietaries — all 
 the complicated corruptions wliicli we have detailed, have 
 primarily arisen from it^ have been made possible by it. 
 It has rendered traveltiug more costly and less safe than it 
 would have been; and while apparently facilitating traffic, 
 has indirectly hindered it. By fostering antagonism, it has 
 led to the ill layiug-out of supplementary lines ; to the 
 wasting of enormous sums in useless parliamentary contests ; 
 to the loss of an almost incredible amount of national 
 capital in the making of railways for which there is no due 
 requirement. Kegarded in the mass, the investments of 
 shareholders have been reduced by it to less than half the 
 average productiveness which such investments should 
 possess ; and, as all authorities admit, railway property is, 
 even now, kept below its real value, by the fear of future 
 depreciations consequent on future extensions. Considering, 
 then, the vastness of the interests at stake — considering 
 that the total capital of our companies will soon reach 
 £300,000,000 — considering, on the one hand, the immense 
 number of persons owning this capital (many of them with 
 no incomes but what are derived from it), and, on the other 
 hand, the great extent to which the community is concerned, 
 both directly as to its commercial facilities, and indirectly 
 as to the economy of its resources — considering all this, it 
 becomes extremely important that railway property should 
 be placed on a secure footing, and railway enterprise 
 confined within normal bounds. The change is demanded 
 alike for the welfare of shareholders and the public. No 
 charge of over-legislation can be brought against it. It is 
 simply an extension to joint-stock contracts, of the principle 
 applied to all other contracts ; it is merely a fulfilment of 
 the State's judicial function in cases hitherto neglected; it 
 is nothing but a better administration of justice. 
 
 Postscript. — That the proprietary contract should be 
 
EAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 109 
 
 strictly adhered to, and no undertakings beyond those 
 specified in the deed of incorporation entered upon, is a 
 docti-ine unpalatable to those in authority. A friend who, 
 as chairman of one of our great railway-companies, has 
 been familiar with railway-politics and parliamentary 
 usages in connexion with them, contends that such a 
 restrictive interpretation would be unworkable ; and, 
 further, that the legislature would never allow itself to be 
 shackled in the implied way. 
 
 That he is right in the last of these assertions I think 
 highly probable. In face of the currently accepted dogma 
 that an Act of Parliament can do anything, it is foolish to 
 expect that Parliament would, by ethical considerations, 
 be restrained from breaking contracts and authorizing 
 the breaking of contracts. When we see this dogma 
 habitually acted upon to the extent of trampling under 
 foot State-guarantees (as in the case of those who pur- 
 chased land under the Irish Encumbered Estates Act, or 
 as in the case of agreements originally entered into with 
 companies to confer on them certain powers under certain 
 conditions) it would be absurd to suppose that any tender 
 regard for the claims of dissentient proprietors would deter 
 the ruling body from cancelling the understanding under 
 which shareholders consented to co-operate. Men must 
 be much more conscientious than they are before any such 
 check is likely to be effective. 
 
 To the other objection — that such a restriction would 
 entail an unworkable complication — I entirely demur. That 
 its consequences would be awkward under our present 
 form of railway-administration may be true ; but it is also 
 true that had such a restriction been insisted on, another 
 and better form of railway-administration would have 
 arisen. This will probably be thought an unwarranted 
 assertion. Nevertheless I make it with some confidence, 
 since the form of administration to which I refer is one 
 which was, in a different guise, contemplated when railways 
 
110 RAILWAY MORALS AND EAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 were originally authorized. To those whose only concep- 
 tion of the mode of carrying on railway-traffic is that 
 derived from their daily observations^ this will be an 
 incomprehensible statement; but those who remember how 
 railways were originally intended to be used will know 
 what I mean. 
 
 Novel schemes are always more or less shaped by old 
 habits. At the time when the first railways were authorized, 
 the experience men had of coach-travelling on high roads, 
 affected in various ways the structures of the new appliances 
 and the natures of the new arrangements. The railway 
 gauge was determined by the width between the wheels of 
 a stage-coach. Early first-class carriages were made to 
 appear like the central parts of three stage-coaches joined 
 together : preserving their convex panels and curved 
 outlines, and frequently having, on the centre one, the 
 words '^ Tria jujicta in imo." The inside of the first-class 
 carriage was fitted up to resemble the inside of a stage- 
 coach ; and the original second-class carriage, having 
 bare wooden seats over which^ on vertical iron rods, was 
 supported a roof allowing the wind and rain to blow 
 through from side to side, was so designed as to be scarcely 
 more comfortable than the outside of a coach. For some 
 years the guard had a seat on the outside, at the end of a 
 carriage, as on a coach ; and for many years the luggage, 
 covered with tarpaulin, was placed on the roofs of carriages, 
 as on the outsides of coaches. Once more the bookins^- 
 
 D 
 
 offices were at first like the booking-offices for stage-coaches 
 — places where passengers entered their names to secure 
 seats. Little as the fact is now recognized, this kinship of 
 ideas extended to the contemplated arrangements for 
 working. Men thought that traffic on railways might be 
 carried on after the same manner as traffic on high roads. 
 It was assumed that on lines of rails, where the passing of 
 vehicles going in the same direction is impracticable^ the 
 system pursued might be like that in use on high roadsj 
 
RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. Ill 
 
 where vehicles can pass and re-pass in any direction and join 
 or leave the stream at will. Does the reader ask proof of 
 this ? The proof lies in the fact, well-known to those who 
 were adult in the early days of railways, that in the office 
 or waiting-room of every rail way -station was fixed up a 
 table of tollSj like that which was fixed up at every toll-gate; 
 but in this case specifying the rate chargeable per mile for 
 all things carried — passengers, horses, cattle, goods, &c. 
 This table of tolls implied that it was within the power 
 of others besides the company to run vehicles on the 
 company^s line, and pay them at such and such rates for the 
 privilege of doing so — a privilege which, so far as I know, 
 was never made use of, for the sufficient reason that it 
 would have been impossible to carry on business amid the 
 confusion which would have resulted. 
 
 But while this arrangement, in the form implied, would 
 have been impracticable, it foreshadows an arrangement 
 which would have been practicable ; and one which would 
 have grown up had each railway company been limited to 
 the undertaking specified in its deed of incorporation. 
 After experience of inefficient co-operation, when so many 
 independent bodies owning branches and extensions had to 
 adjust their train services, &c., there would, in all probability, 
 have been formed what we may call running-companies 
 or traffic-companies, separate from the original railway- 
 companies. Each one of these would have proposed to 
 the companies owning the various main lines, extensions, and 
 branches, within some large district conveniently delimited, 
 to undertake the working of their various lines : either 
 taking them severally on lease, or agreeing to give a 
 specified share of the net returns annually received, or 
 agreeing to pay certain tolls for passengers and goods. 
 Under such an arrangement the original companies, stand- 
 ing in the position of landlords, would have had for 
 their chief business to keep the embankments, cuttings, 
 bridges, permanent way, stations, &c.^ in working 
 
112 RAILWAY MORALS AND RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 order; wLile the rnnning-compaiiies, standing in the 
 position of tenants, but owning the rolling-stock, would 
 have had for their business to conduct the passenger and 
 goods traffic throughout the whole area, with power to 
 arrange the workings of the various subdivisions of the 
 system in a harmonious manner. Clearly, if there is an 
 advantage in division of labour in other cases, there 
 would have been an advantage in this case. The fixed 
 works constituting each of these inter-connected railways 
 would have been kept in more perfect repair, had preser- 
 vation of them been the exclusive business of the companies 
 owning them ; while the running-companies, with nothing 
 to attend to beyond the keeping in order of their rolling- 
 stock and the management of train-services &c. would 
 have done this more satisfactorily. 
 
 A further reason for believing that better results would 
 have been achieved than are now achieved, is that under such 
 circumstances there would have been no absorption of 
 directors' time in carrying on railway-wars and getting new 
 acts of parliament — a business which, under the existing 
 system, has chiefly occupied the attention of boards. 
 
 The enforcement of equitable arrangements is often 
 fraught with unanticipated benefits ; and there seems 
 reason to think that unanticipated benefits would have 
 resulted in this case also. 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADK 
 [_Ftrst published in The "Westminster Review for April 1859.] 
 
 We are not about to repeat, under tKe above title, the often- 
 told tale of adulterations : albeit, were it our object to deal 
 with this familiar topic, there are not wanting fresh materials. 
 It is rather the less-observed and less-known dishonesties of 
 trade, to which we would here draw attention. The same 
 lack of conscientiousness which shows itself in the mixing 
 of starch with cocoa, in the dilution of butter with lard, in 
 the colouring of confectionery with chromate of lead and 
 arsenite of copper^ must of course come out in more concealed 
 forms; and these are nearly, if not quite, as numerous and 
 as mischievous. 
 
 It is not true, as many suppose, that only the lower 
 classes of the commercial world are guilty of fraudulent 
 dealing. Those above them are to a great extent blameworthy. 
 On the average, men who deal in bales and tons differ but 
 little in morality from men who deal in yards and pounds. 
 Illicit practices of every form and shade, from venial decep- 
 tion up to all but direct theft, may be brought home to the 
 higher grades of our commercial world. Tricks innumerable, 
 lies acted or uttered, elaborately -devised frauds, are prevalent : 
 
114 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 
 
 inany of them establislied as "customs of the trade/^ nay, 
 not only establislied, but defended. 
 
 Passing over, then, the much-reprobated shopkeepers, of 
 whose delinquencies most people know something, let us turn 
 our attention to the delinquencies of the classes above them 
 in the mercantile scale. 
 
 The business of wholesale houses — in the clothing-trades at 
 least — is chiefly managed by a class of men called " buyers." 
 Each wholesale establishment is usually divided into several 
 departments ; and at the head of each department is placed 
 one of these functionaries. A buyer is a partially-inde- 
 pendent sub-trader. At the beginning of the year he is 
 debited with a certain share of the capital of his employers. 
 With this capital he trades. From the makers he orders for 
 his department such goods as he thinks will find a market ; 
 and for the goods thus bought he obtains as large a sale as 
 he can among the retailers of his connexion. The accounts 
 show at the end of 'the year what profit has been made on the 
 capital over which he has command; and, according to the 
 result, his engagement is continued — perhaps at an increased 
 salary — or he is discharged. 
 
 Under such circumstances, bribery would hardly be 
 expected. Yet we learn, on unquestionable authority, that 
 buyers habitually bribe and are bribed. Giving presents, 
 as a means of obtaining custom, is an established practice 
 between them and all with whom they have dealings. 
 Their connexions among retailers they extend by treating 
 and favours ; and they are themselves influenced in their 
 purchases by like means. It might be presumed that self- 
 interest would in both cases negative this. But apparently^ 
 no very obvious sacrifice results from yielding to such 
 influences. When, as usually happens, there are many manu- 
 facturers producing articles of like goodness at the same 
 prices, or many buyers between whose commodities and 
 whose terms there is little room for choice, there exists no 
 
THE MORALS OF TEADB. 115 
 
 motive to purchase of one rather than another ; and then the 
 temptation to take some immediate bonus turns the scale. 
 Whatever be the cause, however, the fact is testified to us 
 alike in London and the provinces. By manufacturers, 
 buyers are sumptuously entertained for days together, and 
 are plied throughout the year with hampers of game, turkeys, 
 dozens of wine, etc.: nay, they receive actual money-bribes; 
 sometimes, as we hear from a manufacturer, in the shape of 
 bank-notes, but more commonly in the shape of discounts on 
 the amounts of their purchases. The extreme prevalence — 
 universality we might say — of this system, is proved by the 
 evidence of one who, disgusted as he is, finds himself inex- 
 tricably entangled in it. He confessed to us that all his 
 transactions were thus tainted. " Each of the buyers with 
 whom I deal,^' he said, "expects an occasional bonus in one 
 form or other. Some require the bribe to be wrapped up ; 
 and some take it without disguise. To an offer of money, 
 this one replies — ' Oh, I don't like that sort of thing,' but 
 nevertheless, does not object to money's-worfch; while my 
 friend So-and-so, who promises to bring me a large trade 
 this season, wiU, I very well know, look for one per cent. 
 discount in cash. The thing is not to be avoided. I could 
 name sundry buyers who look askance at me, and never 
 will inspect my goods ; and I have no doubt about the 
 cause — I have not bought their patronage." And then our 
 informant appealed to another of the trade, who agreed in 
 the assertion that in London their business could not be done 
 on any other terms. So greedy do some of these buyers 
 become, that their perquisites absorb a great part of the 
 profits, and make it a question whether it is worth while to 
 continue the dealing with them. Next, as above hinted, 
 there comes a like history of transactions between buyers 
 and retailers — the bribed being now the bribers. One of 
 those above referred to as habitually expecting douceurs, 
 said to the giver of them, whose testimony we have just 
 
 repeated — "I've spent pounds and pounds over 
 
 47 
 
116 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 
 
 (naming a large tailor) , and now I think I have gained him 
 over." To which confession this buyer added the complaint, 
 that his house did not make him any allowance for sums 
 thus disbursed. 
 
 Under the buyer, who has absolute control of his own 
 department in a wholesale house, come sundry assistants, 
 who transact the business with retail traders ; much as retail 
 trader^s assistants transact the business with the general 
 public. These higher-class assistants, working under the 
 same pressure as the lower, are similarly unscrupulous. 
 Liable to prompt dismissal as they are for failure in selling; 
 gaining higher positions as they do in proportion to the 
 quantities of goods they dispose of at profitable rates; and 
 finding that no objections are made to any dishonest artifices 
 they use, but rather that they are applauded for them ; these 
 young men display a scarcely credible demoralization. As 
 we learn from those who have been of them, their duplicity 
 is unceasing — they speak almost continuous falsehood ; and 
 theirtricks range from thesimplestto the most Machiavellian. 
 Take a few samples. When dealing with a retailer, it is an 
 habitual practice to bear in mind the character of his busi- 
 ness ; and to delude him respecting articles of which he has 
 least experience. If his shop is in a neighbourhood where 
 the sales are chiefly of inferior goods (a fact ascertained from 
 the traveller), it is inferred that, having a comparatively 
 small demand for superior goods, he is a bad judge of them; 
 and advantage is taken of his ignorance. Again, it is usual 
 purposely to present samples of cloths, silks, etc., in such 
 order as to disqualify the perceptions. As, when tasting 
 different foods or wines, the palate is disabled by something 
 strongly flavoured, from appreciating the more delicate flavour 
 of another thing afterwards taken ; so with the other organs 
 of sense, a temporary disability follows an excessive stimula- 
 tion. This holds not only with the eyes in judging of colours, 
 but also, as we are told by one who has been in the trade, it 
 holds with the fingers in judging of textures ; and cunning 
 
THE MOEALS OF TRADE. 117 
 
 salesmen are in the habit of thus partially paralysing the 
 customers' perceptions, and then selling second-rate articles 
 as first-rate ones. Another common manoeuvre is that of 
 raising a false belief of cheapness. Suppose a tailor is laying 
 in a stock of broad cloths. He is offered a bargain. Three 
 pieces are put before him — two of good quality, at, perhaps, 
 14s. per yard; and one of much inferior quality, at 8s. per 
 yard. These pieces have been purposely a little tumbled 
 and creased, to give an apparent reason for a pretended 
 sacrifice upon them. And the tailor is then told that he may 
 have these nominally-damaged cloths as ''a job lot," at 12s. 
 per yard. Misled by the appearances into a belief of the 
 professed sacrifice ; impressed, moreover, by the fact that 
 two of the pieces are really worth considerably more than 
 the price asked; and not sufficiently bearing in mind that 
 the great inferiority of the third just balances this ; the tailor 
 probably buys; and he goes away with the comfortable con- 
 viction that he has made a specially-advantageous purchase, 
 when he has really paid the full price for every yard. A 
 still more subtle trick has been described to us by one who 
 himself made use of it, when engaged in one of these whole- 
 sale-houses — a trick so successful that he was often sent for 
 to sell to customers who could be induced to buy by none 
 other of the assistants, and who ever afterwards would buy 
 only of him. His policy was to seem extremely simple and 
 honest, and, during the first few purchases, to exhibit his 
 honesty by pointing out defects in the things he was selling; 
 and then, having gained the customer's confidence, he 
 proceeded to pass off upon him inferior goods at superior 
 prices. These are a few out of the various manoeuvres in 
 constant practice. Of course there is a running accompani- 
 ment of falsehoods, uttered as well as acted. It is expected 
 of the assistant that he will say whatever is needed to effect 
 a sale. " Any fool can sell what is wanted," said a master 
 in reproaching a shopman for not having persuaded a 
 customer to buy something quite unlike that which he asked 
 
118 THE MORALS OF TEADE. 
 
 for. And the unscrupuloas mendacity thus required by 
 employers^ and encouraged by example^ grows to a height 
 of depravity that has been described to us in words too 
 strong to be repeated. Our informant was obliged to 
 relinquish his position in one of these establishments.because 
 he could not lower himself to the required depth of degrada- 
 tion. " You don't lie as though you believe what you say/' 
 observed one of his fellow-assistants. And this was uttered 
 as a reproach ! 
 
 As those subordinates who have fewest qualms of 
 conscience are those who succeed the best, are soonest 
 promoted to more remunerative posts, and have therefore 
 the greatest chances of establishing businesses of their 
 own; it may be inferred that the morality of the heads of 
 these establishments, is much on a par with that of their 
 employes. The habitual naalpractices of wholesale houses, 
 confirm this inference. Not only, as we have just seen, 
 are assistants under a pressure impelling them to deceive 
 purchasers respecting the qualities of the goods they buy, 
 but purchasers are also deceived in respect to the quantities; 
 and that, not by an occasional unauthorized trick, but by 
 an organized system, for which the firm itself is responsible. 
 The general practice is to make up goods, or to have them 
 made up, in lengths that are shorter than they profess to 
 be. A piece of calico nominally thirty-six yards long, 
 never measures more than thirty-one yards — is under- 
 stood throughout the trade to measure only so much. And 
 the long-accumulating delinquencies which this custom 
 indicates — the successive diminutions of length, each in- 
 troduced by some adept in dishonesty, and then imitated 
 by his competitors — are now being daily carried to a 
 still greater extent, wherever they are not likely to be 
 immediately detected. Articles that are sold in small 
 bundles, knots, packets, or such forms as negative 
 measurement at the time of sale, are habitually deficient 
 in quantity. Silk-laces called six quarters, or fifty-four 
 
THE MOEALS OF TRAD^. 119 
 
 inches, really measure four quarters, or thirty-six inches. 
 Tapes were originally sold in grosses containing twelve 
 knots of twelve yards each; but these twelve-yard-knots 
 are now cut of all lengths, from eight yards down to five 
 yards, and even less — the usual length being six yards. 
 That is to say, the 144 yards which the gross once con- 
 tained, has now in some cases dwindled down to 60 yards. 
 In widths, as well as in lengths, this deception is practised. 
 French cotton-braid, for instance (French only in name), is 
 made of different widths ; which are respectively marked 
 5, 7, 9, 11, etc.: each figure indicating the number of 
 threads of cotton which the width includes, or rather 
 should include, but does not. For those which should be 
 marked 5 are marked 7 ; and those which should be 
 marked 7 are marked 9 : out of three samples from 
 different houses shown to us by our informant, only one 
 contained the alleged number of threads. Fringe, again, 
 which is sold wrapped on card, will often be found two 
 inches wide at the end exposed to view, but will diminish 
 to one inch at the end next the card ; or perhaps the first 
 twenty yards will be good, and ail the rest, hidden under 
 it, will be bad. These frauds are committed unblushingly, 
 and as a matter of business. We have ourselves read in 
 an agent's order-book, the details of an order, specifying 
 the actual lengths of which the articles were to be cut, and 
 the much greater lengths to be marked on the labels. And 
 we have been told by a manufacturer who was required to 
 make up tapes into lengths of fifteen yards, and label them 
 '*^ warranted 18 yards,'' that when he did not label them 
 falsely, his goods were sent back to him; and that the 
 greatest concession he could obtain was to be allowed to 
 send them without labels. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that in their dealings with 
 manufacturers, these wholesale-houses adopt a code of 
 morals differing much from that which regulates their 
 dealings with retailers. The facts prove it to be much the 
 
120 
 
 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 
 
 same. A buyer for instance (who esclusirely conducts the 
 purchases of a wholesale-house from manufacturers) will 
 not unfrequently take from a first-class maker, a small 
 supply of some new fabric, on the pattern of which much 
 time and money have been spent ; and this new-pattern 
 fabric he will put into the hands of another maker, to have 
 copied in large quantities. Some buyers^ again, give their 
 orders orally, that they may have the opportunity of 
 afterwards repudiating them if they wish; and in a case 
 narrated to us, where a manufacturer who had been thus 
 deluded, wished on a subsequent occasion to guarantee 
 himself by obtaining the buyer's signature to his order, he 
 was refused it. For other unjust acts of wholesale-houses, 
 the heads of these establishments are, we presume, re- 
 sponsible. Small manufacturers working with insufficient 
 capitalj and in times of depression not having the wherewith 
 to meet their engagements, are often obliged to become 
 dependants on the wholesale-houses with which they deal ; 
 and are then cruelly taken advantage of. One who has 
 thus committed himself, has either to sell his accumulated 
 stock at a great sacrifice — thirty to forty per cent, below 
 its value — or else to mortgage it ; and when the wholesale- 
 house becomes the mortgagee, the manufacturer has little 
 chance of escape. He is obliged to work at the wholesale- 
 dealer's terms ; and ruin almost certainly follows. This is 
 especially the case in the silk-hosiery business. As was 
 said to us by one of the larger silk-hosiers, who had 
 watched the destruction of many of his smaller brethren — 
 *^They may be spared for a time as a cat spares a mouse ; 
 but they are sure to be eaten up in the end." And we can 
 the more readily credit this statement from having found 
 that a like policy is pursued by some provincial curriers in 
 their dealings with small shoe-makers ; and also by hop- 
 merchants and maltsters in their dealings with small 
 publicans. We read that in Hindostan the ryots, when 
 crops fall short, borrow from the Jews to buy seed; and 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADE. 121 
 
 once in their clutches are doomed. It seems that our 
 commercial world can furnish parallels. 
 
 Of another class of wholesale-traders — those who supply- 
 grocers with foreign and colonial produce — we may say that 
 though, in consequence of the nature of their business, 
 their malpractices are less numerous and multiform, as 
 well as less glaring, they bear the same stamp as the fore- 
 going. Unless it is to be supposed that sugar and spices 
 are moral antiseptics as well as physical ones, it must be 
 expected that wholesale dealers in them will transgress 
 much as other wholesale dealers do, in those directions 
 where the facilities are greatest. And the truth is that, 
 both in the qualities and quantities of the articles they sell, 
 they take advantage of the retailers. The descriptions 
 they give of their commodities are habitually misrepre- 
 sentations. Samples sent round to their customers are 
 characterized as first-rate when they are really second-rate. 
 The travellers are expected to endorse these untrue state- 
 ments ; and unless the grocer has adequate keenness and 
 extensive knowledge, he is more or less deceived. In 
 some cases, indeed, no skill will save him. There are 
 frauds that have grown up little by little into customs of 
 the trade, which the retailer must submit to. In the 
 purchase of sugar, for example, he is imposed on in respect 
 alike of the goodness and the weight. The history of the 
 dishonesty is this. Originally the tare allowed by the 
 merchant on each hogshead, was 14 per cent, of the gross 
 weight. The actual weight of the wood of which the 
 hogshead was made, was at that time about 12 per cent, of 
 the gross weight. And thus the trade-allowance left a 
 profit of 2 per cent, to the buyer. Gradually, however, 
 the hogshead has grown thicker and heavier ; until now, 
 instead of amounting to 12 per cent, of the gross weight, 
 it amounts to 17 per cent. As the allowance of 14 percent, 
 still continues, the result is that the retail grocer loses 
 3 per cent.: to the extent of 3 per cent, he buys wood 
 
122 
 
 THE MORALS OF TEADE. 
 
 in place of sugar. In the quality of the sugar, he is 
 deluded by the practice of giving him a sample from the 
 best part of the hogshead. During its voyage from Jamaica 
 or elsewhere, the contents of a hogshead undergo a slow 
 drainage. The molasses, of which more or less is always 
 present, filters from the uppermost part of the mass of 
 sugar to the lowermost part ; and this lowermost part^ 
 technically known as the '^ foots, ^' is of darker colour and 
 smaller value. The quantity of it contained in a hogshead 
 varies greatly ; and the retailer, receiving a false sample, 
 has to guess what the quantity of "foots" may be; and, to 
 his cost, often under-estimates it. As will be seen from the 
 following letter, copied from the Public Ledger for the 
 20th Oct., 1858, these grievances, more severe even than 
 we have represented them, are now exciting an agitation, 
 
 *' To the Retail Grocers of the United Kingdom. 
 " Gentlemen, — The time has arrived for the trade at once to make a move 
 for the revision of tares on all raw sugars. Pacts prove the evil of the 
 present system to be greatly on the increase. We submit a case as under, 
 and only one out of twenty. On the 30th August, 1858, we bought 3 hogs- 
 heads of Barbados, mark TG 
 
 
 Invoice Tares. 
 
 
 
 Re Tares. 
 
 . 
 
 fo. 
 
 cwt. 
 
 qrs. 
 
 lb. 
 
 ib. 
 
 No. 
 
 cwt. qrs. 
 
 lb. 
 
 1 . 
 
 . . 1 
 
 2 
 
 14 
 
 6 drft. 
 
 1 
 
 ..13 
 
 27 
 
 7 . 
 
 . ■ 1 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 
 7 
 
 ..13 
 
 20 
 
 3 . 
 
 . . 1 
 
 2 
 
 21 
 
 
 3 
 
 ..13 
 
 27 
 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 5 3 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 
 
 Deduct . 
 
 
 . . 4 3 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ jj. d. 
 
 3 26 at 42 — 2 1 3 
 " We make a claim for £2. Is. 3d. ; we are told by the wholesale grocer 
 there is no redress. 
 
 ** There is another evil which the retail grocer has to contend with, that 
 is, the mode of sampling raw sugars : the foots are excluded from the mer- 
 chants' samples. Facts will prove that in thousands of hogsheads of 
 Barbados this season there is an average of 5 cwt. of foots in each ; we have 
 turned out some with 10 cwt., which are at least Ss. per cwt, less value than 
 sample, and in these cases we are told again there is no redress. 
 *' These two causes are bringing hundreds of hard-working men to ruin 
 
THE MORALS OP TRADE. 123 
 
 and will bring hundreds more unless the trade take it up, and we implore 
 them to unite in obtaining so important a revision. 
 
 " We are, Gentlemen, your obedient servants, 
 
 *' Walkeb and Staines.* 
 "Birmingham, October 19, 1858." 
 
 A more subtle method of imposition remains to be added. 
 It is the practice of sugar-refiners to put moist, crushed 
 sugar into dried casks. During the time that elapses before 
 one of these casks is opened by the retailer, the desiccated 
 wood has taken up the excess of water from the sugar ; 
 which is thus brought again into good condition. When 
 the retailer, finding that the cask weighs much more than 
 was allowed as tare by the wholesale dealer, complains to 
 him of this excess, the reply is — " Send it up to us, and we 
 will dry it and weigh it, as is the custom of the trade." 
 
 Without further detailing these malpractices, of which 
 the above examples are perhaps the worst, we will advert 
 only to one other point in the transactions of these large 
 houses — the drawing-up of trade-circulars. It is the habit 
 of many wholesale dealers to send round to their customers, 
 periodic accounts of the past transactions, present condition, 
 and prospects of the markets. Serving as checks on each 
 other, as they do, these documents are prevented from 
 swerving very widely from the truth. But it is scarcely to 
 be expected that they should be quite honest. Those who 
 issue them, being in most cases interested in the prices of 
 the commodities referred to in their circulars, are swayed 
 by their interests in the representations they make respect- 
 ing the probabilities of the future. Far-seeing retailers are 
 on their guard against this. A large provincial grocer, 
 who thoroughly understands his business, said to us — " As 
 a rule, I throw trade-circulars on the fire." And that this 
 estimate of their trustworthiness is not unwarranted, we 
 gather from the expressions of those engaged in other 
 businesses. From two leather-dealers, one in the country 
 and one in London, we have heard the same complaint 
 
 * The abuses described in this letter have now, we believe, been abolished. 
 
124 THE MOEALS OF TRADE. 
 
 against the circulars published by houses in their trade, 
 that they are misleading. Not that they state untruths ; 
 but that they produce false impressions by leaving out 
 facts which they should have stated. 
 
 In illustrating the morality of manufacturers, we shall 
 confine ourselves to one class — those who work in silk. And 
 it will be the most convenient method of arranging facts, 
 to follow the silk through its various stages ; from its state 
 when imported, to its state when ready for the wearer. 
 
 Bundles of raw silk from abroad — not uncommonly 
 weighted with rubbish, stones, or rouleaux of Chinese 
 copper coin, to the loss of the buyer — are disposed of by 
 auction. Purchases are made on behalf of the silk-dealers 
 by " sworn brokers ; " and the regulation is, that these 
 sworn brokers shall confine themselves to their functions as 
 agents. From a silk-manufacturer, however, we learn that 
 they are currently understood to be themselves speculators 
 in silk, either directly or by proxy ; and that as thus 
 personally interested in prices, they become faulty as 
 agents. We give this, however, simply as a prevailing 
 opinion, for the truth of which we do not vouch. 
 
 The silk bought by the London dealer, he sends into the 
 manufacturing districts to be ^'thrown;" that is, to be 
 made into thread fit for weaving. In the established form 
 of bargain between the silk-dealer and the silk-throwster, 
 we have a strange instance of an organized and recognized 
 deception; which has seemingly grown out of a check on a 
 previous deception. The throwing of silk is necessarily 
 accompanied by some waste, from broken ends, knots, and 
 fibres too weak to wind. This waste varies in different 
 kinds of silk from 3 per cent, to 20 per cent. : the average 
 being about 5 per cent. The per-centage of waste being 
 thus variable, it is obvious that in the absence of restraint, 
 a dishonest silk-throwster might abstract a portion of the 
 silk ; and, on returning the rest to the dealer, might plead 
 
THE MOKALS OF TRADE, 125 
 
 that the great diminution in weight had resulted from the 
 large amount of loss in the process of throwing. Hence 
 there has arisen a system, called "working on cost/^ which 
 requires the throwster to send back to the dealer the same 
 weight of silk which he receives : the meaning of the 
 phrase being, we presume, that whatever waste the throwster 
 makes must be at his own cost. Now, as it is impossible 
 to throw silk without some waste — at least 3 per cent., and 
 ordinarily 5 per cent. — this arrangement necessitates a 
 deception; if, indeed, that can be called a deception 
 which is tacitly understood by all concerned. The silk 
 has to be weighted. As much as is lost in throwing, 
 has to be made up by some foreign substance introduced. 
 Soap is largely used for this. In small quantity, soap is re- 
 quisite to facilitate the running of the threads in the process 
 of manufacture ; and the quantity is readily increased. 
 Sugar also is used. And by one means or other, the threads 
 are made to absorb enough matter to produce the desired 
 weight. To this system all silk -throwsters are obliged to 
 succumb ; and some of them carry it to a great extent, as a 
 means of hiding either carelessness or something worse. 
 
 The next stage through which silk passes^ is that of 
 dyeing. Here, too, impositions have grown chronic and 
 general. In times past, as we learn from a ribbon-manu- 
 facturer, the weighting by water was the chief dishonesty. 
 Bundles returned from the dyer's, if not manifestly damp, 
 still, containing moisture enough to make up for a portion of 
 the silk that had been kept back; and precautions had to be 
 taken to escape losses thus entailed. Since then, however, 
 there has arisen a method of deception which leaves this 
 far behind — that of employing heavy dyes. The following 
 details have been given us by a silk-throwster. It is now, 
 he says, some five-and-thirty years since this method was 
 commenced. Before that time silk lost a considerable part 
 of its weight in the copper. The ultimate fibre of silk is 
 coated, in issuing from the spinneret of the silk-worm, with 
 
126 THE MORALS OF TEADE. 
 
 a film of Tarnisli wMcli is soluble in boiling water. In 
 dyeing, therefore, this film, amounting to 25 per cent, of the 
 entire weight of the silk, is dissolred off; and the silk is 
 rendered that much lighter. So that originally, for every 
 sixteen ounces of silk sent to the dyer's, only twelve ounces 
 were returned. Gradually, however, by the use of heavy 
 dyes, this result has been reversed. The silk now gains in 
 weight; and sometimes to a scarcely credible extent. 
 According to the requirement, silk is sent back from the 
 dyer's of any weight, from twelve ounces to the pound up 
 to forty ounces to the pound. The original pound of silk, 
 instead of losing four ounces, as it naturally would, is 
 actually, when certain black dyes are used, made to gain as 
 much as twenty-four ounces ! Instead of 25 per cent, 
 lighter, it is returned 150 per cent, heavier — is weighted 
 with 175 per cent, of foreign matter! 'Now as, during this 
 stage of its manufacture, the transactions in silk are carried 
 on by weight, it is manifest that in the introduction and 
 development of this system, we have a long history of frauds. 
 At present all in the trade are aware of it, and on their 
 guard against it. Like other modes of adulteration, in 
 becoming established and universal, it has ceased to be pro- 
 fitable to any one. But it still serves to indicate the morals 
 of those concerned. 
 
 The thrown and dyed silk passes into the hands of the 
 weaver ; and here again we come upon dishonesties. 
 Manufacturers of figured silks sin against their fellows by 
 stealing their patterns. The laws which have been found 
 necessary to prevent this species of piracy, show that it has 
 been carried to a great extent. Even now it is not pre- 
 vented. One who has himself suffered from it, tells us that 
 manufacturers still get one another's designs by bribing 
 the workmen. In their dealings with '^ buyers," too, some 
 manufacturers resort to deceptions : perhaps tempted to do 
 so by the desire to compensate themselves for the heavy tax 
 paid in treating, etc. Groods which have already been seen 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADE. 127 
 
 and declined by other buyers, are brought before a sub- 
 sequent one with artfully-devised appearances o£ secrecy, 
 accompanied by professions that these goods have been 
 specially reserved for his inspection : a manoeuvre by which 
 an unwary man is sometimes betrayed. That the process of 
 production has its delusions, scarcely needs saying. In the 
 ribbon-trade, for example, there is a practice called ^^ top- 
 ending ;'' that is, making the first three yards good, and 
 the rest (which is covered when rolled up) of bad or loose 
 texture — 80 "^shutea^' to the inch instead of 108. And then 
 there comes the issuing of imitations made of inferior 
 materials — textile adulterations as we may call them. This 
 practice of debasement, not an occasional but an established 
 one, is carried to a surprising extent, and with surprising 
 rapidity. Some new fabric, first sold at 7s, 6cZ. per yard, is 
 supplanted by successive counterfeits ; until at the end of 
 eighteen months a semblance of it is selling at 45. ^d. per 
 yard. Nay, still greater depreciations of quality and price 
 take place — from IO5. down to 85., and even 25. per yard. 
 Until at length the badness of these spurious fabrics 
 becomes so conspicuous, that they are unsaleable ; and 
 there eusues a reaction, ending either in the reintroduction 
 of the original fabric, or in the production of some novelty 
 to supply its place. 
 
 Among our notes of malpractices in trade, retail, whole- 
 sale, and manufacturing, we have many others that must be 
 passed over. We canaot here enlarge on the not uncommon 
 trick of using false trade-marks; or of imitating another 
 maker's wrappers. We must be satisfied with simply 
 referring to the doings of apparently-reputable houses, 
 which purchase goods known to be dishonestly obtained. 
 And we are obliged to refrain from particularizing certain 
 established arrangements, existing under cover of the 
 highest respectability, which seem intended to facilitate 
 these nefarious transactions. The frauds we have detailed 
 
128 THE M0EAL3 OF TRADE. 
 
 are but samples of a state of things which it would take 
 a volume to describe in full. 
 
 The further instances of trading-immorality which it 
 seems desirable here to give, are those which carry with 
 them a certain excuse : showing as they do how insensibly, 
 and almost irresistibly, men are thrust into vicious practices. 
 Always, no doubt, some utterly unconscientious trader is 
 the first to introduce a new form of fraud. Heisby-and-by 
 followed by others who wear their moral codes but loosely. 
 The more upright traders are continually tempted to adopt 
 this questionable device which those around them are 
 adopting. The greater the number who yield, and the more 
 familiar the device becomes, the more difficult is it for the 
 remainder to stand out against it. The pressure of com- 
 petition upon them becomes more and more severe. They 
 have to fight an unequal battle : debarred as they are from 
 one of the sources of profit which their antagonists possess. 
 And they are finally almost compelled to follow the lead of 
 the rest. Take for example what has happened in the 
 candle-trade. As all know, the commoner kinds of candles 
 are sold in bunches, supposed to weigh a pound each. 
 Originally, the nominal weight corresponded with the real 
 weight. But at present the weight is habitually short by 
 an amount varying from half an ounce to two ounces — is 
 sometimes depreciated 12^ per cent. If, now, an honest 
 chandler offers to supply a retailer at, say, six shillings for 
 the dozen pounds, the answer he receives is — '^ Oh, we get 
 them for five-and-eightpence." '^But mine,^' replies the 
 chandler, " are of full weight ; while those you buy at five- 
 and-eightpence are not." ''What does that matter to me?" 
 the retailer rejoins — "a pound of candles is a pound of 
 candles : my customers buy them in the bunch, and won't 
 know the difference between yours and another's." And 
 the honest chandler, being everywhere met with this argu- 
 ment, finds that he must either make his bunches of short 
 weight, or give up business. Take another case, which. 
 
THE MORALS OF TEADB. 129 
 
 like the last, we have direct from the mouth of one who has 
 been obliged to succumb. It ia that of a manufacturer of 
 elastic webbing, now extensively used in making boots, etc. 
 From a London house with which he dealt largely, this 
 manufactarer recently received a sample of webbing 
 produced by some one else, accompanied by the question, 
 
 '^ Can you make us this at per yard?" (naming a price 
 
 below that at which he had before supplied them) ; and 
 hinting that if he could not do so they must go elsewhere. 
 On pulling to pieces the sample (which he showed to us), 
 this manufacturer found that sundry of the threads which 
 should have been of silk were of cotton. Indicating this 
 fact to those who sent him the sample, he replied that, if he 
 made a like substitution, he could furnish the fabric at the 
 price named ; and the result was that he eventually did 
 thus furnish it. He saw that if he did not do so, he must 
 lose a considerable share of his trade. He saw further, that 
 if he did not at once yield, he would have to yield in the 
 end ; for that other elastic- webbing-makers would one after 
 another engage to produce this adulterated fabric at 
 correspondingly diminished prices; and that when at length 
 he stood alone in selling an apparently-similar article at a 
 higher price, his business would leave him. This manu- 
 facturer we have the best reasons for knowing to be a man 
 of fine moral nature, both generous and upright ; and yet 
 we here see him obliged, in a sense, to implicate himself 
 in one of these processes of vitiation. It is a startling 
 assertion, but it is none the less a true one, that those 
 who resist these corruptions often do it at the risk of 
 bankruptcy; sometimes the certainty of bankruptcy. We 
 do not say this simply as a manifest inference from the 
 conditions, as above described. We say it on the warrant 
 of instances which have been given to us. From one brought 
 up in his house, we have had the history of a draper who, 
 carrying his conscience into his shop, refused to commit the 
 current frauds of the trade. He would not represent his 
 
130 
 
 THE MORALS OP TEADE. 
 
 goods as of better quality than they really were ; he would 
 not say that patterns were just out, when they had been 
 issued the previous season ; he would not warrant to wash 
 well, colours which he knew to be fugitive. Refraining 
 from these and the like malpractices of his competitors ; 
 and, as a consequence, daily failing to sell various articles 
 which his competitors would have sold by force of lying ; 
 his business was so un remunerative that he twice became 
 bankrupt. And in the opinion of our informant, he inflicted 
 more evil upon others by his bankruptcies, than he would 
 have done by committing the usual trade-dishonesties. See, 
 then, how complicated the question becomes ; and how 
 difficult to estimate the trader's criminality. Often — 
 generally indeed — he has to choose between two wrongs. 
 He has tried to carry on his business with strict integrity. 
 He has sold none but genuine articles, and has given full 
 measure. Others in the same business adulterate or other- 
 wise delude, and are so able to undersell him. His 
 customers, not adequately appreciating the superiority in 
 the quality or quantity of his goods, and attracted by the 
 apparent cheapness at other shops, desert him. Inspection 
 of his books proves the alarming fact that his diminishing 
 returns will soon be insufficient to meet his engagements, 
 and provide for his increasing family. What then must he 
 do? Must he continue his present course; stop payment; 
 inflict heavy losses on his creditors ; and, with his wife and 
 children, turn out into the streets ? Or must he follow the 
 example of his competitors ; use their artifices ; and give 
 his customers the same apparent advantages ? The last not 
 only seems the least detrimental to himself, but also may be 
 considered the least detrimental to others. Moreover, the 
 like is done by men regarded as respectable- Why should 
 he ruin himself and family in trying to be better than his 
 neighbours ? He will do as they do. 
 
 Such is the position of the trader; such is the reasoning 
 by which he justifies himself ; and it is hard to visit him 
 
THE MORALS OIT TRADE. 131 
 
 ^'ith harsTi condemnation. Of course this statement of tho 
 case is by no means universally true. Tliere are businesses 
 in which^ competition being less active, the excuse for 
 falling into corrupt practices does not hold; and here^ 
 indeed, we find corrupt practices mucb less prevalent. 
 Many traders, too, have obtained connexions which secure 
 to them adequate returns without descending to small 
 rogueries ; and they have no defence if they thus degrade 
 themselves. Moreover, there are the men — commonly not 
 prompted by necessity but by greed — who introduce these 
 adulterations and petty frauds ; and on these should descend 
 unmitigated indignation : both as being themselves criminals 
 without excuse^ and as causing criminality in others. 
 Leaving out, however, these comparatively small classes, 
 most traders by whom the commoner businesses are carried 
 on, must receive a much more qualified censure than they 
 at first sight seem to deserve. On all sides we have met 
 with the same conviction, that for those engaged in the 
 ordinary trades there are but two courses — either to adopt 
 the practices of their competitors, or to give up business. 
 Men in diiferent occupations and in different places — men 
 naturally conscientious, who manifestly chafed under the 
 degradations they submitted to, have one and all expressed 
 to us the sad belief that it is impossible to carry on trade 
 with strict rectitude. Their concurrent opinion, inde- 
 pendently given by each, is that the scrupulously honest 
 man must go to the wall. 
 
 But that it has been, during the past year, frequently 
 treated by the daily press, we might here enter at some 
 length on the topic of banking-delinquencies. As it is^ we 
 may presume all to be familiar with the facts, and sho.ll limit 
 ourselves to making a few comments. 
 
 In the opinion of one whose means of judging have been 
 second to those of few, the directors of joint-stock-banks 
 have rarely been guilty of direct dishonesty. Admitting 
 
132 
 
 THE MORiLS OF TEADE. 
 
 notorious exceptions, the general fact appears to be that 
 directors liave liad no immediate interests in furthering 
 these speculations which have proved so ruinous to de- 
 positors and shareholders; but have usually been, among 
 the greatest sufferers. Their fault has rather been the less 
 flagitious, though still grave fault, of indifference to their 
 responsibilities. Often with very inadequate knowledge 
 they have undertaken to trade with property belonging in 
 great part to needy people. Instead of using as much care 
 in the investment of this property as though it were their 
 own, many of them have shown culpable recklessness: 
 either themselves loaning the entrusted capital without 
 adequate guarantee, or else passively allowing their col- 
 leagues to do this. Sundry excuses may doubtless be made 
 for them. The well-known defects of a corporate conscience, 
 caused by divided responsibility, must be remembered in 
 mitigation. And it may also be pleaded for such delin- 
 quents that if shareholders, swayed by reverence for mere 
 wealth and position, choose as directors, not the most 
 intelligent, the most experienced, and those of longest-tried 
 probity, but those of largest capital os highest rank, the 
 blame must not be cast solely on the men so chosen, but 
 must be shared by the men who choose them. Nay, 
 further, it must fall on the public as well as on share- 
 holders ; seeing that this unwise selection of directors is in 
 part determined by the known bias of depositors. But 
 after all allowances have been made, it must be admitted 
 that these bank- administrators who risk the property of 
 their clients by lending it to speculators, are near akin in 
 morality to the speculators themselves. As these specu- 
 lators risk other men^s money in undertakings which they 
 hope will be profitable ; so do the directors who lend them 
 the money. If these last plead that the money thus lent 
 is lent with the belief that it will be repaid with good 
 interest, the first may similarly plead that they expect their 
 investment to return the borrowed capital along with a 
 
THE MORALS OP TRADE. 133 
 
 handsome profit. In eacli case the transaction is one of 
 which the evil consequences, if they comej fall more largely 
 on others than on the actors. And though it may be 
 contended, on behalf of the director, that what he does is 
 done chiefly for the benefit of his constituents, whereas the 
 speculator has in view only his own benefit; it may be 
 replied that the director's blameworthiness is not the less 
 because he took a rash step with a comparatively weak 
 motive. The truth is that when a bank-director lends the 
 capital of shareholders to those to whom he would not lend 
 his own capital, he is guilty of a breach of trust. In 
 tracing the gradations of crime, we pass from direct robbery 
 to robbery one, two, three, or more degrees removed. 
 Though a man who speculates with other people's money is 
 not chargeable with direct robbery, he is chargeable with 
 robbery one degree removed : he deliberately stakes his 
 neighbour's property, intending to appropriate the gain, if 
 any, and to let his neighbour suffer the loss, if any : his 
 crime is that of contingent robbery. And hence any one 
 who, standing like a bank-director in the position of 
 trustee, puts the money with which he is entrusted into 
 a speculator's hands, must be called an accessory to con- 
 tingent robbery. 
 
 If so grave a condemnation is to be passed on those who 
 lend trust-money to speculators, as well as on the specu- 
 lators who borrow it, what shall we say of the still more 
 delinquent class who obtain loans by fraud — who not only 
 pawn other men's property when obtained, but obtain it 
 under false pretences ? For how else than thus must we 
 describe the doings of those who raise money by accommo- 
 dation-bills ? When A and B agree, the one to draw and 
 the other to accept a bill of £1000 for " value received; " 
 while in truth there has been no sale of goods between 
 them, or no value received ; the transaction is not simply 
 an embodied lie, but it becomes thereafter a living and 
 active lie. Whoever discounts the bill, does so in the 
 
334 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 
 
 belief that B, having become possessed of £1000 worth of 
 goods, will, when the bill falls due, have either the £1000 
 worth of goods or some equivalent, with which to meet it. 
 Did he know that there were no such goods in the hands of 
 either A or B, and no other property available for liquidating 
 the bill, he would not discount it — he would not lend 
 money to a man of straw without security. Had A taken 
 to the bank a forged mortgage-deed, and obtained a loan 
 upon it, he would not have committed a greater wrong. 
 Practically, an accommodation-bill is a forgery. It is an 
 error to suppose that forgery is limited to the production 
 of documents that are physically false — that contain signa- 
 tures or other symbols which are not what they appear to 
 be : forgery, properly understood, equally includes the 
 production of documents that are morally false. What 
 constitutes the crime committed in forging a bank-note ? 
 Not the mere mechanical imitation. This is but a means 
 to the end ; and, taken alone, is no crime at all. The 
 crime consists in deluding others into the acceptance of 
 what seems to be a representative of so much money, but 
 which actually represents nothing. It matters not whether 
 the delusion is effected by copying the forms of the letters 
 and figures, as in a forged bank-note, or by copying the 
 form of expression, as in an accommodation-bill. In either 
 case a semblance of value is given to that which has no 
 value; and it is in giving this false appearance of value 
 that the crime consists. It is true that generally, the 
 acceptor of an accommodation-bill hopes to be able to meet 
 it when due. But if those who think this exonerates him, 
 will remember the many cases in which, by the use of 
 forged documents, men have obtained possession of moneys 
 which they hoped presently to replace, and were neverthe- 
 less judged guilty of forgery, they will see that the plea is 
 insufficient. We contend, then, that the manufacturers of 
 accommodation-bills should be classed as forgers. That if 
 the law so classed them, much good would result, we are 
 
TEE MOEALS OF TRADE. 135 
 
 not prepared to say. Several questions present them- 
 selves : — Whether such a change would cause inconve- 
 nience, by negativing the many harmless transactions 
 carried on under this fictitious form by solvent men ? 
 Whether ma.king it penal to use the words " value 
 received," unless there had been value received, would not 
 simply originate an additional class of bills in which these 
 words were omitted ? Whether it would be an advantage 
 if bills bore on their faces proofs that they did or did not 
 represent actual sales ? Whether a restraint on undue 
 credit would result, when bankers and discounters saw 
 that certain bills coming to them in the names of specula- 
 tive or unsubstantial traders, were avowed accommodation- 
 bills ? But these are questions we need not go out of our 
 way to discuss. We are here concerned only with the 
 morality of the question. 
 
 Duly to estimate the greatness of the evils indicated, 
 however, we must bear in mind both that the fraudulent 
 transactions thus entered into are numerous, and that each 
 generally becomes the cause of others. The original lie is 
 commonly the parent of further lies, which again give rise 
 to an increasing progeny; and so on for successive genera- 
 tions, multiplying as they descend. When A and B find 
 their £1000 bill about to fall due, and the expected proceeds 
 of their speculation not forthcoming — when they find, as 
 they often do, either that the investment has resulted in a 
 loss instead of a gain; or that the time for realizing their 
 hoped-for profits, has not yet come ; or that the profits, if 
 there are any, do not cover the extravagances of living 
 which, in the meantime, they have sanguinely indulged in 
 — when, in short, they find that the bill cannot be taken 
 up; they resort to the expedient of manufacturing other 
 bills with which to liquidate the first. And while they are 
 about it, they usually think it will be as well to raise a some- 
 what larger sum than is required to meet their outstanding 
 engagements. Unless it happens that great success enables 
 
136 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 
 
 them to redeem themselves, this proceeding is repeated, and 
 again repeated. So long as there is no monetary crisis, it 
 continues easy thus to keep afloat; and, indeed, the appear- 
 ance of prosperity which is given by an extended circulation 
 of bills in their names, bearing respectable indorsements, 
 creates a confidence in them which renders the obtainment 
 of credit easier than at first. And where, as in some cases, 
 this process is carried to the extent of employing men in 
 different towns throughout the kingdom, and even in 
 distant parts of the world, to accept bills, the appearances 
 are still better kept up, and the bubble reaches a still 
 greater development. As, however, all these transactions 
 are carried on with borrowed capital, on which interest has 
 to be paid ; as, further, the maintenance of this organized 
 fraud entails constant expenses, as well as occasional 
 sacrifices; and as it is in the very nature of the system to 
 generate reckless speculation ; the fabric of lies is almost 
 certain ultimately to fall; and, in falling, to ruin or em- 
 barrass others besides those who had given credit. 
 
 Nor does the evil end with the direct penalties from time 
 to time inflicted on honest traders. There is also a grave 
 indirect penalty which they suffer from the system. These 
 forgers of credit are habitually instrumental in lowering 
 prices below their natural level. To meet emergencies, 
 they are obliged every now and then to sell goods at a loss ; 
 the alternative being immediate stoppage. Though with 
 each such concern, this is but an occasional incident, yet, 
 taking the whole number of them connected with any one 
 business, it results that there are generally some who are 
 making sacrifices- — generally some who are unnaturally 
 depressing the market. In short, the capital fraudulently 
 obtained from some traders is, in part, dissipated in render- 
 ing the business of other traders deficiently remunerative ; 
 often to their serious embarrassment. 
 
 Ifj, however, the whole truth must be said, the condemna- 
 tion visited on these commercial vampires is not to be 
 
THE MORALS OF TEADE. 137 
 
 confined to them ; but is in some degree deserved by a 
 much more numerous class. Between the penniless schemer 
 who obtains the use of capital by false pretences, and the 
 upright trader who never contracts greater liabilities than 
 his estate will liquidate, there lie all gradations. From 
 businesses carried on entirely with other people's capital, 
 obtained by forgery, we pass to businesses in which there 
 is a real capital of one-tenth and a credit-capital of nine- 
 tenths; to other businesses in which the ratio of real to 
 fictitious capital is somewhat greater ; and so on until we 
 reach the very extensive class of men who trade but a little 
 beyond their means. To get more credit than would be 
 given were the state of the business known, is in all cases 
 the aim ; and the cases in which this credit is partially 
 unwarranted, differ only in degree from those in which it 
 is wholly unwarranted. As most are beginning to see, the 
 prevalence of this indirect dishonesty has not a little to do 
 with our commercial disasters. Speaking broadly, the 
 tendency is for every trader to hypothecate the capital of 
 other traders, as well as his own. And when A has 
 borrowed on the strength of B's credit; B on the strength 
 of C^s; and on the strength of A's — when, throughout 
 the trading world, each has made engagements which he 
 can meet only by direct or indirect aid — when everybody is 
 wanting help from some one else to save him from falling ; a 
 crash is certain. The punishment of a general unconscien- 
 tiousness may be postponed^ but it is sure to come eventually. 
 
 The average commercial morality cannot, of course, be 
 accurately depicted in so brief a space. On the one hand, 
 we have been able to give but a few typical instances of the 
 malpractices by which trade is disgraced. On the other 
 hand, we have been obliged to present these alone; unquali- 
 fied by the large amount of honest dealing throughout which 
 they are dispersed. While, by accumulating such evidences, 
 the indictment may be made heavier; by diluting them 
 
138 THE MORALS OP TRADE. 
 
 witli the iininense mass of equitable transactions daily 
 carried on, the verdict would be mitigated. After making 
 every allowance, however, we fear that the state of things 
 is very bad. Our impression on this point is due less to 
 the particular facts above given, than to the general opinion 
 expressed by our informants. On all sides we have found 
 the result of long personal experience, to be the conviction 
 that trade is essentially corrupt. In tones of disgust or dis- 
 couragement, reprehension or derision, according to their 
 several natures, men in business have one after another 
 expressed or implied this belief. Omitting the highest mer- 
 cantile classes, a few of the less common trades, and those 
 exceptional cases where an entire command of the market has 
 been obtained, the uniform testimony of competent judges 
 is, that success is incompatible with strict integrity. To 
 live in the commercial world it appears necessary to adopt 
 its ethical code : neither exceeding nor falling short of it — 
 neither being less honest nor more honest. Those who sink 
 below its standard are expelled ; while those who rise above 
 it are either pulled down to it or ruined. As, in self-defence, 
 the civilized man becomes savage among savages ; so, it 
 seems that in. self-defence, the scrupulous trader is obliged 
 to become as little scrupulous as his competitors. It has 
 been said that the law of the animal creation is — '^ Eat and 
 be eaten ;" and of our trading community it may similarly 
 be said that its law is — Cheat and be cheated. A system 
 of keen competition, carried on, as it is, without adequate 
 moral restraint, is very much a system of commercial canni- 
 balism. Its alternatives are — Use the same weapons as your 
 antagonists or be conquered and devoured. 
 
 Of questions suggested by these facts, one of the most 
 obvious is — Are not the prejudices which have ever been 
 entertained against trade and traders, thus fully justified ? 
 do not these meannesses and dishonesties, and the moral 
 degradation they imply, warrant the disrespect shown to 
 men in business ? A prompt affirmative answer will prob- 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADE. 139 
 
 ably be looked for ; but we very mucli doubt wbetber it 
 should be given. We are rather of opinion that these 
 delinquencies are products of the average character placed 
 under special conditions. There is no reason for assuming 
 that the trading classes are intrinsically worse than other 
 classes. Men taken at random from higher and lower 
 ranksj would^ most likely, if similarly circumstanced^ do 
 much the same. Indeed the mercantile world might readily 
 recriminate. Is it a solicitor who comments on their mis- 
 doings ? They may quickly silence him by referring to the 
 countless dark stains on the reputation of his fraternity. 
 Is it a barrister ? His frequent practice of putting in pleas 
 which he knows are not valid, and his established habit of 
 taking fees for work he does not perform, make his criticism 
 somewhat suicidal. Does the condemnation come through 
 the press ? The condemned may remind those who write, 
 of the fact that it is not quite honest to utter a positive 
 verdict on a book merely glanced through, or to pen glow- 
 ing eulogies on the mediocre work of a friend while slighting 
 the good one of an enemy ; and they may further ask 
 whether those who, at the dictation of an employer, write 
 what they disbelieve, are not guilty of the serious offence 
 of adulterating public opinion. Moreover, traders might 
 contend that many of their delinquencies are thrust on them 
 by the injustice of their customers. They, and especially 
 drapers, might point to the fact that the habitual demand 
 for an abatement of price, is made in utter disregard of their 
 reasonable profits ; and that, to protect themselves against 
 attempts to gain by their loss, they are obliged to name 
 prices greater than those they intend to take. They might 
 also urge that the straits to which they are often brought 
 by non-payment of large sums due from their wealthier 
 customers, is itself a cause of their malpractices : obliging 
 them, as it does, to use all means, illegitimate as well 
 as legitimate, for getting the wherewith to meet their 
 engagements. And then, after proving that those without 
 48 
 
140 THE MORALS OP TRADE. 
 
 excuse sliow this disregard of otlier men's claims^ traders 
 might ask whether they^ who hare the excuse of having to 
 contend with a merciless competition^ are alone to be blamed 
 if they display a like disregard in other forms. Nay^ even 
 to the guardians of social rectitude — members of the legis- 
 lature — they might use the tu quoque argument : asking 
 whether bribery of a customer's servant^ is any worse than 
 bribery of an elector ? or whether the gaining of suffrages 
 by clap-trap hustings-speeches^ containing insincere pro- 
 fessions adapted to the taste of the constituency^ is not as 
 bad as getting an order for goods by delusive representa- 
 tions respecting their quality ? No; few if any classes are 
 free from immoz'alities which are as great^ relatively to 
 the temptations, as these we have been exposing. Of 
 course they will not be so petty or so gross where the 
 circumstances do not prompt pettiness or grossness ; nor so 
 constant and organized where the class-conditions have not 
 tended to make them habitual. But^ taken with these 
 qualifications, we think that much might be said for the 
 proposition that the trading classes, neither better nor 
 worse intrinsically than other classes, are betrayed into 
 their flagitious habits by external causes. 
 
 Another question, here naturally arising, is — Are not 
 these evils growing worse ? Many of the facts we have 
 cited seem to imply that they are. Yet there are many 
 other facts which point as distinctly the other way. In 
 weighing the evidence, we must bear in mind that the 
 greater public attention at present paid to such matters, is 
 itself a source of error — is apt to generate the belief that 
 evils now becoming recognized are evils that have recently 
 arisen ; when in truth they have merely been hitherto dis- 
 regarded, or less regarded. It has been clearly thus with 
 crime, with distress, with popular ignorance; and it is very 
 probably thus with trading-dishonesties. As it is true of 
 individual beings, that their height in the scale of creation 
 may be measured by the degree of their self-consciousness; 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADE. 141 
 
 SO, in a sense, it is true of societies. Advanced and bigMj- 
 organized societies are distinguished from lower ones by the 
 evolution of something that stands for s, social self-conscious^ 
 ness. Among ourselves there has, happily, been of late 
 years a remarkable growth of this social self-consciousness; 
 and we believe that to this is chiefly ascribable the impres- 
 sion that commercial malpractices are increasing. Such 
 facts as have come down to us respecting the trade of past 
 times, confirm this view. In his Complete English Trades- 
 man, Defoe mentions, among other manceuvres of retailers, 
 the false lights which they introduced into their shops, for 
 the purpose of giving delusive appearances to their goods. 
 He comments on the " shop rhetorick/' the ^^ flux of 
 falsehoods," which tradesmen habitually uttered to their 
 customers ; and quotes their defence as being that they 
 could not live without lying. He says, too, that there was 
 scarce a shopkeeper who had not a bag of spurious or 
 debased coin, from which he gave change whenever he 
 could ; and that men, even the most honest, triumphed in 
 their skill in getting rid of bad money. These facts show 
 that the mercantile morals of that day were, at any rate, 
 not better than ours ; and if we call to mind the numerous 
 Acts of Parliament passed in old times to prevent frauds of 
 all kinds, we perceive the like implication. As much may, 
 indeed, be safely inferred from the general state of society. 
 When, reign after reign, governments debased the coinage, 
 the moral tone of the middle classes could scarcely have 
 been higher than now. Among generations whose sympathy 
 with the claims of fellow-creatures was so weak, that the 
 slave-trade was not only thought justifiable, but the initiator 
 of it was rewarded by permission to record the feat in his 
 coat of arms, it is hardly possible that men respected the 
 claims of their fellow-citizens more than at present. Times 
 characterized by an administration of justice so inefficient, 
 that there were in London nests of criminals who defied the 
 law, and on all high roads robbers who eluded it, cannot 
 
142 
 
 THE MORALS OP TEADE. 
 
 have been distinguislied by just mercantile dealings. Wbile, 
 conversely^ an age wbich^ like ours^ has seen so many equit- 
 able social changes thrust on the legislature by public 
 opinion^ is very unlikely to be an age in which the transac- 
 tions between individuals have been growing more inequit- 
 able. Yet, on the other hand, it is undeniable that many of 
 the dishonesties we have described are of modern origin. 
 Not a few of tbem have become established during the last 
 thirty years ; and others are even now arising. How are 
 these seeming contradictions to be reconciled ? 
 
 The reconciliation is not difficult. It lies in the fact that 
 while the direct frauds have been diminishing, the indirect 
 frauds have been increasing : alike in variety and in 
 number. And this admission we take to be consistent with, 
 the opinion that the standard of commercial morals is higher 
 tban it was. For if we omitj as excluded from the question^ 
 the penal restraints — religious and legal — and ask what is 
 the ultimate moral restraint to the aggression of man on 
 man, we find it to be — sympathy with, the pain inflicted. 
 Now the keenness of the sympathy, depending on the 
 vividness with which, this pain is realized, varies with the 
 conditions of the case. It may be active enough, to check 
 misdeeds which will manifestly cause great suffering, and 
 yet not be active enough to check misdeeds which will 
 cause but slight annoyance. While sufficiently acute to 
 prevent a man from doing that which will entail immediate 
 injury on a known person^ it may not be sufficiently acute 
 to prevent him from doing that which will entail remote 
 injuries on unknown persons. And we find the facts to 
 agree with this deduction, that the moral restraint varies 
 according to the clearness with which the evil consequences 
 are conceived. Many a one who would shrink from picking 
 a pocket does not scruple to adulterate his goods ; and he 
 who never dreams of passing base coin will yet be a party 
 to joint-stock-bank deceptions. Hence, as we say^ the 
 multiplication of the more subtle and complex forms of 
 
THE MORALS OP TRADE. 143 
 
 fraud, is consistent with a general progress in morality; 
 provided it is accompanied with a decrease in the grosser 
 forms of fraud. 
 
 But the question which most concerns us is, not whether 
 the morals of trade are better or worse than they have been? 
 but rather — why are they so bad ? Why in this civilized 
 state of ours, is there so much that betrays the cunning 
 selfishness of the savage ? Why, after the careful inculca- 
 tions of rectitude during education, comes there in after-life 
 all this knavery ? Why, in spite of all the exhortations to 
 which the commercial classes listen every Sunday, do they 
 next morning recommence their evil deeds ? What is this 
 so potent agency which almost neutralizes the discipline of 
 education, of law, of religion ? 
 
 Various subsidiary causes that might be assigned, must be 
 passed over, that we may have space to deal with the chief 
 cause. In an exhaustive statement, something would have 
 to be said on the credulity of consumers, which leads them 
 to believe in representations of impossible advantages ; and 
 something, too, on their greediness, which, ever prompting 
 them to look for more than they ought to get, encourages 
 sellers to offer delusive bargains. The increased difficulty 
 of living consequent on growing pressure of population, 
 might perhaps com.e in as a part cause ; and that greater 
 cost of bringing up a family, which results from the higher 
 standard of education, might be added. But the chief 
 inciter of these trading malpractices is intense desire for 
 wealth. And if we ask — Why this intense desire ? the 
 reply is — It results from the indiscriminate respect paid 
 to wealth. 
 
 To be distinguished from the common herd — to be some- 
 body — to make a name, a position — this is the universal 
 ambition; and to accumulate riches is alike the surest and 
 the easiest way of fulfilling this ambition. Very early in 
 life all learn this. At school, the court paid to one whose 
 
144 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 
 
 parents have called in their carriage to see himy is con- 
 spicuous; while the poor boy whose insufficient stock of 
 clothes implies the small means of his family^ soon has 
 burnt into his memory the fact that poverty is contemptible. 
 On entering the world^ the lessons which may have been 
 taught about the nobility of self-sacrifice^ the reverence 
 due to genius^ the admirableness of high integrity^ are 
 quickly neutralized by experience : men's actions proving 
 that these are not their standards of respect. It is soon 
 perceived that while abundant outward marks of deference 
 from fellow-citizens may almost certainly be gained by 
 directing every energy to the accumulation of property, 
 they are but rarely to be gained in any other way ; and 
 that even in the few cases in which they are otherwise 
 gained^ they are not given with entire unreserve, but are 
 commonly joined with a more or less manifest display of 
 patronage. When, seeing this, the young man further 
 sees that while the acquisition of property is possible with 
 his mediocre endowments, the acquirement of distinction 
 by brilliant discoveries, or heroic acts, or high achievements 
 in art, implies faculties and feelings which he does not 
 possess; it is not difficult to understand why he devotes 
 himself heart and soul to business. 
 
 We do not mean to say that men act on the consciously 
 reasoned-out conclusions thus indicated ; but we mean that 
 these conclusions are the unconsciously-formed products of 
 their daily experiences. From early childhood the sayings 
 and doings of all around them have generated the idea that 
 wealth and respectability are two sides of the same thing. 
 This idea, growing with their growth, and strengthening 
 with their strength, becomes at last almost what we may 
 call an organic conviction. And this organic conviction it 
 is which prompts the expenditure of all their energies in 
 money-making. We contend that the chief stimulus is not 
 the desire for the wealth itself, but for the applause and 
 position which the wealth brings. And in this belief, we 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADE. 145 
 
 find ourselves at one with various intelligent traders with 
 whom we have talked on the matter. It is incredible that 
 men should make the sacrifices^ mental and bodily, which 
 they doj merely to get the material benefits which money 
 purchases. Who would undertake an extra burden of 
 business for the purpose of getting a cellar of choice wines 
 for his own drinking ? He who does it, does it that he 
 may have choice wines to give his guests and gain their 
 praises. What merchant would spend an additional hour 
 at his office daily, merely that he might move into a house 
 in a more fashionable quarter ? He submits to the tax 
 not to gain health and comfort but for the sake of the 
 increased social consideration which the new house will 
 bring him. Where is the man who would lie awake at 
 nights devising means of increasing his income, in the hope 
 of being able to provide his wife with a carriage, were the 
 use of the carriage the sole consideration ? It is because 
 of the eclat which the carriage will give, that he enters on 
 these additional anxieties. So manifest, so trite, indeed, 
 are these truths, that we should be ashamed of insisting on 
 them, did not our argument require it. 
 
 For if the desire for that homage which wealth brings, is 
 the chief stimulus to these strivings after wealth, then the 
 giving of this homage (when given, as it is, with but little 
 discrimination) is the chief cause of the dishonesties into 
 which these strivings betray mercantile men. When the 
 shopkeeper, on the strength of a prosperous year and 
 favourable prospects, has yielded to his wife^a persuasions, 
 and replaced the old furniture with new, at an outlay 
 greater than his income covers — when, instead of the hoped- 
 for increase, the next year brings a decrease* in his returns 
 — ^when he finds that his expenses are out-running his 
 revenue } then does he fall under the strongest temptation to 
 adopt some newly-introduced adulteration or other mal- 
 practice. When, having by display gained a certain 
 recognition, the wholesale trader begins to give dinners 
 
146 THE MORALS OF TIUDE. 
 
 appropriate only to those of ten times his income, with 
 other expensive entertainments to match — when^ haying 
 for a time carried on this style at a cost greater than he 
 can afford^ he finds that he cannot discontinue it without 
 giving up his position; then is he most strongly prompted 
 to enter into larger transactions^ to trade beyond his means^ 
 to seek undue credit, to get into that ever-complicating 
 series of misdeeds which ends in disgraceful ba,nkruptcy. 
 And if these are the facts then is it an unavoidable con- 
 clusion that the blind admiration which society gives to 
 mere wealth, and the display of wealth, is the chief source 
 of these multitudinous immoralities. 
 
 Tes_, the evil is deeper than appears — draws its nutriment 
 from far below the surface. This gigantic system of dis- 
 honesty, branching out into every conceivable form of 
 fraud, has roots which run underneath our whole social 
 fabric, and, sending fibres into every house, suck up 
 strength from our daily sayings and doings. In every 
 dining-room a rootlet finds food, when the conversation 
 turns on So-and-so's successful speculations, his purchase 
 of an estate, his probable worth — on this man's recent large 
 legacy, and the other's advantageous match; for being 
 thus talked about is one form of that tacit respect which 
 men struggle for. Every drawing-room furnishes nourish- 
 ment in the admiration awarded to costliness— to silks that 
 are ^'^ rich," that is, expensive; to dresses that contain an 
 enormous quantity of material, that is, are expensive ; to 
 laces that are. hand-made, that is, expensive ; to diamonds 
 that are rare, that is, expensive; to china that is old, that 
 is, expensive. And from scores of small remarks p,nd 
 minutiae of behaviour which, in all circles, hourly imply bow 
 completely the idea of respectability involves that of costly 
 externals, there is drawn fresh pabulum. 
 
 We are all implicated. We all, whether with self-appro- 
 bation or not, give expression to the established feeling. 
 Even he who disapproves this feeling finds himself unable to 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADE, 147 
 
 treat virtue in threadbare apparel with a cordiality as great 
 as that which he would show to the same virtue endowed 
 with prosperity. Scarcely a man is to be found who would 
 not behave with more civility to a knave in broadcloth than 
 to a knave in fustian. Though for the deference which they 
 have shown to the vulgar rich^ or the dishonestly successful, 
 men afterwards compound with their consciences by privately 
 venting their contempt ; yet when they again come face to 
 face with these imposing externals covering worthlessness, 
 they do as before. And so long as imposing worthlessness 
 gets the visible marks of respect, while the disrespect felt 
 for it is hidden, it naturally flourishes. 
 
 Hence, then, is it that men persevere in these evil practices 
 which all condemn. They can so purchase a homage which, 
 if not genuine, is yet, so far as appearances go, as good as the 
 best. To one whose wealth has been gained by a life of 
 frauds, what matters it that his name is in all circles a 
 synonym of roguery ? Has he not been conspicuously 
 honoured by being twice elected mayor of his town ? (we 
 state a fact) and does not this, joined to the personal con- 
 sideration shown him, outweigh in his estimation all that is 
 said against him ; of which he hears scarcely anything ? 
 When, not many years af fcer the exposure of his inequitable 
 dealing, a trader attains to the highest civic distinction which 
 the kingdom has to offer, and that, too, through the instru- 
 mentality of those who best know his delinquency, is not the 
 fact an encouragement to him, and to all others, to sacrifice 
 rectitude to aggrandizement ? If, after listening to a sermon 
 that has by implication denounced the dishonesties he has 
 be^n guilty of, the rich ill-doer finds, on leaving church, that 
 his neighbours cap to him, does not this tacit approval go 
 far to neutralize the eflect of all he has heard ? The truth 
 is that with the great majority of men, the visible expression 
 of social opinion is far the most efficient of incentives and 
 restraints. Let any one who wishes to estimate the strength 
 
148 THE MORALS OP TRADE. 
 
 of this control^ propose to himself to walk tlirough the streets 
 in the dress of a dustman^ or hawk vegetables from door to 
 door. Let him feel, aa he probably will, that he had rather 
 do something morally wrong than commit such a breach of 
 usage and suffer the resulting derision. He will then 
 better, estimate how powerful a curb to men is the open dis- 
 approval of their fellows, and how, conversely, the outward 
 applause of their fellows is a stimulus surpassing all others in 
 intensity. Fully realizing which facts, he will see that the 
 immoralities of trade are in great part traceable to an 
 immoral public opinion. 
 
 Let none infer, from what has been said, that the payment 
 of respect to wealth rightly acquired and rightly used, is 
 deprecated. In its original meaning, and in due degree, the 
 feeling which prompts such respect is good. Primarily, 
 wealth is the sign of mental power; and this is always 
 respectable. To have honestly-acquired property, implies 
 intelligence, energy, self-control ; and these are worthy of 
 the homage that is indirectly paid to them by admiring their 
 results. Moreover, the good administration and increase of 
 inherited property, also requires its virtues ; and therefore 
 demands its share of approbation. And besides being 
 applauded for their display of faculty, men who gain and 
 increase wealth are to be applauded as public benefactors. 
 For he who, as mauufacturer or merchant, has, without 
 injustice to others, realized a fortune, is thereby proved to 
 have discharged his functions better than those who have 
 been less successful. By greater skilly better judgment, or 
 more economy than his competitors, he has afforded the public 
 greater advantages. His extra profits are but a share of 
 the extra produce obtained by the same outlay : the other 
 share going to the consumers. And similarly, the landowner 
 who, by judicious investment of money, has increased the 
 value (that is, the productiveness) of his estate, has thereby 
 added to the stock of national capital. By all means, then. 
 
THE MOKALS OF TRADE. 149 
 
 let the riglit acquisition and proper use of wealth have their 
 due share of admiration. 
 
 But that which we condemn as the chief cause of com- 
 mercial dishonesty^ is the indiscriminate admiration of wealth 
 — an admiration that has little or no reference to the character 
 of the possessor. When^ as generally happens, the external 
 signs are reverenced where they signify no internal worthi- 
 ness — nay, even where they cover internal unworthiness ; 
 then does the feeling become vicious. It is this idolatry 
 which worships the symbol apart from the thing symbolized, 
 that is the root of all these evils we have been exposing. So 
 long as men pay homage to those social benefactors who have 
 grown rich honestly, they give a wholesome stimulus to 
 industry ; but when they accord a share of their homage to 
 those social malefactors who have grown rich dishonestly, 
 then do they foster corruption — then do they become 
 accomplices in all these frauds of commerce. 
 
 As for remedy, it manifestly follows that there is none 
 save a purified public opinion. When that abhorrence 
 which society now shows to direct theft, is shown to theft 
 of all degrees of indirectness ; then will these mercantile 
 vices disappear. "When not only the trader who adulterates 
 or gives short measure, but also the merchant who over- 
 trades, the bank-director who countenances an exaggerated 
 report, and the railway- director who repudiates his 
 guarantee, come to be regarded as of the same genus as 
 the pickpocket, and are treated with like disdain j then will 
 the morals of trade become what they should be. 
 
 We have little hope, however, that any such higher tone 
 of public opinion will shortly be reached. The present 
 condition of things appears to be, in great measure, a 
 necessary accompaniment of our present phase of progress. 
 Throughout the civilized world, especially in England, and 
 above all in America, social activity is almost wholly 
 expended in material development. To subjugate Nature 
 
150 THE MORALS OF TRADE. 
 
 and bring tlie powers of production and distribution to tbeir 
 bighest perfection^ is tbe task of our age, and probably will 
 be tbe task of many future ages. And as in times wben 
 national defence and conquest were tbe cbief desiderata^ 
 military acbievement was honoured above all otber things ; 
 so now, when the chief desideratum is industrial growth, 
 honour is most conspicuously given to that which generally 
 indicates the aiding of industrial growth. Tbe English 
 nation at present displays what we may call the commercial 
 diathesis ; and the undue admiration for wealth appears 
 to be its concomitant — a relation still more conspicuous in 
 the worship of ^''the almighty dollar '' by the Americans. 
 And while tbe commercial diathesis, with its accompanying 
 standard of distinction, continues, we fear the evils we have 
 been delineating can be but partially cured. It seems 
 hopeless to expect that men will distinguish between that 
 wealth which represents personal superiority and benefits 
 done to society, from that which does not. The symbols, the 
 externals, have all the world through swayed the masses, 
 and must long continue to do so. Even the cultivated, who 
 are on their guard against the bias of associated ideas, and 
 try to separate the real from the seemiug, cannot escape the 
 influence of current opinion. "We must therefore content 
 ourselves with looking for a slow amelioration. 
 
 Something, however, may even now be done by vigorous 
 protest against adoration of mere success. And it is im- 
 portant that it should be done, considering how this vicious 
 sentiment is being fostered. V/ben we have one of our 
 leading moralists preaching, with increasing vehemence, the 
 doctrine of sanctification by force — when we are told that 
 while a selfishness troubled with qualms of conscience is 
 contemptible, a selfishness intense enough to trample down 
 everything in the unscrupulous pursuit of its ends is worthy 
 of admiration — when we find that if it be sufficiently great, 
 power, no matter of what kind or how directed, is held up 
 for our reverence; we may fear lest the prevalent applause 
 
THE MORALS OF TRADE. 151 
 
 of mere success, together -with the commercial vices whicli 
 it stimulates, should be increased rather than diminished. 
 Not at all by this hero-worship grown into brute-worship 
 is society to be made better, but by exactly the opposite — 
 by a stern criticism of the means through which success has 
 been achieved, and by according honour to the higher and 
 less selfish modes of activity. 
 
 And happily the signs of this more moral public opinion 
 are showing themselves. It is becoming a tacitly-received 
 doctrine that the rich should not, as in bygone times, spend 
 their lives in personal gratification; but should devote them 
 to the general welfare. Year by year is the improvement 
 of the people occupying a larger share of the attention of 
 the upper classes. Year by year are they voluntarily 
 devoting more energy to furthering the material and mental 
 progress of the masses. And those among them who do not 
 join in the discharge of these high functions, are beginning 
 to be looked upon with more or less contempt by their own 
 order. This latest and most hopeful fact in human history 
 — this new and better chivalry — promises to evolve a higher 
 standard of honour, and so to ameliorate many evils : among 
 others those which we have detailed. When wealth obtained 
 by illegitimate means inevitably brings nothing but dis- 
 grace — when to wealth rightly acquired is accorded only its 
 due share of homage, while the greatest homage is given to 
 those who consecrate their energies and their means to 
 the noblest ends ; then may we be sure that, along with 
 other accompanying benefits, the morals of trade will be 
 greatly purified. 
 
PEISON-ETHICS. 
 
 l_First pulUslied in The British Quarterly Keview/or July I860.] 
 
 The two antagonist theories of morals, like many other 
 antagonist theories, are both right and both wrong. The 
 a priori school has its truth ; the a posteriori school has its 
 truth; and for the proper guidance of conduct, there must 
 be due recognition of both. On the one hand, it is 
 asserted that there is an absolute standard of rectitude ; 
 and, respecting certain classes of actions, it is rightly so 
 asserted. From the fundamental laws of life and the 
 conditions of social existence, are deducible certain im- 
 perative limitations to individual action — limitations which 
 are essential to a perfect life, individual and social ; or, 
 in other words, essential to the greatest happiness. And 
 these limitations, following inevitably as they do from 
 undeniable first principles, deep as the nature of life itself^ 
 constitute what we may distinguish as absolute morality. 
 On the, other hand it is contended, and in a sense rightly 
 contended^ that with men as they are and society as it is, 
 the dictates of absolute morality are impracticable. Legal 
 control, which involves infliction of pain, alike on those 
 who are restrained and on those who pay the cost of 
 restraining them, is proved by this fact to be not absolutely 
 moral; seeing that absolute morality is the regulation of 
 conduct in such way that pain shall not be inflicted. 
 
PEISON-ETHICS. 153 
 
 Wherefore, if it be admitted that legal control is at present 
 indispensable, it must be admitted that these a priori rules 
 cannot be immediately carried out. And hence it follows 
 that we must adapt our laws and actions to the existing 
 character of mankind — that we must estimate the good or 
 evil resulting from this or that arrangement, and so reach, 
 a 'posterioriy a code fitted for the time being. In short, we 
 must fall back on expediency. Now, each of these posi- 
 tions being valid, it is a grave mistake to adopt either 
 to the exclusion of the other. They should be respectively 
 appealed to for mutual qualification. Progressing civili- 
 zation, which is of necessity a succession of compromises 
 between old and new, requires a perpetual readjustment 
 of the compromise between the ideal and the practicable 
 in social arrangements : to which end both elements of the 
 compromise must be kept in view. If it is true that pure 
 rectitude prescribes a system of things too good for men 
 as they are ; it is not less true that mere expediency does 
 not of itself tend to establish a system of things any 
 better than that which exists. While absolute morality 
 owes to expediency the checks which prevent it from 
 rushing into Utopian absurdities ; expediency is indebted 
 to absolute morality for all stimulus to improvement. 
 Granted that we are chiefly interested in ascertaining what 
 is relatively right; it still follows that we must first con- 
 sider what is absolutely right ; since the one conception 
 presupposes the other. That is to say, though we must 
 ever aim to do what is best for the present times, yet we 
 must ever bear in mind what is abstractedly best; so that 
 the changes we make may be towards it, and not away 
 from it. Unattainable as pure rectitude is, and will long 
 continue to be, we must keep an eye on the compass which 
 tells us whereabout it lies ; or we shall otherwise wander 
 in the opposite direction. 
 
 Illustrations from our recent history will show very 
 conclusively, we think, how important it is that consider- 
 
154 PRISON-ETHICS. 
 
 ations of abstract expediency should be joined with those 
 of concrete expediency — how immense would be the evils 
 avoided and the benefits gained, if a loosteriori morality 
 were enlightened by a 'priori morality. Take first the 
 case of free trade. Until recently it has been, the practice 
 of all nations^ artificially to restrict their commerce with 
 other nations. Throughout past centuries this course was 
 defensible as conducing to safety. Without saying that 
 law-givers had the motive of promoting industrial inde- 
 pendencOj it may yet be said that in ages when national 
 quarrels were perpetual, it would not have been well 
 for any people to be much dependent on others for 
 necessary commodities. But though there is this ground 
 for asserting that commercial restrictions were once expe- 
 dient^ it cannot be asserted that our corn-laws were thus 
 justified : it cannot be alleged that the penalties and 
 prohibitions which, until lately, hampered our trade, were 
 needful to prevent us from being industrially disabled by 
 a war. Protection in all its forms was established and 
 maintained for other reasons of expediency ; and the 
 reasons for which it was opposed and finally abolished 
 were also those of expediency. Calculations of immediate 
 and remote consequences were set forth by the antagonist 
 parties; and the mode of decision was by a balancing of 
 these various anticipated consequences. And what, after 
 generations of mischievous legislation and long years of 
 arduous struggle, was the conclusion arrived at, and since 
 justified by the results ? Exactly the one which abstract 
 equity plainly teaches. The moral course proves to be the 
 politic course. That ability to exercise the faculties, the 
 total denial of which causes death — that liberty to pursue 
 the objects of desire, without which there cannot be com- 
 plete life — that freedom of action which his nature prompts 
 every individual to claim, and on which equity puts no 
 limit save the like freedom of action of other individuals, 
 involves, among other corollaries, freedom of exchange. 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 155 
 
 Government wliicli^ in protecting citizens from murder^ 
 robbery, assault or other aggression, sliows us tliat it bas 
 the all-essential function of securing to each this free 
 exercise of faculties within the assigned limits, is called on, 
 in the due discharge of its function, to maintain this 
 freedom of exchange ; and cannot abrogate it without 
 reversing its function, and becoming aggressor instead of 
 protector. Thus, absolute morality would all along have 
 shown in what direction legislation should tend. Qualified 
 only by the consideration that in turbulent times they 
 must not be so carried out as to endanger national life, 
 through suspensions in the supply of necessaries, these 
 a ])Tiori principles would have guided statesmen, as fast as 
 circumstances allowed, towards the normal condition. We 
 -should have been saved from thousands of needless re- 
 strictions. Such restrictions as were needful would have 
 been abolished as soon as was safe. An enormous amount 
 of suffering would have been prevented. That prosperity 
 which we now enjoy would have commenced much sooner. 
 And our present condition would have been one of greater 
 power, wealth, happiness, and morality. 
 
 Our rail way -politics furnish another instance. A vast 
 loss of national capital has been incurred, and great misery 
 has been inflicted, in consequence of the neglect of a 
 simple principle clearly dictated by abstract justice. Whoso 
 enters into a contract, though he is bound to do that which 
 the contract specifies, is not bound to do some other thing 
 which is neither specified nor implied in the contract. We 
 do not appeal to moral perception only in warranty of this 
 position. It is one deducible from that first principle of 
 equity which, as above pointed out, follows from the laws 
 of life, individual and social ; and it is one which the 
 accumulated experience of mankind has so uniformly 
 justified, that it has become a tacitly-recognized doctrine 
 of civil law among all nations. In cases of disputes about 
 agreements, the question in each case brought to trial 
 
156 PRISON-ETHICS. 
 
 always is, whether the terms bind one or other of the 
 contracting parties to do this or that ; and it is assumed, 
 as a matter of course, that neither of them can be called 
 upon to do more than is expressed or understood in the 
 agreement. Now this almost self-evident principle has 
 been wholly ignored in railway-legislation. A shareholder, 
 uniting with others to make and work a line from one 
 specified place to another specified place, binds himself to 
 pay certain sums in furtherance of the project ; and, by 
 implication^ agrees to yield to the majority of his fellow- 
 shareholders on all questions raised respecting the execu- 
 tion of this project. Bat he commits himself no further than 
 this. He is not required to obey the majority concerning 
 things not named in the deed of incorporation. Though 
 with respect to the specified railway he has bound himself,' 
 he has not bound himself, with respect to any W7xspecified 
 railway which his co-proprietors may wish to make; and he 
 cannot be committed to such unspecified railway by a vote 
 of the majority. But this distinction has been wholly passed 
 over. Shareholders in joint-stock undertakings have been 
 perpetually involved in other undertakings subsequently 
 decided on by their fellow- shareholders ; and, against their 
 will, have had their properties heavily mortgaged for the 
 execution of projects that were ruinously unremunerative. 
 In every case the proprietary contract for making a 
 particular railway, has been dealt with as though it were a 
 proprietary contract for making railways ! Not only have 
 directors thus misinterpreted it^ and not only have share- 
 holders allowed it to be thus misinterpreted, but legislators 
 have so little understood their duties as to have endorsed 
 the misinterpretation. To this simple cause has been 
 owing most of our railway-companies' disasters. Abnormal 
 facilities for getting capital have caused reckless com- 
 petition in extension-making and branch-makings and in 
 needless opposition lines^ got up to be purchased by the 
 companies they threatened. Had each new scheme been 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. ]57 
 
 executed by an independent body of sliareholders, "witliout 
 any guarantee from another company — without any capital 
 raised by preference shares — there would have been little 
 or none of the ruinous expenditure we have seen. Some- 
 thing like a hundred millions of money would hare been 
 savedj and thousands of families preserved from misery^ 
 had the proprietary-contract been enforced according to 
 the dictates of pure equity. 
 
 These cases go far to justify our position. The general 
 reasons we gave for thinking that the ethics of immediate 
 experience must be enlightened by abstract ethics^ to 
 ensure correct guidance, are strongly enforced by these 
 instances of the gigantic errors which are made when the 
 dictates abstract ethics are ignored. The complex estimates 
 of relative expediency, cannot do without the clue furnished 
 by the simple deductions of absolute expediency. 
 
 We propose to study the treatment of criminals from tbis 
 point of view. And first, let us set down those temporary 
 reqnirements which have hitherto prevented, and do still, 
 in part, prevent the establishment of a just system. 
 
 The same average popular character which necessitates a 
 rigorous form of government, necessitates also a rigorous 
 criminal code. Institutions are ultimately determined by 
 the natures of the citizens living under them ; and when 
 these citizens are too impulsive or selfish for free institutions, 
 and unscrupulous enough to supply the requisite stafif of 
 agents for maintaining tyrannical institutions, they are 
 proved by implication to be citizens who will tolerate, and 
 will probably need, severe forms of punishment. The 
 same mental defect underlies both results. The character 
 which originates and sustains political liberty, is a character 
 swayed by remote considerations — a character not at the 
 mercy of immediate temptations, but one which contemplates 
 the consequences likely to arise in future. We have only to 
 remember thatj among ourselves, a political encroachment is 
 
158 PEISON-ETHICS. 
 
 resisted^ not because of any direct evil it inflicts, "but because 
 of the eyils likely hereafter to flow from it^ to see how the 
 maintenance of freedom presupposes the habit of weighing 
 distant results, and being chiefly guided by them. Con- 
 versely, it is manifest that men who dwell only in the 
 present, the special, the concrete — who do not realize with 
 clearness the contingencies of the future — will put little 
 value on those rights of citizenship which profit them 
 nothing, save as a means of warding off unspecified evils 
 that can possibly affect them only at a distant time in an 
 obscure way. Well, is it not obvious that the forms of 
 mind thus contrasted, will require different kinds of punish- 
 ment for misconduct ? To restrain the second, there must 
 be penalties which are severe, prompt, and specific enough 
 to be vividly conceived; while the first maybe deterred by 
 penalties which are less definite, less intense, less immediate. 
 For the more civilized, dread of a long, monotonous, 
 criminal discipline may suffice; but for the less civilized 
 there must be inflictions of bodily pain and death. Thus 
 we hold, not only that a social coadition which generates a 
 harsh form of government, also generates harsh retribu- 
 tions ; but also, that in such a social condition, harsh 
 retributions are requisite. And there are facts which 
 illustrate this. Witness the case of one of the Italian 
 states, in which the punishment of death haying been 
 abolished in conformity with the wish of a dying duchess, 
 assassinations increased so greatly that it became needful 
 to re-establish it. 
 
 Besides the fact that in the less-advanced staofes of 
 civilization, a bloody penal code is both a natural product, 
 of the time and a needful restraint for the time, there 
 must be noted the fact that a more equitable and humane 
 code could not be carried out from want of fit administration. 
 To deal with delinquents not by short and sharp methods 
 but by such methods as abstract justice indicates, implies a 
 class of agencies too complicated to exist in a low society, 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 159 
 
 and a class of officers more trustwortliy than can be found 
 among its citizens. Especially would tKe equitable treat- 
 ment of criminals be impracticable wbere the amount of 
 crime was very great. Tlie number to be dealt with, would 
 be unmanageable. Some simpler method of purging the 
 community of its worst members becomes^ under such 
 circumstances^ a necessity. 
 
 The inapplicability of an absolutely just system of penal 
 discipline to a barbarous or semi-barbarous people^ is thus^ 
 we thinkj as manifest as is the inapplicability of an absolutely 
 just form of government to them. And in the same manner 
 that, for some nations, a despotism is warranted ; so may a 
 criminal code of the extremest severity be warranted. In 
 either case the defence is, that the institution is as good 
 as the average character of the people permits — that less 
 stringent institutions would entail social confusion and its 
 far more severe evils. Bad as a despotism is, yet where 
 anarchy is the only alternative, we must say that, as anarchy 
 would bring greater suffering than despotism briugs, des- 
 potism is justified by the circumstances. And similarly, 
 however inequitable in the abstract were the beheadings, 
 crucifyings, and burnings of ruder ages, yet, if it be shown 
 that, without penalties thus extreme, the safety of society 
 could not have been insured — if, in their absence, the 
 increase of crime would have inflicted a larger total of evil, 
 and that, too, on peaceable membei'S of the community ; 
 then it follows that morality warranted this severity. In 
 the one case, as in the other, we must say that, measured 
 by the quantities of pain respectively inflicted and avoided, 
 the course pursued was the least wrong ; and to say that it 
 was the least wrong is to say that it was relatively right. 
 
 But while we thus admit all that can be alleged by the 
 defenders of Draconian codes, we go on to assert a correl- 
 ative truth which they overlook. While fully recognizing 
 the evils that must follow the premature establishment of a 
 
160 PEIS0N-ETHIC3. 
 
 penal system dictated by pure equity, let us not overlook 
 the eyils that have arisen from altogether rejecting the 
 guidance of pure equity. Let us note how terribly the 
 one-sided regard for immediate expediency has retarded 
 the ameliorations from time to time demanded. 
 
 Consider, for instance, the immense amount of suffering 
 and demoralization needlessly caused by our severe laws in 
 the last century. Those many merciless penalties which 
 Romilly and others succeeded in abolishing, were as little 
 justified by social necessities as by abstract morality. 
 Experience has since proved that to hang men for theft, 
 was not requisite for the security of property. And that 
 such a measure was opposed to pure equity, scarcely needs 
 saying. Evidently, had considerations of relative expedi- 
 ency been all along qualified by considerations of absolute 
 expediency, these severities, with their many concomitant 
 evils, would have ceased long before they did. 
 
 Again, the dreadful misery, demoralization, and crime, 
 generated by the harsh treatment of transported convicts, 
 would have been impossible, had our authorities considered 
 what seemed just as well as what seemed politic. There 
 would never have been inflicted on transports the shocking 
 cruelties proved before the Parliamentary Committee of 
 1848. We should not have had men condemned to the 
 horrors of the chain-gang even for insolent looks. There 
 could not have been perpetrated such an ati'ocity as that of 
 locking up chain-gangs ^^from sunset to sunrise in the 
 caravans or boxes used for this description of prisons, 
 which hold from twenty to twenty-eight men, but in which 
 the whole number can neither stand upright nor sit down at 
 the same time, except with their legs at right angles to their 
 bodies." Men would never have been doomed to tortures 
 extreme enough to produce despair, desperation, and 
 further crimes — tortures under which '*" a man's heart is 
 taken from him, and there is given to him the heart of a 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 161 
 
 beast/' as said by one of these law-produced criminals 
 before his execution. We should not have been told^ as 
 by a chief justice of Australia, that the discipline was 
 *^ carried to an extent of suffering j such as to render death 
 desirable, and to induce many prisoners to seek it under its 
 most appalling aspects.'^ Sir Gr. Arfchur would not have 
 had to testify that, in Van Diemen^s Land, convicts com- 
 mitted murder for the purpose " of being sent up to Hobart 
 Town for trial, though aware that in the ordinary course they 
 must be executed within a fortnight after arrival ; '^ nor 
 would tears of commiseration have been drawn from Judge 
 Burton^s eyes, by one of these cruelly-used transports 
 placed before him for sentence. In brief, had abstract 
 equity joined with immediate expediency in devising 
 convict discipline, not only would untold suferiug, degra- 
 dation, and mortality have been prevented; but those who 
 were responsible for atrocities like those above-named, 
 would not themselves be chargeable with crime, as we now 
 hold them to be. 
 
 Probably we shall meet with a less general assent when, 
 as a further benefit which the guidance of absolute morality 
 would have conferred, we instance the prevention of such 
 methods as those in use at Pentonville. How the silent 
 and the separate systems are negatived by abstract justice 
 we shall by and by see. For the present, the position we 
 have to defend is that these systems are bad. That but a 
 moderate per-centage of the prisoners subjected to them 
 are re-convicted, may be true ; though, considering the 
 fallaciousness of negative statistics, this by no means proves 
 that those not re-convicted are reformed. But the question 
 is not solely how many prisoners are prevented from again 
 committiug crime ? A further question is, how many of 
 them have become self-supporting members of society ? It 
 is notorious that this prolonged denial of human intercourse 
 not unfrequently produces insanity or imbecility ; and on 
 those who remain sane, its depressing influence must almost 
 
162 
 
 PEISON-ETHICS. 
 
 of necessity entail serious debility^ bodily and mental."^ 
 Indeed, we think it probable that much of the apparent 
 success is due to an enfeeblement which incapacitates for 
 crime as much as for industry. Our own objection to such 
 methods, however, has always been, that their effect on 
 the moral nature is the reverse of that required. Crime is 
 anti-social — is prompted by self-regarding feelings and 
 checked by social feelings. The natural prompter of right 
 conduct to others, and the natural opponent of misconduct 
 to others, is sympathy ; for out of sympathy grow both 
 the kindly emotions^ and that sentiment of justice which 
 restrains us fron^ aggressions. Wellj this sympathy, 
 which makes society possible, is cultivated by social inter- 
 course. By habitual participation in the pleasures of 
 others, the faculty is strengthened; and whatever prevents 
 this participation, weakens it. Hence, therefore, shutting 
 up prisoners within themselves, or forbidding all interchange 
 of feeling, inevitably deadens such sympatbies as they 
 have ; and so tends rather to diminish than to increase the 
 moral check to transgression. This a priori conviction, 
 which we have long entertained, we now find confirmed by 
 facts. Captain Maconochie states, as a result of observa- 
 tion, that a long course of separation so fosters the self- 
 regarding desires, and so weakens the sympathies, as to 
 make even well-disposed men very unfit to bear the little 
 trials of domestic life on their return to their homes. 
 Thus there is good reason to think that, while silence and 
 solitude may cow the spirit or undermine the energies, it 
 cannot pioduce true reformation. 
 
 " But how can it be shown,^^ asks the reader, '^ that these 
 injudicious penal systems are inequitable ? Where is the 
 method which, will enable us to say what kind of pnnish- 
 
 * Mr. BaiUie-Cochrane says : — " The officers at the Dartmoor prison 
 inform me that the prisoners who arrive there even after one year's confine- 
 ment at Pentonville, may be distinguished from the others by then- miserable 
 downcast look. In most instances their brain is affected, and they are 
 unable to give satisfactory replies to the simplest questions," 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 163 
 
 ment is justified by absolute morality, and what kind is 
 not ? " These questions we will now attempt to answer. 
 
 So long as the individual citizen pursues tho objects of 
 his desires without diminishing the equal freedom of any of 
 his fellow citizens to do the like, society cannot equitably 
 interfere with him. While he contents himself with the 
 benefits won by his own energies, and attempts not to 
 intercept any of the benefits similarly won for themselves 
 by others, or any of those which Nature has conferred on 
 them ', no legal penalties can rightly be inflicted on him. 
 But when, by murder, theft, assault, arson, or minor 
 aggression, he has broken through these limits, the com- 
 munity is warranted in putting him under restraint. On 
 the relative propriety of doing this we need say nothing : 
 it is demonstrated by social experience. Its absolute 
 propriety not being so manifest, we will proceed to point 
 out how it is deducible from the ultimate laws of life. 
 
 Life depends on the maintenance of certain natural 
 relations between actions and their results. If respiration 
 does not supply oxygen to the blood, as in the normal order 
 of things it should do, but instead supplies carbonic acid, 
 death quickly results. If the swallowing of food is not 
 followed by the usual organic sequences — the contractions 
 of the stomach, and the pouring into it of gastric juice — 
 indigestion arises, and the energies flag. If active move- 
 ments of the limbs fail in exciting the heart to supply blood 
 more rapidly, or if the extra current propelled by the heart 
 is greatly retarded by an aneurism through which it passes, 
 speedy prostration ensues. In which, and endless like 
 cases, we see that bodily life depends on the maintenance 
 of the established connexions between physiological causes 
 and their consequences. Among the intellectual processes, 
 the same thing holds. If certain impressions made on the 
 senses do not induce the appropriate muscular adjustments 
 - — if the brain is clouded with wine, or consciousness is 
 49 
 
1 64 PETSON-ETHICS. 
 
 pre-occupied, or tlie perceptions are naturally obtuse ; tlae 
 movements are so ill-controlled that accidents happen. 
 Where^ as in paralytic patients, the natural link between 
 mental impressions and tbe appropriate motions is broken, 
 the life is greatly vitiated. And when, as during insanity, 
 evidence fitted, according to the usual order of thought, to 
 produce certain convictions, produces convictions of an 
 opposite kind, conduct is reduced to chaos, and life 
 endangered — perhaps cut short. So it is with more involved 
 phenomena. Just as we here find that, throughout both 
 its physical and intellectual divisions, healthful life implies 
 continuance of the established successions of antecedents 
 and consequents among our vital actions ; so shall we find 
 it throughout the moral division. In our dealings with 
 external Nature and our fellow men, there are relations of 
 cause and effect, on the maintenance of which, as on the 
 maintenance of the internal ones above instanced, life 
 depends. Conduct of this or that kind tends to bring 
 results which are pleasurable or painful ; and the welfare of 
 every one demands that these natural sequences shall not 
 be interfered with. To speak more specifically, we see that 
 in the order of Nature, inactivity entails want. There is a 
 connexion between exertion and the fulfilment of certain 
 imperative needs. If, now, this connexion is broken — if 
 labour of body or mind has been gone through, and the 
 produce of the labour is intercepted by another, one of the 
 conditions to complete life is unfulfilled. The defrauded 
 person is physically injured by deprivation of the where- 
 withal to make good the wear and tear he had undergone ; 
 and if the robbery be continually repeated, he must die. 
 Where all men are dishonest a reflex evil results. When, 
 throughout a society, the normal relation between work 
 and benefit is habitually broken, not only are the lives of 
 aany directly undermined, but the lives of all are indirectly 
 andermined by destruction of the motive for work, and by 
 the consequent poverty. Thus, to demand that there shall 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 165 
 
 be no breach of the natural sequence between labour and 
 the rewards obtained by labour, is to demand that the laws 
 of life shall be respected. What we call the right of 
 property, is simply a corollary from certain necessary 
 conditions to complete living. It is a formulated recogni- 
 tion of the relation between expenditure of force and the 
 need for force-sustaining objects obtainable by the ex- 
 penditure of force — a recognition in full of a relation which 
 cannot be wholly ignored without causing death. And all 
 else regarded as individual rights, are indirect implications 
 of like nature — similarly insist on certain relations between 
 man and man, as conditions without which there cannot be 
 fully maintained that correspondence between inner and outer 
 actions which constitutes life. It is not, as some moralists 
 and most lawyers absurdly assert, that such rights are derived 
 from human legislation ; nor is it, as asserted by others with 
 absurdity almost as great, that there is no basis for them save 
 the inductions of immediate expediency. These rights are 
 deducible from the established connexions between our acts 
 and their results. As certainly as there are conditions which 
 must be fulfilled before life can exist, so certainly are 
 there conditions which must be fulfilled before complete 
 life can be enjoyed by the respective members of a society ; 
 and those which we call the requirements of justice, simply 
 answer to the most important of such conditions. 
 
 Hence, if life is our legitimate aim — if absolute morality 
 means, as it does, conformity to the laws of complete life ; 
 then absolute morality warrants the restraint of those who 
 force their fellow-citizens into non-conformity. Our justifi- 
 cation is, that life is impossible save under certain conditions ; 
 that it cannot be entire unless these conditions are main- 
 tained unbroken ; and that if it is right for us to live com- 
 pletely, it is right for us to remove any one who either 
 breaks these conditions in our persons or constrains us to 
 break them. 
 
 Such being the basis of our right to coerce the criminal, 
 
166 
 
 PRISON-ETHICS. 
 
 tLere next come the questions: — Wtat is the legitimate 
 extent of the coercion ? Can we from this source derive 
 authority for certain demands on him ? and are there any 
 similarly-derived limits to such demands ? To both these 
 questions there are affirmative answers. 
 
 Firstj we find authority for demauding restitution or com- 
 pensation. Conformity to the laws of life being the substance 
 of absolute morality ; and the social regulations which 
 absolute morality dictates, being those which make this 
 conformity possible ; it is a manifest corollary that whoever 
 breaks these regulations^ may be justly required to undo^ 
 as far as possible, the wrong he has done. The object 
 being to maintain the conditions essential to complete life, 
 it follows that, when one of these conditions has been trans- 
 gressed, the first thing to be required of the transgressor 
 is, that he shall put matters as nearly as may be in the state 
 they previously were. The property stolen shall be restored, 
 or an equivalent for it given. Any one injured by an 
 assault shall have his surgeon's bill paid, compensation for 
 lost time, and also for the suffering he has borne. And 
 similarly in all cases of infringed rights. 
 
 Second, we are warranted by this highest authority in 
 restricting the actions of the offender as much as is needful to 
 prevent further aggressions. Any citizen who will not allow 
 others to fulfil the conditions to complete life — who takes 
 away the produce of his neighbour's labour, or deducts from 
 that bodily health and comfort which his neighbour has 
 earned by good conduct, must be forced to desist. And society 
 is warranted in using such force as may be found requisite. 
 Equity justifies the fellow-citizens of such a man in limiting 
 the free exercise of his faculties to the extent necessary for 
 preserving the free exercise of their own faculties. 
 
 But now mark that absolute morality countenances no 
 restraint beyond this — no gratuitous inflictions of pain, no 
 revengeful penalties. The conditions it insists on being such 
 as make possible complete life, we cannot rightly abrogate 
 
PRISON-ETHICS, 167 
 
 these conditions^ even in the person of a criminal, further 
 than is needful to prevent greater abrogations of them. 
 Freedom to fulfil the laws of life being the thing insisted on, 
 to the end that the sum of life may be the greatest possible, 
 it follows that the life of the offender must be taken into 
 account as an item in this sum. We must permit him to 
 live as completely as consists with social safety. It is 
 commonly said that the griminal loses all his rights. This 
 may be so according to law, but it is not so according to 
 justice. Such portion of them only is justly taken away, 
 as cannot be left to him without danger to the community. 
 Those exercises of faculty, and consequent benefits, which 
 are possible under the necessary restraint, cannot be equit- 
 ably denied. If any do not think it proper that we should 
 be thus regardful of an offender's claims, let them consider 
 for a moment the lesson which Nature reads us. We do 
 not find that those processes of life by which bodily health 
 is maintained, are miraculously suspended in the person of 
 the prisoner. In him, as in others, good digestion waits on 
 appetite. If he is wounded, the healing process goes on 
 with the usual rapidity. When he is ill, as much effect is 
 expected from the vis medicatrix naturce by the medical 
 officer, as in one who has not transgressed. His percep- 
 tionsyieldhimguidanceastheydid before he was imprisoned; 
 and he is capable of much the same pleasurable emotions. 
 When wethus see that the beneficent arrangements of things, 
 are no less uniformly sustained in his person than in that 
 of another, are we not bound to respect in his person such 
 of these beneficent arrangements as we have power to 
 thwart ? are we not bound to interfere with the laws of life 
 no further than is needful ? If any still hesitate, there is 
 another lesson for them having the same implication. 
 Whoso disregards any one of those simpler laws of life out 
 of which, as we have shown, the moral laws originate, has 
 to bear the evil necessitated by the transgression — just that, 
 and no more. If, careless of your footing, you fall, the 
 
168 PEISON-ETHICS. 
 
 consequent bruise, and possibly some constitutional disturb- 
 ance entailed bj it, are all you have to suffer : tbere is not 
 tlie further gratuitous penalty of a cold or an attack of 
 small-pox. If you have eaten something which you know- 
 to be indigestible, there follow certain visceral derange- 
 ments and their concomitants ; but, for your physical sin, 
 there is no vengeance in the shape of a broken bone or a 
 spinal affection. The punishments^ in these and other cases, 
 are neither greater nor less than ffow from the natural 
 workings of things. Well, should we not with ail humility 
 follow this example ? Must we not infer that, similarly, a 
 citizen who has transgressed the conditions to social welfare, 
 ought to bear the needful penalties and restraints, but 
 nothing beyond these? Is it not clear that neither by absolute 
 morality nor by Nature^s precedents, are we warranted in 
 visiting on him any pains besides those involved in remedy- 
 ing, as far as may be, the evil committed, and preventing 
 other such evils ? To us it seems manifest that if society 
 exceeds this, it trespasses against the criminal. 
 
 Those who think that we are tending towards a mischie- 
 vous leniency, will find that the next step in our argu- 
 ment disposes of any such objection; for while equity 
 forbids us to punish the criminal otherwise than by making 
 him suffer the natural consequences, these, when rigorously 
 enforced, are quite severe enough. 
 
 Society having proved in the high court of absolute 
 morality, that the offender must make restitution or com- 
 pensation, and submit to the restraints requisite for public 
 safety; and the offender having obtained from the same 
 court the decision, that these restraints shall be no greater 
 than the specified end requires ; society thereupon makes 
 the further demand that, while living in durance, the 
 offender shall maintain himself ; and this demand absolute 
 morality at once endorses. The community having taken 
 measures for self-preservation, and having inflicted on the 
 aggressor no punishments or disabilities beyond those in- 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 169 
 
 volved in these necessary measures, is no further concerned 
 in the matter. With the support of the prisoner it has no 
 more to do than before he committed the crime. It is the 
 business of society simply to defend itself against him ; 
 and it is his business to live as well as he can under the 
 restrictions society is obliged to impose on him. All he 
 may rightly ask is^ to have the opportunity of labouring, 
 and exchanging the produce of his labour for necessaries ; 
 and this claim is a corollary from that already admitted, 
 that his actions shall not be restricted more than is needful 
 for the public safety. With these opportunities, however, 
 he must make the best of his position. He must be content 
 to gain as good a livelihood as the circumstances permit; 
 and if he cannot employ his powers to the best advantage, 
 if he has to work hard and fare scantily, these evils must 
 be counted among the penalties of his transgression — the 
 natural reactions of bis wrong action. 
 
 On this self-maintenance equity sternly insists. The 
 reasons which justify his imprisonment, equally justify the 
 refusal to let him have any other sustenance than he earns. 
 He is confined that he may not further interfere with the 
 complete living of his fellow-citizens — that he may not 
 again intercept any of those benefits which the order of 
 Nature has conferred on them, or any of those procured by 
 their exertions and careful conduct. And he is required 
 to support himself for exactly the same reasons — that he 
 may not interfere with others' complete living — that he 
 may not intercept the benefits they earn. For, if otherwise, 
 whence must come his food and clothing ? Directly from 
 the public stores, and indirectly from the pockets of all 
 tax-payers. And what is the property thus abstracted 
 from tax-payers ? It is the equivalent of so much benefit 
 earned by labour. It is so much means to complete living. 
 And when this property is taken away — when the toil has 
 been gone through, and the produce of it is intercepted by 
 the tax-gatherer on behalf of the convict ; the conditions to 
 
170 
 
 PEISON-ETHICS, 
 
 complete life are broken : the convict commits by deputy 
 a further aggression on his fellow-citizens. It matters not 
 that such abstraction is made according to law. We are 
 here considering the dictum of that authority which is 
 above law ; and which law ought to enforce. And this 
 dictum we find to be^ that each individual shall take the 
 evils and benefits of his own conduct — that the offender 
 must suffer, as far as is possible, all pains entailed by his 
 offence; and must not be allowed to visit part of them on 
 the unoffending. Unless the criminal maintains himself, he 
 indirectly commits an additional crime. Instead of repair- 
 ing the breach he has made in the conditions to complete 
 social life_, he widens this breach. He inflicts on others 
 that very injury which the restraint imposed on him was 
 to prevent. As certainly^ therefore, as such restraint is 
 warranted by absolute morality ; so certainly does absolute 
 morality warrant us in refusing him gratuitous support. 
 
 These, then, are the requirements of an equitable penal 
 system : — That the aggressor shall make restitution or com- 
 pensation; that he shall be placed under the restraints 
 requisite for social security ; that neither any restraints 
 beyond these, nor any gratuitous penalties, shall be inflicted 
 on him ; and that while living in confinement, or under 
 surveillance, he shall maintain himself. We are not 
 prepared to say that such dictates may at once be fully 
 ( beyed. Already we have admitted that the deductions of 
 absolute expediency must, in our transition state, be 
 qualified by the inductions of relative expediency. We 
 have pointed out that in rude times, the severest criminal 
 codes were morally justified if, without them, crime could 
 not be repressed and social safety insured. Whence, by 
 implication, it follows that our present methods of treatino- 
 criminals are warranted, if they come as near to those of 
 pure equity as circumstances permit. That any system 
 now feasible must fall short of the ideal sketched out, is 
 probable. It may be that the enforcement of restitution or 
 
PRISON- ETHICS, 171 
 
 compensation, is in many cases impracticable. It may be 
 that on some convicts, penalties more severe tlian abstract 
 justice demands must be inflicted. On the otber hand, it 
 may be that entire self-maintenance would entail on the 
 wholly -unskilled criminal, a punishment too grievous to be 
 borne. But any such shortcomings do not affect our 
 argument. All we insist on is, that the commands of 
 absolute morality shall be obeyed as far as possible — that 
 we shall fulfil them up to those limits beyond which experi- 
 ment proves that more evil than good results — that, ever 
 keeping in view the ideal, each change we make shall be 
 towards its realization. 
 
 But now we are prepared to say, that this ideal may be 
 in great part realized at the present time. Experience in 
 various countries, under various circumstances, has shown 
 that immense benefits result from substituting for the old 
 penal systems, systems that approximate to that above 
 indicated. Germany, France, Spain, England, Ireland, 
 and Australia, send statements to the effect that the most 
 successful criminal discipline, is a discipline of decreased 
 restraints and increased self-dependence. And the evidence 
 proves the success to be greatest, where the nearest 
 approach is made to the arrangements prescribed by 
 abstract justice. We shall find the facts striking : some of 
 them even astonishing. 
 
 When M. Oberm air was appointed G overnor of the 
 Munich State-Prison — 
 
 *' He found from 600 to 700 prisoners in the jail, in the worst state of 
 insubordination, and whose excesses, he was told, defied the harshest and 
 most stringent discipline; the prisoners were all chained together, and 
 attached to each chain was an iron weight, which the strongest found 
 difficulty in dragging along.- The guard consisted of about 100 soldiers, 
 who did duty not only at the gates and around the walls, but also in the 
 passages, and even in the workshops and dormitories ; and, strangest of all 
 protections against the possibility of an outbreak or individual inva- 
 sion, twenty to thirty large savage dogs, of the bloodhound breed, were let 
 loose at night in the passages and courts to keep their watch and vrard. 
 
172 prJsoN-ETHica. 
 
 According to his account the place waa a perfect Pandemonium, comprising, 
 ■within the limits of a few acres, the worst passions, the most slavish vices, 
 and the most heartless tyranny." 
 
 M. Obermair gradually relaxed this harsli system. He 
 greatly lightened the chains ; and would^ if allowed, have 
 thrown them aside. The dogs, and nearly all the guards, 
 were dispensed with ; and the prisoners were treated with 
 SLich consideration as to gain their confidence. Mr. Baillie- 
 Cochrane, who visited the place in 1852, says the prison- 
 gates were 
 
 ** Wide open, without any sentinel at the door, and a guard of only twenty 
 
 men idling away their time in a guard-room off the entrance-hall 
 
 None of the doors were provided with bolts and bars ; the only security was 
 an ordinary lock, and as in most of the rooms the key was not turned, there 
 
 was no obstacle to the men walking into the passage Over each 
 
 workshop some of the prisoners with the best characters were appointed 
 overseers, and M. Obermair assured me that if a prisoner transgressed a 
 regnlatinn, his companions generally told him, 'Es ist verboten ' (it is 
 forbidden), and it rarely happened that he did not yield to the opinion of his 
 
 fellow-prisoners Within the prison walls every description of work is 
 
 carried on ; the prisoners, divided into different gangs and supplied with 
 instruments and tools, make their own clothes, repair their own prison walls, 
 and forge their own chains, producing various specimens of manufacture 
 which are turned to most excellent account — the result being, that each 
 prisoner, by occupation and industry, maintains himself ; the surplus of his 
 earnings being given him on his emancipation, avoids his being parted with 
 in a state of destitution." 
 
 And further, the prisoners ^^ associate in their leisure 
 hours, without any check on their intercourse, but at the 
 same time under an efficient system of observation and 
 control '* — an arrangement by which, after many years' 
 experience, M. Obermair asserts that morality is increased. 
 
 And now what has been the result t During his six- 
 years' government of the Kaiserslauten (the first prison 
 under his care), M. Obermair discharged 132 criminals, of 
 which number 123 have since conducted themselves well, 
 and 7 have been recommitted. From the Munich prison, 
 between 1843 and 1845, 298 prisoners were discharged. 
 
 Of these, 246 have been restored, improved, to society. 
 Those whose characters are doubtful, but have not been 
 
PEISON-ETHICS. 173 
 
 remanded for any criminal act, 26 ; again under examina- 
 tion^ 4; punished by tlie police, 6; remanded, 8; died, 8." 
 This statement, says M. Obermair, '^is based on irre- 
 futable evidence." And to the reality of his success, 
 we have the testimony not only of Mr. Baillie-Cochrane, 
 but of the Eev. C. H, Townsend, Mr. George Combe, 
 Mr. Matthew Hill, and Sir John Milbanke, our Envoy at 
 the Court of Bavaria. 
 
 Take, again, the case of Mettray. Every one has heard 
 something about Mettray, and its success as a reformatory 
 of JQvenile criminals. Observe how nearly the successful 
 system there pursued, conforms to the abstract principles 
 above enunciated. 
 
 This " Colonic Agricole " is " without wall or enclosure 
 of any sort, for the purposes at least of confinement ; '' and 
 except when for some fault a child is temporarily put in a 
 cell, there is no physical restraint. The life is industrial : 
 the boys being brought up to trades or agriculture as they 
 prefer ; and all the domestic services being discharged 
 by them. " They all do their work by the piece ; " are 
 rewarded according to the judgment of the chef diatelier; 
 and, a portion being placed at the disposal of the child, 
 the rest is deposited in the savings-bank at Tours. *^'A 
 boy in receipt of any money has to make payment for any 
 part of his dress which requires to be renewed before the 
 stated time arrives at which fresh clothing is given out ; 
 
 on the other hand, if his clothes are found in good 
 
 condition at such time, he receives the benefit of it by 
 having the money which would have been laid out in 
 clothes placed to his account. Two hours per day are 
 allowed for play. Part-singing is taught ; and if a boy 
 shows any turn for drawing he receives a little instruction 
 
 in it Some of the boys also are formed into a 
 
 fire-brigade, and have rendered at times substantial assist- 
 ance in the neighbourhood." In which few leading facts 
 do we not clearly see that the essential peculiarities are — 
 
174 PEISON-ETHICS. 
 
 no more restraint than is absolutely necessary; self-support 
 as far as possible ; extra benefits earned by extra labour ; 
 and as much gratifying exercise of faculties as the circum- 
 stances permit. 
 
 The '^ intermediate system " which has of late been 
 carried out with much success in Ireland^ exemplifies^ in a 
 degree, the practicability of the same general principles. 
 Under this system, prisoners working as artizans are 
 allowed " such a modified degree of liberty as shall in 
 various ways prove their power of self-denial and self- 
 dependencOj in a manner wholly incompatible with the 
 rigid restraints of an ordinary prison/^ An offender who 
 has passed through this stage of probation, is tested by 
 employment " on messenger's duties daily throughout the 
 city, and also in special works required by the department 
 outside the prisou-Avalls. The performance of the duties 
 of messengers entails their being out until seven or eight 
 in the evening, unaccompanied by an officer; and although 
 a small portion of their earnings is allowed them weekly, 
 and they would have the power of compromising themselves 
 if so disposed, not one instance has as yet taken place of 
 the slightest irregularity, or even the want of punctuality, 
 although careful checks have been contrived to detect 
 either, should it occur." A proportion of their prison- 
 earnings is set aside for them in a savings-bank ; and to 
 this they are encouraged to add during their period of 
 partial freedom, with a view to subsequent emigration. 
 The results are: — "In the penitentiary the greatest possible 
 order and regularity, and an amount of willing industry 
 performed that cannot be obtained in the prisons/' 
 Employers to whom prisoners are eventually transferred, 
 "have on many occasions returned for others in con- 
 sequence of the good conduct of those at first engaged." 
 And according to Captain Crof ton's pamphlet of 1857, out 
 of 112 conditionally discharged during the previous year, 
 85 were going on satisfactorily, " 9 have been discharged 
 
PEIS0N-ETHIC3. 175 
 
 too recently to be spoken of, and 5 have Iiad their licences 
 revoked. As to the remaining 13, it has been found 
 impossible to obtain accurate information, but it is supposed 
 that 5 have left the country, and 3 enlisted." 
 
 The " mark system " of Captain Maconochie, is one 
 which more fully carries out the principle of self-main- 
 tenance, under restraints no greater than are needful for 
 safety. The plan is to join with time-sentences certain 
 labour-sentences — specific tasks to be worked out by the 
 convicts. " No rations, or other supplies of any kind, 
 whether of food, bedding, clothing, or even education or 
 indulgences, to be given gratuitously^ but all to be made 
 exchangeable, at fixed rates, at the prisoners^ own option, 
 for marks previously earned ; it being understood, at the 
 same time, that only those shall count towards liberation 
 which remain over and above all so exchanged ; the 
 prisoners being thus caused to depend for every necessary 
 on their own good conduct^ and their prison-offences to be 
 in like manner restrained by corresponding fines imposed 
 according to the measures of each." The use of marks, 
 which thus play the part of money, was first introduced by 
 Captain Maconochie in Norfolk Island. Describing the 
 working of his method, he says— 
 
 *' First, it gave me wages and then fines. One gave me willing and 
 progressively-skilled labourers, and the other saved me from the necessity of 
 
 imposing brutal and demoralizing punishments My form of money 
 
 next gave me school fees. I was most anxious to encourage education 
 among my men, but as I refused them rations gratuitously, so I would not 
 give them schooling either, but compelled them to yield marks to acquire it. 
 
 .... I never saw adult schools make such rapid progress My form 
 
 of money next gave me bailbonds in cases of minor or even great offences ; 
 a period of close imprisonment being wholly or in part remitted in con- 
 sideration of a sufficient number of other prisoners of good character 
 becoming bound, under a penalty, for the improved conduct of the culprit." 
 
 Even in the establishment of a sick-club and a burial- 
 club. Captain Maconochie applied "the inflexible principle 
 of giving nothing for nothing.'^ That is to say, here, as 
 throughout, he made the discipline of the prisoners as 
 
176 
 
 PRISON-ETHICS. 
 
 much like the discipline of ordinary life as possible : let 
 them experience just such good or evil as naturally flowed 
 from their conduct — a principle -which he rightly asserts is 
 the only true one. What were the effects ? The extreme 
 debasement of Norfolk Island convicts was notorious; and 
 on a preceding page we have described some of the 
 horrible sufferings inflicted on them. Yet, starting with 
 these most demoralized of criminals, Captain Maconochie 
 obtained highly-favourable results. *' In four years/^ he 
 says, " I discharged 920 doubly-convicted men to Sydney^ 
 of whom only 20, or 2 per cent., had been re-convicted up 
 to January, 1845;'' while, at the same time, the ordinary 
 proportion of re-convicted Yan Diemen's Land men, 
 otherwise trained, was 9 per cent. '^^ Captain Maconochie," 
 writes Mr. Harris in his Settlers and Convicts, " did more 
 for the reformation of these unhappy wretches, and 
 amelioration of their physical . circumstances, than the 
 most sanguine practical mind could beforehand have ven- 
 tured even to hope." Another witness says — " a reformation 
 far greater than has been hitherto effected in any body of 
 men by any system, either before or after yours, has taken 
 place in them." ^'As pastor of the island, and for two 
 years a magistrate, I can prove that at no period was 
 there so little crime," writes the Eev. B. Naylor. And 
 Thomas H. Dixon, Chief Superintendent of Convicts in 
 Western Australia, who partially introduced the system 
 there in 1856, asserts that not only was the amount of 
 work done under it extraordinary, but that '*^even althouo-h 
 the characters of some of the party were by no means 
 good previously (many of them being men whose licences 
 had been revoked in England), yet the transformation 
 which in this and all other respects they underwent 
 was very remarkable indeed." If such were the results, 
 when the method was imperfectly carried out (for the 
 Government all along refused to give any fixed value 
 to the marks as a means to liberation); what mio-ht be 
 
PRTSON-ETHICS. 177 
 
 expected if its motives and restraints were allowed their 
 full influence ? 
 
 Perhaps, however, of all evidence, the most conclusive is 
 that afforded by the prison of Valencia. When, in 1835, 
 Colonel Montesinos was appointed governor, ^'^the average 
 of re-committals was from 30 to 35 per cent, per annum — - 
 nearly the same that is found in England and other 
 countries in Europe ; but such has been the success of his 
 method, that for the last three years there has not been even 
 one re-committal to it, and for the ten previous years they 
 did not, on an average, exceed 1 per cent." And how 
 has this marvellous change been brought about ? By 
 diminished restraint and industrial discipline. The follow- 
 ing extracts, taken irregularly from Mr. Hoskins's Account 
 of the Public Prison at Valencia, will prove this : — 
 
 **When first the convict enters the establishment he wears chains, but 
 on his application to the commander they are taken off, unless he has not 
 conducted himself well." 
 
 " There are a thousand prisoners, and in the whole establishment I did 
 not see above three or four guardians to keep them in order. They say 
 there are only a dozen old soldiers, and not a bair or bolt that might not be 
 easily broken — apparently not more fastenings than in any private house." 
 
 *' When a convict enters, he is asked-what trade or employment he will 
 
 work at or learn, and above forty are open to him There are 
 
 weavers and spinners of every description ; . . . . blacksmiths, shoemakers, 
 basketmakers, ropemakers, joiners, cabinetmakers, making handsome 
 mahogany drawers ; and they had also a printing machine hard at work." 
 
 "The labour of every description for the repair, rebuilding, and cleaning 
 the establishment, is supplied by the convicts. They were all most re- 
 spectful in demeanour, and certainly I never saw such a good-looking set of 
 prisoners, useful occupations (and other considerate treatment) having 
 
 apparently improved their countenances [A-nd besides a] garden for 
 
 exercise planted with orange trees, there was also >■■ poultry yard for their 
 amusement, with pheasants and various other kinds of birds ; washing- 
 houses, where they wash their clothes ; and a shop, where they can purchase, 
 if they wish, tobacco and other little comforts out of one-fourth of the 
 profits of their labour, which is given to them. Another fourth they are 
 entitled to when they leave ; the other half goes to the establishment, 
 and often this is sufficient for all expenses, without any assistance from 
 the Government^ 
 
 Thus the highest success, regarded by Mr. lioskins as 
 
1 78 PEISON-ETHICS. 
 
 '^ really a miracle/' is achieved by a system most nearly 
 conforming to those dictates of absolute morality on which 
 we have insisted. The convicts are almost^ if not quite^ 
 self-supporting. They are subject neither to gratuitous 
 penalties nor unnecessary restrictions. While made to earn 
 their living, they are allowed to purchase such enjoyments 
 as consist with their confinement : the avowed principle 
 being, in the words of Colonel Montesinos, to '^ give as 
 much latitude to their free agency as can be made con- 
 formable to discipline at all." Thus they are (as we found 
 that equity required they should be) allowed to live as 
 satisfactorily as they can, under such restraints only as are 
 needful for the safety of their fellow-citizens. 
 
 To us it appears extremely significant that there should 
 be so close a correspondence between a 'priori conclasions^ 
 and the results of experiments tried without reference to 
 such conclusions. On the one hand, neither in the doctrines 
 of pure equity with which we set out, nor in the corollaries 
 drawn from them, is there any mention of criminal- 
 reformation : onr concern has been solely with the rights 
 of citizens and convicts in their mutual relations. On the 
 other hand, those who have carried out the improved penal 
 systems above described, have had almost solely in view 
 the improvement of the offender : the just claims of society, 
 and of those who sin against it, having been left out of 
 the question. Yet the methods which have succeeded so 
 marvellously in decreasing criminality, are the methods 
 which most nearly fulfil the requirements of abstract justice. 
 
 That the most equitable system is the one best calculated 
 to reform the offender, may indeed be deductively shown. 
 The internal experience of every one must prove to him, 
 that excessive punishment begets, not penitence, but indig- 
 nation and hatred. So long as an aggressor suffers nothing 
 beyond the evils which have naturally resulted from his 
 misconduct — so long as he perceives that his fellow-men 
 have done no more than was needful for self-defence — he 
 
TRTSON ETHICS. 179 
 
 has no excuse for anger; and is led to contemplate Ms 
 crime and Ms punishment as cause and effect. But if 
 gratuitous sufferings are inflicted on him, a sense of 
 injustice is produced. He regards himself as an injured 
 man. He cherishes animosity against all who have brought 
 this harsh treatment on him. G-lad of any plea for forget- 
 ting the injury he has done to others^ he dwells instead on 
 the injury others have done to him. Thus nurturing a 
 desire for revenge rather than atonement, he re-enters 
 society not better but worse ; and if he does not commit 
 further crimes, as he often does, he is restrained by the 
 lowest of motives — fear. Again, this industrial discipline, 
 to which criminals subject themselves under a purely 
 equitable system, is the discipline they especially need. 
 Speaking generally, we are all compelled to work by the 
 necessities of our social existence. For most of us this 
 compulsion suffices ; but there are some whose aversion to 
 labour cannot be thus overcome. Not labouring, and yet 
 needing sustenance, they are compelled to obtain it in 
 illegitimate ways ; and so bring on themselves the legal 
 penalties. The criminal class being thus in great part 
 recruited from the idle class; and the idleness being the 
 source of the criminality; it follows that a successful 
 discipline must be one which shall cure the idleness. The 
 natural compulsions to labour having been eluded, the 
 thing required is that the offender shall be so placed that 
 he cannot elude them. And this is just what is done 
 under the system we advocate. Its action is such that 
 men whose natures are ill-adapted to the conditions of 
 social life, bring themselves into a position in which a 
 better adaptation is forced on them by the alternative of 
 starvation. Lastly, let us not forget that this discipline 
 which absolute morality dictates, is salutary, not only 
 because it is industrial, but because it is voluntarily indus- 
 trial. As we have shown, equity requires that the confined 
 criminal shall be left to maintain himself — that is, shall be 
 
180 PKISON-ETUICS. 
 
 left to work much or little, and to take the consequent 
 plenitude or hunger. When, therefore, under this sharp 
 but natural spur, a prisoner begins to exert himself, he 
 does so bj his own will. The process which leads him into 
 habits of labour, is a process by which his self-control is 
 strengthened ; and this is what is wanted to make him a 
 better citizen. It is to no purpose that you make him work 
 by external coercion ; for when he is again free, and the 
 coercion absent, he will be what he was before. The 
 coercion must be an internal one, which he shall carry 
 with him out of prison. It avails little that you force 
 him to work ; he must force himself to work. And this 
 he will do, only when placed in those conditions which 
 equity dictates. 
 
 Here, then, we find a third order of evidences. Psychol- 
 ogy supports our conclusion. The various experiments 
 above detailed, carried out by men who had no political 
 or ethical theories to propagate, have established facts 
 which we find to be quite concordant, not only with the 
 deductions of absolute morality, but also with the deductions 
 of mental science. Such a combination of different kinds 
 of proof, cannot, we thiuk, be resisted. 
 
 And now let us try whether, by pursuing somewhat 
 further the method thus far followed, we can see our way 
 o the development of certain improved systems which are 
 coming into use. 
 
 Equity requires that the restraint of the criminal shall 
 be as great as is needful for the safety of society ; but not 
 greater. In respect to the q^iality of the restraint, there is 
 little difiiculty in interpreting this requirement ; but there 
 is considerable difficulty in deciding on the duration of the 
 restraint. No obvious mode presents itself of finding out 
 how long a transgressor must be held in legal bondage, to 
 insure society against further injury from him. A longer 
 period than is necessary^ implies an actual injustice to 
 
PEISON-ETHICS. 181 
 
 tlie o&nder. A shorter period than is necessary, implies 
 a potential injustice to society. And yet, without good 
 guidance, one or other of these extremes is almost sure to 
 be fallen into. 
 
 At present, the lengths of penal sentences are fixed in a 
 manner that is wholly empirical. For offences defined in 
 certain technical ways, Acts of Parliament assign trans- 
 portations and imprisonments, having durations not greater 
 than so much nor less than so much : these partially- deter- 
 mined periods being arbitrarily fixed by legislators, under 
 the promptings of moral feeling. Within the assigned 
 limits the judge exercises his discretion ; and in deciding 
 on the time over which the restraint shall extend, he is 
 swayed, partly by the special quality of the offence, partly 
 by the circumstances under which it was committed, partly 
 by the prisoner's appearance and behaviour, partly by the 
 character given to him. And the conclusion he arrives at 
 after consideration of these data, depends very much on 
 his individual nature — his moral bias and his theories of 
 human conduct. Thus the mode of fixing the lengths of 
 penal restraints, is from beginning to end, little else than 
 guessing. How ill this system of guessing works, we have 
 abundant proofs, "Justices' justice," which illustrates it 
 in its simplest form, has become a bye-word; and the 
 decisions of higher criminal court frequently err in the 
 directions of both undue severity and undue lenity. Daily 
 there occur cases of extremely-trifling transgressions visited 
 with imprisonments of considerable lengths; and daily there 
 occur cases in which the punishments are so inadequate, that 
 the offenders time after time commit new crimes, when 
 time after time discharged from custody. 
 
 Now the question is whether, in place of this purely em- 
 pirical method which answers so ill, equity can guide us to 
 a method which shall more correctly adjust the period of 
 restraint to the requirement. We believe it can. We 
 believe that by following out its dictates, we shall arrive 
 
182 PHISON-ETHTCS. 
 
 at a method that is in great measure self-acting; ana 
 therefore less liable to be vitiated by errors of individual 
 judgment or feeling. 
 
 We have seen that v^ere the injunctions of absolute 
 morality obeyed^ every transgressor would be compelled to 
 make restifcation or compensation. Throughout a consider- 
 able range of cases, this would itself involve a period of 
 restraint varying in proportion to the magnitude of the 
 oifence. It is true that when the malefactor possessed 
 ample means, the making restitution or compensation would 
 usually be to him but a slight punishment. But though in 
 these comparatively few cases, the regulation would fall 
 short of its object, in so far as its eifect on the criminal was 
 concerned, yet in the immense majority of cases — in all 
 cases of aggressions committed by the poorer members 
 of the community — it would act with, efficiency. It would 
 involve periods of detention that would be longer or 
 shorter according as the injury done was greater or less, 
 and according as the transgressor was idle or industrious. 
 And although between the injury done by an offender and 
 his moral turpitude, there is no constant and exact propor- 
 tion, 3^et the greatness of the injury done, affords, on the 
 average of cases, a better measure of the discipline required, 
 than do the votes of Parliamentary majorities and the 
 guesses of judges. 
 
 But our guidance does not end here. An endeavour still 
 further to do that which is strictly equitable, will carry us 
 still nearer to a correct adjustment of discipline to delin- 
 quency. When, having enforced restitution, we insist on 
 some adequate guarantee that society shall not again be 
 injured, and accept any guarantee that is sufficient, we 
 open the way to a self-acting regulator of the period of deten- 
 tion. Already our laws are in many cases satisfied with 
 securities for future good behaviour. Already this system 
 manifestly tends to separate the more vicious from the less 
 vicious; seeing that, on the average^, the difficulty of find- 
 
PEISON-ETHICS. 183 
 
 ing securities is great in proportion as the character is bad. 
 And wliat we propose is tliat this system^ now confined to 
 particular kinds of offences^ shall be made general. But 
 let us be more specific. 
 
 A prisoner on his trial calls witnesses to testify to his 
 previous character — that is^if his character has been toler- 
 ably good. The evidence thus given weighs more or less 
 in his f avour^ according to the respectability of the witnesses^ 
 their number^ and the nature of their testimony. Taking 
 into account these several elements, the judge forms his 
 conception of the delinquent's general disposition, and 
 modifies the length of punishment accordingly. NoWj may 
 we not fairly say that if the current opinion respecting a 
 convict's character could be brought directly to bear in 
 qualifying the statutory sentence, instead of being brought 
 indirectly to bear, as at present, it would be a great im- 
 provement ? Clearly the estimate made by a judge from 
 such testimony, must be less accurate than the estimate 
 made by the prisoner's neighbours and employers. Clearly, 
 too, the opinion expressed by such neighbours and em- 
 ployers in the witness-box, is less trustworthy than an 
 opinion which entails on them serious responsibility. The 
 desideratum is, that a prisoner's sentence shall he qualified hy 
 the judgment of those who have had life-long experience of 
 him; and that the sincerity of this judgment shall he tested 
 hy their readiness to act on it. 
 
 But how is this to be done ? A very simple method of 
 doing it has been suggested.* When a convict has ful- 
 filled his task of making restitution or compensation, let it 
 be possible for one or other of those who have known him, to 
 take him out of confinement, on giving adequate bail for his 
 good behaviour. Always premising that such an arrange- 
 ment shall be possible only under an ofiicial permit, to be 
 withheld if the prisoner's conduct has been unsatisfactory ; 
 and always premising that the person who offers bail shall 
 * We owe the suggestion to the late Mr. Ootavius H. Smith. 
 
184 
 
 PRISON-ETHICS. 
 
 be of good cliaracter and means ; let it be competent for 
 sucli a one to liberate a prisoner by being bound on bis 
 behalf for a specific sum^ or by undertaking to make good 
 any injury whicli he may do to bis fellow-citizens within a 
 specified period. This will doubtless be thought a startling 
 proposal. We shall^ however^ find good reasons to believe 
 it might be safely acted on — nay, we shall find facts proving 
 the success of a plan that is obviously less safe. 
 
 Under such an arrangement^ the liberator and the convict 
 would usually stand in the relation of employer and em- 
 ployed. Those to be thus conditionally released, would be 
 ready to work for somewhat lower wages than were usual in 
 their occupation ; and those who became bound for them, 
 besides having this economy of wages as an incentive, 
 would be in a manner guaranteed by it against the risk 
 undertaken. In working for less money, and in being 
 under the surveillance of his master, the convict would still 
 be undergoing a mitigated discipline. And while, on the 
 one hand, he would be put on his good behaviour by the 
 consciousness that his master might at any time cancel the 
 contract and surrender him back to the authorities, he 
 would, on the other hand, have a remedy against his master^s 
 harshness, in the option of returning to prison, and there 
 maintaining himself for the remainder of his term. 
 
 Observe, next, that the difficulty of obtaining such con- 
 ditional release would vary with the gravity of the offence 
 which had been committed. Men guilty of heinous crimes 
 would remain in prison ; for none would dare to become 
 responsible for their good behaviour. Any one convicted a 
 second time would remain unbailed for a much longer period 
 than before; seeing that having once inflicted loss on some 
 one bound for him, he would not again be so soon offered 
 the opportunity of doing the like : only after a long period of 
 good behaviour testified to by prison-officers, would he be 
 likely to get another chance. Conversely, those whose trans- 
 gressions were not serious, and who had usually been well- 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 185 
 
 conducted, would readily obtain recognizances ; wliile to 
 venial offenders this qualified liberation would come as soon 
 as they had made restitution. Moreoverj when innocent 
 persons had been pronounced guilty^ as well as when solitary 
 misdeeds had been committed by those of really superior 
 natures, the system we have described would supply a 
 remedy. From the wrong verdicts of the law and its mis- 
 taken estimates of turpitude, there would be an appeal ; 
 and long-proved worth would bring its reward in the 
 mitigation of grievous injustices. 
 
 A further advantage would by implication result, in the 
 shape of a long industrial discipline for those who most 
 needed it. Speaking generally, diligent and skilful work- 
 men, who were on the whole useful members of society, 
 would, if their offences were not serious, soon obtain em- 
 ployers to give bail for them. Whereas members of the 
 criminal class — the idle and the dissolute — would remain 
 long in confinement ; since, until they had been brought by 
 habitual self-maintenance under restraint, to something like 
 industrial efficiency, employers would not be tempted to 
 become responsible for them. 
 
 We should thus have a self-acting test, not only of the 
 length of restraint required for social safety, but also of that 
 apprenticeship to labour which many convicts need ; while 
 there would be supplied a means of rectifying sundry failures 
 and excesses of our present system. The plan would practi- 
 cally amount to an extension of trial by jury. At present, 
 the State calls in certain of a prisoner's fellow-citizens to 
 decide whether he is guilty or not guilty : the judge, under 
 guidance of the penal laws, being left to decide what punish- 
 ment he deserves, if guilty. Under the arrangement we 
 have described, the judge's decision would admit of modi- 
 fication by a jury of the convict's neighbours. And this 
 natural jury, while it would be best fitted by previous 
 knowledge of the man to form an opinion, would be rendered 
 cautious by the sense of grave responsibility; inasmuch as 
 
186 PEISON-ETHICS, 
 
 any one of its number who gave a conditional release^ would 
 do so at Isis own peril. 
 
 And now mark tliat all tlie evidence forthcoming to 
 prove the safety and advantages of the " intermediate 
 system," proves, still more conclusively^ the safety and 
 advantages of this system which we would substitute for 
 it. What we have described, is nothing more than an 
 intermediate system reduced to a natural instead of an 
 artificial form — carried out with natural checks instead of 
 artificial checks. If, as Captain Crofton has experimentally 
 shown, it is safe to give a prisoner conditional liberation, 
 on the strength of good conduct during a certain period of 
 prison-discipline; it is evidently safer to let his conditional 
 liberation depend not alone on good conduct while under 
 the eyes of his jailors, but also on the character he had 
 earned during his previous life. If it is safe to act on the 
 judgments of ofScials whose experience of a convict's 
 behaviour is comparatively limited, and who do not suffer 
 penalties when their judgments are mistaken ; then, mani- 
 festly, it is safer (when such officials can show no reason 
 to the contrary), to act on the additional judgment of one 
 who has not only had better opportunities of knowing the 
 convict, but who will be a serious loser if his judgment 
 proves erroneous. Further, that surveillance over each 
 conditionally-liberated prisoner, which the ^^ intermediate 
 system" exercises, would be still better exercised when, 
 instead of going to a strange master in a strange district, 
 the prisoner went to some master in his own district ; and, 
 under such circumstances, it would be easier to get informa- 
 tion respecting his after-career. There is every reason 
 to think that this method would be workable. If, on the 
 recommendation of the officers. Captain Crofton's prisoners 
 obtain employers "who have on many occasions returned 
 for others, in consequence of the good conduct of those at 
 first engaged • " still better would be the action of the 
 system when, instead of the employers having *"* every 
 
PRISON-ETHICS. 187 
 
 facility placed at tlieir disposal for satisfying themselves as 
 to the antecedents of the convict,'^ they were already familiar 
 with his antecedents. 
 
 Finally, let us not overlook the fact^ that this course is 
 the only one which, while duly consulting social safety, is 
 also entirely just to the prisoner. As we have shown, the 
 restraints imposed on a criminal are warranted by absolute 
 equity, only to the extent needful to prevent further 
 ag'gressions on his fellow-men ; and when his fellow-men 
 impose greater restraints than these, they trespass against 
 him. Hence, when a prisoner has worked out his task of 
 making restitution, and, so far as is possible, undone the 
 wrong he had done, society is, in strict justice, bound to 
 accept any arrangement which adequately protects its 
 members against further injury. And if, moved by the 
 expectation of profit, or other motive, any citizen sufficiently 
 substantial and trustworthy, will take on himself to hold 
 society harmless, society must agree to his proposal. All 
 it can rightly require is, that the guarantee against contin- 
 gent injury shall be adequate ; which, of course, it never 
 can be where the contingent injury is of the gravest kind. 
 No bail could compensate for murder; and therefore against 
 this, and other extreme crimes, society would rightly refuse 
 any such guarantee, even if offered, which it would be very 
 unlikely to be. 
 
 Such, then, is our code of prison-ethics. Such is the 
 ideal which we ought to keep ever in view when modifying 
 our penal system. Again we say, as we said at the outset, 
 that the realization of such an ideal wholly depends on the 
 advance of civilization. Let no one carry away the impres- 
 sion that we regard all these purely equitable regulations 
 as immediately practicable. Though they may be partially 
 carried out, we think it highly improbable that they could 
 at present be carried out in full. The number of offenders, 
 the low average of enlightenment, the ill- working of adminis- 
 50 
 
188 PEISON-ETHICS. 
 
 trative macliinery, and above all^ the difficulty of obtaining 
 officials of adequate intelligence^ good feelings and self- 
 control, are obstacles wbidi must long stand in the way of 
 a system so complex as that which morality dictates. And 
 we here assert, as emphatically as before, that the harshest 
 penal system is ethically justified if it is as good as the 
 circumstances of the time permit. However great the 
 cruelties it inflicts, yet if a system theoretically more 
 equitable would not be a sufficient terror to evil-doers, or 
 could not be worked, from lack of officers sufficiently 
 judicious, honest, and humane — if less rigorous methods 
 would entail a diminution of social security ; then the 
 methods iu use are extrinsically good though intrinsically 
 bad. They are, as before said, the least wrong, and there- 
 fore relatively right. 
 
 Nevertheless, as we have endeavoured to prove, it is 
 immensely important that, while duly considering the rela- 
 tively right, we should keep the absolutely right constantly 
 in view. True as it is that, in this transition state, our 
 conceptions of the ultimately expedient must ever be 
 qualified by our experience of the proximately expedient ; 
 it is not the less true that the proximately expedient cannot 
 be determined unless the ultimately expedient is known. 
 Before we can say what is as good as the time permits, we 
 must say what is abstractedly good; for the first idea 
 involves the last. We must have some fixed standard, 
 some invariable measure, some constant clue; otherwise we 
 shall inevitably be misled by the suggestions of immediate 
 policy, and wander away from the right rather than advance 
 towards it. This conclusion is fully borne out by the facts 
 we have cited. In other cases, as well as in the case of penal 
 discipline, the evidence shows how terribly we have erred 
 from obstinately refusing to consult first principles and 
 clinging to an unreasoning empiricism. Though, during 
 civilization, grievous evils have occasionally arisen from 
 attempts suddenly to realize absolute rectitude, yet a 
 
PEISON-ETHICS, 189 
 
 greater sum total of evils has arisen from the more usual 
 course of ignoring absolute rectitude. Age after age, efiPete 
 institutions have been maintained far longer than they 
 "would else have been, and equitable arrangements have 
 been needlessly postponed. Is it not time for us to profit 
 by past lessons ? 
 
 Postscript. — Since the publication of this essay in 1860 
 further evidence supporting its conclusions has been made 
 public. Dr. F. J. Mouat, late Inspector-General of Gaols in 
 Lower Bengal, has given, in various pamphlets and articles, 
 dating from 1872, accounts of his experiences, which 
 entirely harmonize with the foregoing general argument. 
 Speaking of three leading systems of prison-discipline, 
 " based on opposite theories,^'' he says : — 
 
 " The oldest is, that a prison should be rendered a terror to evil doers by 
 the infliction of as much pain as can be inflicted, without direct injury to 
 health or risk to life. The second plan is a graduated system of punishment, 
 from which the direct infliction of pain is eliminated, and the prisoner is 
 allowed to work his way to freedom and mitigation of sentence, by mere 
 good conduct in jail. The third, and in my humble judgment the best, is 
 to convert every prison into a school of industry, labour being used as an 
 instrument of punishment, discipline, and reformation." — Prison Industry in 
 its Primitive, Jlefarmatory, and Economic Aspects (London, Nov. 1889). 
 
 In his pamphlet on the Prison System of India, published 
 in 1872, Dr. Mouat contends : — 
 
 *' That remunerative prison labour is an efi&cient instrument of punishment 
 and reformation by occupying the whole available time of criminals in 
 uncongenial and compulsory employments ; by teaching them the means of 
 gaining an honest livelihood on release ; by the inculcation of habits of 
 order and industry, to the displacement of the irregularity and idleness 
 which are the sources of so much vice and crime ; and by repaying to the 
 State the whole or part of the cost of repression of crime by the compulsory 
 industry of the unproductive classes, and thus relieving the community at 
 large from a burden which it is at present compelled to bear. 
 
 '* That the economic objections to the remunerative employment of con- 
 victs are unsound and untenable ; and that even if they were true as respects 
 individuals and small sections of the community, the interests of the 
 minority should yield to the general welfare." 
 
 Once more, under the title Prison Discipline and its 
 Results in Bengal, first published in the Journal of the 
 
190 
 
 PRISON-ETHICS. 
 
 Society of Arts in 1872, Dr. Mouat, after describing an 
 exhibition of gaol-manufactures held in Calcutta in 1856^ 
 urges " that every prisoner sentenced to labour should be 
 made to repay to the State the whole cost of his punish- 
 ment in gaol ; . . . and that prisons should be made, as 
 much as possible, schools of industry, as combining, more 
 completely than can be effected by any other system, the 
 punishment of the offender, with the protection of society.'*^ 
 He then goes on to show what have been the results of 
 the self-supporting system : — 
 
 " The net profits realized from the labour of the convicts actually employed 
 in handicrafts, after deducting the cost of production, were, in round numbers, 
 as follows : — 
 
 £ 
 
 1855-56 11,019 
 
 '56-57 12,300 
 
 '57-58 10,841 
 
 '59-60 14,065 
 
 '60-61 23,124 
 
 '61-62 54,542 
 
 '62-03 30,604 
 
 '63-64 54,542 
 
 £ 
 
 1864-65 32,988 
 
 '65-66 35,543 
 
 '66 14,287 
 
 '67 41,168 
 
 '68 56,817 
 
 '69 46,588 
 
 '70 45,274 
 
 In all, nearly half a million of money. In 1866, the accounts were made 
 up for only eight months, to introduce the calendar in place of the official 
 year, which ended on the 30th of April. 
 
 "If the limits of time and space permitted, I could show you in minute 
 detail that each skilled prisoner employed in handicrafts, striking the 
 average of all the jails, earned considerably more than he cost ; that five of 
 the prisons under my charge were at various times self-supporting, and 
 that one of them, the great industrial prison at Alipore, a suburb of 
 Calcutta, has repaid very considerably more than its cost, for the last ten 
 years continuously." 
 
 As Dr. Mouat held the position of Inspector-General of 
 Gaols in Lower Bengal for 15 years, and as, during that 
 period, he had under his control an average of 20,000 
 prisoners, it may, I think, be held that his experiences 
 have been tolerably extensive, and that a S3^stem justified 
 by such experiences is worthy of adoption. Unfortunately, 
 however, men pooh-pooh those experiences which do not 
 accord with their foregone conclusions. 
 
 I have occasionally vented the paradox that mankind go 
 
PEISON-ETHICS. 191 
 
 right only wherL they have tried all possible ways of going 
 wrong : intending it to be taken with some qualification. 
 Of late, however, I have observed that in some respects 
 this paradox f-alls short of the truth. Sundry instances 
 have shown me that even when mankind have at length 
 
 o 
 
 stumbled into the right course, they often deliberately return 
 to the wrong. 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 [From the Forfcniglitly Review for Jidy 1888. This essay was 
 called forth by attacks on me 'made in essays i^itblished in 
 'preceding 'numbers of the Fortniglitly Review — essays in which 
 the Kantian system of ethics was lauded as i'^nmensely superior to 
 the system of ethics defended by me. The last section now appears 
 for the first time.'] 
 
 If^ before Kant uttered that often-quoted saying in 
 whichj with the stars of Heaven he coupled the conscience 
 of Man^ as being the two things that excited his awe^ he 
 had known more of Man than he did^ he would probably 
 have expressed himself somewhat otherwise. Not^ indeed, 
 that the conscience of Man is not wonderful enough, what- 
 ever be its supposed genesis ; but the wonderfulness of it 
 is of a different kind according as we assume it to have 
 been supernaturally given or infer that it has been natur- 
 ally evolved. The knowledge of Man in that large sense 
 which Anthropology expresses, had made, in Kanf^s day, 
 but small advances. The books of travel were relatively 
 few, and the facts which they contained concerning the 
 human mind as existing in different races, had not been 
 gathered together and generalized. In our days the 
 conscience of Man, as inductively known, has none of that 
 universality of presence and unity of nature, which Kant^s 
 saying tacitly assumes. Sir John Lubbock writes : — 
 
 " In fact, I believe that the lower races of men may be said to be deficient 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 193 
 
 in the idea of right That there should be any races of men so 
 
 deficient in moral feeling, was altogether opposed to the preconceived ideas 
 with which I commenced the study of savage life, and I have arrived at the 
 conviction by slow degrees, and even with reluctance." — Origin of Civilization^ 
 1882, pp. 404-5. 
 
 But now let us look at tlie evidence from wliicli this 
 impression is derived, as we find it in the testimonies of 
 travellers and missionaries. 
 
 Praising his deceased son, Tui Thakau, a Fijian Chief, concluded "by 
 speaking of his daring spirit and consummate cruelty, as he could kill his 
 own wives if they offended him, and eat them afterwards." — Western Pacijic. 
 J. E. Erskine, p. 248. 
 
 ** Shedding of blood is to him no crime, but a glory .... to be somehow 
 an acknowledged murderer is the object of the Fijian's restless ambition.'* — 
 Fiji and the Fijian^. Rev. T. Williams, i., p. 112. 
 
 *' It is a melancholy fact that when they [the Zulu boys] have arrived at a 
 very early age, should their mothers attempt to chastise them, such is the 
 law, that these lads are at the moment allowed to kill their mothers." — 
 Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa. G. Thompson, ii., p. 418. 
 
 *' Murther, adultery, thievery, and all other such like crimes, are here 
 [Gold Coast] accounted no sins." — Description of the Coast of Guinea. W. 
 Bosman, p. 130. 
 
 "The accusing conscience is unknown to him [the East African]. His 
 only fear after committing a treacherous murder is that of being haunted by 
 the angry ghost of the dead." — Lake Regions of Central Africa. R. F. 
 Burton, ii., p. 336. 
 
 " I never could make them [East Africans] understand the existence of 
 good principle." — TJie Albert N^Yanza. S. W. Baker, i., pp. 241. 
 
 "The Damaras kill useless and worn-out people; even sons smother 
 their sick fathers." — Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa. 
 F. Galton, p. 112. 
 
 The Damaras " seem to have no perceptible notion of right and wrong." — 
 Ibid. p. 72. 
 
 Against these we may set some converse facts. At the 
 other extreme we have a few Eastern tribes — pagans they 
 are called — who practise the virtues which Western nations 
 — Christians they are called — do but teach. While Euro- 
 peans thirst for blood-revenge in much the same way as 
 the lowest savages^ there are some simple peoples of the 
 Indian Hills^ as the Lepchas^ who '^^are singularly forgiving 
 of injuries ; ■"* and Campbell exemplifies '^ the efiect of a 
 
 * Campbell in Journal of the Ethnological Society, July, N. S. vol. i,, 
 1869, p. 150. 
 
194 THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 very strong sense of duty on this savage. ""^ That charac- 
 ter which the creed of Christendom is supposed to foster 
 is exhibited in high degree by the Arafuras (Papuans) who 
 live in " peace and brotherly love with one another "t to 
 such extent that government is but nominal. And con- 
 cerning various of the Indian Hill-tribes, as the Santals, 
 SowrahSj Marias^ Lepchas, Bodo and Dhimals, different 
 observers testify of them severally that '^they were the 
 most truthful set of men I ever met/'{ " crime and criminal 
 officers are almost unknown/'^ ^'^ a pleasing feature in 
 their character is their complete truthfulness/^ || ^*' they 
 bear a singular character for truthfulness and honesty/^^ 
 they are '* wonderfully honest,""^"^ ''*' honest and truthful in 
 deed and word.^tt Irrespective of race, we find these 
 traits in men who are, and have long been, absolutely 
 peaceful (the uniform antecedent), be they the Jakuns of 
 the South Malayan Peninsula, who '^ are never known to 
 steal an^^thing, not even the most insignificant trifle,'^JJ or 
 be it in the Hos of the Himalaya, among whom ''^a reflection 
 on a man^s honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send 
 him to self-destruction/'§§ So that in respect of conscience 
 these uncivilized people are as superior to average Euro- 
 peans, as average Europeans are superior to the brutal 
 savages previously described. 
 
 Had Kant had these and kindred facts before him, 
 
 * lUd. p. 154. 
 
 t Dr. H. Kolff, Voyages of the Butch brig ^'Dourga^ Earl's translation, 
 pp. 161. 
 
 X W. W. Hunter, Ammls of Rural Bengal, p. 248. 
 § Ihid. p. 217. 
 
 11 Dr. J. Shortt, Hill Banges of Southern India, pt. iii., p. 38. 
 ^ Gld^^^ndi m Selections from the Records of Government of India (Foxeiga 
 Department), No. xxsix., p. 41. 
 
 ** Campbell in Journal of the Ethnological Society, N. S. vol. i., 1869, 
 p. 150. 
 ft B. H. Hodgson in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, xviii., p. 745, 
 J I Rev. P. Favre in Journal of the Indian Archipelago, ii., p. 266. 
 §§ Col. E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 206. 
 
THE ETHICS OP KANT. 195 
 
 bis conception of tlie human mind, and consequently his 
 ethical conception, would scarcely have been what they 
 were. Believing, as he did, that one object of his awe — the 
 stellar Universe — has been evolved, he might by evidence 
 like the foregoing have been led to suspect that the 
 other object of his awe — the human conscience — has been 
 evolved, and has consequently a real nature unlike its 
 apparent nature. 
 
 For the disciples of Kant living in our day there can be 
 made no such defence as that which may be made for their 
 master. On all sides of them lie classes of facts of various 
 kinds, which might suffice to make them hesitate, if nothing 
 more. Here are a few such classes of facts. 
 
 Though, unlike the uncultured, who suppose everything 
 to be what it appears, chemists had for many generations 
 known that multitudinous substances which seem simple 
 are really compound, and often highly compound; yet, 
 until the time of Sir Humphrey Davy, even chemists had 
 believed that certain substances which resisted all their 
 powers of decomposition, were to be classed amocg the 
 elements. Davy, however, by subjecting the alkalies to 
 a force not before applied, proved that they are oxides 
 of metals ; and, suspecting the like to be the case with 
 the earths, similarly proved the composite nature of these 
 also. Not only the common sense of the uncultured, but 
 the common sense of the cultured was shown to be wroner. 
 Wider knowledge has, as usual, led to greater modesty, 
 and, since Davy's day, chemists have felt less certain that 
 the so-called elements are elementary. Contrariwise, in- 
 creasing evidence of sundry kinds leads them to suspect 
 more and more strongly that they are all compound. 
 
 Alike to the labourer who digs it out and to the carpenter 
 who uses it in his workshop, a piece of chalk appears a 
 thing than which nothing can be simpler; and ninety-nine 
 people out of a hundred would agree with them. Yet a 
 
196 THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 piece of chalk is MgMy complex. A microscope stows it 
 to consist of myriads of shells of Foraminifera ; shows, 
 further, that it contains more kinds than one; and shows, 
 further still, that each minute shell, whole or broken, is 
 formed of many chambers, every one of which once contained 
 a living unit. Thus by ordinary inspection, however close, 
 the true nature of chalk cannot be known; and to one who 
 has absolute confidence in his eyes the assertion of its true 
 nature appears absurd. 
 
 Take again a living body of a seemingly uncomphcated 
 kind — say a potato. Cut it through and observe how 
 structureless is its substance. But though unaided vision 
 gives this verdict, aided vision gives a widely different one. 
 Aided vision discovers, in the first place, that the mass is 
 everywhere permeated by vessels of complex formation. 
 Further, that it is made up of innumerable units called 
 cells, each of which has walls composed of several layers. 
 Further still, that each cell contains a number of starch- 
 grains. And yet still further, that each of these grains is 
 formed of layer within layer, like the coats of an onion. 
 So that where there appears perfect simplicity there is really 
 complexity within complexity. 
 
 From these examples which the objective world furnishes, 
 let us turn to some examples furnished by the subjective 
 world — some of our states of consciousness. Up to modern 
 times any one who, looking out on the snow, was told that 
 the impression of whiteness it gave him was composed of 
 impressions such as those given by the rainbow, would have 
 regarded his informant as a lunatic; as would even now 
 the great mass of mankind. But since Newton's day, it 
 has become well known to a relatively small number that 
 this is literal fact. Not only may white light be resolved 
 by a prism into a number of brilliant colours, but, by an 
 appropriate arrangement, these colours can be re-combined 
 into white light : the visual sensation which seems perfectly 
 simple proves to be highly compound. Those who habit- 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 197, 
 
 ually suppose tliat tilings are what tliey seem^ are wrong 
 here as in multitudinous other cases. 
 
 Another example is supplied bj the sensation of sound. 
 A solitary note struck on the piauo, or a blast from a horn^ 
 yields through the ear a feeling which appears homogeneous ; 
 and the uninstructed are incredulous if told that it is an 
 intricate combination of noises. In the first place, that which 
 constitutes the more voluminous part of the tone is accom- 
 panied by a number of over-toneSj producing what is known 
 as its timbre : instead of one note, there are half a dozen 
 noteSj of which the chief has its character specialized by 
 the others. In the second place, each of these notes, con- 
 sisting objectively of a rapid series of aerial waves, produces 
 subjectively a rapid series of impressions on the auditory 
 nerve. Either by the appliance of Hooke or by Savart's 
 machine or by the siren, it is proved to demonstration that 
 every musical sound is the product of successive units of 
 sound, each in itself unmusical, which, as they succeed one 
 another with increasing rapidity, produce a tone which pro- 
 gressively rises in pitch. Here again, then, under an 
 apparent simplicity there is a double complexity. 
 
 Most of these examples of the illusiveness of unaided 
 perception, whether exercised upon objective or subjective 
 existences, were unknown to Kant, Had they been known 
 to him they might have suggested other views concerning 
 certain of our states of consciousness, and might have given 
 a different character to his philosophy. Let us observe 
 what would possibly have been the changes in two of his 
 cardinal conceptions — metaphysical and ethical. 
 
 Our consciousness of Time and Space appeared to him, 
 as they appear to everyone, perfectly simple ; and the 
 apparent simplicity he accepted as actual simplicity. Had 
 he suspected that, just as the seemingly homogeneous and 
 undecomposable consciousness of Sound really consists of 
 multitudinous units of consciousness, so might the appa- 
 
198 THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 rently homogeneous and undecomposable consciousness of 
 Space, he would possibly have been led to inquire whether 
 the consciousness of Space is not wholly composed of in- 
 finitely numerous relations of position, such as those which 
 every portion of it presents. And finding that every por- 
 tion of Space, immense or minute, cannot be either known 
 or conceived save in some relative position to the conscious 
 subject, and that, besides involving the relations of distance 
 and direction, it invariably contains within itself relations 
 of right and left, top and bottom, nearer and farther ; he 
 might perhaps have concluded that our consciousness of 
 that matrix of phenomena we call Space, has been built up 
 in the course of Evolution by accumulated experiences 
 registered in the nervous system. And had he concluded 
 this, he would not have committed himself to the many 
 absurdities which his doctrine involves.* 
 
 Similarly, if, instead of assuming that conscience is simple 
 because it seems simple to ordinary introspection, he had 
 entertained the hypothesis that it is perhaps complex — a 
 consolidated product of multitudinous experiences received 
 mainly by ancestors and added to by self — he might have 
 arrived at a consistent system of Ethics. That the habitual 
 association of pains with certain things and acts, generation 
 after generation, may produce organic repugnance to such 
 things and acts,t might, had it been known to him, have 
 made him suspect that conscience is a product of Evolution. 
 And in that case his conception of it would not have 
 been incongruous with the facts above named, showing 
 that there are widely different degrees of conscience in 
 different races. 
 
 In brief, as already implied, had Kant, instead of his 
 incongruous beliefs that the celestial bodies have had an 
 evolutionary origin, but that the minds of living beings on 
 them, or at least on one of them, have had a non-evolu- 
 
 * See Principles of Pyschology, § 399. 
 
 t See PrhicipUs of Psychology, § 189 (note) and § 520. 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT, 199 
 
 tionary origin^ entertained the belief that both have arisen 
 by Eyolutionj he would have been saved from the impos- 
 sibilities of his Metaphysics, and the untenabilities of his 
 Ethics, To the consideration of these lastjlet us now pass. 
 
 Before doing this, however, something must be 
 said concerning abnormal reasoning as compared with 
 normal reasoning. 
 
 Knowledge which is of the highest order in respect of 
 certainty, and which we call exact science, is distinguished 
 from other knowledge by its definitely quantitative pre- 
 visions.* It sets out with data, and proceeds by steps 
 which, taken together, enable it to say under what specified 
 conditions a specified relation of phenomena will be found ; 
 and to say in what place, or at what time, or in what 
 quantity, or all of them, a certain efFect will be witnessed. 
 Given the factors of any arithmetical operation, and there 
 is absolute certainty in the result reached, supposing there 
 are no stumblings : stumblings which always admit of 
 detection and disproof by the method which we shall 
 presently find is pursued. Base and angles having been 
 accurately measured, that sub- division of geometry which 
 is called trigonometry yields with certainty the distance or 
 the height of the object of which the position is sought. 
 The ratio of the arms of a lever having been stated, 
 mechanics tells us what weight at one end will balance an 
 assigned weight at the other. And by the aid of these 
 three exact sciences, the Calculus, Geometry, and Mechan- 
 ics, Astronomy can predict to the minute, for each separate 
 place on the Earth, when an eclipse will begin and end, 
 and how near it will approach to totality. Knowledge of 
 this order has infinite justifications in the successful guid- 
 ance of infinitely numerous human actions. The accounts 
 of every trader, the operations of every workshop^ the 
 navigation of every vessel, depend for their trustworthiness 
 * See Essay on '* Genesis of Science." 
 
200 THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 on these sciences. The method they pursue, therefore, 
 verified in cases which pass all human power to enumerate, 
 is a method not to be transcended in certainty. 
 
 What is this method? Whichever of these sciences we 
 examine, we find the course uniformly pursued to be that 
 of setting out with propositions of which the negations are 
 inconceivable, and advancing by successive dependent 
 propositions, each of which has the like character — that its 
 negation is inconceivable. In a developed consciousness 
 (and of course I exclude minds of which the faculties are 
 unformed) it is impossible to represent things that are 
 equal to the same thing as being themselves unequal ; and 
 in a developed consciousness, action and re-action cannot be 
 thought of as other than equal and opposite. In hke 
 manner, every because and every therefore, used in a mathe- 
 matical argument, connotes a proposition of which the 
 terms are absolutely coherent in the mode alleged : the 
 proof being that an attempt to bring together in conscious- 
 ness the terms of the opposite proposition is futile. And 
 this method of testing, alike the fundamental propositions 
 and all members of the fabrics of propositions raised upon 
 them, is consistently pursued in verifying the conclusion. 
 Inference and observation are compared; and when they 
 agree, it is held inconceivable that the inference is other 
 than true. 
 
 In contrast to the method which I have just described, 
 distinguishable as the legitimate a priori method, there is 
 one which may be called — I was about to say, the illegiti- 
 mate a priori method. But the word is not strong enough ; 
 it must be called the inverted a priori method. Instead of 
 setting out with a proposition of which the negation is 
 inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of which the 
 affirmation is inconceivable, and therefrom proceeds to draw 
 conclusions. It is not consistent, however: it does not 
 continue to do that which it does at first. Having posited 
 an inconceivable proposition to begin with, it does not 
 
TUE ETHICS OF KANT. 201 
 
 frame its argument out of a series of inconceivable 
 propositions. All steps after the first are of the kind 
 ordinarily accepted as valid. The successive iherefores and 
 hecauses have the usual connotations. The peculiarity lies 
 in this^ that in every proposition save the first, the reader 
 is expected to admit the logical necessity of an inference 
 dravs^n, for the reason that the opposite is not thinkable ; 
 but he is not supposed to expect a like conformity to 
 logical necessity in the primary proposition. The dictum 
 of a logical consciousness which must be recognized as 
 valid in every subsequent step_, must be ignored in the first 
 step. We pass now to an illustration of this method which 
 here concerns us. 
 
 The first sentence in Kant^s first chapter runs thus : — 
 ^^ Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even 
 out of it, which can be called good without qualification, 
 except a Good Will."*^ And then on the next page we 
 come upon the following definition : — 
 
 *' A good will is good not because of what it perforins or effects, nor by its 
 aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the 
 volition, that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed 
 much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any 
 inclination, nay even of the sum total of all inclinations." f 
 Most fallacies result from the habit of using words without 
 fully rendering them into thoughts — passing them by with 
 recognitions of their meanings as ordinarily used, without 
 stopping to consider whether these meanings admit of 
 being given to them in the cases named. Let us not rest 
 satisfied with thinking vaguely of what is understood by 
 '*" a Good Will," but let us interpret the words definitely. 
 Will implies the consciousness of some end. Exclude from 
 it every idea of purpose and the conception of Will dis- 
 appears. An end of some kind being necessarily implied by 
 the conception of Will, the quality of the Will is determined 
 
 * KanVs Critique of Practical Reason and other works on the Theory of 
 Ethics, trans, by T. K. Abbott, p. 11. 
 t Ihid. pp. 12-13. 
 
202 THE ETHICS OP KANT. 
 
 by the quality of tlie end contemplated. Will itself, con- 
 sidered apart from any distinguishing epithet^ is not 
 cognizable by Morality at all. It becomes cognizable by 
 Morality only when it gains its character as good or bad by 
 virtue of its contemplated end as good or bad. If any one 
 doubts this, let him try whether he can think of a good 
 will which contemplates a bad end. The whole question, 
 therefore, centres in the meaning of the word good. Let 
 us look at the meanings habitually given to it. 
 
 We speak of good meat, good bread, good wine ; by 
 which phrases we mean either things that are palatable, 
 and so give pleasure, or things that are wholesome, and by 
 conducing to health conduce to pleasure. A good fire, 
 good clothing, a good house, we so name because they 
 minister either to comfort, which means pleasure, or gratify 
 the Eesthetic sentiment, which also means pleasure. So it 
 is with things which more indirectly further welfare, as 
 good tools or good roads. When we speak of a good work- 
 man, a good teacher, a good doctor, it is the same : 
 efficiency in aiding others' well-being is what we indirectly 
 mean. Yet again, good government, good institutions, 
 good laws, connote benefits yielded to the society in which 
 they exist : benefits being equivalent to certain kinds of 
 happiness, positive or negative. But Kant tells us that a 
 good will is one that is good in and for itself without refer- 
 ence to ends. We are not to think of it as prompting acts 
 which will profit the man himself, either by conducing to 
 his health, advancing his culture, or improving his inclina- 
 tions ; for all these are in the long run conducive to 
 happiness, and are urged only for the reason that they do 
 this. We are not to think of a will as good because, by 
 fulfilment of it, friends are saved from sufferings or have 
 their gratifications increased ; for this would involve 
 calling it good because of beneficial ends in view. Nor 
 must conduciveness to social ameliorations, present or 
 future, be taken into account when we attempt to conceive 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 203 
 
 a good will. In short, we are to frame our idea of a good 
 will without any material out of which to frame the idea of 
 good : good is to be used in thought as an eviscerated term. 
 Here^ then^ is illustrated what I have called above the 
 inverted a priori method of philosophizing : the setting out 
 with an inconceivable proposition. The Kantian Meta- 
 physics starts by asserting that Space is "nothing but^^ a 
 form of intuition — pertains wholly to the subject and not at 
 all to the object. This is a verbally intelligible proposition, 
 but one of which the terms cannot be put together in 
 consciousness; for neither Kant, nor any one else, ever 
 succeeded in bringing into unity of representation the 
 thought of Space and the thought of Self, as being the one 
 an attribute of the other. And here we see that, just in 
 the same way, the Kantian Ethics begins by positing 
 something which seems to have a meaning but which has 
 really no meaning — something which, under the conditions 
 imposed, cannot be rendered into thought at all. For 
 neither Kant, nor any one else, ever has or ever can, frame 
 a consciousness of a good will when from the word good are 
 expelled all thoughts of those ends which we distinguish 
 by the word good. 
 
 Evidently Kant himself sees that his assumption invites 
 attack, for he proceeds to defend it. He says : — 
 
 "There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute 
 value of the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility, that 
 notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to the idea [I], 
 yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the product of mere 
 high-flown fancy, (fee." (p. 13). 
 
 And then to prepare for a justification, he goes on to say : — 
 "In ihe physical constitution of an organized being we assume it as a 
 fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found in it but 
 what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose " (pp. 13-14). 
 
 Now, even had this assumption been valid, the argument 
 he bases upon it, far-fetched as it is, might be considered 
 of very inadequate strength to warrant the supposition that 
 there can be a will conceived as good without any ref ere ice 
 
204 THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 to good ends, But^ unfortunately for Kant, the assumption 
 is utterly inyalid. In Ms day it probably passed without 
 question ; but in our day few if any biologists would admit 
 it. On the special-creation hypothesis some defence of 
 the proposition might be attempted, but the evolution- 
 hypothesis tacitly negatives it entirely. Let us begin with 
 some minor facts which militate against Kant^s supposition. 
 Take, first, rudimentary organs. These are numerous 
 throughout the animal kingdom. While representing 
 organs which were of use in ancestral types, they are of 
 no use in the types possessing them ; and, as being 
 rudimentary, they are of necessity imperfect. Moreover, 
 besides being injurious by taxing nutrition to no purpose, 
 they are almost certainly in some cases injurious by being 
 iu the way. Then, beyond the argument from rudimentary 
 organs, there is the argument from make-shift organs, 
 which form a large class. We have a conspicuous case in 
 the swimming organ of the seal, formed by the apposition 
 of the two hind limbs — an organ manifestly inferior to one 
 specially shaped for its function, and one which, during 
 early stages of the changes which have produced it, must 
 have been very inefficient. But the untruth of the assump- 
 tion is best shown by comparing a given organ in a low 
 type of creature with the same organ in a high type. The 
 alimentary canal, for example, in very inferior creatures is 
 a simple tube, substantially alike from end to end, and 
 having throughout all its parts the same function. But in 
 a superior creature this tube is differentiated into mouth, 
 oesophagus, stomach (or stomachs), small and large intes- 
 tines with their various appended glands pouring in 
 secretions. Now if this last form of alimentary canal is to 
 be regarded as a perfect organ, or something like it, what 
 shall we say of the original form ; and what shall we say of 
 all those forms lying between the two ? The vascular system, 
 again, furnishes a clear instance. The primitive heart is 
 nothing but a dilatation of the great blood vessel — a pulsatile 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 205 
 
 sac. But a mammal has a four-chambered heart with valves, 
 by the aid of which the blood is propelled through the lungs 
 for aeration, and throughout the system at large for general 
 purposes. If this four-chambered heart is a perfect organ, 
 what is the primitive heart, and what are the hearts possessed 
 byall the multitudinous creatures below the higher t'er^e6?*tt^a? 
 Manifestly the process of evolution implies a continual 
 replacing of creatures having inferior organs, by creatures 
 having superior organs; leaving such of the inferior as can 
 survive to occupy inferior spheres of life. This is not only 
 so throughout the whole animal creation up to Man himself, 
 but it is so within the limits of the human race. Both the 
 brains and the lower limbs of various inferior races are 
 ineffective organs, compared with those of superior races. 
 Nay, even in the highest type of Man we have obvious 
 imperfections. The structure of the groin is imperfect: the 
 frequent ruptures which result from it would have been 
 prevented by closure of the inguinal rings during foetal life 
 after they had performed their office. That all-important 
 organ the vertebral column, too, is as yet but incompletely 
 adapted to the upright posture. Only while the vigour is 
 considerable can there be maintained, without appreciable 
 effort, those muscular contractions which produce the sig- 
 moid flexure, and bring the lumbar portion into such a 
 position that the ^^ line of direction '^ falls within it. In 
 young children, in boys and girls who are admonished to 
 "sit up," in weakly people, and in the old, the spine lapses 
 into that convex form characteristic of lower Primates. It 
 is the same with the balancing of the head. Only by a 
 muscular strain to which habit makes us insensible, as it 
 does to the exposure of the face to cold, is the head main- 
 tained in position. Immediately certain cervical muscles 
 are relaxed the head falls forward ; and where there is 
 great debility the chin rests permanently on the chest. 
 
 So far, indeed, is the assumption of Kant from being 
 true that the very reverse is probably true. After contem- 
 
206 THE ETHICS OP KANT. 
 
 plating the countless examples of imperfections exhibited 
 in low types of creatures, and decreasing with, tlie ascent 
 to higli types, but still exemplified in the highest, anyone 
 who concludes, as he may reasonably do, tbat Evolution 
 has not yet reached its limit, must infer that most likely 
 no such thing as a perfect organ exists. Thus the basis 
 of the argument by which Kant attempts to justify his 
 assumption that there exists a good will apart from a good 
 end, disappears utterly ; and leaves his dogma in all its 
 naked unthinkableness."^ 
 
 One of the propositions contained in Kant's first chapter 
 
 * I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant less than 
 justice and more than justice — less, in assuming that his evolutionary view 
 was limited to the genesis of our sidereal system, and more, in assuming that 
 he had not contradicted himself. My knowledge of Kant's writings is 
 extremely limited. In 1844 a translation of his Critique of Pure Reason 
 (then I think lately published) fell into my hands, and I read the first few 
 pages enunciating his doctrine of Time and Space : my peremptory rejection 
 of which caused me to lay the book dovm. Twice since then the same thing 
 has happened ; for, being an impatient reader, when I disagree with the 
 cardinal propositions of a work I can go no further. One other thing I knew. 
 By indii'ect references I was made aware that Kant had propounded the idea 
 that celestial bodies have been formed by the aggregation of diffused matter. 
 Beyond this my knowledge of his conceptions did not extend; and my 
 supposition that his evolutionary conception had stopped short with the 
 genesis of sun, stars, and planets, was due to the fact that his doctrine of 
 Time and Space, as forms of thought anteceding experience, implied a 
 supernatural origin inconsistent with the hypothesis of natural genesis. Dr. 
 Paul Carus, who, shortly after the pubhcation of this article in the Fortnightly 
 Beview for July, 1888, undertook to defend the Kantian ethics in the 
 American journal which he edits. The Open Court, has now (Sept. 4, 1890), 
 in another defensive article, translated sundry passages from Kant's 
 Critique of Judgment, his Presumable Origin of Humanity, and his work 
 Ujpon the different Races of Manldnd, showing that Kant was, if not fully, 
 yet partially, an evolutionist in his speculations about living beings. There 
 is, perhaps, some reason for doubting the correctness of Dr. Carus's rendering 
 of these passages into English. When, as in the fii-st of the articles just 
 named, he failed to distinguish between consciousness and conscientiousness, 
 and when, as in this last article, he blames the English for mistranslating 
 Kant, since they have said "Kant maintained that Space and Time are 
 intuitions," which is quite untrue, for they have everywhere described him 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 207 
 
 is tbafc '^ we find that the more a cultirated reason applies 
 itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and 
 happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true 
 satisfaction/' A preliminary remark to be made on this 
 statement is that in its sweeping form it is not true. I 
 assert that it is untrue on the strength of personal expe- 
 riences. In the course of my life there have occurred 
 many interyals_, averaging more than a month each, in 
 which the pursuit of happiness was the sole object, and in 
 
 as maintaining that Space and Time are forms of intuition, one may be 
 excused for thinking that possibly Dr. Carus has read into some of Kant'a 
 expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear. Still, the general 
 drift of the passages quoted makes it tolerably clear that Kant must have 
 believed in the operation of natural causes as largely, though not entirely, 
 instrumental in producing organic forms : extending this belief (which he 
 says " can be named a daring venture of reason") in some measure to the 
 origin of Man himself. He does not, however, extend the theory of natural 
 genesis to the exclusion of the theory of supernatural genesis. When he speaks 
 of an organic habit '* which in the wisdom of nature appears to be thus 
 arranged in order that the species shall be preserved; " and when, further, 
 he says " we see, moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in him, whereby, 
 after the development of the same, he is destined for social intercourse," he 
 implies divine intervention. And this shows that I was justified in ascribing 
 to him the belief that Space and Time, as forms of thought, are supernatural 
 endowments. Had he conceived of organic evolution in a consistent manner, 
 he would necessarily have regarded Space and Time as subjective forms 
 generated by converse with objective realities. 
 
 Beyond showing that Kant had a partial, if not a complete, belief in 
 organic evolution (though with no idea of its causes), the passages translated 
 by Dr. Carus show that he entertained an implied belief which it here 
 specially concerns me to notice as bearing on his theory of " a good will." 
 He quotes approvingly Dr. Moscati's lecture showing " that the upright walk 
 of man is constrained and unnatural," and showing the imperfect visceral 
 arrangements and consequent diseases which result : not only adopting, but 
 further illustrating. Dr. Moscati's argument. If here, then, there is a distinct 
 admission, or rather assertion, that various human organs are imperfectly 
 adjusted to their functions, what becomes of the postulate above quoted 
 " that no organ for any purpose will be found in it but what is also the 
 fittest and best adapted for that purpose?" And what becomes of the 
 argument which sets out with this postulate ? Clearly, I am indebted to 
 Dr. Carus for enabling me to prove that Kant's defence of his theory of " a 
 good will " is, by his own showing, baseless. 
 
208 THE ETHICS OP KANT. 
 
 which happiness was successfully pursued. How success- 
 fully, may be judged from the fact that I would gladly live 
 over again each of those periods without change — an 
 assertion which I certainly cannot make of any portions of 
 my life spent in the daily discharge of duties. That which 
 Kant should hare said is that the exclusive pursuit of what 
 are distinguished as pleasures and amusements, is disap- 
 pointing. This is doubtless true; and for the obvious 
 reason that it over-exercises one group of faculties and 
 exhausts them, while it leaves unexercised another group 
 of faculties, which consequently do not yield the gratifica- 
 tions accompanying their exercise. It is not, as Kant says, 
 guidance by ^^ a cultivated reason " which leads to disap- 
 pointment, but guidance by an uncultivated reason;, for a 
 cultivated reason teaches that continuous action of a small 
 part of the nature joined with inaction of the rest^ must 
 end in dissatisfaction. 
 
 But now, supposing we accept Kant's statement in full, 
 what is its implication ? That happiness is the thing to be 
 desired, and, in one way or another, the thing to be achieved. 
 For if not, what meaning is there in the statement that it 
 will not be achieved when made the immediate object ? 
 One who was thus admonished might properly rejoin : — 
 '^ You say I shall fail to get happiness if I make it the 
 object of pursuit ? Suppose then I do not make it the 
 object of my pursuit; shall I get it ? If I do, then your 
 admonition amounts to this, that I shall obtain it better if I 
 proceed in some other way than that I adopt. If I do not 
 get it, then I remain without happiness if I follow your 
 way, just as much as if I follow my own, and nothino- ig 
 gained,^"* An illustration will best show how the matter 
 stands. To a tyro in archery the instructor says : — '^ Sir, 
 you must not point your arrow directly at the target. If 
 you do, you will inevitably miss it. You must aim hio-h 
 above the target ; and you may then possibly pierce the 
 bull's eye." What now is implied by the warning and the 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 209 
 
 advice? Clearly that the purpose is to hit the target. 
 Otherwise there is no sense in the remark that it will be 
 missed if directly aimed at ; and no sense in the remark 
 tliat to be bit, something higher must be aimed at. 
 Similarly with happiness. There is no sense in the remark 
 that happiness will not be found if it is directly sought^ 
 unless happiness is a thing to be somehow or other obtained. 
 
 *^^Yes; there is sense/' I hear it said. ^'' Just as it may 
 be th.at the target is not the tbing to be hit at allj either 
 by aiming directly or indirectly at it, but that some other 
 tbing is to be hit ; so it may be that the thing to be 
 achieved immediately or remotely is not happiness at all, but 
 some other thing: the otber tbing being duty." In answer 
 to this the admonished man may reasonably say : — " What 
 then is meant by Kant's statement that the man wbo 
 pursues happiness ' fails of true satisfaction ^ ? All happi- 
 ness is made up of satisfactions. The ' true satisfaction ' 
 which Kant offers as an alternative, must be some kind of 
 happiness ; and if a truer satisfaction, must be a better 
 happiness ; and better must mean on the average, and in 
 the long run, greater. If this * true satisfaction ' does not 
 mean greater happiness of self, — distant if not proximate, 
 in another life if not in this life — and if it does not mean 
 greater happiness by achieving the happiness of others ; 
 then you propose to me as an end a smaller happiness 
 instead of a greater, and I decline it." 
 
 So that in this professed repudiation of happiness as an 
 end, there lies the inavoidable implication that it is the end. 
 
 The last consideration introdnces us naturally to another 
 of Kant's cardinal doctrines. That there may be no 
 mistake in my representation of it, I must make a 
 
 long quotation. 
 
 " I omit here all actions which are already recognized as inconsistent with 
 duty, although they may be useful for this or that purpose, for with these the 
 question whether they are done fi'om duty cannot arise at all, since they 
 even conflict with it. I also set aside those actions which really conform to 
 
210 THE ETHICS OF EANT. 
 
 duty, but to which men have no direct incllnationy performing them because 
 they are impelled thereto by some other inclination. For in this case wa 
 can readily distinguish whether the action which agrees with duty is done 
 from duty^ or from a selfish view. It is much harder to make this 
 distinction when the action accords with duty, and the subject has besides 
 a direct inclination to it. For example, it is always a matter of duty that a 
 dealer should not overcharge an inesperienced purchaser, and wherever 
 there is much commerce the prudent tradesman does not overcharge, but 
 keeps a fixed price for every one, so that a child buys of him as well as any 
 other. Men are thus lionestly served ; but this is not enough to make us 
 believe that the tradesman has so acted from duty and from principles of 
 honesty : his own advantage required it ; it is out of the question in this 
 case to suppose that he might besides have a direct inclination in favour of 
 the buyers, so that, as it were, from love he should give no advantage to 
 one over another [!]. Accordingly the action was done neither from duty 
 nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish view. On the other 
 hand, it is a duty to maintain one's life ; and, in addition, every one has 
 also a direct inclination to do so. But on this account the often anxious 
 care which most men take for it has no intrinsic worth, and their maxim 
 has no moral import. They preserve their Hfe as duty requires, no doubt, 
 but not because duty requires. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless 
 sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life ; if the unfortunate 
 one, strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, 
 wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it — not from 
 inclination or fear, but from duty — then his maxim has a moral worth. 
 
 "To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are 
 many minds so sympathetically constituted that without any other motive 
 of vanity or self-interest, they find a i^leasure in spreading joy around them, 
 and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own 
 work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however 
 proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, 
 but is on a level with other inclinations " (pp. 17-19). 
 
 I have given this extract at length that there may be 
 fully understood the remarkable doctrine it embodies — a 
 doctrine especially remarkable as exemplified in the last 
 sentence. Let us now consider all that it means. 
 
 Before doing this^ however^ I may remark that, space 
 permitting^ it might be shown clearly enough that the 
 assumed distinction between sense of duty and inclination 
 is untenable. The very expression sense of duty implies 
 that the mental state signified is a feeling; and if a feelino- 
 it mustj like other feelings, be gratified by acts of one kind 
 and offended by acts of an opposite kind. If we take the 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 211 
 
 name conscience, wliicli is eqaivaleni: to sense of duty, we 
 see tlie same thing. Tlie common expressions '*" a tender 
 conscience ^^ '^''a seared conscience," indicate the perception 
 that conscience is a feeling- — - a feeling which has its 
 satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and which inclines a man 
 to acts which yield the one and avoid the other — produces 
 an inclination. The truth is that conscience, or the sense 
 of duty, is an inclination of a complex kind as distinguished 
 from inclinations of simpler kinds. 
 
 But let us grant Kant's distinction in an unqualified 
 form. Doing this, let us entertain, too, his proposition 
 that acts of whatever kind done from inclination have no 
 moral worth, and that the only acts having moral worth 
 are those done from a sense of duty. To test this propo- 
 sition let us follow an example he sets. As he would have 
 the quality of an act judged by supposing it universalized, 
 let us judge of moral worth as he conceives it by making 
 a like supposition. That we may do this effectually, let us 
 assume that it is exemplified not only by every man but by 
 all the acts of every man. Unless Kant alleges that a man 
 may be morally worthy in too high a degree, we must 
 admit that the greater the number of his acts which have 
 moral worth the better. Let us then contemplate him as 
 doing nothing from inclination but everything from a 
 sense of duty. 
 
 When he pays the labourer who has done a week's work 
 for him, it is not because letting a man go without wages 
 would be against his inclination, but solely because he sees 
 it to be a duty to fulfil contracts. Such care as he takes 
 of his aged mother is prompted not by tender feeling for 
 her but by the consciousness of filial obligation. When he 
 gives evidence on behalf of a man whom he knows to have 
 been falsely charged, it is not that he would be hurt by 
 seeing the man wrongly punished, but simply in pursuance 
 of a moral intuition showing him that public duty requires 
 him to testify. When he sees a little child in danger of 
 61 
 
212 THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 being run over^ and steps aside to snatch it away^ be does 
 so not because thought of the impending death of the 
 child pains him, but because he knows it is a duty to save 
 life. And so throughout, in all his relations as husband, 
 as friend, as citizen, he thinks always of what the law of 
 right conduct directs, and does it because it is the law of 
 right conduct, not because he satisfies his affections or his 
 sympathies by doing it. This is not all however. Kant^s 
 doctrine commits him to something far beyond this. If 
 those acts only have moral worth which are done from a 
 sense of duty, we must not only say that the moral worth 
 of a man is greater in proportion as the number of the acts 
 so done is greater. We must also say that his moral worth 
 is greater in proportion as his sense of duty makes him do 
 the right thing not only apart from inclination but against 
 inclination. According to Kant, then, the most moral man 
 is the man whose sense of duty is so strong that he refrains 
 from picking a pocket though he is much tempted to do it ; 
 who says of another that which is true though he wonld 
 like to injure him by a falsehood ; who lends money to his 
 brother though he would prefer to see him in distress ; who 
 fetches the doctor to his sick child though death would 
 remove what he feels to be a burden. What, now, shall we 
 think of a world peopled with Kant's typically moral men — 
 men who, in the one case, while doing right by one another, 
 do it with indifference, and severally know one another to 
 be so doing it ; and men who, in the other case, do right by 
 one another notwithstanding the promptings of evil passions 
 to do otherwise, and who severally know themselves sur- 
 rounded by others similarly prompted ? Most people will, 
 I think, say that even in the first case life would be hardly 
 bearable, and that in the second case it would be absolutely 
 intolerable. Had such been men's natures, Schopenhauer 
 would indeed have had good reason for urging that the 
 race should bring itself to an end as quickly as possible. 
 Contemplate now the doings of one whose acts, according 
 
THE ETHICS OF KANT. 213 
 
 to Kant^ have no moral worth. He goes through his daily 
 work not thinking of duty to wife and child^ but having in 
 his mind the pleasure of witnessing their welfare ; and on 
 reaching home he delights to see his little girl with rosy 
 cheeks and laughing eyes eating heartily. When he hands 
 back to a shopkeeper the shilling given in excess of right 
 change^ he does not stop to ask what the moral law requires : 
 the thought of profiting by the man's mistake is intrinsically 
 repugnant to him. One who is drowning he plunges in to 
 rescue without any idea of obligation^ but because he cannot 
 contemplate without horror the death which threatens. If, 
 for a worthy man who is out of employment^ he takes much 
 trouble to find a place^ he does it because the consciousness 
 of the man's difficulties is painful to him, and because he 
 knows that he will benefit not only him but the employer 
 who engages him : no moral maxim enters his mind. When 
 he goes to see a sick friend the gentle tones of his voice and 
 the kindly expression of his face show that he is come not 
 from any sense of duty, but because pity and a desire to 
 raise his friend's spirits have moved him. If he aids in 
 some public measure which helps men to help themselves, 
 it is not in pursuance of the admonition ^' Do as you would 
 be done by/' but because the distresses around make him 
 unhappy, and the thought of mitigating them gives him 
 pleasure. And so throughout : he ever does the right thing 
 not in obedience to any injunction but because he loves the 
 right thing in and for itself. And now who would not like 
 to live in a world where everyone was thus characterized ? 
 
 What, then, shall we think of Kant's conception of moral 
 worth, when, if it were displayed universally in men's acts 
 the world would be intolerable, and when if these same acts 
 were universally performed from inclination, the world 
 would be delightful ? 
 
 But now, from these indirect criticisms, let us pass to a 
 
214 THE ETHICS OF KANT. 
 
 direct criticism of the Kantian principle — tlie principle often 
 quoted as distinctive of his ethics. He states it thus : — 
 
 " There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely this : Act only 
 on that maxim whereby thou camt at the same time will that it should become 
 a universal law.^' (pp. 54 — 5.) 
 
 AgaiUj subsequently^ we read : — 
 
 " Act on maxims ivhich can at the same time have for their object themselves 
 as universal laivs of nature* Such then is the formula of an absolutely good 
 will." (p. 80.) 
 
 Here, then^ we have a clear statement of that which 
 constitutes the character of a good will ; which good will, 
 as we have already seen^ is said to exist independently of 
 any contemplated end. Let us now observe how this 
 theory is reduced to practice. Speaking of a man who is 
 absolutely selfish and yet absolutely just^ he represents 
 him as saying : — 
 
 " Let everyone be as happy as heaven pleases or as he can make himself ; 
 I will take nothing from him nor even envy him, only I do not wish to contri- 
 bute anything either to his welfare or to his assistance in distress I Now no 
 doubt if such a. mode of thinking were a universal law, the human race 
 might very well subsist, and doubtless even better than in a state in which 
 every one talks of sympathy and good will, or even takes care occasionally 
 to put it into practice, but on the other side, also cheats when he can, betrays 
 the rights of men or otherwise violates them. But although it is possible 
 that a universal law of nature might exist in accordance with that maxim, 
 it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the universal 
 validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict 
 itself, inasmuch as many cases might occur in which one would have need 
 of the love and symijathy of others, and in which by such a law of nature, 
 sinung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he 
 desires." (pp. 58 — 9.) 
 
 Thus we see illustrated the guidance of conduct in con- 
 formity with the Kantian maxim ; and what is the process 
 of guidance ? It is that of considering what, in the par- 
 ticular case, would be the result if the suggested course of 
 conduct were made universal ; and then being deterred from 
 willing such conduct by the badness of the conceived result. 
 Now, in the first place, what here becomes of the doctrine 
 of a good will, which we are told exists *' without paying 
 
THE ETHICS OF KAKT. 215 
 
 any regard to the effect expected from it"? (p. 24). The 
 good will, characterized by readiness to see the act it 
 prompts made universal, has, in this particular case, as in 
 every other case, to be decided by contemplation of an 
 end — if not a special and immediate end then a general and 
 remote end. And what, in this case, is to be the deterrent 
 from a suggested course of conduct ? Consciousness that 
 the result, if such conduct were universal, might be suffering 
 to self : there might be no aid when it was wanted. So 
 that, in the first place, the question is to be decided by the 
 contemplation of happiness or misery as likely to be caused 
 by the one or the other course ; and, in the second place, 
 this happiness or misery is that of the individual himself. 
 Strangely enough, this principle which is lauded because 
 of its apparently implied altruism, turns out, in the last 
 resort, to have its justification in egoism ! 
 
 The essential truth here to be noted, however, is that the 
 Kantian principle, so much vaunted as higher than that of 
 expediency or utilitarianism, is compelled to take expedi- 
 ency or utilitarianism as its basis. Do what it will, it 
 cannot escape the need for conceiving happiness or misery, 
 to self or others or both, as respectively to be achieved or 
 avoided ; for in any case what, except the conceived happi- 
 ness or misery which would follow if a given mode of 
 action were made universal, can determine the will for or 
 against such mode of action ? If, in one who has been 
 injured, there arises a temptation to murder the injurer; 
 and if, following out the Kantian injunction, the tempted 
 man thinks of himself as willing that all men who have 
 been injured should murder those who have injured them; 
 and if, imagining the consequences experienced by man- 
 kind at large, and possibly on some occasion by himself in 
 particular, he is deterred from yielding to the tempta- 
 tion ; what is it which deters him ? Obviously the repre- 
 sentation of the many evils, pains, deprivations of happiness, 
 which would be caused. If, on imagining his act to be 
 
216 
 
 THE ETHICS OP KANT. 
 
 universalized^ lie saw that it would increase human happi- 
 ness^ the alleged deterrent would not act. Hence the con- 
 duct to be insured bj adoption of the Kantian maxim is 
 simply the conduct to be insured by making the happiness 
 of self or others or both the end to be achieved. By impli- 
 ' cation^ if not avowedly^ the Kantian principle is as distinctly 
 utilitarian as the principle of Bentham. And it falls short 
 of a scientific ethics in just the same way; since it fails to 
 furnish any method by which to determine whether such 
 and such acts tvould or tvould not be conducive to happiness 
 — leaves all such questions to be decided empirically. 
 
ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 
 
 ^Originally published in The Nineteenth Century for January 
 1890. The writing of this essay was consequent on a controversy 
 carried on in The Times between Nov. 7 and Nov. 27, 1889, and 
 was made needful by the misapprehensions and misrepresentations 
 embodied in that controversy . Hence the allusions which the essay 
 contains. The last few paragraphs of it in its original form tvere 
 Tiiainly personal in their character ; and, not wishing to perpetuate 
 personalities, I have omitted them..~\ 
 
 Life in Fiji, at the time when Thomas Williams settled 
 there^ must have been something worse than uncomfortable. 
 One of the people who passed near the string of nine 
 hundred stones with which Ra Undreundre recorded the 
 number of human victims he had devouredj must have had 
 unpleasant waking thoughts and occasionally horrible 
 dreams. A man who had lost some fingers for breaches of 
 cereuiony, or had seen his neighbour killed by a chief for 
 behaviour not sufficiently respectful^ and who remembered 
 how King Tanoa cut off his cousin^s arm^ cooked it and ate 
 it in his presence^ and then had him hacked to pieces^ must 
 not unfrequently have had " a bad quarter of an hour.'* 
 Nor could creeping sensations have failed to run through 
 women who heard Tui Thakau eulogizing his dead son for 
 cruelty, and saying that "he could kill his own wives if 
 they offended him, and eat them afterwards." Happiness 
 
218 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 
 
 could not haye been general in a society where there was a 
 liability to be one among the ten whose life-blood baptized 
 the decks of a new canoe — a society in which the killing 
 even of unoffending persons was no crime but a glory; 
 and in which everyone knew that his neighbour's restless 
 ambition was to be an acknowledged murderer. Still, 
 there must have been some moderation in murdering even 
 in Fiji. Or must we hesitate to conclude that unlimited 
 murder would have caused extinction of the society ? 
 
 The extent to which each man's possessions among the 
 Biluchis are endangered by the predatory instincts of his 
 neighbours^ may be judged from the fact that '' a small 
 mud tower is erected in each field^ where the possessor 
 and his retainers guard his produce." If turbulent states 
 of society such as early histories tell of, do not show us so 
 vividly how the habit of appropriating one another's goods 
 interferes with social prosperity and individual comfort, 
 yet they do not leave us in doubt respecting these results. 
 It is an inference which, few will be hardy enough to 
 dispute, that in proportion as the time of each man, instead 
 of being occupied in further production, is occupied in 
 guarding that which he has produced against marauders, 
 the total production must be diminished and the susten- 
 tation of each and all less satisfactorily achieved. And it 
 is a manifest corollary that if each pushes beyond a certain 
 limit the practice of trying to satisfy kis needs by robbing 
 his neighbour, tke society must dissolve : solitary life will 
 prove preferable. 
 
 A deceased friend of mine, narrating incidents in his life, 
 told me that as a young man he sought to establish himself 
 in Spain as a commission agent ; and that, failing by 
 expostulation or other means to obtain payment from one 
 who had ordered goods through him, he, as a last resource, 
 went to the man's house and presented himself before him 
 pistol in hand — a proceeding which had the desired effect -. 
 Ihe account was settled. Suppose now that everywhere 
 
ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 219 
 
 contracts Iiad tlius to be enforced by more or less strenuous 
 measures. Suppose that a coal-mine proprietor in Derby- 
 shirej liaving sent a train-load to a London coal-merchantj 
 liad commonly to send a posse of colliers up to town^ to 
 stop the man's wagons and take out the horses until 
 payment had been made. Suppose the farm-labourer or 
 the artisan was constantly in doubt whether^ at the end of 
 the week^ the wages agreed upon would be forthcoming ; 
 or whether he would get only half^ or whether he would 
 have to wait six months. Suppose that daily in every shop 
 there occurred scuffles between shopman and customer^ 
 the one to get the money without giving the goods_, and the 
 other to get the goods without paying the money. What in 
 such case would happen to the society ? What would become 
 of its producing and distributing businesses ? Is it a rash 
 inference that industrial co-operation (of the voluntaiy 
 kind at least) would cease ? 
 
 " Why these absurd questions ? " asks the impatient 
 reader. '^ Surely everyone knows that murder, assault, 
 robbery, fraud, breach of contract, &c., are at variance 
 with social welfare and must be punished when committed." 
 My replies are several. In the first place, I am quite 
 content to have the questions called absurd; because this 
 implies a consciousness that the answers are so self-evident 
 that it iS absurd to assume the possibility of any other 
 answers. My second reply is that I am not desirous of 
 pressing the question whether we know these things, but of 
 pressing the question how we know these things. Can we 
 know them, and do we know them, by contemplating 
 the necessities of the case ? or must we have recourse to 
 '' inductions based on careful observation and experience '^ ? 
 Before we make and enforce laws against murder, ought we 
 to inquire into the social welfare and individual happiness 
 in places where murder prevails, and observe whether or 
 not the welfare and happiness are greater in places where 
 murder is rare ? Shall robbery be allowed to go on until. 
 
220 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 
 
 by collecting and tabulating the effects in countries where 
 thieres predominate and in countries where thieves are 
 bat few, we are shown by induction that prosperity is 
 greater when each man is allowed to retain that which 
 he has earned ? And is it needful to prove by accumu- 
 lated evidence that breaches of contract impede production 
 and exchange, and thosebenefits to each and all which mutual 
 dependence achieves? In the third place, these instances of 
 actions which, pushed to extremes, cause social dissolution, 
 and which, in smaller degrees, hinder social co-operation 
 and its benefits, I give for the purpose of asking what is 
 their common trait. In each of such actions we see aggres- 
 sion — a carrying on of life in a way which directly interferes 
 with the carrying on of another's life. The relation 
 between eSort and consequent benefit in one man, is either 
 destroyed altogether or partially broken by the doings of 
 another man. If it be admitted that life can be maintained 
 only by certain activities (the internal ones being universal, 
 and the external ones being universal for all but parasites 
 and the immature), it must be admitted that when like- 
 natured beings are associated, the required activities must 
 be mutually limited ; and that the highest life can result 
 only when the associated beings are so constituted as 
 severally to keep within the implied limits. The restric- 
 tions stated thus generally, may obviously be developed 
 into special restrictions referring to this or that kind of 
 conduct. These, then, I hold are a priori truths which admit 
 of being known by contemplation of the conditions — 
 axiomatic truths which bear to ethics a relation analogous 
 to that which the mathematical axioms bear to the 
 exact sciences. 
 
 I do not mean that these axiomatic truths are cognisable 
 by all. For the apprehension of them, as for the apprehen- 
 sion of simpler axioms, a certain mental growth and a 
 certain mental discipline are needed. In the Treatise on 
 Natural Philosophy by Professors Thomson and Tait [1st 
 
ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 221 
 
 ed.]j it IS remarked that ^*' physical axioms are axiomatic to 
 those only who have sufficient knowledge of the action of 
 physical causes to enable them to see at once their necessary 
 truth." Doubtless a fact and a significant fact. A plough- 
 boy cannot form a conception of the axiom that action and 
 reaction are equal and opposite. In the first place he lacks 
 a sufficiently generalized idea of action — has not united 
 into one conception pushing and pulling, the blow of a fist, 
 the recoil of a gun, and the attraction of a planet. Still 
 less has he any generalized idea of reaction. And even had 
 he these two ideas, it is probable that, defective in power 
 of representation as he is, he would fail to recognize the 
 necessary equality. Similarly with these a priori ethical 
 truths. If a member of that Fijian slave-tribe who regarded 
 themselves as food for the chiefs had suo^s^ested that there 
 might arrive a time when men would not eat one another, 
 his implied belief that men might come to have a little 
 respect for one another's lives, condemned as utterly without 
 justification in experience, would be considered as fit only 
 for a wild speculator. Facts furnished by every-day 
 observation make it clear to the Biluchi, keeping watch in 
 his mud-tower, that possession of property can be main- 
 tained only by force ; and it is most likely to him scarcely 
 conceivable that there exist limits which, if mutually 
 recognized, may exclude aggressions, and make it needless 
 to mount guard over fields : only an absurd idealist (sup- 
 posing such a thing known to him) would suggest the 
 possibility. And so even of our own ancestors in feudal 
 times, it may be concluded that, constantly going about 
 armed and often taking refuge in strongholds, the thought 
 of a peaceful social state would have seemed ridiculous ; 
 and the belief that there might be a recognized equality 
 among men's claims to pursue the objects of life, and a 
 consequent desistence from aggressions, would have been 
 scarcely conceivable. But now that an orderly social state 
 has been maintained for generations — now that in daily 
 
222 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 
 
 intercourse "men rarely use violencej commonly pay wliat 
 they owe^ and in most cases respect the claims of the weak 
 as well as those of the strong — now that they are brought 
 up with the idea that all men are equal before the law^ and 
 daily see judicial decisions turning upon the question 
 whether one citizen has or has not infringed upon the equal 
 rights of another; there exist in the general mind materials 
 for forming the conception of a regime in which men's 
 activities are mutually limitedj and in which maintenance 
 of harmony depends on respect for the limits. There has 
 arisen an ability to see that mutual limitations are required 
 when lives are carried on in proximity ; and to see that 
 there necessarily emerge definite sets of restraints apply- 
 ing to definite classes of actions. And it has become 
 manifest to some^ though not it seems to many^ that there 
 results an a priori system of absolute political ethics — a 
 sj^stem under which men of like natures, severally so 
 constituted as spontaneously to refrain from trespassing, 
 may work together without friction, and with the greatest 
 advantage to each and all. 
 
 "But men are not wholly like-natured and are unlikely 
 to become so. Nor are they so constituted that each is 
 solicitous for his neighbour's claims as for his own, and 
 there is small probability that they ever will be. Tour 
 absolute political ethics is therefore an ideal beyond the 
 reach of the real." This is true. JSTevertheless^ much as it 
 seems to do so, it does not follow that there is no use for 
 absolute political ethics. The contrary may clearly enough 
 be shown. An analogy will explain the paradox. 
 
 There exists a division of physical science distinguished as 
 abstract mechanics or absolute mechanics — absolute in the 
 sense that its propositions are unqualified. It is concerned 
 with statics and dynamics in their pure forms — deals with 
 forces and motions considered as free from all interferences 
 resulting from friction, resistances of media, and special 
 properties of matter. If it enunciates a law of motion^ it 
 
ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 223 
 
 recognizes notMng wMcli modifies manifestation of it. 
 If it formulates the properties of tlie lever it treats of this 
 assuming it to be perfectly rigid and without thickness — 
 an impossible lever. Its theory of the screw imagines 
 the screw to be frictionless ; and in treating of the 
 wedge, absolute incompressibility is supposed. Thus 
 its truths are never presented in experience. Even those 
 movements of the heavenly bodies which are deducible 
 from its propositions are always more or less perturbed ; and 
 on the Earth the inferences to be drawn from them deviate 
 very considerably from the results reached by experiment. 
 Nevertheless this system of ideal mechanics is indispensable 
 for the guidance of real mechanics. The engineer has to 
 deal with its propositions as true in full, before he proceeds 
 to qualify them by taking into account the natures of the 
 materials he uses. The course which a projectile would 
 take if subject only to the propulsive force and the attraction 
 of the Earth must be recognized, though no such course is 
 ever pursued : correction for atmospheric resistance cannot 
 else be made. That is to say, though, by empirical methods, 
 applied or relative mechanics may be developed to a con- 
 sid citable extent, it cannot be highly developed without the 
 aid oi absolute mechanics. So is it here. Eelative pohtical 
 ethics, or that which deals with right and wrong in public 
 affairs as partially determined by changing circumstances, 
 cannot progress without taking into account right and 
 wrong considered apart from changing circumstances — ■ 
 cannot do without absolute political ethics; the propositioiis 
 of which, deduced from the conditions under which life is 
 carried on in an associated state, take no account of the 
 special circumstances of any particular associated state. 
 
 And now observe a truth which seems entirely over- 
 looked ; namely, that the set of deductions thus arrived at 
 is verified by an immeasurably vast induction, or rather by 
 a great assemblage of vast inductions. For what else are 
 the laws and judicial systems of all civilized nations, and of 
 
224 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 
 
 all societies wliicli liave risen above savagery ? What is 
 the meaning of the fact that all peoples have discovered 
 the need for punishing murder, usually by death ? How is 
 it that where any considerable progress has been made^ 
 theft is forbidden by law, and a penalty attached to it ? 
 Why along with further advance does the enforcing of 
 contracts become general? And what is the reason that 
 among fully civilized peoples frauds, libels, and minor 
 aggressions of various kinds are repressed in more or less 
 rigorous ways ? No cause can be assigned save a general 
 uniformity in men's experiences, showing them that ag- 
 gressions directly injurious to the individuals aggressed 
 upon are indirectly injurious to society. G-eneration after 
 generation observations have forced this truth on them ; 
 and generation after generation they have been developing 
 the interdicts into greater detail. That is to say, the above 
 fundamental principle and its corollaries arrived at a priori 
 are verified in an infinity of cases a posteriori. Every- 
 where the tendency has been to carry further in practice 
 the dictates of theory — to conform systems of law to the 
 requirements of absolute political ethics : if not consciously, 
 still unconsciously. Nay, indeed, is not this truth manifest 
 in the very name used for the end aimed at — equity or 
 equalness ? Equalness of what ? No answer can be given 
 without a recognition — vague it may be, but still a recogni- 
 tion — of the doctrine above set forth. 
 
 Thus, instead of being described as putting faith in 
 " long chains of deduction from abstract ethical assump- 
 tions" I ought to be described as putting faith in simple 
 deductions from abstract ethical necessities ; which deduc- 
 tions are verified by infinitely numerous observations and 
 experiences of semi-civilized and civilized mankind in all 
 ages and places. Or rather I ought to be described as one 
 who, contemplating the restraints everywhere put on the 
 various kinds of transgressions, and seeing in them all a 
 common principle everywhere dictated by the necessities 
 
ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 225 
 
 of the associated state^ proceeds to deyelop the consequences 
 of tliis common principle by deduction, and to justify both 
 the deductions and the conclusions which legislators have 
 empirically reached by showing that the two corre- 
 spond. This method of deduction verified by induction 
 is the method of developed science at large. I do not 
 believe that I shall be led to abandon it and change my 
 "way of thinking ^^ by any amount of disapproval^ however 
 strongly expressed. 
 
 Are we then to understand that by this imposing title, 
 " Absolute Political Ethics,^^ nothing more is meant than 
 a theory of the needful restraints which law imposes on the 
 actions of citizens — an ethical warrant for systems of law ? 
 Well, supposing even that I had to answer " Yes ^' to this 
 question (which I do not), there would still be an ample 
 justification for the title. Having for its subject-matter all 
 that is comprehended under the word '^'^Justice,^^ alike as 
 formulated in" law and administered by legal instrumen- 
 talities, the title has a sufficiently large area to cover. 
 This would scarcely need saying were it not for a curious 
 defect of thought which we are everywhere led into by habit. 
 
 Just as, when talking of knowledge, we ignore entirely 
 that familiar knowledge of surrounding things, animate 
 and inanimate, acquired in childhoodj in the absence of 
 which death would quickly result, and think only of that 
 far less essential knowledge gained at school and college or 
 from books and conversation — just as, when thinking of 
 mathematics, we include under the name only its higher 
 groups of truths and drop out that simpler group con- 
 stituting arithmetic, though for the carrying on of life 
 this is more important than all the rest put together; 
 so, when politics and political ethics are discussed^ there 
 is no thought of those parts of them which include what- 
 ever is fundamental and long settled. The word political 
 raises ideas of party-contests, ministerial changes, pro- 
 spective elections, or else of the Home-Rule question, the 
 
226 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 
 
 Land-Purctase scheinej Local Option, or tlie Eiglit-Hours 
 movement. Rarely does tlie word suggest law-reform, or 
 a better judicial organization, or a purified police. And 
 if etHcs comes into consideration, it is in connexion witli the 
 morals of parliamentary strife or of candidates' professions, 
 or of electoral corruptions. Yet it needs but to look at 
 the definition of politics {" that part of ethics which consists 
 in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for 
 the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity ^^), to 
 see that the current conception fails by omitting the chief 
 part. It needs but to consider how relatively immense 
 a factor in the life of each man is constituted by safety of 
 person, security of house and propei'ty, and enforcement of 
 claims, to see that not only the largest part bnt the part 
 which is vital is left out. Hence the absurdity does not 
 exist in the conception of an absolute political ethics, but it 
 exists in the ignoring of its subject-matter. Unless it be 
 considered absurd to regard as absolute the interdicts 
 against murder, burglary, fraud and all other aggressions, 
 it cannot be considered absurd to regard as absolute the 
 ethical system which embodies these interdicts. 
 
 It remains to add that beyond the deductions which, as we 
 have seen, are verified by vast assemblages of inductions, 
 there may be drawn other deductions not thus verified — 
 deductions drawn from the same data, but which have no 
 relevant experiences to say yes or no to them. Such 
 deductions may be valid or invalid ; and I believe that in 
 my first work, written forty years ago and long since with- 
 drawn from circulation, there are some invalid deductions. 
 But to reject a principle and a method because of some 
 invalid deductions, is about as pro23er as it would be to 
 pooh-pooh arithmetic because of blunders in certain arith- 
 metical calculations. 
 
 I turn now to a question above put — whether, by absolute 
 political ethics,, nothing more is meant than an ethical 
 
ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 227 
 
 warrant for systems of law — a question to whiclij by implica- 
 tion, I answered ISTo. And now I have to answer that it 
 extends over a further field equally wide if less important. 
 For beyond the relations among citizens taken individually, 
 there are the relations between the incorporated body of 
 citizens and each citizen. And on these relations between 
 the State and the man^ absolute political ethics gives 
 judgments as well as on the relations between man and man. 
 Its judgments on the relations between man and man are 
 corollaries from its primary truth, that the activities of 
 each in pursuing the objects of life may be rightly 
 restricted only by the like activities of others : such others 
 being like-natured (for the principle does not contemplate 
 slave-societies or societies in which one race dominates 
 over another); and its judgments on the relations between 
 the man and the State are corollaries from the allied truth, 
 that the activities of each citizen may be rightly limited by 
 the incorporated body of citizens only as far as is needful 
 for securing to him the remainder. This further limitation 
 is a necessary accompaniment of the militant state ; and 
 must continue so long as, besides the criminalities of 
 individual aggression, there continue the criminalities of 
 international aggression. It is clear that the preservation 
 of the society is an end which must take precedence of the 
 preservation of its individuals taken singly ; since the 
 preservation of each individual and the maintenance of his 
 ability to pursue the objects of life, depend on the preserva- 
 tion of the society. Such restrictions upon his actions as 
 are imposed by the necessities of war^ and of preparedness 
 for war when it is probable^are therefore ethically defensible. 
 And here we enter upon the many and involved ques- 
 tions with which relative political ethics has to deal. When 
 originally indicating the contrast, I spoke of ^^ absolute 
 political ethics, or that which ought to be, as distinguished 
 from relative political ethics, or that which is at present 
 the nearest practicable approach to it ; " and had any atten- 
 
228 ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 
 
 tion been paid to this distinction^ no controversy need have 
 arisen. Here I have to add that the qualifications which 
 relative political ethics sets forth vary with the type of the 
 society^ which is primarily determined by the extent to 
 which defence against other societies is needful. Wliere 
 international enmity is great and the social organization 
 has to be adapted to warlike activities, the coercion of 
 individuals by the State is such as almost to destroy their 
 freedom of action and make them slaves of the State ; and 
 where this results from the necessities of defensive war (not 
 offensive war, however), relative political ethics furnishes a 
 warrant. Conversely, as militancy decreases, there is a 
 diminished need both for that subordination of individuals 
 which is necessitated by consolidating them into a fighting 
 machine, and for that further subordination entailed by 
 supplying this fighting machine with the necessaries of life ; 
 and as fast as this change goes on, the warrant for State- 
 coercion which relative political ethics furnishes becomes 
 less and less. 
 
 Obviously it is out of the question here to enter upon the 
 complex questions raised. It must suffice to indicate them 
 as above. Should I be able to complete Part lY, of The 
 Principles of Ethics^ treating of " Justice," of which the 
 first chapters only are at present written, I hope to deal 
 adequately with these relations between the ethics of the 
 progressive condition and the ethics of that condition 
 which is the goal of progress — a goal ever to be recognizedj 
 though it cannot be actually reached. 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION* 
 
 [First puhlislied in The Westminster Review /o/* July 1853.] 
 
 Feom time to time there returns on the cautious thinker, 
 the conclusion that, considered simply as a question of pro- 
 babilities, it is unlikely that his views upon any debatable 
 topic are correct. " Here/' he reflects, '^ are thousands 
 around me holding on this or that point opinions differing 
 from mine — wholly in many cases; partially in most others. 
 Each is as confident as I am of the truth of his convictions. 
 Many of them are possessed of great intelligence ; and, 
 rank myself high as I may, I must admit that some are my 
 equals — perhaps my superiors. Yet, while every one of us 
 is sure he is right, unquestionably most of us are wrong. 
 Why should not I be among the mistaken ? True, I 
 cannot realize the likelihood that I am so. But this proves 
 nothing ; for though the majority of us are necessarily in 
 error, we all labour under the inability to think we are in 
 error. Is it not then foolish thus to trust myself ? When 
 
 * Some of the illustrations used in this essay refer to laws and 
 arrangements changed since it was written ; while many recent occurrences 
 might now be cited in further aid of its argument. As, however, the 
 reasoning is not affected by these changes ; and as to keep it corrected tc 
 the facts of the day would involve perpetual alterations ; it seems best to 
 leave it substantially in its original state ; or rather in the state in which it 
 was republished in Mr. Chapman's Library for the People. 
 
230 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 I look back into the past, I find nation s, sects, tTieologians, 
 philosoplierSj clierishing beliefs in science^ morals, politics, 
 and religion, which we decisively reject. Yet they held 
 them with a faith qnite as strong as onrs : nay — stronger, if 
 their intolerance of dissent is any criterion. Of what little 
 worth, therefore, seems this strength of my conviction that 
 I am right ! A like warrant has been felt by men all the 
 world through ; and, in nine cases out of ten, has proved a 
 delusive warrant. Is it not then absurd in me to put so 
 much faith in my judgments ? ^' 
 
 Barren of practical results as this reflection at first sight 
 appears, it may_, and indeed should, influence some of our 
 most important proceedings. Though in daily life we are 
 constantly obliged to act out our inferences, trustless as 
 they may be — though in the house, in the office, in the 
 street, there hourly arise occasions on which we may not 
 hesitate ; seeing that if to act is dangerous, never to act at 
 all is fatal — and though, consequently, on our private 
 conduct, this abstract doubt as to the worth of our judg- 
 ments, must remain inoperative ; yet, in our public conduct, 
 we may properly allow it to weigh. Here decision is no 
 longer imperative; while the difficulty of deciding aright 
 is incalculably greater. Clearly as we may think we see 
 how a given measure will work, we may infer, drawing 
 the above induction from human experience, that the 
 chances are many against the truth of our anticipations. 
 Whether in most cases it is not wiser to do nothing, 
 becomes now a rational question. Continuing his self- 
 criticism, the cautious thinker may reason : — ^^ If in these 
 personal affairs, where all the conditions of the case were 
 known to me, I have so often miscalculated, how much 
 oftener shall I miscalculate in political affairs, where the 
 conditions are too numerous, too wide-spread, too complex, 
 too obscure to be understood. Here, doubtless, is a social 
 evil and there a desideratum ; and were I sure of doing no 
 mischief I would forthwith try to cure the one and achieve 
 
OVEE-LEGISLATION. 231 
 
 the otlier. But when I remeinber how many of my pri\^ate 
 schemes have miscarried — how speculations have failed, 
 agents proved dishonest, marriage been a disappointment — ■ 
 how I did but pauperize the relative I sought to help — how 
 my carefully-governed son has turned out worse than most 
 children — how the thing I desperately strove against as a 
 misfortune did me immense good — how while the objects I 
 ardently pursued brought me little happiness when gained, 
 most of my pleasures have come from unexpected sources j 
 when I recall these and hosts of like facts, I am struck 
 with the incompetence of my intellect to prescribe for 
 society. And as the evil is one under which society has 
 not only lived but grown, while the desideratum is one it 
 may spontaneously obtain, as it has most others, in some 
 unforeseen way, I question the propriety of meddling.'^ 
 
 There is a great want of this practical humility in our 
 political conduct. Though we have less self-confidence 
 than our ancestors, who did not hesitate to organize in law 
 their judgments on all subjects whatever, we have yet far 
 too much. Though we have ceased to assume the infalli- 
 bility of our theological beliefs and so ceased to enact them, 
 we have not ceased to enact hosts of other beliefs of an 
 equally doubtful kind. Though we no longer presume to 
 coerce men for their spiritual good, we still think ourselves 
 called upon to coerce them for their material good : not 
 seeing that the one is as useless and as unwarrantable as 
 the other. Innumerable failures seem, so far, powerless to 
 teach this. Take up a daily paper and you will probably 
 find a leader exposing the corruption, negligence, or mis- 
 management of some State-department. Cast your eye 
 down the next column, and it is not unlikely that you will 
 read proposals for an extension of State-supervision. 
 Yesterday came a charge of gross carelessness against the 
 Colonial office. To-day Admiralty bunglings are bur- 
 lesqued. To-morrow brings the question — ^^ Should there 
 
232 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 not be more coal-mine inspectors ? " Now there is a com- 
 plaint that the Board of Health is useless; and now an 
 outcry for more railway regulation. While your ears are 
 still ringing with denunciations of Chancery abuses, or 
 3'our cheeks still glowing with indignation at some well- 
 exposed iniquity of the Ecclesiastical Courts^ you suddenly 
 come upon suggestions for organizing ^^ a priesthood of 
 science/'' Here is a vehement condemnation of the police 
 for stupidly allowing sight-seers to crush each other to 
 death. You look for the corollary that official regulation is 
 not to be trusted ; when, instead, a projoos of a shipwreck, 
 you read an urgent demand for government-inspectors to 
 see that ships always have their boats ready for launching. 
 Thus, while every day chronicles a failure, there every day 
 reappears the belief that it needs but an Act of Parliament 
 and a staff of officers, to effect any end desired. Nowhere 
 is the perennial faith of mankind better seen. Ever since 
 society existed Disappointment has been preaching — '^ Put 
 not your trust in legislation ; " and yet the trust in legisla- 
 tion seems scarcely diminished. 
 
 Did the State fulfil efficiently its unquestionable duties, 
 there would be some excuse for this eagerness to assign it 
 further duties. Were there no complaints of its faulty 
 administration of justice ; of its endless delays and untold 
 expenses ; of its bringing ruin in place of restitution ; of its 
 playing the tyrant where it should have been the protector 
 — did we never hear of its complicated stupidities ; its 
 20,000 statutes, which it assumes all Englishmen to know, 
 and which not one Englishman does know; its multiplied 
 forms, which, in the effort to meet every contingency, open 
 far more loopholes than they provide against — had it not 
 shown its folly in the system of making every petty altera- 
 tion by a new act, variously affecting innumerable preced- 
 ing acts; or in its score of successive sets of Chancery 
 rules, which so modify, and limit, and extend, and abolish, 
 and alter each other, that not even Chancery lawyers know 
 
OVEE-LEQISLATION. 233 
 
 wTiat the rules are — were we never astounded by such a fact 
 as that, under the system of land registration in Ireland, 
 6000Z. have been spent in a "negative search" to establish 
 the title of an estate — did we find in its doings no such 
 terrible incongruity as the imprisonment of a hungry 
 vagrant for stealing a turnip, while for the gigantic em- 
 bezzlements of a railway director it inflicts no punishment ; 
 — had we, in short, proved its eflSciency as judge and 
 defender, instead of having found it treacherous, cruel, and 
 anxiously to be shunned, there would be some encourage- 
 ment to hope other benefits at its hands. 
 
 Or if, while failing in its judicial functions, the State had 
 ■proved itself a capable agent in some other department — - 
 the military for example — there would have been some 
 show of reason for extending its sphere of action. Suppose 
 that it had rationally equipped its troops, instead of giving 
 them cumbrous and ineffective muskets, barbarous grenadier 
 caps, absurdly heavy knapsacks and cartouche-boxes, and 
 clothing coloured so as admirably to help the enemy^s 
 marksmen — suppose that it organized well and economically, 
 instead of salarying an immense superfluity of officers, creat- 
 ing sinecure colonelcies of 4000Z. a year, neglecting the meri- 
 torious and promoting incapables — suppose that its soldiers 
 were always well housed instead of being thrust into bar- 
 racks that invalid hundreds, as at Aden, or that fall on their 
 occupants, as at Loodianah, where ninety-five were thus 
 killed — suppose that, in actual war, it had shown due 
 administrative ability, instead of occasionally leaving its 
 regiments to march barefoot, to dress in patches, to capture 
 their own engineering tools, and to fight on empty stomachs, 
 as during the Peninsular campaign ; — suppose all this, 
 and the wish for more State-control might still have had 
 some warrant. 
 
 Even though it had bungled in everything else, yet had 
 it in one case done well — had its naval management alone 
 been efficient — the sanguine would have had a colourable 
 
234 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 excuse for expecting success in a new field. Grant tliafc 
 tlie reports about bad ships, ships that will not sail^ ships 
 that have to be lengthened^ ships with unfit engines, ships 
 that will not carry their guns, ships without stowage, and 
 ships that have to be broken up, are all untrue — assume 
 those to be mere slanderers who say that the Megcera took 
 double the time taken by a commercial steamer to reach the 
 Cape ; that during the same voyage the Hydra was three times 
 on fire, and needed the pumps kept g*oiug day and night ; 
 that the Charlotte troop-ship set out with 75 days^ provisions 
 on board, and was three months in reaching her destination; 
 that the Harpy, at an imminent risk of life, got home in 
 110 days from Eio — disregard as calumnies the statements' 
 about septuagenarian admirals, dilettante ship building, 
 and *''' cooked ■'■' dockyard accounts — set down the affair of 
 the Groldner preserved meats as a myth, and consider Pro- 
 fessor Barlow mistaken when he reported of the Admiralty 
 compasses in store, that ^' at least one-half were mere 
 lumber •/' — let all these, we say, be held groundless charges, 
 and there would remain for the advocates of much govern- 
 ment some basis for their political air-castles, spite of 
 military and judicial mismanagement. 
 
 As it is, however, they seem to have read backwards the 
 parable of the talents. Not to the ag-ent of proved efficiency 
 do they consign further duties, but to the negligent and 
 blundering agent. Private enterprise has done much, and 
 done it well. Private enterprise has cleared, drained, 
 and fertilized the country, and built the towns — has 
 excavated mines, laid out roads, dug canals, and embanked 
 railways — has invented, and brought to perfection, ploughs, 
 looms, steam-engines, printing-presses, and machines in- 
 numerable — has built our ships, our vast manufactories, 
 our docks — has established banks, insurance societies, and 
 the newspaper press — has covered the sea with lines of 
 steam-vessels, and the land with electric telegraphs. 
 Private enterprise has brought agriculture, manufactures. 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 235 
 
 and commerce to their present height, and is now develop- 
 ing them with increasing rapidity. Therefore, do not trust 
 private enterprise. On the other hand, the State so fulfils 
 its judicial f anction as to ruin many, delude others, and 
 frighten away those who most need succour; its national 
 defences are so extravagantly and yet inefficiently admin- 
 istered, as to call forth almost daily complaint, expostulation, 
 or ridicule ; and as the nation's steward, it obtains from 
 some of our vast public estates a minus revenue. There- 
 fore, trust the State. Slight the good and faithful servant, 
 and promote the unprofitable one from one talent to ten. 
 
 Seriously, the case, while it may not, in some respects, 
 warrant this parallel, is, in one respect, even stronger. For 
 the new work is not of the same order as the old, but of a 
 more difficult order. Ill as government discharges its true 
 duties, any other duties committed to it are likely to be still 
 worse discharged. To guard its subjects against aggression, 
 either individual or national, is a straightforward and 
 tolerably simple matter ; to regulate, directly or indirectly, 
 the personal actions of those subjects is an infinitely com- 
 plicated matter. It is one thing to secure to each man the 
 unhindered power to pursue his own good ; it is a widely 
 different thing to pursue the good for him. To do the first 
 efficiently, the State has merely to look on while its citizens 
 act; to forbid unfairness; to adjudicate when called on; 
 and to enforce restitution for injuries. To do the last 
 efficiently, it must become an ubiquitous worker — must 
 know each man's needs better than he knows them himself 
 - — must, in short, possess superhuman power and intelli- 
 gence. Even, therefore, had the State done well in its 
 proper sphere, no sufficient warrant would have existed for 
 extending that sphere; but seeing how ill it has discharged 
 those simple offices which we cannot help consigning to it, 
 email indeed is the probability that it will discharge well 
 offices of a more complicated nature. 
 
 Change the point of view however we may, and this con- 
 62 
 
236 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 elusion still presents itself. If we define the primary State- 
 daty to be that of protecting each individual against others ; 
 then, all other State-action conies under the definition of 
 protecting each individual against himself — against his own 
 stupidity^ his own idleness, his own impi'ovidence, rashness, 
 or other defect — his own incapacity for doing something or 
 other which should be done. There is no questioning this 
 classification. For manifestly all the obstacles that lie 
 between a man's desires and the satisfaction of them, are 
 either obstacles arising from other men's countei; desires, or 
 obstacles arising from inability in himself. Such of these 
 counter desires as are just, have as much claim to satisfac- 
 tion as his ; and may not, therefore, be thwarted. Such of 
 them as are unjust, it is the State's duty to hold in check. 
 The only other possible sphere for it, therefore, is that of 
 saving the individual from the consequences of his nature^ 
 or, as we say — protecting him against himself. Making no 
 comment, at present, on the policy of this, and confining 
 ourselves solely to the practicability of it, let us inquire how 
 tlie proposal looks when reduced to its simplest form. Here 
 are men possessed of instincts, and sentiments, and pcrcep- 
 tionSj ail conspiring to self-preservation. The due action of 
 each brings its quantum of pleasure; the inaction, its more 
 or less of pain. Those provided with these faculties in due 
 proportions, prosper and multiply; those ill-provided, tend 
 to die out. And the general success of this human organi- 
 zation is seen in the fact, that under it the world has been 
 peopled, and by it the complicated appliances and arrange- 
 ments of civilized life have been developed. It is complained, 
 however, that there are certain directions in which this 
 apparatus of motives works but imperfectly. While it is 
 admitted that men are duly prompted by it to bodily sus- 
 tenance, to the obtainment of clothing and shelter, to 
 marriage and the care of offspring, and to the establishment 
 of the more important industrial and commercial agencies; 
 it is argued that there are many desiderata, as pure air. 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 237 
 
 more knowledge, good water^ safe travelling, and so forth, 
 which it does not duly achieve. And these short-comings 
 being assumed permanent, it is urged that some supplemen- 
 tary means must be employed. It is therefore proposed 
 that out of the mass of men a certain number, constituting 
 the legislature, shall be instructed to attain these various 
 objects. The legislators thus instructed (all characterized, 
 ou the average, by the same defects in this apparatus of 
 motives as men in general), being unable personally to 
 fulfil their tasks, must fulfil them by deputy — must appoint 
 commissions, boards, councils, and staffs of officers ; and 
 must construct their agencies of this same defective 
 humanity that acts so ill. Why now should this system 
 of complex deputation succeed where the system of 
 simple deputation does not ? The industrial, commer- 
 cial, and philanthropic agencies, which citizens form 
 spontaneously, are directly deputed agencies; these 
 governmental agencies made by electing legislators who 
 appoint officers, are indirectly deputed ones. And it is 
 hoped that, by this process of double deputation, things 
 may be achieved which the process of single deputation 
 will not achieve. What is the rationale of this hope ? Is 
 it that legislators, and their employes, are made to feel 
 more intensely than the rest these evils they are to remedy, 
 these wants they are to satisfy ? Hardly ; for by position 
 they are mostly relieved from such evils and wants. Is it, 
 then, that they are to have the primary motive replaced by 
 a secondary motive — the fear of public displeasure, and 
 ultimate removal from office ? Why scarcely ; for the 
 minor benefits which citizens will not organize to secure 
 directly, they will not organize to secure indirectly, by 
 turning out inefficient servants : especially if they cannot 
 readily get efficient ones. Is it, then, that these State- 
 agents are to do from a sense of duty, what they would not 
 do from any other motive ? Evidently this is the only 
 possibility remaining. The proposition on which the 
 
238 OVER-LEGISLATION". 
 
 advocates of much government have to fall back, is, that 
 things which the people will not unite to effect for personal 
 benefit, a law-appointed portion of themi will unite to effect 
 for the benefit of the rest. Public men and functionaries 
 love their neighbours better than themselves ! The 
 philanthropy of statesmen is stronger than the selfishness 
 of citizens ! 
 
 No wonder, then, that every day adds to the list of 
 legislative miscarriages. If colliery explosions increase, 
 notwithstanding the appointment of coal-mine inspectors, 
 why it is but a natural sequence to these false methods. If 
 Sunderland shipowners complain that, as far as tried, ^'the 
 Mercantile Marine Act has proved a total failure;" and if, 
 meanwhile, the other class affected by it — the sailors — show 
 their disapprobation by extensive strikes ; why it does but 
 exemplify the folly of trusting a theorising benevolence 
 rather than an experienced self-interest. On all sides we 
 may expect such facts ; and on all sides we find them. 
 Grovernment, turning engineer, appoints its lieutenant, the 
 Sewers' Commission, to drain London. Presently Lambeth 
 sends deputations to say that it pays heavy rates, and gets 
 no benefit. Tired of waiting, Bethnal-green calls meetings 
 to consider "the most effectual means of extendinsr the 
 drainage of the district." From Wandsworth come com- 
 plainants, who threaten to pay no more until something is 
 done. Camberwell proposes to raise a subscription and do 
 the work itself. Meanwhile, no progress is made towards 
 the purification of the Thames; the weekly returns show an 
 increasing rate of mortality; in Parliament, the friends of 
 the Commission have nothing save good intentions to urge 
 ill mitigation of censure ; and, at length, despairing 
 ministers gladly seize an excuse for quietly shelving the 
 Commission and its plans altogether."^ As architectural 
 
 * So complete is the failure of this and other sanitary bodies, that, at the 
 present moment {March, 1854) a number of philanthropic gentlemen are 
 voluntarily organizing a " Health Fund for Loudon," with the view of meet- 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 239 
 
 surveyor^ tlie State has scarcely succeeded better than as 
 engineer ; witness the Metropolitan Buildings' Act. Ncav 
 houses still tumble down from time to time. A few montlis 
 since two fell at Bayswater, and one more recently near the 
 Pentonville Prison : all notwithstanding prescribed thick- 
 nesses, and hoop-iron bond, and inspectors. It never struck 
 those who provided these delusive sureties, that it was 
 possible to build walls without bonding the two surfaces 
 together, so that the inner layer might be removed after the 
 surveyor's approval. Nor did they foresee that, in dictating 
 a larger quantity of bricks than experience proved absolutely 
 needful, they were simply insuring a slow deterioration of 
 quality to an equivalent extent."^ The government guarantee 
 for safe passenger ships answers no better than its guarantee 
 for safe houses. Though the burning of the Amazon arose 
 from either bad construction or bad stowage, she had 
 received the Admiralty certificate before sailing. Notwith- 
 standing official approval, the Adelaide was found, on her 
 first voyage, to steer ill, to have useless pumps, ports that 
 let floods of water into the cabins, and coals so near the 
 f arnaces that they twice caught fire. The IF. 8. Lindsay j 
 which turned out unfit for sailing, had been passed by the 
 government agent ; and, but for the owner, might have gone 
 to sea at a great risk of life. The Melbourne — originally a 
 State-built ship — which took twenty-four days to reach 
 Lisbon, and then needed to be docked to undergo a thorough 
 repair, had been duly inspected. And lastly, the notorious 
 Australian, before her third futile attempt to proceed on her 
 
 ing the threatened invasion of the Cholera ; and the plea for this purely 
 private enterprise^ is, that the Local Boards of Health and Boards of Guardians 
 are inoperative, from *^ ignorance, 1st, of the extent of the danger ; 2Dd, of the 
 •means which experience has discovered for meeting it; and 3rd, of the compa- 
 rative security which tlwse mean^ may produce.^' 
 
 * The Builder remarks, that *' the removal of the brick-duties has not yet 
 produced that improvement in the make of bricks which we ought to find, 
 
 but as bad bricks can be obtained for less than good bricks, so long 
 
 as houses built of the former will sell as readily as if the better had been 
 used, no improvement is to be expected." 
 
2 40 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 voyage^ had^ her owners tell us^ received "^the full approba- 
 tion of tlie government inspector." Neither does the like 
 supervision give security to land-travelling. The iron 
 bridge at Chester, whichj breaking, precipitated a train into 
 the Dee, had passed under the official eye. Inspection did 
 nob prevent a column on the South-Eastern from being so 
 placed as to kill a man who put his head out of the carriage 
 window. The locomotive that burst at Brighton lately, did 
 so notwithstanding a State-approval given but ten days 
 previously. And — to look at the facts in the gross — this 
 system of supervision has not prevented the increase of 
 railway accidents ; which, be it remembered^ has arisen 
 since the system was commenced. 
 
 " Well ; let the State fail. It can but do its best. If it 
 succeed, so much the better : if it do not, where is the 
 harm ? Surely it is wiser to act, and take the chance of 
 success, than to do nothing." To this plea the rejoinder is 
 that, unfortunately, the results of legislative intervention 
 are not only negatively bad, but often positively so. Acts 
 of Parliament do not simply fail ; they frequently make 
 worse. The familiar truth that persecution aids rather 
 than hinders proscribed doctrines — a truth lately afresh 
 illustrated by the forbidden work of Gervinus — ^is a part of 
 the general truth that legislation often does indirectly, the 
 reverse of that which it directly aims to do. Thus has it 
 been with the Metropolitan Buildings^ Act. As was lately 
 agreed unanimously by the delegates from all the parishes 
 in London, and as was stated by them to Sir William 
 Molesworth, this act '*^has encouraged bad building, and 
 has been the means of covering the subm^bs of the metro- 
 polis with thousands of wretched hovels, which are a disgrace 
 to a civilized country." Thus, also, has it been in provincial 
 towns. The Nottingham Inclosure Act of 1845, by prescrib- 
 ing the structure of the houses to be built, and the extent 
 of yard or garden to be allotted to each, has rendered it 
 impossible to build working-class dwellings at such moderate 
 
OVEE-LEGISLATION. 241 
 
 rcntg as to compete with existing ones. It is estimated 
 that, as a consequencej 10,000 of the population are 
 debarred from the new homes they would otherwise have, 
 and are forced to live crowded together in miserable places 
 unfit for human habitation ; and so, in its anxiety to insure 
 healthy accommodation for artisans, the law has entailed on 
 them still worse accommodation than before. Thus, too, 
 has it been with the Passengers' Act. The terrible fevers 
 which arose in the Australian emigrant ships a few months 
 since, causing in the Bournenf 83 deaths, in the Wanota 39 
 deaths, in the Marco Polo 53 deaths, and in the Ticonderoga 
 104 deaths, arose in vessels sent out by the government; 
 and arose in consequence of the close packing which the 
 Passengers' Act authorizes.* Thus, moreover, has it been 
 with the safeguards provided by the Mercantile Marine 
 Act. The examinations devised for insuring the efficiency 
 of captains, have had the effect of certifying the 
 superficially-clever and unpractised men, and, as we are 
 told by a shipowner, rejecting many of the long-tried and 
 most trustworthy : the general result being that the 
 ratio of shipwrecks has increased. Thus also has it 
 happened with Boards of Health, which have, in sundry 
 cases, exacerbated the evils to be removed; as, for instance, 
 at Croydon, where, according to the official report, the 
 measures of the sanitary authorities produced an epidemic, 
 which attacked 1600 people and killed 70. Thus again has 
 it been with the Joint Stock Companies Registration Act. 
 As was shown by Mr. James Wilson, in his late motion for 
 a select committee on life-assurance associations, this 
 measure, passed in 1844 to guard the public against bubble 
 schemes, actually facilitated the rascalities of 1845 and 
 subsequent years. The legislative sanction, devised as a 
 guarantee of genuineness, and supposed by the people to be 
 
 * Against -which close packing, by the way, a private mercantile body — the 
 Liverpool Shipowners' Association — unavailingly protested when the Act waa 
 before Parliament. 
 
242 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 Buch, clever adventurers have without difficulty obtained 
 for the most worthless projects. Having obtained it, an 
 amount of public confidence has followed which they could 
 never otherwise have gained. In this way literally 
 hundreds of sham enterprises that would not else have seen 
 the lightj have been fostered into being j and thousands of 
 families have been ruined who would never have been so 
 but for legislative efforts to make them more secure. 
 
 Moreover, when these topical remedies applied by 
 statesmen do not exacerbate the evils they were meant to 
 cure, they constantly induce collateral evils ; and these 
 often graver than the original ones. It is the vice of this 
 empirical school of politicians that they never look beyond 
 proximate caases and immediate effects. In common with 
 the uneducated masses they habitually regard each phe- 
 nomenon as involving but one antecedent and one con- 
 sequent. They do not bear in mind that each phenomenon 
 is a link in an infinite series — is the result of myriads of 
 preceding phenomena, and will have a share in producing 
 myriads of succeeding ones. Hence they overlook the fact 
 that, in disturbing any natural chain of sequences, they are 
 not only modifying the result next in succession, but all the 
 future results into which this will enter as a part cause. 
 The serial genesis of phenomena, and the interaction of 
 each series upon every other series, produces a complexity 
 utterly beyond human grasp. Even in the simplest cases 
 this is so. A servant who puts coals on the fire sees but 
 few effects from the burning of a lump. The man of 
 science, however, knows that there are very many effects. 
 He knows that the combustion establishes numerous 
 atmospheric currents, and through them moves thousands 
 of cubic feet of air inside the house and out. He knows 
 that the heat diffused causes expansions and subsequent 
 contractions of all bodies within its range. He knows that 
 the persons warmed are affected in their rate of respiration 
 liud their waste of tissue; and that these physiological 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 243 
 
 changes must liave various secondary results. He knows 
 that^ could he trace to their ramified consequences all the 
 forces disengaged, mechanical, chemical, thermal, electric 
 — could he enumerate all the subsequent effects of the 
 evaporation caused, the gases generated, the light evolved, 
 the heat radiated ; a volume would scarcely suffice to enter 
 them. If, now, from a simple inorganic change such 
 numerous and complex results arise, how infinitely multi- 
 plied and involved must be the ultimate consequences of 
 any force brought to bear upon society. Wonderfully con- 
 structed as it is — mutually dependent as are its members 
 for the satisfaction of their wants — affected as each unit of 
 it is by his fellows, not only as to his safety and prosperity, 
 but in his health, his temper, his culture ; the social 
 organism cannot be dealt with in any one part, without all 
 other parts being influenced in ways which cannot be 
 foreseen. You put a duty on paper, and by-and-by find 
 that, through the medium of the jacquard-cards employed, 
 you have inadvertently taxed figured silk, sometimes to the 
 extent of several shillings per piece. Ou removing the 
 impost from bricks, you discover that its existence had 
 increased the dangers of mining, by preventing shafts from 
 being lined and workings from being tunnelled. By the 
 excise on soap, you have, it turns out, greatly encouraged 
 the use of caustic washing-powders ; and so have unin- 
 tentionally entailed an immense destruction of clothes. In 
 every case you perceive, on careful inquiry, that besides 
 acting upon that which you sought to act upon, you have 
 acted upon many other things, and each of these again on 
 many others; and so have propagated a multitude of 
 changes in all directions. We need feel no surprise, then, 
 that in their efforts to cure specific evils, legislators have 
 continually caused collateral evils they never looked for. 
 No Carlyle's wisest man, nor any body of such, could avoid 
 causing them. Though their production is explicable 
 enough after it has occurred, it i.^ never anticipated. 
 
244 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 WLen^ under the New Poor-law, provision was made for 
 the accommodation of vagrants in the Union-houses, it Avas 
 hardly expected that a body of tramps would be thereby 
 called into existence, who would spend their time in walk- 
 ing from Union to Union throughout the kingdom. It was 
 little thought by those who in past generations assigned 
 parish-pay for the maintenance of illegitimate children, 
 that, as a resalt, a family of such would by-and-by be 
 considered a small fortune, and the mother of them a 
 desirable wife ; nor did the same statesmen see that, by 
 the law of settlement, they were organizing a disastrous 
 inequality of wages in different districts, and entailing a 
 system of clearing away cottages, which would result in 
 the crowding of bedrooms, and in a consequent moral and 
 physical deterioration. The English tonnage law was 
 enacted simply with a view to regulate the mode of 
 measurement. Its framers overlooked the fact that they 
 were practically providing *^'for the effectual and com- 
 pulsory construction of bad ships ;'^ and that "to cheat 
 the law, that is, to build a tolerable ship in spite of it, was 
 the highest achievement left to an English builder.^' ^ 
 Greater commercial security was alone aimed at by the 
 partnership law. We now find, however, that the un- 
 limited liability it insists upon is a serious hindrance to 
 progress ; it practically forbids the association of small 
 capitalists ; it is found a great obstacle to the building of 
 improved dwellings for the people; it prevents a better 
 relationship between artisans and employers ; and by with- 
 holding from the working-classes good investments for 
 their savings, it checks the growth of provident habits and 
 encourages drunkenness. Thus on all sides are well-meant 
 measures producing unforeseen mischiefs — a licensing 
 law that promotes the adulteration of beer ; a ticket-of- 
 leave system that encourages men to commit crime ; a 
 
 * Lecture before the Royal Institution, by J. Scott Russell, Esq., " Oa 
 Wave-line Ships and Yachts," Feb. 6. 1852. 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 245 
 
 police regulation that forces street-huxters into the work- 
 house. And then^ in addition to the obvious and proximate 
 evils, come the remote and less distinguishable oneSj which, 
 could we estimate their accumulated result, we should 
 probably find even more aerioas. 
 
 But the thing to be discussed is, not so much whether, 
 by any amount of intelligence, it is possible for a govern- 
 ment to work out the various ends consigned to it, as 
 whether its fulfilment of them, is probable. It is less a 
 question of can than a queistion of will. Granting the 
 absolute competence of the State, let us consider what 
 hope there is of getting from it satisfactory performance. 
 Let us look at the moving force by which the legislative 
 machine is worked, aud then iuquire whether this force is 
 thus employed as economically as it would otherwise be. 
 
 Manifestly, as desire of some kind is the invariable 
 stimulus to action in the individual, every social agency, of 
 what nature soever, must have some aggregate of desires 
 for its motive power. Men in their colh^ctive capacity can 
 exhibit no result but what has its origin in some appetite, 
 feeling, or taste common among them. Did not they like 
 meat, there could be no cattle-graziers, no Smithfield, no 
 distributing organization of butchers. Operas, Philhar- 
 monic Societies, song-books, and street organ-boys, have 
 all been called into being by our love of music. Look 
 through the trades^ directory; take up a guide to the 
 London sights; read the index of Bradshaw's time-tables, 
 the reports of the learned societies, or the advertisements 
 of new books ; and you see in the publication itself, and in 
 the things it describes, so many products of human activities, 
 stimulated by human desires. Under this stimulus grow up 
 agencies alikethemostgiganticand the most insignificant, the 
 most complicated and the most simple — agencies for national 
 defence and for the sweeping of crossings ; for the daily dis- 
 tribution of letters, and for the collection of bits of coal out 
 
246 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 of tlie Thames mud — agencies that sabserve all ends, from 
 the preaching of Christianity to the protection of ill-treated 
 animals ; from the production of bread for a nation to the 
 supply of groundsel for caged singing-birds. The accumu- 
 lated desires of indiyiduals being, then, the moving power 
 by which every social agency is worked, the question to be 
 considered is — Which is the most economical kind of 
 agency ? The agency having no power in itself, but being 
 merely an instrument, our inquiry must be for the most 
 efficient instrument — the instrument that costs least, and 
 wastes the smallest amount of the moving power — the in- 
 strument least liable to get out of order, and most readily 
 put right again when it goes wrong. Of the two kinds of 
 social mechanism exemplified above, the spontaneous and 
 the governmental, which is the best ? 
 
 From the form of this question will be readily foreseen 
 the intended answer — that is the best mechanism which 
 contains the fewest parts. The common saying — *"' What 
 you wish well done you must do yourself," embodies a truth 
 equally applicable to political life as to private life. The 
 experience that farming by bailiff entails loss, while tenant- 
 farming pays, is an experience still better illustrated in 
 national history than in a landlord's account books. This 
 transference of power from constituencies to members of 
 parliament, from these to the executive, from the executive 
 to a board, from the board to inspectors, and from inspec- 
 tors through their subs down to the actual workers — this 
 operating through a series of levers, each of which absorbs 
 in friction and inertia part of the moving force ; is as bad, 
 in virtue of its complexity, as the direct employment by 
 society of individuals, private companies, and spontaneously- 
 formed institutions, is good in virtue of its simplicity. 
 Fully to appreciate the contrast, we must compare in detail 
 the working of the two systems. 
 
 Officialism is habitually slow. When non-governmental 
 agencies are dilatory, the public has its remedy ; it ceases 
 
OVEE-LEGISLATION. 247 
 
 to employ them and soon finds quicker ones. Under .this 
 discipline all private bodies are taught promptness. But 
 for delays in State-departments there is no such easy cure. 
 Life-long Chancery suits must be patiently borne ; Museum- 
 catalogues must be wearily waited for. While, by the 
 people themselves, a Crystal Palace is designed, erected, 
 and filled, in the course of a few months, the legislature 
 takes twenty years to build itself a new house. While, 
 by private persons, the debates are daily printed and dis- 
 persed over the kingdom within a few hours of their utter- 
 ance, the Board of Trade tables are regularly published a 
 month, and sometimes more, after date. And so through- 
 out. Here is a Board of Health which, since 1849, has 
 been about to close the metropolitan graveyards, but has 
 not done it yet ; and which has so long dawdled over pro- 
 jects for cemeteries, that the London Necropolis Company 
 has taken the matter out of its hands. Here is a patentee 
 who has had fourteen years' correspondence with the 
 Horse Guards, before getting a definite answer respecting 
 the use of his improved boot for the Army. Here is a 
 Plymouth port-admiral who delays sending out to look for 
 the missing boats of the Amazon until ten days after 
 the wreck. 
 
 Again, officialism is stupid. Under the natural course 
 of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. 
 Those who are competent to the kind of work they under- 
 take, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced 
 in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, 
 society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try some- 
 thing easier, and eventually turns to use. But it is quite 
 otherwise in State-organizations. Here, as every one knows, 
 birth, age, back-stairs intrigue, and sycophancy, determine 
 the selections rather than merit. The "fool of the family" 
 readily finds a place in the Church, if 'Hhe family" have 
 good connexions. A youth too ill-educated for any pro- 
 fession^ does very well for an officer in the Army. Grey 
 
248 OVB R-LEGIS LATION. 
 
 hair^ or a title, is a far better guarantee of naval promotion 
 than genius is. Nay, indeed, the man of capacity often 
 finds that^ in government offices, superiority is a hindrance 
 - — that his chiefs hate to be pestered with his proposed im- 
 provements, and are offended by his implied criticisms. 
 Not only, therefore, is legislative machinery complex, but 
 it is made of inferior materials. Hence the blunders we 
 daily read of — the supplying to the dockyards from the 
 royal forests of timber unfit for use ; the administration 
 of relief during the Irish famine in such a manner as to 
 draw labourers from the field, and diminish the subsequent 
 harvest by one-fourth* ; the filing of patents at three 
 different offices and keeping an index at none. Every- 
 where does this bungling show itself, from the elaborate 
 failure of House of Commons ventilation down to the 
 publication of The London Gazette, which invariably comes 
 out wrongly folded. 
 
 A further characteristic of officialism is its extravagance. 
 In its chief departments. Army, Navy, and Church, it 
 employs far more officers than are needful, and pays some 
 of the useless ones exorbitantly. The work done by the 
 Sewers Commission has cost, as Sir B. Hall tells us, from 
 300 to 400 per cent, over the contemplated outlay ; while 
 the management charges have reached 35, 40, and 45 per 
 cent, on the expenditure. The trustees of Ramsgate 
 Harbour — a harbour, by the way, that has taken a century 
 to complete — are spending 18,O0OZ. a year in doing what 
 5000^. has been proved sufficient for. The Board of Health 
 is causing new surveys to be made of all the towns under 
 its control — a proceeding which, as Mr. Stephenson states, 
 and as every tyro in engineering knows, is, for drainage 
 purposes, a wholly needless expense. Tliese public agencies 
 are subject to no such influence as that which obliges pri- 
 vate enterprise to be economical. Traders and mercantile 
 bodies succeed by serving society cheaply. Such of them 
 * See Evidence of Major Larcom. 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 249 
 
 as cannot do this are continually supplanted by tliose who 
 can. They cannot saddle the nation with the results of 
 their extravagance, and so are prevented from being ex- 
 travagant. On works that are to return a profit it does 
 not answer to spend 48 per cent, of the capital in superin- 
 tendence, as in the engineering department of the Indian 
 Grovernment ; and Indian railway companies, knowing 
 thisj manage to keep their superintendence charges within 
 8 per cent. A shopkeeper leaves out of his accounts -no 
 item analogons to that 6,000,000^. of its revenues, which 
 Parliament allows to be deducted on the way to the Ex- 
 chequer. Walk through a manufactory, and you see that 
 the stern alternatives, carefulness or ruin, dictate the saving 
 of every penny ; visit one of the national dockyards, and 
 the comments you make on any glaring wastefulness are 
 carelessly met by the slang phrase — ^'Nunky pays.^^ 
 
 The unadaptiveness of officialism is another of its vices. 
 Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions 
 to meet emergencies — unlike the shopkeeper who promptly 
 finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand — unlike 
 the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a 
 special influx of passengers ; the law-made instrumentality 
 lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances through its 
 ordained routine at its habitual rate. By its very nature it 
 is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails 
 under unusual requirements. You cannot step into the 
 street without having the contrast thrust upon you. Is it 
 summer ? You see the water-carts going their prescribed 
 rounds with scarcely any regard to the needs of the weather 
 — to-day sprinkling afresh the already moist roads ; to- 
 morrow bestowing their showers with no greater liberality 
 upon roads cloudy with dust. Is it winter ? You see the 
 scavengers do not vary* in number and activity according 
 to the quantity of mud ; and if there comes a heavy fall 
 of snow, you find the thoroughfares remaining for nearly 
 a week in a scarcely passable state, without an effort being 
 
250 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 made, eyen in tlie heart of London, to meet the exigency. 
 The late snow-storm, indeed, supplied a neat antithesis 
 between the two orders of agencies in the effects it respec- 
 tively produced on omnibuses and cabs. Not being under 
 a law-fixed tariff, the omnibuses put on extra horses 
 and raised their fares. The cabs on the contrary, being 
 limited in their charges by an Act of Parliament which, 
 with the usual shortsightedness, never contemplated 
 such a contingency as this, declined to ply, deserted the 
 stands and the stations, left luckless travellers to stumble 
 home with their luggage as best they might, and so became 
 useless at the very time of all others when they were most 
 wanted ! Not only by its unsusceptibility of adjustment 
 does officialism entail serious inconveniences, but it like- 
 wise entails great injustices. In this case of cabs for 
 example, it has resulted since the late change of law, that 
 old cabs, which were before saleable at lOZ. and 121. each, 
 are now unsaleable and have to be broken up ; and thus 
 legislation has robbed cab-propi'ietors of part of their 
 capital. Again, the recently-passed Smoke-Bill for London, 
 which applies only within certain prescribed limits, has 
 the effect of taxing one manufacturer while leaving untaxed 
 his competitor working within a quarter of a mile ; and 
 so, as we are credibly informed, gives one an advantage of 
 IbOOL a year over another. These typify the infinity of 
 wrongs, varying in degrees of hardship, which legal regu- 
 lations necessarily involve. Society, a living growing 
 organism, placed within apparatuses of dead, rigid, me- 
 chanical formulas, cannot fail to be hampered and pinched. 
 The only agencies which can efficiently serve it, are those 
 through which its pulsations hourly flow, and which change 
 as it changes. 
 
 How invariably officialism becomes corrupt every one 
 knows. Exposed to no such antiseptic as free competition 
 — not dependent for existence, as private unendowed 
 organizations are, on the maintenance of a vigorous 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 251 
 
 vitality ; all law-made agencies' fall into an inert^ over-fed 
 state, from which to disease is a short step. Salaries 
 flow in irrespective of the activity with which duty is per- 
 formed; continue affcer duty wholly ceases; become rich 
 prizes for the idle well born; and prompt to perjury, to 
 bribery, to simony. East India directors are elected not 
 for any administrative capacity they have ; but they buy 
 votes by promised patronage — a patronage alike asked 
 and given in utter disregard of the welfare of a hundred 
 millions of people. Registrars of wills not only get many 
 thousands a year each for doing work which their miserably 
 paid deputies leave half done; but they, in some cases, 
 defraud the revenue, and that after repeated reprimands. 
 Dockyard promotion is the result not of efficient services, 
 but of political favouritism. That they may continue to 
 hold rich livings, clergymen preach what they do not 
 believe ; bishops make false returns of their revenues ; and 
 at their elections to fellowships^ well-to-do priests severally 
 make oath that they are pauper, pins et doctus. From the 
 local inspector whose eyes are shut to an abuse by a con- 
 tractor's present, up to the prime minister who finds lucra- 
 tive berths for his relations, this venality is daily illustrated; 
 and that in spite of public reprobation and perpetual 
 attempts to prevent it. As we once heard said by a State- 
 official of twenty-five years' standing — " Wherever theie is 
 government there is villainy." It is the inevitable result of 
 destroying the direct connexion between the profit obtained 
 and the work performed. No incompetent person hopes, 
 by ofiering a douceur in the Times to get a permanent place 
 in a mercantile office. But where, as under government, 
 there is no employer's self-interest to forbid — where the 
 appointment is made by some one on whom inefficiency 
 entails no loss ; there a douceur is operative. In hospitals, 
 in public charities, in endowed schools, in all social agencies 
 in which duty done and income gained do not go hand in 
 band, the like corruption is found; and is great in proper- 
 
252 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 tion as tlie dependence of income upon duty is remote. In 
 
 State-organizations, therefore^ corruption is unavoidable. 
 In trading-organizations it rarely makes its appearance ; 
 and when it does, tlie instinct of self-preservation soon 
 provides a remedy. 
 
 To all whicli broad contrasts add this, that while private 
 bodies are enterprising and progressive, public bodies are un- 
 changingj and, indeed, obstructive. That officialism should 
 be inventive nobody expects. That it should go out of its 
 easy mechanical routine to introduce improvements, and this 
 at a considerable expense of thought and application, with- 
 out the prospect of profit, is not to be supposed. But it is 
 not simply stationary; it resists every amendment either 
 in itself or in anything with which it deals. Until now 
 that County Courts are taking away their practice, all 
 agents of the law have doggedly opposed law-reform. The 
 universities have maintained an old curriculum for centuries 
 after it ceased to be fit ; and are now struggling to prevent 
 a threatened reconstruction. Every postal improvement 
 has been vehemently protested against by the postal author- 
 ities. Mr. Whiston can say how pertinacious is the con- 
 servatism of Church grammar-schools. Not even the 
 gravest consequences in view preclude official resistance : 
 witness the fact that though, as already mentioned, Pro- 
 fessor Barlow reported in 1820, of the Admiralty compasses 
 then in store, that '^ at least one-half were mere lumber,'^ 
 yet notwithstanding the constant risk of shipwrecks thence 
 arising, "very little amelioration in this state of things 
 appears to have taken place until 1838 to 1840.''* Nor is 
 official obstructiveness to be readily overborne even by a 
 powerful public opinion: witness the fact that though, for 
 generations, nine-tenths of the nation have disapproved 
 this ecclesiastical system which pampers the drones and 
 starves the workers, and though commissions have been 
 appointed to rectify it, it still remains substantially as it 
 
 * " Kudimentary Magnetism," by Sir W. Snow Harris. Part III. p. 145. 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 253 
 
 was: witness again the fact that though, since 1818, there 
 have been a score attempts to rectify the scandalous mal- 
 administration of Charitable Trusts — though ten times in 
 ten successive years, remedial measures have been brought 
 before Parliament — the abuses still continue in all their 
 grossnesa. 'Not only do these legal instrumentalities resist 
 reforms in themselves, but they hinder reforms in other 
 things. In defending their vested interests the clergy 
 delay the closing of town burial-grounds. As Mr. Lindsay 
 can show, government emigration-agents are checking the 
 use of iron for sailing-vessels. Excise officers prevent 
 improvements in the processes they have to overlook. That 
 organic conservatism which is visible in the daily conduct 
 of all men, is an obstacle which in private life self-interest 
 slowly overcomes. The prospect of profit does, in the end, 
 teach farmers that deep draining is good ; though it takes 
 long to do this. Manufacturers do, ultimately, learn the 
 most economical speed at which to work their steam- 
 engines; though precedent has long misled them. But in 
 the public service, where there is no self-interest to over- 
 come it, this conservatism exerts its full force ; and produces 
 results alike disastrous and absurd. For generations after 
 book-keeping had become universal, the Exchequer accounts 
 were kept by notches cut on sticks. In the estimates for 
 the current year appears the item, " Trimming the oil- 
 lamps at the Horse-Guards." 
 
 Between these law-made agencies and the spontaneously 
 formed ones, who then can hesitate? The one class are 
 slow, stupid, extravagant, unadaptive, corrupt, and ob- 
 structive : can any point out in the other, vices that balance 
 these ? It is true that trade has its dishonesties, speculation 
 its follies. These are evils inevitably entailed by the exist- 
 ing imperfections of humanity. It is equally true, however, 
 that these imperfections of humanity are shared by State- 
 functionaries ; and that being unchecked in them by the 
 same stern discipline, they grow to far wors^ results. 
 
254 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 Given a race of men having a certain proclivity to mis- 
 conduct^ and the question is, whether a society of these 
 men shall be so organized that ill-conduct directly brings 
 punishment, or whether it shall be so organized that 
 punishment is but remotely contingent on ill-conduct ? 
 Which will be the most healthful community — that in which 
 agents who perform their functions badly, immediately 
 suffer by the withdrawal of public patronage ; or that in 
 which such agents can be made to suffer only through an 
 apparatus of meetings, petitions, polling booths, parlia- 
 mentary divisions, cabinet-councils, and red-tape documents? 
 Is it not an absurdly Utopian hope that men will behave 
 better when correction is far removed and uncertain than 
 when it is near at hand and inevitable ? Yet this is 
 the hope which most political schemers unconsciously 
 cherish. Listen to their plans, and you find that just 
 what they propose to have done, they assume the appointed 
 agents will do. That functionaries are trustworthy is 
 their first postulate. Doubtless could good officers be 
 ensured, much might be said for officialism ; just as 
 despotism would have its advantages could we ensure a 
 good despot. 
 
 If, however, we would duly appreciate the contrast 
 between the artificial modes and the natural modes of 
 achieving social desiderata, we must look not only at the 
 vices of the one but at the virtues of the other. These are 
 many and important. Consider first how immediately 
 every private enterprise is dependent on the need for it ; 
 and how impossible it is for it to continue if there be no 
 need. Daily are new trades and new companies established. 
 If they subserve some existing public want, they take root 
 and grow. If they do not, they die of inanition. It needs 
 no agitation, no act of Parliament, to put them down. As 
 with all natural organizations, if there is no function for 
 them no nutriment comes to them, and they dwindle away. 
 Moreover, not only do the new agencies disappear if they 
 
OVER-LEaiSLATION. 255 
 
 are superfluous^ but the old ones cease to be when they 
 have done their work. Unhke public instrumentalities — ■ 
 unlike Heralds' Offices, which are maintained for ages after 
 heraldry has lost all value — unlike Ecclesiastial Courts, 
 which continue to flourish for generations after they have 
 become an abomination ; these private instrumentalities 
 dissolve when they become needless. A widely ramified 
 coaching-system ceases to exist as soon as a more eflicient 
 railway-system comes into being. And not simply does it 
 cease to exist, and to abstract funds, but the materials 
 of which it was made are absorbed and turned to use. 
 Coachmen, guards, and the rest, are employed to profit 
 elsewhere — do not continue for twenty years a burden, like 
 the compensated officials of some abolished department of 
 the State. Consider, again, how necessarily these un- 
 ordained agencies fit themselves to their work. It is a law 
 of all organized things that efficiency presupposes appren- 
 ticeship. Not only is it true that the young merchant must 
 begin by carrying letters to the post, that the way to be a 
 successful innkeeper is to commence as waiter — not only is 
 it true that in the development of the intellect there must 
 come first the perceptions of identity and duality, next of 
 number, and that without these, arithmetic, algebra, and 
 the infinitesimal calculus, remain impracticable; but it is 
 true that there is no part of an organism but begins in 
 some simple form with some insignificant function, and 
 passes to its final stage through successive phases of 
 complexity. Every heart is at first a mere pulsatile sac; 
 every brain begins as a slight enlargement of the spinal 
 chord. This law equally extends to the social organism. 
 An instrumentality that is to work well must not be de- 
 signed and suddenly put together by legislators, but must 
 grow gradually from a germ; each successive addition 
 must be tried and proved good by experience before 
 another addition is made ; and by this tentative process 
 only, can an efficient instrumentality be produced. From a 
 
25(5 OVER-LEGISLATION* 
 
 trustwortlay man wlio receives deposits of money^ insensibly 
 grows up a vast banking system, with its notes, checks, 
 bills, its complex transactions, and its Clearing-house. 
 Pack-hordes, then waggons, then coaches, then steam- 
 carriages on common roads, and, finally, steam-carriages 
 on roads made for them — such has been the slow genesis 
 of our present means of communication. Not a trade in the 
 directory but has formed itself an apparatus of manufac- 
 turers, brokers, travellers, and retailers, in so gradual a 
 way that no one can trace the steps. And so with organi- 
 zations of another order. The Zoological Gardens began 
 as the private collection of a few naturalists. The best 
 working-class school known — that at Price's factory — 
 commenced with half-a-dozen boys sitting among the 
 candle-boxes, after hours, to teach themselves writing with 
 worn-out pens. Mark, too, that as a consequence of their 
 mode of growth, these spontaneously-formed agencies 
 expand to any extent required. The same stimulus which 
 brought them into being makes them send their ramifica- 
 tions wherever they are needed. But supply does not 
 thus readily follow demand in governmental agencies. 
 Appoint a board and a staff, fix their duties, and let 
 the apparatus have a generation or two to consolidate, 
 and you cannot get it to fulfil larger requirements without 
 some act of parliament obtained only after long delay 
 and difficulty. 
 
 Were there space, much more might be said upon the 
 superiority of what naturalists would call the exogenous 
 order of institutions over the endogenous one. But, from 
 the point of view indicated, the further contrasts between 
 their characteristics will be sufficiently visible. 
 
 Hence then the fact, that while the one order of means 
 is ever failing, making worse, or producing more evils than 
 it cures, the other order of means is ever succeeding, ever 
 improving. Strong as it looks at the outset. State-agency 
 perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are its first 
 
OVEE-LEGTSLATION. 257 
 
 stages, private effort daily achieves results tliat astound 
 the world. It is not only that joint-stock companies do so 
 much— it is not only that by them a whole kingdom is 
 covered with railways in the same time that it takes the 
 Admiralty to build a hundred-gan ship ; but it is that 
 public instrumentalities are outdone even by individuals. 
 The often quoted contrast between the Academy whose 
 forty members took fifty-six years to compile the French 
 Dictionary, while Dr. Johnson alone compiled the English 
 one in eight — a contrast still marked enough after making 
 due set-off for the difference in the works — is by no means 
 without parallel. That great sanitary desideratum — the 
 bringing of the New River to London — which the 
 wealthiest corporation in the world attempted and failed, 
 Sir Hugh Myddleton achieved single-handed. The first 
 canal in England — a work of which government might 
 have been thought the fit projector, and the only competent 
 executor — was undertaken and finished as the private 
 speculation of one man — the Duke of Bridgewater. By 
 his own unaided exertions, William Smith completed that 
 great achievement, the geological map of Great Britain ; 
 meanwhile, the Ordnance Survey — a very accurate and 
 elaborate one, it is true — has already occupied a large 
 staff for some two generations, and will not be completed 
 before the lapse of another. Howard and the prisons of 
 Europe; Bianconi and Irish travelling; Waghorn and the 
 Overland route; Dargan and the Dublin Exhibition — do 
 not these suggest startling contrasts ? While private 
 gentlemen like Mr. Denison, build model lodging-houses 
 in which the deaths are greatly below the average, the 
 State builds barracks in which the deaths are greatly 
 above the average, even of the much-pitied town popu- 
 lations : barracks which, though filled with picked men 
 under medical supervision, show an annual mortality per 
 thousand of IS^G, 17'9 and even 20'4 ; though among 
 civilians of the same age in the same places, the mortality 
 
258 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 per thousand is but 11-9.* While the State has laid out 
 large sums at Parkliurst in the effort to reform juvenile 
 criminals, who are not reformed, Mr, Ellis takes fifteen of 
 the worst young thieves in London — thieves considered 
 by the police irreclaimable — and reforms them all. Side 
 by side with the Emigration Board, under whose manage- 
 ment hundreds die of fever from close packing, and under 
 whose licence sail vessels which, like the Washington, 
 are the homes of fraud, brutality, tyranny, and obscenity, 
 stands Mrs. Chisholm's Family Colonisation Loan Society, 
 which does not provide worse accommodation than ever 
 before but much, better ; which does not demoralize by 
 promiscuous crowding but improves by mild discipline; 
 which does not pauperize by charity but encourages 
 providence ; which does not increase our taxes, but is 
 self-supporting. Here are lessons for the lovers of legis- 
 lation. The State outdone by a working shoemaker! The 
 State beaten by a woman ! 
 
 Stronger still becomes this contrast between the results 
 of public action and private action, when we remember that 
 the one is constantly eked out by the other, even in doing 
 the things unavoidably left to it. Passing over military 
 and naval departments, in which much is done by contractors 
 and not by men receiving government pay, — passing over 
 the Church, which is constantly extended not by law but by 
 voluntary effort — passing over the Universities, where the 
 efficient teaching is given not by the appointed officers but by 
 private tutors ; let us look at the mode in which, our judicial 
 system is worked. Lawyers perpetually tell us that codifi- 
 cation is impossible; and some are simple enough to believe 
 them. Merely remarking, in passing, that what government 
 and all its employes cannot do for the Acts of Parliament 
 in general, was done for the 1500 Customs acts in 1825 by 
 the energy of one man— Mr. Deacon Hume — let us see 
 
 * See "Statistical Keports on the Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding 
 amongst the Troops." 1853. 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 259 
 
 how tlie absence of a digested system of law is made good. 
 In preparing themselves for the bar^ and finally the bench, 
 law-students, by years of research, have to gain an 
 acquaintance with this vast mass of unorganized legislation; 
 and that organization which it is held impossible for 
 the State to effect, it is held possible (sly sarcasm on the 
 State!) for each student to effect for himself. Every judge 
 can privately codify, though "united wisdom'' cannot. But 
 how is each judge enabled to codify ? By the private 
 enterprise of men who have prepared the way for him; by 
 the partial codifications of Blackstone, Coke, and others ; 
 by the digests of Partnership Law, Bankruptcy Law, Law 
 of Patents, Laws aSecting Women, and the rest that daily 
 issue from the press; by abstracts of cases, and volumes of 
 reports — every one of them unofficial products. Sweep 
 away all these fractional codifications made by individuals, 
 and the State would be in utter ignorance of its own laws ! 
 Had not the bunglings of legislators been made good by 
 private enterprise, the administration of justice would have 
 been impossible ! 
 
 Where, then, is the warrant for the constantly-proposed 
 extensions of legislative action ? If, as we have seen in a 
 large class of cases, government measures do not remedy 
 the evils they aim at ; if, in another large class, they make 
 these evils worse instead of remedying them ; and if, in a 
 third large class, while curing some evils they entail others, 
 and often greater ones — if, as we lately saw, public action 
 is continually outdone in efficiency by private action ; and 
 if, as just shown, private action is obliged to make up for 
 the shortcomings of public action, even in fulfilling the 
 vital functions of the State; what reason is there for 
 wishing more public administrations ? The advocates of 
 such may claim credit for philanthropy, but not for wisdom; 
 unless wisdom is shown by disregarding experience, 
 
 "Much of this argument is beside the question/"* will 
 
 53 
 
2 GO OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 rejoin our opponents. " The true point at issue is, not 
 whether individuals and companies outdo the State when 
 thej come in competition with it, but whether there are not 
 certain social wants which the State alone can satisfy. 
 Admitting that private enterprise does much, and does it 
 well, it is nevertheless true that we have daily thrust upon 
 our notice mauy desiderata which it has not achieved, and is 
 not achieving. In these cases its incompetency is obvious; 
 and in these cases, therefore, it behoves the State to make 
 up for its deficiencies : doing this, if not well^ yet as well 
 as it can." 
 
 Not to fall back upon the many experiences already 
 quoted, showing that the State is likely to do more harm 
 than good in attempting this; nor to dwell upon the fact 
 that, in most of the alleged cases, the apparent insufficiency 
 of private enterprise is a result of previous State-inter- 
 ferences, as may be conclusively shown ; let us deal with 
 the proposition on its own terms. Though there would 
 have been no need for a Mercantile Marine Act to prevent 
 the unseaworthiness of ships and the ill-treatment of 
 sailors, had there been no Navigation Laws to produce 
 these; and though were all like cases of evils and short- 
 comings directly or indirectly produced by law, taken out 
 of the category, there would probably remain but small 
 basis for the plea above put; yet let it be granted that, 
 every artificial obstacle having been removed, there would 
 still remain many desiderata unachieved, which there was 
 no seeing how spontaneous effort could achieve. Let all 
 this, we say, be granted; the propriety of legislative action 
 may yet be rightly questioned. 
 
 For the said plea involves the unwarrantable assumption 
 that social agencies will continue to work only as they are 
 now working; and will produce no results bat those they 
 seem likely to produce. It is the habit of this school of 
 thinkers to make a limited human intelligence the measure 
 of phenomena which it requires omniscience to grasp. 
 
OYEE-LEGISLATION. 261 
 
 That which it does not see the way to, it does not believe 
 will take place. Though society has, generation after 
 generation, been growing to developments which none fore- 
 saw, yet there is no practical belief in unforeseen develop- 
 ments in the future. The parliamentary debates constitute 
 an elaborate balancing of probabilities, having for data 
 things as they are. Meanwhile every day adds new 
 elements to things as they are, and seemingly improbable 
 results constantly occur. Who, a few years ago, expected 
 that a Leicester-square refugee would shortly become 
 Emperor of the French ? Who looked for free trade from 
 a landlords' ministry ? Who dreamed that Irish over- 
 population would spontaneously cure itself, as it is now 
 doing ? So far from social changes arising in likely ways, 
 they usually arise in ways which, to common sense, appear 
 unlikely. A barber's shop was not a probable-looking 
 place for the germination of the cotton manufacture. No 
 one supposed that important agricultural improvements 
 would come from a Leadenhall-street tradesman. A farmer 
 would have been the last man thought of to bring to bear 
 the screw propulsion of steam-ships. The invention of a 
 new species of architecture we should have hoped from any 
 one rather than a gardener. Yet while the most unex- 
 pected changes are daily wrought out in the strangest 
 ways, legislation daily assumes that things will go just as 
 human foresight thinks they will go. Though by the trite 
 exclamation — '^ What would our forefathers have said ! " 
 there is a frequent acknowledgment of the fact that wonderful 
 results have been achieved in modes wholly unforeseeUj yet 
 there seems no belief that this will be again. Would 
 it not be wise to admit such a probability into our 
 politics ? May we not rationally infer that, as in the past 
 so in the future ? 
 
 This strong faith in State-agencies is, however, accom- 
 panied by so weak a faith in natural agencies (the two being 
 antagonistic), that, spite of past experience, it will by 
 
2G2 OVER-LEGISLATION, 
 
 many be thouglit absurd to rest in the conviction that 
 existing social needs will be spontaneously met^ though we 
 cannot say how they will be mefc. Nevertheless, illus- 
 trations exactly to the point are now transpiring before 
 their eyes. Instance the scarcely credible phenomenon 
 lately witnessed in the midland counties. Every one has 
 heard of the distress of the stockingers — a chronic evil of 
 some generation or two's standing. Repeated petitions 
 have prayed Parliament for remedy; and legislation has 
 made attempts^ but without success. The disease seemed 
 incurable. Two or three years since, however, the circular 
 knitting machine was introduced — a machine immensely 
 outstripping the old stocking-frame in productiveness, but 
 which can make only the legs of stockings, not the feet. 
 Doubtless, the Leicester and Nottingham artizans regarded 
 this new engine with alarm, as likely to intensify their 
 miseries. On the contrary, it has wholly removed them. 
 By cheapening production it has so enormously increased 
 consumption, that the old stocking-frames, which were 
 before too many by half for the work to be done, are now 
 all employed in putting feet to the legs which the new 
 machines make. How insane would he have been thought 
 who anticipated cure from such a cause ! If from the 
 unforeseen removal of evils we turn to the unforeseen 
 achievement of desiderata, we find like cases. No one 
 recognized in Oersted's electro-magnetic discovery the 
 germ of a new agency for the catching of criminals and 
 the facilitation of commerce. No one expected railways to 
 become agents for the diffusion of cheap literature, as they 
 now are. No one supposed when the Society of Arts was 
 planning an international exhibition of manufactures in 
 Hyde Park, that the result would be a place for popular 
 recreation and culture at Sydenham, 
 
 But there is yet a deeper reply to the appeals of impatient 
 philanthropists. It is not simply that social vitality may be 
 trusted by-and-by to fulfil each much-exaggerated require- 
 
OVEE-LEGISLATION. 263 
 
 meut in some quiet spontaneous way — it is not simply tliat 
 when thus naturally fulfilled it will be fulfilled efficiently, 
 instead of being botched as when attempted artifi.cially ; 
 but it is that until thus naturally fulfilled it ought not to 
 be fulfilled at all. A startling paradox, this, to many ; but 
 one quite justifi.able, as we hope shortly to show. 
 
 It was pointed out some distance back, that the force 
 which produces and sets in motion every social mechanism 
 — governmental, mercantile, or other — is some accumula- 
 tion of personal desires. As there is no individual action 
 without a desire, so_, it was urged, there can be no social 
 action without an aggregate of desires. To which there 
 here remains to add, that as it is a general law of the 
 individual that the inteuser desires — those corresponding 
 to all-essential functions — are satisfied first, and if need be 
 to the reglect of the weaker and less important ones; so, 
 it must be a general law of society that the chief requisites 
 of social life — those necessary to popular existence and 
 multiplication — will, in the natural order of things, be sub- 
 served before those of a less pressing kind. As the private 
 man first ensures himself food ; then clothing and shelter ; 
 these being secured, takes a wife ; and, if he can afford it, 
 presently supplies himself with carpeted rooms, and piano, 
 and wines, hires servants and gives dinner parties ; so, in 
 the evolution of society, we see first a combination for 
 defence against enemies, and for the better pursuit of 
 game ; by-and-by come such political arrangements as are 
 needed to maintain this combination; afterwards, under a 
 demand for more food, more clothes, more houses, arises 
 division of labour ; and when satisfaction of the animal 
 wants has been provided for, there slowly grow up litera- 
 ture, science, and the arts. Is it not obvious that these 
 successive evolutions occur in the order of their importance '( 
 Is it not obvious, that, being each of them produced by an 
 aggregate of desires, they must occur in the order of their 
 importance, if it be a law of the individual that tho 
 
2G4 OYER-LEGISLATIOIT. 
 
 strongest desires correspond to the most needful actions ? 
 Is it not, indeed^ obvious tliat the order of relative import- 
 ance will be more uniformly followed in social action than 
 in individual action; seeing that the personal idiosyncrasies 
 which disturb that order in the latter case are averaged in 
 the former ? If any one does not see this^ let him take up 
 a book describing life at the gold-diggings. There he will 
 find the whole process exhibited in little. He will read 
 that as the diggers must eat^ they a.re compelled to offer 
 such prices for food that it pays better to keep a store than 
 to dig. As the store-keepers must get supplies^ they give 
 enormous sums for carriage from the nearest town ; and 
 some men J quickly seeing they can get rich at that, make it 
 their business. This brings drays and horses into demand; 
 the high rates draw these from all quarters; andj after 
 them, wheelwrights and harness-makers. Blacksmiths to 
 sharpen pickaxes^ doctors to cure^ fevers, get pay exorbi- 
 tant in proportion to the need for them ; and are so brought 
 flocking in proportionate numbers. Presently commodities 
 become scarce ; more must be fetched from abroad ; sailors 
 must have increased wages to prevent them from deserting 
 and turning miners ; this necessitates higher charges for 
 freight ; higher freights quickly bring more ships ; and so 
 there rapidly develops an organization for supplying goods 
 from all parts of the world. Every phase of this evolution 
 takes place in the order of its necessity ; or as we say — - 
 in the order of the intensity of the desires subserved. 
 Each man does that which he finds pays best ; that 
 which pays best is that for which other men will give 
 most; that for which they will give most is that which^ 
 under the circumstances, they most desire. Hence the 
 succession must be throughout from the more important 
 to the less important. A requirement which at any period 
 remains unfulfilled, must be one for the fulfilment of which 
 men will not pay so much as to make it worth any one's 
 while to fulfil it — must be a less requirement than all the 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 265 
 
 otliers for the fulfilment of which they will pay more'; and 
 must wait until other more needful things are done. Well^ 
 is it not clear tLat the same law holds good in every 
 community ? Is it not true of the latter phases of social 
 evolution^ as of the earlier^ that when things are let alone 
 the smaller desiderata will be postponed to the greater. 
 
 Hence, then, the justification of the seeming paradox^ that 
 until spontaneously fulfilled a public want should not be ful- 
 filled at all. It must, on the average, result in our complex 
 state, as in simpler ones, that the thing left undone is a 
 thing by doing which citizens cannot gain so much as by 
 doing other things — is therefore a thing which society does 
 not want done so much as it wants these other things done ; 
 and the corollary is, that to effect a neglected thing by 
 artificially employing citizens to do it, is to leave undone 
 some more important thing which they would have been 
 doing — is to sacrifice the greater requisite to the smaller. 
 
 ''^But," it will perhaps be objected, ^^ if the things done 
 by a government, or at least by a representative govern- 
 ment, are also done in obedience to some aggregate desire, 
 why may we not look for this normal subordination of the 
 more needful to the less needful in them too ? ^' The reply 
 is, that though they have a certain tendency to follow this 
 order — though those primal desires for public defence and 
 personal protection, out of which government originates, 
 were satisfied through its instrumentality in proper succession 
 — though, possibly, some other early and simple require- 
 ments may have been so too ; yet, when the desires are not 
 few, universal and intense, but, like those remaining to be 
 satisfied in the latter stages of civilization, numerous, 
 partial, and moderate, the judgment of a government is no 
 longer to be trusted. To select out of an immense number 
 of minor wants, physical, intellectual, and moral, felt in 
 different degrees by different classes, and by a total mass 
 varying in every case, the want that is most pressing, is a 
 task which no legislature can accomplish. No man or men 
 
266 
 
 OVEE-LEGISLATION. 
 
 by inspecting society can see what it most needs ; society 
 must be left to feel what it most needs. The mode of solu- 
 tion must be experimental^ not theoretical. When lef t^ day 
 after day, to experience evils and dissatisfactions of various 
 kinds, affecting them in various degrees^ citizens gradually 
 acquire repugnance to these proportionate to their great- 
 nesSj and corresponding desires to get rid of them, which 
 by spontaneously fostering remedial agencies are likely to 
 end in the worst inconvenience being first removed. And 
 however irregular this process may be (and we admit that 
 men's habits and prejudices produce many anomalies, or 
 seeming anomalies, in it) it is a process far more trustworthy 
 than are legislative judgments. For those who question 
 this there are instances ; and, that the parallel may be the 
 more conclusive, we will take a case in which the ruling 
 power is deemed specially fit to decide. We refer to our 
 means of communication. 
 
 Do those who maintain that railways would have been 
 better laid out and constructed by government, hold that 
 the order of importance would have been as uniformly 
 followed as it has been by private enterprise ? Under the 
 stimulus of an enormous traffic— a traffic too great for the 
 then existing means — the first line sprung up between 
 Liverpool and Manchester. Next came the Grand Junction 
 and the London and Birmingham {now merged in the 
 London and North Western) ; afterwards the Great 
 Western, the South Western, the South Eastern, the 
 Eastern Counties, the Midland. Since then subsidiary 
 lines and branches have occupied our capitalists. As they 
 were quite certain to do, companies made first the most 
 needed, and therefore the best paying, lines ; under the 
 same impulse that a labourer chooses high wages in pre- 
 ference to low. That government would have adopted 
 a better order can hardly be, for the best has been 
 followed; but that it would have adopted a worse, all the 
 evidence we have goes to show. In default of materials 
 
OVEE-LEGISLATION. 267 
 
 for a direct parallel, we miglit cite from India and the 
 colonieSj cases of injudicious road-making. Or, as exempli- 
 fying State-efforts to facilitate communication, we might 
 dwell on the fact that while our rulers have sacrificed 
 hundreds of lives and spent untold treasure in seeking a 
 North-west passage, which would be useless if found, thej 
 have left the exploration of the Isthmus of Panama^ and 
 the making railways and canals through it, to private com- 
 panies. But, not to make much of this indirect evidence, 
 we will content ourselves with the one sample of a State- 
 made channel for commerce, which we have at home — the 
 Caledonian Canal. Up to the present time (1853), this 
 public work has cost upwards of 1,100,000Z. It has now 
 been open for many years^ and salaried emissaries have been 
 constantly employed to get traffic for it. The results, as 
 given in its forty-seventh annual report, issued in 1852^ are 
 • — receipts during the year^ 7,909/.; expenditure ditto, 
 9,261Z. — loss, 1,352/. Has any such large investment been 
 made with such a pitiful result by a private canal company ? 
 
 And if a government is so bad a judge of the relative im- 
 portance of social requirements, when these requirements 
 are of the same hind, how worthless a judge must it be when 
 they are of different kinds. If, where a fair share of 
 intelligence might be expected to lead them right, legisla- 
 tors and their officers go so wrong, how terribly will they 
 err where no amount of intelligence would suffice them, — 
 Avhere they must decide among hosts of needs, bodily, 
 intellectual, and moral, which admit of no direct com- 
 parisons ; and how disastrous must be the results if they 
 act out their erroneous decisions. Should any one need 
 this bringing home to him by an illustration, let him read 
 the following extract from the last of the series of letters 
 some time since published in the Morning Chronicle, on 
 the state of agriculture in France. After expressing the 
 opinion that French farming is some century behind Eng- 
 lish farming, the writer goes on to say : — 
 
 *' There are two causes principally chargeable with this. In the first 
 
268 
 
 OVER- LEGISLATION. 
 
 place, strange as it may seem in a country in which two-thirda of the popula- 
 tion are agriculturists, agriculture is a very unhonoured occupation. Develops 
 in the slightest degree a Frenchman's mental faculties, and he flies to a town 
 as surely as steel filings fly to a loadstone. He has no rural tastes, no delight 
 in rural habits. A French amateur larmer would indeed be a sight to see. 
 Again, this national tendency is directly encouraged by the centralising 
 system of government— by the multitude of officials, and by the payment of 
 all functionaries. From all parts of France, men of great energy and resource 
 struggle up, and fling themselves on the world of Paris. There they try to 
 become great functionaries. Through every department of the eighty-four, 
 men of less energy and resource struggle up to the chef -lieu — the provincial 
 capital. There they try to become little functionaries. Go still lower — deal 
 with a still smaller scale — and the result will be the same. As is the depart- 
 ment to France, so is the arrondissement to the department, and the commune 
 to the arrondissement. All who have, or think they have, heads on their 
 shoulders, struggle into towns to fight for office. All who are, or are deemed 
 by themselves or others, too stupid for anything else, are left at home to till 
 the fields, and breed the cattle, and prune the vines, as their ancestors did 
 for generations before them. Thus there is actually no intelHgence left in 
 the country. The whole energy, and knowledge, and resource of the land 
 are barreled up in the towns. You leave one city, and in many cases you 
 will not meet an educated or cultivated individual until you arrive at 
 another — all between is utter intellectual barrenness."— il/o7'nmp Chronicle, 
 August, 1851. 
 
 To wliat end now is this constant abstraction of able men 
 from rural districts ? To the end that th.ere may be enough, 
 functionaries to achieve those many desiderata which French 
 governments have thought ought to be achieved — to provide 
 amusements^ to manage mines^ to construct roads and 
 bridges, to erect numerous buildings — to print books, 
 encourage the fine arts, control tbis trade, and inspect 
 that manufacture — to do all the hundred-and-one things 
 which tlie State does in France. That the army of officers 
 needed for this may be maintained, agriculture must go 
 unofficered. That certain social conveniences may be 
 better secured, the chief social necessity is neglected. The 
 very basis of the national life is sapped, to gain a few non- 
 essential advantages. Said we not truly, then, that until 
 a requirement is spontaneously fulfilled, it should not be 
 fulfilled at all ? 
 
 And here indeed we may recognise the close kinship 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 269 
 
 between the fundamental fallacy involved in these State- 
 meddlings and the fallacy lately exploded by the free-trade 
 agitation. These various law-made instrumentalities for 
 effecting ends which might otherwise not yet be effected, all 
 embody a subtler form of the protectionist hypothesis. The 
 same short-sightedness which^ looking at commerce, pre- 
 scribed bounties and restrictions, looking at social affairs in 
 general, prescribes these multiplied administrations ; and 
 the same criticism applies alike to all its proceedings. 
 
 For was not the error that vitiated every law aiming at 
 the artificial maintenance of a trade, substantially that 
 which we have just been dwelling upon; namely, this 
 overlooking of the fact that, in setting people to do one 
 thing, some other thing is inevitably left undone ? The 
 statesmen who thought it wise to protect home-made silks 
 against French silks, did so under the impression that the 
 manufacture thus secured constituted a pure gain to the 
 nation. They did not reflect that the men employed in this 
 manufacture would otherwise have been producing some- 
 thing else — a something else which, as they could produce 
 it without legal help, they could more profitably produce. 
 Landlords who have been so anxious to prevent foreign 
 wheat from displacing their own wheat, have never duly 
 realized the fact that if their fields would not yield wheat 
 so economically as to prevent the feared displacement, it 
 simply proved that they were growing unfit crops in place 
 of fit crops ; and so working their land at a relative loss. 
 In all cases where, by restrictive duties, a trade has been 
 upheld that would otherwise not have existed, capital has 
 been turned into a channel less productive than some other 
 into which it would naturally have flowed. And so, to 
 pursue certain State-patronized occupations, men have been 
 drawn from more advantageous occupations. 
 
 Clearly then, as above alleged, the same oversight runs 
 through all these interferences ; be they with commerce, or 
 be they with other things. In employing people to achieve 
 
-70 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 this or that desideratum, legislators tave not perceived 
 that they were thereby preventing the achievement of some 
 other desideratum. They have habitually assumed that 
 each proposed good would, if secured, be a pure good, instead 
 of being a good purchasable only by submission to some 
 evil -which would else have been remedied ; and, making 
 this error, have injuriously diverted men's labour. As in 
 trade, so in other things, labour will spontaneously find 
 out, better than any government can find out for it, the 
 things on which it may best expend itself. Rightly re- 
 garded, the two propositions are identical. This division 
 into commercial and non-commercial affairs is quite a super- 
 ficial one. All the actions going on in society come under 
 the generalization — human effort ministering to human 
 desire. Whether the ministration be effected through a 
 process of buying and selling, or whether in any other way, 
 matters not so far as the general law of it is concerned. 
 In all cases it must be true that the stronger desires will 
 get themselves satisfied before the weaker ones ; and in all 
 cases it must be true that to get satisfaction for the weaker 
 ones before they would naturally have it, is to deny satis- 
 faction to the stronger ones. 
 
 To the immense positive evils entailed by over-legislation 
 have to be added the equally great negative evils — evils 
 which, notwithstanding their greatness, are scarcely at all 
 recognized, even by the far-seeing. "While the State does 
 those things which it ought not to do, as an inevitdble 
 consequence, it leaves undone those things which it ought 
 to do. Time and activity being limited, it necessarily 
 follows that legislators' sins of commission entail sins of 
 omission. Mischievous meddling involves disastrous neglect; 
 and until statesmen are ubiquitous and omnipotent, must 
 ever do so. In the very nature of things an agency 
 employed for two purposes must fulfil both imperfectly ; 
 partly because, while fulfilling the one it cannot be fulfillin'** 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 271 
 
 the otlierj and partly because its adaptation to both ends 
 implies incomplete fitness for either. As has been well 
 said a propos of this pointy — " A blade which is designed 
 both to shave and to carve, will certainly not shave so well 
 as a razor or carve so well as a carving-knife. An academy 
 of painting, which should also be a bank, would in all 
 probability exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad 
 bills. A gas company, wliich should also be an infant- 
 school society, would, we apprehend, light the streets ill, 
 and teach the children ill.'^"^" And if an institution under- 
 takes, not two functions but a score — if a government, 
 whose ofQce it is to defend citizens against aggressors, 
 foreign and domestic, engages also to disseminate Christi- 
 anity, to administer charity, to teach children their lessons, 
 to adjust prices of food, to inspect coal-mines, to regulate 
 railways, to superintend house-building, to arrange cab- 
 fares, to look into people's stink-traps, to vaccinate their 
 children, to send out emigrants, to prescribe hours of labour, 
 to examine lodging-houses, to test the knowledge of 
 mercantile captains, to provide public libraries, to read and 
 authorize dramas, to inspect passenger-ships, to see that 
 small dwellings are supplied with water, to regulate endless 
 things from a banker's issues down to the boat-fares on the 
 Serpentine — is it not manifest that its primary duty must be 
 ill-discharged in proportion to the multiplicity of affairs it 
 busies itself with ? Must not its time and energies be frittered 
 away in schemes, and inquiries, and amendments, in discus- 
 sions, and divisions, to the neglect of its essential business ? 
 And does not a glance over the debates make it clear that 
 this is the fact ? and that, while parliament and public 
 are alike occupied with these mischievous interferences, these 
 Utopian hopes, the one thing needful is left almost undone ? 
 See here, then, the proximate cause of our legal abomina- 
 tions. We drop the substance in our efforts to catch 
 shadows. While our firesides, and clubs, and taverns are 
 • Edinburgh Review, April, 1839. 
 
272 OVER- LEGISLATION. 
 
 filled with talk about corn-law questions^ and churcli 
 questions, and education questions, and poor-law questions 
 ■ — all of theni raised by over-legislation — the justice question 
 gets scarcely any attention; and we daily submit to be 
 oppressed, cheated, robbed. This institution which should 
 succour the roan who has fallen among thieves, turns him 
 over to solicitors, barristers, and a legion of law-officers ; 
 drains his purse for writs, briefs, affidavits, subpoenas, fees 
 of all kinds and expenses innumerable; involves him iu 
 the intricacies of common courts, chancery courts, suits, 
 counter-suits, and appeals ; and often ruins where it should 
 aid. Meanwhile, meetings are called, and leading articles 
 written, and votes asked, and societies formed, and agita- 
 tions carried on, not to rectify these gigantic evils, but 
 partly to abolish our ancestors' mischievous meddlings and 
 partly to establish meddlings of our own. Is it not obvious 
 tliat this fatal neglect is a result of this mistaken officious- 
 ness ? Suppose that external and internal protection had 
 been the sole recognized functions of the ruling powers. 
 Is it conceivable that our administration of justice would 
 have been as corrupt as now ? Can any one believe that 
 had parliamentary elections been habitually contested on 
 questions of legal reform, our judicial system would still have 
 been what Sir John Romilly calls it, — ^^ a technical system 
 invented for the creation of costs ? '^ Does any one sup- 
 pose that, if the efficient defence of person and property had 
 been the constant subject-matter of hustings pledg-es^ we 
 should yet be waylaid by a Chancery Court which has now 
 more than two hundred millions of property in its clutches 
 — which keeps suits pending fifty years, until all the funds 
 are gone in fees — which swallows in costs two milhons 
 annually ? Dare any one assert that had constituencies 
 been always canvassed on principles of law-reform versus 
 law-conservatism. Ecclesiastical Courts would have con- 
 tinued for centuries fattening on the goods of widows and 
 orphans ? The questions are next to absurd. A child may 
 
OVER-LEGISLAT[ON, 273 
 
 see that with the general knowledge people have of legal 
 corruptions and the universal detestation of legal atrocities^ 
 an end would long since have been put to them, had the 
 administration of justice always been the political topic. 
 Had not the public mind been constantly pre-occupied, it 
 could never have been tolerated that a man neglecting to 
 file an answer to a bill in due coarse^ should be imprisoned 
 fifteen years for contempt of court, as Mr. James Taylor was. 
 It would have been impossible that, on the abolition of their 
 sinecures, the sworn-clerks should have been compensated 
 by the continuance of their exorbitant incomes, not only 
 till death, but for seven years after, at a total estimated 
 cost of £700,000. Were the State confined to its 
 defensive and judicial functions, not only tho people but 
 legislators themselves would agitate against abuses. The 
 sphere of activity and the opportunities for distinction 
 being narrowed, all the thought, and industry, and 
 eloquence which members of Parliament now expend on 
 impracticable schemes and artificial gi-ievances, would be 
 expended in rendering justice pure, certain, prompt, and 
 cheap. The complicated follies of our legal verbiage, which 
 the uninitiated cannot understand and which the initiated 
 interpret in various senses, would be quickly put an end 
 to. We should no longer frequently hear of Acts of 
 Parliament so bunglingly drawn up that it requires half a 
 dozen actions and judges^ decisions under them, before 
 even lawyers can say how they apply. There would be no 
 such stupidly-designed measures as the Railway Winding- 
 up Act, which, though passed in 1846 to close the accounts 
 of the bubble schemes of the mania, leaves them still 
 unsettled in 1854 — which, even with funds in hand, with- 
 holds payment from (Creditors whose claims have been years 
 since admitted. Lawyers would no longer be suffered to 
 maintain and to complicate the present absurd system of 
 land titleSj which, besides the litigation and loss it per- 
 petually causes, lowers the value of estates, prevents the 
 
274 
 
 OVER-LEGISLATION, 
 
 ready application of capital to tliem, checks the develop- 
 ment of agriculture, and thus hinders the improvement of 
 the peasantry and the prosperity of the country. In shorty 
 the corruptions, follies, and terrors of law would cease ; 
 and that which men now shrink from as an enemy they 
 would come to regard as what it purports to be — 
 a friend. 
 
 How vast then is the negative evil which, in addition to 
 the positive evils before enumerated, this meddling policy 
 entails on us ! How many are the grievances men bear, 
 from which they would otherwise be free ! Who is there 
 that has not submitted to injuries rather than run the risk 
 of heavy law-costs ? Who is there that has not abandoned 
 just claims rather than '*^throw good money after bad?'' 
 Who is there that has not paid unjust demands rather than 
 withstand the threat of an action ? This man can point to 
 property that has been alienated from his family from 
 lack of funds or courage to fight for it. That man can 
 uame several relations ruined by a law-suit. Here is a 
 lawyer who has grown rich on the hard earnings of the 
 needy and the savings of the oppressed. There is a once 
 wealthy trader who has been brought by legal iniquities to 
 the workhouse or the lunatic asylum. The badness of our 
 judicial system vitiates our whole social life : renders 
 almost every family poorer than it would otherwise be ; 
 hampers almost every business transaction ; inflicts daily 
 anxieties on every trader. And all this loss of property, 
 time, temper, comfort, men quietly submit to from being 
 absorbed in the pursuit of schemes which eventually bring 
 on them other mischiefs. 
 
 Nay, the case is even worse. It is distinctly proveable 
 that many of these evils about which outcries are raised, 
 and to cure which special Acts of Parliament are loudly 
 invoked, are themselves produced by our disgraceful judicial 
 system. For example, it is well known that the horrors 
 out of which our sanitary agitators make political capital. 
 
OVEE-LEQISLATION. 275 
 
 are found ia their greatest intensity on properties that 
 have been for a generation in Chancery — are distinctly 
 traceable to the ruin thus brought about ; and would never 
 have existed but for the infamous corruptions of law. 
 Again^ it has been shown that the long-drawn miseries of 
 Ireland^ which have been the subject of endless legislation^ 
 have been mainly produced by inequitable land-tenure and 
 the complicated system of entail : a system which wrought 
 such involvements as to prevent sales; which practically 
 negatived all improvement; which brought landlords to the 
 workhouse; and which required an Incumbered Estates Act 
 to cut its gordian knots and render the proper cultivation 
 of the soil possible. Judicial negligence, too, is the main 
 cause of railway accidents. If the State would fulfil its 
 true function^ by giving passengers an easy remedy for 
 breach, of contract when trains are behind time, it would 
 do more to prevent accidents than can be done by the 
 minutest inspection or the most cunningly-devised regu- 
 lations; for it is notorious that the majority of accidents 
 are primarily caused by irregularity. In the case of bad 
 house-building, also, it is obvious that a cheap, rigorous, 
 and certain administration of justice, would make Building 
 Acts needless. For is not the man who erects a house of 
 bad materials ill put together, and, conceahng these with 
 papering and plaster, sells it as a substantial dwelling, 
 guilty of fraud ? And should not the law recognize this 
 fraud as it does in the analogous case of an unsound horse ? 
 And if the legal remedy were easy, prompt, and sure, would 
 not builders cease transgressing ? So is it in other cases : 
 the evils which men perpetually call on the State to cure 
 by superintendence, themselves arise from non-performance 
 of its original duty. 
 
 See then how this vicious policy complicates itself. Not 
 only does meddling legislation fail to cure the evils it aims 
 at; not only does it make many evils worse; not only does 
 it create new evils greater than the old; but while doing 
 
276 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 this it entails on men tlie oppressions^ robberies^ ruin, wliicli 
 flow from the non-administration of justice. And not only 
 to the positive evils does it add this vast negative one^ but 
 this again^ by fostering many social abuses that would not 
 else exist^ famishes occasions for more meddlings which, 
 again act and re-act in the same way. And thus as ever^ 
 '* things bad begun make strong' themselves by ill/^ 
 
 After assigning reasons thus fundamental^ for condemning 
 all State-action save that which universal experience has 
 proved to be absolutely needful, it would seeni superfluous 
 to assign subordinate ones. Were it called for, we might_, 
 taking for text Mr. Lindsay's work on "Navigation and 
 Mercantile Marine LaAv/' say much upon the complexity 
 to which this process of adding regulation to regulation — 
 each necessitated by foregoing ones — ultimately leads : a 
 complexity which, by the misunderstandings, delays, and 
 disputes it entails, greatly hampers our social life. Some- 
 thing, too, might be added upon the perturbing effects of 
 that "^ gross delusion," as M. Guizot calls it, " a belief in 
 the sovereign power of political machinery" — a delusion to 
 which he parti}' ascribes the late revolution in France ; and 
 a delusion which is fostered by every new interference. 
 But, passing over these, we would dwell for a short space 
 upon the national enervation which this State-superinten- 
 dence produces. 
 
 The enthusiastic philanthropist, urgent for some act of 
 parliament to remedy this evil or secure the other good, 
 thinks it a trivial and far-fetched objection that the people 
 will be morally injured by doing things for them instead of 
 leaving them to do things themselves. He vividly conceives 
 the benefit he hopes to get achieved, which is a positive and 
 readily imaginable thing. He does not conceive the diffused, 
 invisible, and slowly-accumulating effect wrought on the 
 popular mind, and so does not believe in it ; or, if he admits 
 it, thinks it beneath consideration. Would he but re- 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION. 277 
 
 member, however^ that all national cliaractei' is gradually- 
 produced by tlie daily action of circumstances, of wliich 
 each day's result seems so insignificant as not to be worth 
 mentioning, he would perceive that what is trifling when 
 viewed in its increments may be formidable when viewed in 
 its total. Or if he would go into the nursery, and watch 
 how repeated actions — each of them apparently unim- 
 portant, — create, in the end, a habit which will affect the 
 whole future life ; he would be reminded that every 
 influence brought to bear on human nature tells, and, if 
 continued, tells seriously. The thoughtless mother who 
 hourly yields to the requests — "Mamma, tie my pinafore," 
 "Mamma, button my shoe," and the like, cannot be per- 
 suaded that each of these concessions is detrimental ; but 
 the wiser spectator sees that if this policy be long pursued, 
 and be extended to other things, it will end in inaptitude. 
 The teaclier of the old school who showed his pupil the way 
 out of every difficulty, did not perceive that he was gener- 
 auing an attitude of mind greatly militating against success 
 in life. The modern teacher, however, induces his pupil to 
 solve his difficulties himself ; believes that in so doing he is 
 preparing him to meet the difficulties which, when he goes 
 into the world, there will be no one to help him through ; 
 and finds confirmation for this belief in the fact that a great 
 proportion of the most successful men are self-made. Well, 
 is it not obvious that this relationship between discipline 
 and success holds good nationally ? Are not nations made 
 of men; and are not men subject to the same laws of 
 modification in their adult years as in their early years ? 
 Is it not true of the drunkard, that each carouse adds a 
 thread to his bonds ? of the trader, that each acquisition 
 strengthens the wish for acquisitions ? of the pauper, that 
 the more you assist him the more he wants ? of the busy 
 man, that the more he has to do the more he can do ? And 
 does it not follow that if every individual is subject to this 
 process of adaptation to conditions, a whole nation must be 
 
278 OVER-LEGrSLATION. 
 
 SO — that just in proportion as its members are little helped 
 bj extraneous power thej will become self-helpiug, and in 
 proportion as they are much helped they will become help- 
 less ? What folly is it to ignore these results because 
 they are not direct^ and not immediately visible. Though 
 slowly wrought out they are inevitable. We can no more 
 elude the laws of human development than we can elude 
 the law of gravitation ; and so long as they hold true must 
 these efiects occur. 
 
 If we are asked in what special directions this alleged 
 helplessness, entailed by much State-superintendence, 
 shows itself ; we reply that it is seen in a retardation of all 
 social growths requiring self-confidence in the people — in a 
 timidity that fears all difficulties not before encountered — 
 in a thoughtless contentment with things as they are. Let 
 any one, after duly watching the rapid evolution going on 
 in England, where men have been comparatively little 
 helped by governments — or better still, after contemplating 
 the unparalleled progress of the United States, which is 
 peopled by self-made men, and the recent descendants of 
 self-made men ; — let such an one, we say, go on to the 
 Continent, and consider the relatively slow advance which 
 things are there making ; and the still slower advance they 
 would make but for English enterprise. Let him go to 
 Holland, and see that though the Dutch early showed them- 
 selves good mechanics, and have had abundant practice in 
 hydraulics, Amsterdam has been without any due supply of 
 water until now that works are being established by an 
 English company. Let bim go to Berlin, and there be told 
 that, to give that city a water-supply such as London has had 
 for generations, the project of an English firm is about to be 
 executed by English capital, under English superintendence. 
 Let him go to Vienna, and learn that it, in common with 
 other continental cities, is lighted by an English gas- 
 company. Let him go on the Ehone, on the Loire, on the 
 Danube, and discover that Englishmen established steam 
 
OVER-LEGISLATION, 279 
 
 navigation on those rivers. Let him inquire concerning 
 the railways in Italy, Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, 
 how many of them are English projects, how many 
 have been largely helped by English capital, how many 
 have been executed by English contractors, how many 
 have had English engineers. Let him discover, too, as he 
 will, that where railways have been government-made, as 
 in Russia, the energy, the perseverance, and the practical 
 talent developed in England and the United States have 
 been called in to aid. And then if these illustrations of the 
 progressiveness of a self-dependent race, and the torpidity 
 of paternally-governed ones, do not suffice him, he may 
 read Mr. Laing's successive volumes of European travel, 
 and there study the contrast in detail. What, now, is the 
 cause of this contrast ? In the order of nature, a capacity 
 for self-help must in every case have been brought into 
 existence by the practice of self-help; and, other things 
 equal, a lack of this capacity must in every case have 
 arisen from the lack of demand for it. Do not these two 
 antecedents and their two consequents agree with the facts 
 as presented in England and Europe ? Were not the 
 inhabitants of the two, some centuries ago, much upon a 
 par in point of enterprise ? Were not the English even 
 behind in their manufactures, in their colonization, in their 
 commerce ? Has not the immense relative change the 
 English have undergone in this respect, been coincident 
 with the great relative self-dependence they have been 
 since habituated to ? And has not the one been caused by 
 the other ? Whoever doubts it, is asked to assign a more 
 probable cause. Whoever admits it, must admit that the 
 enervation of a people by perpetual State-aids is not a 
 trifling consideration, but the most weighty consideration. 
 A general arrest of national growth he will see to be an 
 evil greater than any special benefits can compensate for. 
 And, indeed, when, after contemplating this great fact, the 
 overspreading of the Earth by the English, he remarks the 
 
280 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 absence of any parallel achievement by a continental race — 
 wlien he reflects how this difference mnst depend chiefly on 
 difl'erence of character, and how such difference of character 
 Las been mainly produced by difference of discipline ; he 
 will perceive that the policy pursued in this matter may 
 have a large share in determining a nation's nltimate fate. 
 
 We are not sanguine, however, that argument will 
 change the convictions of those who put their trust in 
 legislation. With men of a certain order of thought the 
 foregoing reasons will have weight. With men of another 
 order of thought they will have little or none ; nor would 
 any accumulation of such reasons affect them. The truth 
 that experience teaches, has its limits. The experiences 
 which teach, must be experiences which can be appreciated; 
 and experiences exceeding a certain degree of complexity 
 become inappreciable to the majority. It is thus with most 
 social phenomena. If we remember that for these two 
 thousand years and more, mankind have been making 
 regulations for commerce, which have all along been 
 strangling some trades and killing others with kindness, 
 and that though the proofs of this have been constantly 
 before their eyes, they have only just discovered that they 
 have been uniformly doing mischief — if we remember that 
 even now only a small portion of them see this ; we are 
 taught that perpetually-repeated and .ever-accumulating 
 experiences will fail to teach, until there exist the mental 
 conditions required for the assimilation of them. Nay, 
 when they are assimilated, it is very imperfectly. The 
 truth they teach is only half understood, even by those 
 supposed to understand it best. For example, Sir Robert 
 Peel, in one of his last speeches, after describing the 
 immensely increased consumption consequent on free trade, 
 goes on to say : — 
 
 '* If, then, you can only continue that consumption — if, hy your legislation^ 
 under the favour of Providence, you can mmntain the demand for labour and 
 make your trade and manufactures prosperous, you are not only increasing the 
 
OVEE-LEQISLATrON. 281 
 
 Bura of human happiness, but are giving the agriculturists of this country 
 the best chance of that increased demand which must contribute to their 
 welfare."— Times, Feb. 22, 1850. 
 
 Thus the prosperity really due to the abandonment of all 
 
 legislation, is ascribed to a particular kind of legislation. 
 
 '^ You can maintain the demand/' he says ; " you can make 
 
 trade and manufactures prosperous ; " whereas^ the facts 
 
 he quotes prove that they can do this only by doing 
 
 nothing. The essential truth of the matter — that law had 
 
 been doing immense harm, and that this prosperity resulted 
 
 not from law but from the absence of law — is missed; and 
 
 his faith in legislation in general, which should, by this 
 
 experience, have been greatly shaken, seemingly remains 
 
 as strong as ever. Here, again, is the House of Lords, 
 
 apparently not yet believing in the relationship of supply 
 
 and demand, adopting within these few weeks the 
 
 standing order — 
 
 " That before the first reading of any bill for making any work in the 
 construction of which compulsory power is sought to take thirty houses or 
 more inhabited by the labouring classes in any one parish or place, the 
 promoters be required to deposit in the of&ce of the clerk of the parliaments 
 a statement of the number, description, and situation of the said houses, the 
 number (so far as they can be estimated) of persons to be displaced, and 
 whether any and what provision is made in the hill for remedying the incon- 
 venience likely to arise from such displacements.^' 
 
 If, then, in the comparatively simple relationships of 
 trade, the teachings of experience remain for so many ages 
 unperceived, and are so imperfectly apprehended when they 
 are perceived, it is scarcely to be hoped that where all social 
 phenomena — moral, intellectual, and physical — are involved, 
 any due appreciation of the truths displayed will presently 
 take place. The facts cannot yet get recognized as facts. 
 As the alchemist attributed his successive disappointments 
 to some disproportion in the ingredients, some impurity, or 
 some too great temperature, and never to the futility of his 
 process or the impossibility of his aim; so, every failure of 
 State-regulations the law-worshipper explains away as 
 being caused by this trifling oversight, or that little 
 
282 OVER-LEGISLATION. 
 
 mistake : all which oversights and mistakes he assures 
 you will in future be avoided. Eluding the facts as he 
 does after this fashion^ volley after volley of them produce 
 no effect. 
 
 Indeed this faith in governments is in a certain sense 
 organic ; and can diminish only by being outgrown. From 
 the time when rulers were thought demi-gods, there has 
 been a gradual decline in men's estimates of their power. 
 This decline is still in progress, and has still far to go. 
 Doubtless, every increment of evidence furthers it in some 
 degree, though not to the degree that at first appears. 
 Only in so far as it modifies character does it produce a 
 permanent effect. For while the mental type remains the 
 same, the removal of a special error is inevitably followed 
 by the growth of other errors of the same genus. All 
 superstitions die hard ; and we fear that this belief in 
 government-omnipotence will form no exception. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT— WHAT IS IT 
 GOOD FOR? 
 
 [First ptihlisl Led in The Westminster Review /or October 1857.] 
 
 Shakspeare^s simile for adversity — 
 
 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head, 
 might fitly be used also as a simile for a disagreeable 
 truth. Repulsive as is its aspect^ the hard fact which 
 dissipates a cherished illusion^ is presently found to contain 
 the germ of a more salutary belief. The experience of 
 every one" furnishes instances in which an opinion long 
 shrunk from as seeming*ly at variance with all that is good, 
 but finally accepted as irresistible^ turns out to be fraught 
 with benefits. It is thus with self-knowledge : much as 
 we dislike to admit our defects, we find it better to know 
 and guard against than to ignore them. It is thus with 
 changes of creed : alarming as looks the reasoning by 
 which superstitions are overthrown^ the convictions to 
 which it leads prove to be healthier ones than those they 
 superseded. And it is thus with political enlightenment : 
 men eventually see cause to thank those who pull to pieces 
 their political air-castles, hateful as they once seemed. 
 Moreover, not only is it always better to believe truth 
 than error; but the repugnant-looking facts are ever found 
 to be parts of something far better than the ideal which they 
 54 
 
284 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 
 
 dispelled. To the many illustrations of this wh.ich might 
 be cited^ we sliall presently add another. 
 
 It is a conviction almost universally entertained here in 
 England^ that our method of making and administering 
 laws possesses every virtue. Prince Albert's unlucky 
 saying that *^ Representative Government is on its trial,'' is 
 vehemently repudiated ; we consider that the trial has 
 long since ended in our favour on all the counts. Partly 
 from ignorance, partly from the bias of education, partly 
 from that patriotism which leads the men of each nation to 
 pride themselves in their own institutions, we have an 
 unhesitating belief in the entire superiority of our form of 
 political organization. Yet unfriendly critics can point 
 out vices that are manifestly inherent. And if we may 
 believe the defenders of despotism, these vices are fatal to 
 its efficiency. 
 
 Now instead of denying or blinking these allegations, it 
 would be wiser candidly to inquire whether they are true; 
 and if true, what they imply. If, as most of us are so 
 confident, government by representatives is better than 
 any other, we can afford to listen patiently to all adverse 
 remarks : believing that they are either invalid, or that 
 if valid they do not essentially tell against its merits. If 
 our political system is well founded, this crucial criticism 
 will serve but to bring out its worth more clearly than 
 ever ; and to give us higher conceptions of its nature, its 
 meaning, its purpose. Let us, then, banishing for the 
 nonce all prepossessions, and taking up a thoroughly 
 antagonistic point of view, set down without mitigation its 
 many flaws, vices, and absurdities. 
 
 Is it not manifest that a ruling body made up of many 
 individuals, who differ in character, education, and aims, 
 who belong to classes having antagonistic ideas and 
 feelings, and who are severally swayed by the special 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVEKNIIKNT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOE? 285 
 
 Opinions of the districts deputing tliem, must be a cumbrous 
 apparatus for tbe management of public affairs ? When 
 we devise a machine we take care that its parts are as 
 few as possible ; that they are adapted to their respective 
 ends; that they are properly joined with one another; 
 and that they work smoothly to their common purpose. 
 Our political machine, however, is constructed upon directly 
 opposite principles. Its parts are extremely numerous : 
 multiplied, indeed, beyond all reason. They are not 
 severally chosen as specially qualified for particular func- 
 tions. No care is taken that they shall fit well together : 
 on the contrary, our arrangements are such that they 
 are certain not to fit. And that, as a consequence, they do 
 not and cannot act in harmony, is a fact nightly demon- 
 strated to all the world. In truth, had the problem been 
 to find an appliance for the slow and bungling transaction 
 of business, it could scarcely have been better solved. 
 Immense hindrance results from the mere multiplicity of 
 parts; a further immense hindrance results from their 
 incongruity; yet another immense hindrance results from 
 the frequency with which they are changed ; while the 
 greatest hindrance of all results from the want of subor- 
 dination of the parts to their functions— from the fact that 
 the personal welfare of the legislator is not bound up with 
 the efficient performance of his political duty. 
 
 These defects are inherent in the very nature of our 
 institutions; and they cannot fail to produce disastrous 
 mismanagement. If proofs be needed, they may be 
 furnished in abundance, both from the current history of 
 our central representative government, and from that of 
 local ones, public and private. Let us, before going on to 
 contemplate these evils as displayed on a great scale in our 
 legislature, glance at some of them in their simpler and 
 smaller manifestations. 
 
 We will not dwell on the comparative inefficiency of 
 deputed administration in mercantile affairs. The untrust- 
 
286 BEPRESENTATIYE GOVERNMENT "WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 wortMness of directorial management might be afrest. 
 illustrated by the recent joint-stock-bank catastrophies : 
 the recklessness and dishonesty of rulers whose interests 
 are not one with those of the concern they control^ being 
 in these cases conspicuously displayed. Or we could enlarge 
 on the same truth as exhibited in the doings of railway- 
 boards : instancing the malversations proved against their 
 members; the carelessness which has permitted Robson 
 and Redpath frauds ; the rashness perseveringly shown in 
 making unprofitable branches and extensions. But facts of 
 this kind are sufficiently familiar. 
 
 Let us pass^ then^ to less notorious examples. Mechanics' 
 Institutions will supply our first. The theory of these is 
 plausible enough. Artizans wanting knowledge, and be- 
 nevolent middle-class people wishing to help them to it, 
 constitute the raw material. By uniting their means they 
 propose to obtain literary and other advantages, which else 
 would be beyond their reach. And it is concluded that, 
 being all interested in securing the proposed objects, and 
 the governing body being chosen out of their number, the 
 results cannot fail to be such as were intended. In most 
 cases, however, the results are quite otherwise. Indifference, 
 stupidity, party-spirit, and religious dissension, nearly 
 always thwart the efforts of the promoters. It is thought 
 good policy to select as president some local notability; 
 probably not distinguished for wisdom, but whose donation 
 or prestige more than counterbalances his defect in this 
 respect. Yice-presidents are chosen with the same view ; 
 a clergyman or two ; some neighbouring squires, if they 
 can be had ; an ex-mayor ; several aldermen ; half a dozen 
 manufacturers and wealthy tradesmen ; and a miscellaneous 
 complement. While the committee, mostly elected more 
 because of their position or popularity than their intelligence 
 or fitness for co-operation, exhibit similar incono-ruities. 
 Causes of dissension quickly arise. A book much wished 
 for by the mass of the members, is tabooed,, because 
 
EEPEESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 287 
 
 ordering it would offend the clerical party in the institution. 
 Regard for the prejudices of certain magistrates and squires 
 who figure among the vice-presidents^ forbids the engage- 
 ment of an otherwise desirable and popular lecturer^ whose 
 political and religious opinions are somewhat extreme. 
 The selection of newspapers and magazines for the reading- 
 room, is a fruitful source of disputes. Should some, thinking 
 it -would be a great boon to those for whom the institution 
 was established, propose to open the reading-room on 
 Sundays, there arises a violent fight ; ending, perhaps, in 
 the secession of some of the defeated party. The question 
 of amusements, again, furnishes a bone of contention. Shall 
 the institution exist solely for instruction, or shall it add 
 gratification ? The refreshment-question, also, is apt to be 
 raised, and to add to the other causes of difference. In 
 short, the stupidity, prejudice, party-spirit, and squabbling, 
 are such as eventually to drive away in disgust those who 
 should have been the administrators; and to leave the 
 control in the hands of a clique, who pursue some humdrum 
 middle course, satisfying nobody. Instead of that pros- 
 perity which would probably have been achieved under the 
 direction of one good man-of -business, whose welfare was 
 bound up with its success, the institution loses its prestige, 
 and dwindles away : ceases almost entirely to be what was 
 intended — a mechanics' institution; and becomes little more 
 than a middle-class lounge, kept up not so much by the 
 permanent adhesion of its members, as by the continual 
 addition of new ones in place o.i the old ones constantly 
 falling off. Meanwhile, the end originally proposed is 
 fulfilled, so far as it gets fulfilled at all, by rrlvate enter- 
 prise. Cheap newspapers and cheap periodicals, provided 
 by publishers having in view the pockets and tastes of the 
 working- classes; coffee-shops and penny reading-rooms, 
 set up by men whose aim is profit ; are the instruments of 
 the chief proportion of such culture as is going on. 
 
 In higher-class institutions of the same order — in Literary 
 
288 EEPEESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 
 
 Societies and Philosophical Societies^ etc. — the like ineffi- 
 ciency of representative government is generally displayed. 
 Quickly following the vigour of early enthusiasm, come 
 class and sectarian differences, the final supremacy of a 
 party, bad management, apathy. Subscribers complain they 
 cannot get what they want ; and one by one desert to 
 private book-clubs or to Mudie. 
 
 Turning from non-political to political institutions, we 
 might, had we space, draw illustrations from the doings of 
 the old poor-law authorities, or from those of modern boards 
 of guardians ; but omitting these and others such, we will, 
 among local governments, confine ourselves to the reformed 
 municipal corporations. 
 
 If, leaving out of sight all other evidences, and forgetting 
 that they are newly-organized bodies into which corruption 
 has scarcely had time to creep, we were to judge of these 
 municipal corporations by the town-improvements they have 
 effected, we might pronounce them successful. But, even 
 without insisting on the fact that such improvements are 
 more due to the removal of obstructions, and to that same 
 progressive spirit which has established railways and tele- 
 graphs, than to the positive virtues of these civic govern- 
 ments ; it is to be remarked that the execution of numerous 
 public works is by no means an adequate test. With power 
 of raising funds limited only by a rebellion of ratepayers, 
 it is easy in prosperous, increasing towns, to make a display 
 of efficiency. The proper questions to be asked are : — Do 
 municipal elections end in the choice of the fittest men who 
 are to be found ? Does the resulting administrative body, 
 perform well and economically the work which devolves on 
 it ? And does it show sound judgment in refrainino- from 
 needless or improper work ? To these questions the answers 
 are by no means satisfactory. 
 
 Town-councils are not conspicuous for either intellio-ence 
 or high character. There are competent judges who think 
 that^ on the average^ their members are inferior to those of 
 
EEPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOE ? 289 
 
 the old corporations tliey superseded. As all tlie world 
 knowSj the elections turn mainly on political opinions. The 
 first question respecting any candidate is, not whether he 
 has great knowledge, judgment^ or business-faculty — not 
 whether he has any special aptitude for the duty to be dis- 
 charged ; but whether he is Whig or Tory. Even supposing 
 his politics to be unobjectionable, his nomination still does 
 not depend chiefly on his proved uprightness or capacity, 
 but much more on his friendly relations with the dominant 
 clique. A number of the town magnates, habitually meeting 
 probably at the chief hotel, and there held together as 
 much by the brotherhood of conviviality as by that of 
 opinion, discuss the merits of all whose names are before 
 the public, and decide which are the most suitable. This 
 gin-and-water caucus it is which practically determines the 
 choice of candidates ; and, by consequence, the elections. 
 Those who will succumb to leadership — those who will 
 merge their private opinions in the policy of their party, of 
 course have the preference. Men too independent for this 
 — too far-seeing to join in the shibboleth of the hour^ or too 
 refined to mix with the ^*' jolly good fellows " who thus rule 
 the town, are shelved ; notwithstanding that they are, 
 above all others, fitted for office. Partly from this under- 
 hand influence, and partly from the consequent disgust 
 which leads them to decline standing if asked, the best 
 men are generally not in the governing body. It is 
 notorious that in London the most respectable merchants 
 will have nothing to do with the local government. And 
 in New York, *nhe exertions of its better citizens are still 
 exhausted in private accumulation^ while the duties of 
 administration are left to other hands." It cannot then be 
 asserted that in town-government, the representative 
 system succeeds in bringing the ablest and most honour- 
 able men to the top. 
 
 The efficient and economical discharge of duties is, of 
 course, hindered by this inferiority of the deputies chosen ; 
 
290 EEPRESENTATIVE GOTEENMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOE? 
 
 and it is further hindered by the persistent action of party 
 and personal motives. Not whether he knows well how to 
 handle a level, but whether he voted for the popular candi- 
 date at the last parliamentary election, is the question on 
 which may, and sometimes does, hang the choice of a town- 
 surveyor^ and if sewers are ill laid out, it is a natural 
 consequence. When, a new public edifice having been 
 decided on, competition designs are advertised for ; and 
 when the designs, ostensibly anonymous but really identi- 
 fiable, have been sent in; T. Square, Esq., who has an 
 influential relative in the corporation, makes sure of succeed- 
 ingj and is not disappointed : albeit his plans are not those 
 which would have been chosen by any one of the judges, 
 had the intended edifice been his own. Brown, who has 
 for many years been on the town-council and is one of the 
 dominant clique, has a son who is a doctor ; and when, in 
 pursuance of an Act of Parliament, an officer of health 
 is to be appointed, Brown privately canvasses his fellow- 
 councillors, and succeeds in persuading them to elect his 
 son ; though his son is by no means the fittest man the 
 place can furnish. Similarly with the choice of trades- 
 men to execute work for the town. A public clock which is 
 frequently getting out of order, and Board-of-Health water- 
 closets which disgust those who have them (we state 
 facts), sufficiently testify that stupidity, favouritism, or 
 some sinister influence, is ever causing mismanagement. 
 The choice of inferior representatives, and by them of 
 inferior employesj joined with private interest and divided 
 responsibility, inevitably prevent the discharge of duties 
 from being satisfactory. 
 
 Moreover, the extravagance which is now becoming a 
 notorious vice of municipal bodies, is greatly increased by 
 the practice of undertaking things which they ought not to 
 undertake ; and the incentive to do this is, in many cases^ 
 traceable to the representative origin of the body. The 
 system of compounding with landlords for municipal 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 291 
 
 rates^ leads the lower class of occupiers into the erroneous 
 belief that town-burdens do not fall in any degree on them ; 
 and they therefore approve of an expenditure which seem- 
 ingly gives them gratis advantages while it creates employ- 
 ment. As they form the mass of the constituency^ lavishness 
 becomes a popular policy ; and popularity-hunters vie with 
 one another in bringing forward new and expensive projects. 
 Here is a councillor who, having fears about his next 
 election, proposes an extensive scheme for public gardens— 
 a scheme which many who disapprove do not oppose, because 
 they, too, bear in mind the next election. There is another 
 councillor, who keeps a shop, and who raises and agitates 
 the question of baths and wash-houses ; very well knowing 
 that his trade is not likely to suffer from such a course. 
 And so in other cases : the small direct interest which 
 each member of the corporation has in economical adminis- 
 tration, is antagonized by so many indirect interests of 
 other kinds, that he is not likely to be a good guardian 
 of the public purse. 
 
 Thus, neither in respect of the deputies chosen, nor the 
 efficient performance of their work, nor the avoidance of 
 unfit work, can the governments of our towns be held satis- 
 factory. And if in these recently-formed bodies the defects 
 are so conspicuous, still more conspicuous are they where 
 they have had time to grow to their full magnitude : witness 
 the case of New York. According to the Times corre- 
 spondent in that city, the New York people pay " over a 
 million and a half sterling, for which they have badly-paved 
 streets, a police by no means as efficient as it should be, 
 though much better than formerly, the greatest amount of 
 dirt north of Italy, the poorest cab-system of any metropolis 
 in the world, and only unsheltered wooden piers for the 
 discharge of merchandize.^' 
 
 And now, having glanced at the general bearings of the 
 question in these minor cases, let us take the major case of 
 
292 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 our central government ; and^ in connexion witli it^ pursue 
 tte inquiry more closely. Here the inherent faults of the 
 representative system are much more clearly displayed. 
 The greater multiplicity of rulers involves greater cum- 
 brousness^ greater confusion, greater delay. Differences of 
 class, of aims, of prejudices, are both larger in number and 
 wider in degree; and hence arise dissensions still more 
 multiplied. The direct effect which each legislator is likely 
 to experience from the working of any particular measure, 
 is usually very small and remote ; while the indirect influ- 
 ences which sway him are, in this above all other cases, 
 numerous and strong : whence follows a marked tendency 
 to neglect public welfare for private advantage. But let us 
 set out from the beginning — with the constituencies. 
 
 The representative theory assumes that if a number of 
 citizens, deeply interested as they all are in good govern- 
 ment, are endowed with political power, they will choose the 
 wisest and best men for governors. Seeing how greatly 
 they suffer from bad administration of public affairs, it is 
 considered self-evident that they must have the will 
 to select proper representatives ; and it is taken for 
 granted that average common sense gives the ability to 
 select proper representatives. How does experience bear 
 out these assumptions ? Does it not to a great degree 
 negative them ? 
 
 Several considerable classes of electors have little or no 
 will in the matter. Not a few of those on the register 
 pique themselves on taking no part in politics — claim credit 
 for having the sense not to meddle with things which thev 
 say do not concern them. Many others there are whose 
 interest in the choice of a member of Parliament is so slight, 
 that they do not think it worth while to vote. A notable 
 proportion, too, shopkeepers especially, care so little about 
 the result, that their votes are determined by their wishes 
 to please their chief patrons or to avoid offending them. 
 In the minds of a yet larger class, small sums of money, or 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT 13 IT GOOD FOB? 293 
 
 even ad libitum supplies of beer^ outweigh, any desires 
 they have to use their political powers independently. 
 Those who adequately recognize the importance of honestly 
 exercising their judgments in the selection of legislators, 
 and who give conscientious votes, form but a minority ; and 
 the election usually hangs less upon their wills than upon 
 the illegitimate influences which sway the rest. Here, 
 therefore, the theory fails. 
 
 Then, again, as to intelligence. Even supposing that the 
 mass of electors have a sufficiently decided will to choose 
 the best rulers, what evidence have we of their ability ? 
 Is picking out the wisest man among them, a task within 
 the range of their capacities ? Let any one listen to the 
 conversation of a farmer's market-table, and then answer 
 how much he finds of that wisdom which is required to 
 discern wisdom in others. Or let him read the clap-trap 
 speeches made from the hustings with a view of pleasing 
 constituents, and then estimate the penetration of those 
 who are to be thus pleased. Even among the higher order 
 of electors he will meet with gross political ignorance — 
 with notions that Acts of Parliament can do whatever it is 
 thought well they should do ; that the value of gold can be 
 fixed by law; that distress can be cured by poor-laws; 
 and so forth. If he descends a step, he will find in the 
 still-prevalent ideas that machinery is injurious to the 
 working-classes, and that extravagance is "good for trade,^' 
 indices of a yet smaller insight. And in the lower and 
 larger class, formed by those who think that their personal 
 interest in good government is not worth the trouble 
 of voting, or is outbalanced by the loss of a customer, 
 or is of less value than a bribe, he will perceive an 
 almost hopeless stupidity. Without going the length of 
 Mr. Carlyle, and defining the people as ^' twenty-seven 
 millions, mostly fools,^' he will confess that they are but 
 sparely gifted with wisdom. 
 
 That these should succeed in choosinor the fittest 
 
294 EE PRESENT ATI VE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 
 
 governors, woiild be strange; and that they do not so 
 succeed is manifest. Even as judged by the most 
 common-sense tests^ their selections are absurd^ as we 
 shall shortly see. 
 
 It is a self-evident truth that we may most safely trust 
 those whose interests are identical with our own; and that 
 it is very dangerous to trust those whose interests are 
 antagonistic to our own. All the legal securities we take 
 in our transactions with one another^ are so many recogni- 
 tions of this truth. We are not satisfied with professions. 
 If another's position is such that he must be liable to 
 motives at variance with the promises he makes, we take 
 care, by introducing an artificial motive (the dread of legal 
 penalties), to make it his interest to fulfil these promises. 
 Down to the asking for a receipt, our daily business-habits 
 testify that, in consequence of the prevailing selfishness, it 
 it extremely imprudent to expect men to regard the claims 
 of others equally with their own : all asseverations of good 
 faith notwithstanding. Now it might have been thought 
 that even the modicum of sense possessed by the majority 
 of electors, would have led them to recognize this fact in 
 the choice of their representatives. But they show a 
 total disregard of it. While the theory of our Con- 
 stitution, in conformity with this same fact, assumes 
 that the three divisions composing the Legislature will 
 severally pursue each its own ends — while our history 
 shows that Monarch, Lords, and Commons, have all along 
 more or less conspicuously done this ; our electors manifest 
 by their votes, the belief that their interests will be as 
 well cared for by members of the titled class as by members 
 of their own class. Though, in their determined opposi- 
 tion to the Reform-Bill, the aristocracy showed how 
 greedy they were, not only of their legitimate power 
 but of their illegitimate power — though, by the enact- 
 ment and pertinacious maintenan ce of the Corn-Laws 
 they proved how little popular welfare weighed in the 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 295 
 
 scale against their own profits — thougli tliey have ever 
 displayed a watchful jealousy even of their smallest 
 privileges, whether equitable or inequitable (as witness the 
 recent complaint in the House of Lords, that the Mercantile 
 Marine Act calls on lords of manors to show their titles 
 before they can claim the wrecks thrown on the shores of 
 their estates, which before they had always done by pre- 
 scription) — though they have habitually pursued that self- 
 seeking policy which men so placed were sure to pursue ; 
 yet constituencies have decided that members of the aris- 
 tocracy may fitly be chosen as representatives of the people. 
 Our present House of Commons contains 98 Irish peers 
 and sons of English peers; 66 blood-relations of peers; 
 and 67 connexions of peers by marriage : in all, 231 mem- 
 bers whose interests, or sympathies, or both, are with the 
 nobility rather than the commonalty. We are quite pre- 
 pared to hear the doctrine implied in this criticism con- 
 demned by rose-water politicians as narrow and prejudiced. 
 To such we simply reply that they and their friends fully 
 recognize this doctrine when it suits them to do so. Why 
 do they wish to prevent the town-constituencies from pre- 
 dominating over the county-ones; if they do not believe 
 that each division of the community will consult its own 
 welfare ? Or what plea can there be for Lord John 
 Russell's proposal to represent minorities, unless it be 
 the plea that those who have the opportunity will sacrifice 
 the interests of others to their own ? Or how shall we 
 explain the anxiety of the upper class, to keep a tight 
 rein on the growing power of the lower class, save from 
 their consciousness that bond fide representatives of the 
 lower class would be less regardful of their privileges 
 than they are themselves ? If there be any reason in the 
 theory of the Constitution, then, while the members of the 
 House of Peers should belong to the peerage, the members 
 of the House of Commons should belong to the commonalty. 
 Either the constitutional theory is sheer nonsense, or else 
 
296 EEPEESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 the choice of lords as representatives of the people proves 
 the folly of constituencies. 
 
 But this folly by no means ends here : it works out other 
 results quite as absurd. What should we think of a man 
 giving his servants equal authority with himself over the 
 affairs of his household? Suppose the shareholders in a 
 railway-company were to elect, as members of their board 
 of directors, the secretary, engineer, superintendent, traffic- 
 manacfer, and others such. Should we not be astonished 
 
 CD ' 
 
 at their stupidity ? Should we not prophesy that the 
 private advantage of officials would frequently override the 
 welfare of the company ? Yet our parliamentary electors 
 commit a blunder of just the same kind. For what are 
 military and naval officers but servants of the nation ; stand- 
 ing to it in a relation like that in which the officers of a 
 railway- company stand to the company ? Do they not per- 
 form public work ? do they not take public pay ? And do not 
 their interests differ from those of the public, as the interests 
 of the employed from those of the employer ? The impro- 
 priety of admitting executive agents of the State into the 
 Legislature, has over and over again thrust itself into 
 notice ; and in minor cases has been prevented by sundry 
 Acts of Parliament. Enumerating those disqualified for 
 the House of Commons, Blackstone says — 
 
 " No persons concerned in the management of any duties or taxes created 
 since 1692, except the commissioners of the treasury, nor any of the oiHcers 
 following, viz. commissioners of prizes, transports, sick and wounded, wine 
 licences, navy, and victualling ; secretaries or receivers of prizes ; comp- 
 trollers of the army accounts ; agents for regiments ; governors of plantations, 
 and their deputies ; oEficers of Minorca or Gibraltar ; officers of the excise 
 and customs ; clerks and deputies in the several offices of the treasury, ex- 
 chequer, navy, victualling, admiralty, pay of the army and navy, secretaries 
 of state, salt, stamps, appeals, wine licences, hackney coaches, hawkers and 
 pedlars, nor any persons that hold any new office under the crown created 
 since 1705, are capable of being elected, or sitting as members." 
 In which list naval and military ofl&cers would doubtless 
 Lave been included, had they not always been too powei^ful 
 a body and too closely identified with the dominant classes. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 297 
 
 Glaring, lioweverj as is tlie impolicy of appointing public 
 servants to make the laws ; and clearly as this impolicy is 
 recognized in the above-specified exclusions from time to 
 time enacted ; the people at large seem totally oblivious of 
 it. At the last general election they returned 9 naval 
 officerSj 46 military officers, and 51 retired military officers, 
 who, in virtue of education, friendship, and esprit de corps, 
 take the same views with their active comrades — in all 106: 
 not including 64 officers of militia and yeomanry, whose 
 sympathies and ambitions are in a considerable degree the 
 same. If any one thinks that this large infusion of official- 
 ism is of no consequence, let him look in the division-lists. 
 Let him inquire how much it has had to do with the 
 maintenance of the purchase-system. Let him ask whether 
 the almost insuperable obstacles to the promotion of the 
 private soldier, have not been strengthened by it. Let 
 him see what share it had in keeping up those worn- 
 out practices; and forms, and mis-arrangements, which 
 entailed the disasters of our late war. Let him consider 
 whether the hushing-up of the Crimean Inquiry and the 
 whitewashing of delinquents were not aided by it. Yet, 
 though abundant experience thus confirms what common 
 sense would beforehand have predicted ; and though, not- 
 withstanding the late disasters, exposures, and public 
 outcry for army-reform, the influence of the military caste 
 is so great that the reform has been staved-off ; our consti- 
 tuencies are stupid enough to send to Parliament as many 
 military officers as ever ! 
 
 Not even now have we reached the end of these impolitic 
 selections. The general principle on which we have been 
 insisting, and which is recognized by expounders of the 
 constitution when they teach that the legislative and 
 executive divisions of the Government should be distinct — 
 this general principle is yet further sinned against ; though 
 not in so literal a manner. For though they do not take 
 State-pay, and are not nominally Government-officerSj yet. 
 
298 REPEESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 practically-j lawyers are members of the executive organiza- 
 tion. They form an important part of the apparatus for 
 the administration of justice. By the working of this 
 apparatus they make "their profits ; and their welfare 
 depends on its being so worked as to bring them profits, 
 rather than on its being so worked as to administer justice. 
 Exactly as military officers have interests distinct from, 
 and often antagonistic to, the efiBciency of the army ; so, 
 barristers and solicitors have interests distinct from, and 
 often antagonistic to, the cheap and prompt enforcement 
 of the law. And that they are habitually swayed by these 
 antagonistic interests, is notorious. So strong is the bias, 
 as sometimes even to destroy the power of seeing from any 
 other than the professional stand-point. We have ourselves 
 heard a lawyer declaiming on the damage which the 
 County-Courts- Act had done to the profession; and 
 expecting his non-professional hearers to join him in 
 condemning it there-for ! And if, as all the world knows, 
 the legal conscience is not of the tenderest, is it wise to 
 depute lawyers to frame the laws which they will be con- 
 cerned in carrying out; and the carrying out of which must 
 a:Sect their private incomes ? Are barristers, who con- 
 stantly take fees for work which they do not perform, 
 and attorneys, whose bills are so often exorbitant that a 
 special office has been established for taxing them — are 
 these, of all others, to be trusted in a position which 
 would be trying even to the most disinterested ? Never- 
 theless, the towns and counties of England have returned 
 to the present House of Commons 98 lawyers — some 
 60 of them in actual practice, and the rest retired, but 
 doubtless retaining those class-views acquired during their 
 professional careers. 
 
 These criticisms on the conduct of constituencies do not 
 necessarily commit us to the assertion that nooie belonging 
 to the official and aristocratic classes ought to be chosen. 
 Though it would be safer to carry out, in these important 
 
EEPKESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOE ? 299 
 
 cases^ the general principle whicli^ as above shown. Parlia- 
 ment has itself recognized and enforced in unimportant 
 cases ; yet we are not prepared to say that occasional 
 exceptions might not be made, on good cause being shown. 
 All we aim to show is the gross impolicy of selecting so 
 large a proportion of representatives from classes having 
 interests different from those of the general public. That 
 in addition to more than a third taken from the dominant 
 class, who already occupy one division of the Legislature, 
 the House of Commons should contain nearly another third 
 taken from the naval, military, and legal classes, whose 
 policy, like that of the dominant class, is to maintain things 
 as they are ; we consider a decisive proof of electoral mis- 
 judgment. That out of the 654 members, of which the 
 People^s House now consists, there should be but 250 who, 
 as considered from a class point of view, are eligible, or 
 tolerably eligible (for we include a considerable number 
 who are more or less objectionable), is significant of any- 
 thing but popular good sense. That into an assembly 
 established to protect their interests, the commonalty of 
 Eno'land should have sent one-third whose interests are the 
 
 o 
 
 same as their own, and two-thirds whose interests are at 
 variance with their own, proves a scarcely credible lack 
 of wisdom ; and seems an awkward fact for the repre- 
 sentative theory. 
 
 If the intelligence of the mass is thus not sufficient even 
 to choose out men who by position and occupation are fit 
 representatives, still less is it sufficient to choose out men 
 who are the fittest in character and capacity. To see who 
 will be liable to the bias of private advantage is a very 
 easy thing; to see who is wisest is a very difficult thing; 
 and those who do not succeed in the first must necessarily 
 fail in the last. The higher the wisdom the more incom- 
 prehensible does it become by ignorance. It is a manifest 
 fact that the popular man or writer, is always one who is but 
 little in advance of the mass, and consequently understand- 
 
300 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 
 
 able bjtiiem: never the man wlio is far in advance of them 
 and out of their sight. Appreciation of another implies 
 some community of thought. " Only the man of worth 
 
 can recognize worth in men The worthiest^ 
 
 if he appealed to universal suffrage^ would have but a 
 
 poor chance Alas! Jesus Christy asking the Jews 
 
 what he deserved — was not the answer^ Death on the 
 gallows ! " And though men do not now-a-days stone the 
 prophet, theyj at any rate^ ignore him. As Mr. Carlyle 
 says in his vehement way — 
 
 *'If of ten men nine are recognisable as fools, which is a common calcula- 
 tion, how, ... in the name of wonder, will you ever get a ballot-box to grind 
 
 you out a wisdom from the votes of these ten men ? I tell you a 
 
 million blockheads looking authoritatively into one man of what you call 
 genius, or noble sense, will make nothing but nonsense out of him and his 
 qualities, and his virtues and defects, if they look till the end of time." 
 
 So that^ even were electors content to choose the man 
 proved by general evidence to be the most far-seeingj and 
 refrained from testing him by the coincidence of his views 
 with their own, there would be small chance of their hitting 
 on the best. But judging of him^ as they dOj by asking him 
 whether he thinks this or that crudity which they think, it 
 is manifest that they will ^x on one far removed from the 
 best. Their deputy will be truly representative; — repre- 
 sentativOj that is, of the average stupidity. 
 
 And now let us look at the assembly of representatives 
 thus chosen. Already we have noted the unfit composition 
 of this assembly as respects the interests of its members ; 
 and we have just seen what the representative theory itself 
 implies as to their intelligence. Let us now, however, con- 
 sider them more nearly under this last Lead. 
 
 And first, what is the work they undertake ? Observe, 
 we do not say the work which they ought to do, but the 
 work which they propose to do, and try to do. This com- 
 prehends the regulation of nearly all actions going on 
 throughout society. Besides devising measures to prevent 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 301 
 
 the aggression of citizens on one another^ and to secnreeacli 
 the quiet possession of his own; and besides assuming the 
 further function^ also needful in the present state of man- 
 kindj of defending the nation as a whole against invaders ; 
 they unhesitatingly take on themselves to provide for 
 countless wants^ to cure countless ills, to oversee countless 
 affairs. Out of the many beliefs men have lield respecting 
 God, Creation, the Future, etc., they presume to decide 
 which are true; and authorize an army of priests to per- 
 petually repeat them to the people. The distress resulting 
 from improvidence, they undertake to remove : they settle 
 the minimum which each ratepayer shall give in charity, 
 and how the proceeds shall be administered. Judging that 
 emigration will not naturally go on fast enough, they provide 
 means for carrying off some of the labouring classes to the 
 colonies. Certain that social necessities will not cause a 
 sufficiently rapid spread of knowledge, and confident that 
 they know what knowledge is most required, they use public 
 money for the building of schools and paying of teachers ; 
 they print and publish State-school-books ; they employ 
 inspectors to see that their standard of education is con- 
 formed to. Playing the part of doctor, they insist that 
 every one shall use their specific, and escape the danger of 
 small-pox by submitting to an attack of cow-pox. Playing 
 the part of moralist, they decide which dramas are fit to be 
 acted and which are not. Playing the part of artist, they 
 prompt the setting up of drawing-schools, provide masters 
 and models; and, at Marlborough House, enact what shall 
 be considered good taste and what bad. Through their 
 lieutenants, the corporations of towns, they furnish appliances 
 for the washing of peoples^ skins and clothes ; they, in 
 some cases, manufacture gas and put down water-pipes ; 
 they lay out sewers and cover over cess-pools ; they 
 establish public libraries and make public gardens. More- 
 over, they determine how houses shall be built, and what is a 
 safe construction for a ship ; they take measures for the 
 
302 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 security of railway-travelling ; they fix tlie liour after whicli 
 public-houses may not be open; they regulate the prices 
 chargeable by vehicles plying in the London streets ; they 
 inspect lodging-houses; they arrange for burial-grounds; 
 they ^s: the hours of factory hands. If some social process 
 does not seem to them to be going on fast enough^ "they 
 stimulate it ; where the growth is not in the direction which 
 they think most desirable^ they alter it; and so they seek 
 to realize some undefined ideal community. 
 
 Such being the task undertaken, what, let us ask, are the 
 qualifications for discharging it ? Supposing it possible to 
 achieve all this, what must be the knowledge and capacities 
 of those who shall achieve it ? Successfully to prescribe 
 for society, it is needful to know the structure of society — 
 the principles on which it is organized — the natural laws of 
 its progress. If there be not a true understanding of what 
 constitutes social development, there must necessarily be 
 grave mistakes made in checking these chang*es and foster- 
 ing those. If there be lack of insight respecting the mutual 
 dependence of the many functions which, taken together, 
 make up the national life, unforeseen disasters will ensue 
 from not perceiving how an interference with one will affect 
 the rest. That is to say, there must be a due acquaintance 
 with the social science — the science involving all others; 
 the science standing above all others in complexity. 
 
 And now, how far do our legislators possess this quali- 
 fication ? Do they in any moderate degree display it ? Do 
 they make even a distant approximation to it ? That many 
 of them are very good classical scholars is beyond doubt : 
 not a few have written first-rate Latin verses, and can 
 enjoy a Greek play; but there is no obvious relation 
 between a memory well stocked with the words spoken 
 two thousand years ago, and an understanding disciplined 
 to deal with modern society. That in learning the lan- 
 guages of the past they have learnt some of its history, is 
 true ; but considering that this history is mainly a narra- 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 303 
 
 tive of battles and plots and negociations and treaclieries, 
 it does not throw mnch. liglit on social philosopliy — not 
 even the simplest principles of political economy have ever 
 "been gathered from it. "We do not question^ either, that 
 a moderate per centage of members of Parliament are 
 fair mathematicians; and that mathematical discipline is 
 valuable. As, however, political problems are not suscep- 
 tible of mathematical analysis, their studies in this direction 
 cannot much aid them in legislation. To the large body 
 of military officers who sit as representatives, we would not 
 for a moment deny a competent knowledge of fortification, 
 of strategy, of regimental discipline ; but we do not see 
 that these throw much light on the causes and cure of 
 national evils. Indeed, considering that war fosters anti- 
 social sentiments, and that the government of soldiers is 
 necessarily despotic, military education and habits are more 
 likely to unfit than to fit men for regulating the doings of 
 a free people. Extensive acquaintance with the laws, may 
 doubtless be claimed by the many barristers chosen by 
 our constituencies ; and this seems a kind of information 
 having some relation to the work to be done. Unless, 
 however, this information is more than technical — unless it 
 is accompanied by knowledge of the ramified consequences 
 which laws have produced in times past and are producing 
 now (which nobody will assert), it cannot give much 
 insight into Social Science. A familiarity with laws is no 
 more a preparation for rational legislation, than would a 
 familiarity with all the nosti"ums men have ever used be a 
 preparation for the rational practice of medicine. Nowhere^ 
 then, in our representative body, do we find appropriate 
 culture. Here is a clever novelist, and there a successful 
 maker of railways ; this member has acquired a large 
 fortune in trade, and that member is nuted as an agricul- 
 tural improver; but none of these achievements imply 
 fitness for controlling and adjusting social processes. 
 Among the many who have passed through the public 
 
304 EEPEESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT aOOD FOE ? 
 
 scliool and university curriculum — including thougL. they 
 naay a few Oxford double-firsts and one or two Cambridge 
 wranglers — there are none who have received the discipline 
 required by the true legislator. None have that competent 
 knowledge of Science in general^ culminating in the 
 Science of Life, which can alone form a basis for the 
 Science of Society. For it is one of those open secrets 
 which seem the more secret because they are so open, 
 that all phenomena displayed by a nation are phenomena 
 of Life, and are dependent on the laws of Life. There is 
 no growth, decay, evil, improvement, or change of any 
 kind, going on in the body politic, but what has its cause 
 in the actions of human beings ; and there are no actions 
 of human beings but what conform to the laws of Life in 
 general, and cannot be truly understood until those laws 
 are understood. 
 
 See, then, the immense incongruity between the end and 
 the means. See on the one hand the countless difficulties 
 of the task ; and on the other hand the almost total 
 unprepareduess of those who undertake it. Need we 
 wonder that legislation is ever breaking down? Is it not 
 natural that complaint, amendment, and repeal, should 
 form the staple business of every session ? Is there any- 
 thing more than might be expected in the absurd Jack- 
 Cadeisms which disgrace the debates ? Even without 
 setting up so high a standard of qualification as that above 
 specified, the unfitness of most representatives for their duties 
 is abundantly manifest. You need but glance over the 
 miscellaneous list of noblemen, baronets, squires, merchants, 
 barristers, engineers, soldiers, sailors, railway-directors, etc., 
 and then ask what training their previous lives have given 
 them for the intricate business of legislation, to see at once 
 how extreme must be the incompetence. One would think 
 that the whole system had been framed on the sayings of 
 some political Dogberry : — " The art of healing is difii- 
 cult; the art of government easy. The understanding of 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 305 
 
 arithmetic comes by study; while the understanding of 
 society comes by instinct. Watchmaking requires a long 
 apprenticeship ; but there needs none for the making of 
 institutions. To manage a shopproperly requires teaching; 
 but the management of a people may be undertaken with- 
 out preparation." Were we to be visited by some wiser 
 Gulliver, or, as in the ''^ Micromegas " of Voltaire, by some 
 inhabitant of another sphere, his account of our political 
 institutions might run somewhat as follows : — 
 
 " I found that the English were governed by an assembly 
 of men, said to embody the ' collective wisdom.^ This 
 assembly, joined with some other authorities which seem 
 practically subordinate to it, has unlimited power. I was 
 much perplexed by this. With us it is customary to define 
 the ofiiice of any appointed body ; and, above all things, to 
 see that it does not defeat the ends for which it was 
 appointed. But both the theory and the practice of -this 
 English Government imply that it may do whatever it 
 pleases. Though, by their current maxims and usages, the 
 English recognize the right of property as sacred — though 
 the infraction of it is considered by them one of the gravest 
 crimes — though the laws profess to be so jealous of it as to 
 punish even the stealing of a turnip ; yet their legislators 
 suspend it at will. They take the money of citizens for 
 any project which they choose to undertake; though such 
 project was not in the least contemplated by those who 
 gave them authority — nay, though the greater part of the 
 citizens from whom the money is taken had no share in 
 giving them such authority. Each citizen can hold pro- 
 perty only so long as the 654 deputies do not want it. It 
 seemed to me that an exploded doctrine once current 
 among them of ^the divine right of kings,^ had simply been 
 changed into the divine right of Parliaments. 
 
 ^^ I was at first inclined to think that the constitution of 
 things on the Earth was totally different from what it is 
 with us ; for the current political philosophy here, implies 
 
306 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOE? 
 
 that acts are not right or wrong in themselves but are 
 made one or the other by the votes of law-makers. In our 
 world it is considered manifest that if a number of beings 
 live together, there must, in virtue of their natures, be 
 certain primary conditions on which only they can work 
 satisfactorily in concert ; and we infer that the conduct 
 which breaks through these conditions is bad. In the 
 English legislature^ however, a proposal to regulate conduct 
 by any such abstract standard would be held absurd. I 
 asked one of their members of Parliament whether a 
 majority of the House could legitimize murder. He said. 
 No. I asked him whether it could sanctify robbery. He 
 thought not. But I could not make him see that if murder 
 and robbery are intrinsically wrong, and not to be made 
 right by decisions of statesmen, that similarly all actions 
 must be either right or wrong, apart from the authority of 
 the law; and that if the right and wrong of the law are 
 not in harmony with this intrinsic right and wrong, the 
 law itself is criminal. Some, indeed, among the English 
 think as we do. One of their remarkable men {not included 
 in their Assembly of Notables) writes thus : — 
 
 *' ' To ascertain better and better what the will of the EtemEil was and is 
 ■with us, what the laws of the Eternal are, all Parliaments, Ecumenic 
 Councils, Congresses, and other Collective Wisdoms, have had this for their 
 
 object Nevertheless, in the inexplicable universal votings and 
 
 debatings of these Ages, an idea or rather a dumb presumption to the 
 contrary has gone idly abroad ; and at this day, over extensive tracts of the 
 world, poor human beings are to be found, whose practical belief it is that if 
 
 we "vote" this or that, so this or that will thenceforth be Practically, 
 
 men have come to imagine that the Laws of this Universe, like the laws of 
 constitutional countries, are decided by votmg. ... It is an idle fancy. 
 The Laws of this Universe, of which if the Laws of England are not an 
 exact transcript, they should passionately study to become such, are fixed 
 by the everlasting congruity of things, and are not fixable or changeable 
 by voting 1 ' 
 
 "^But I find that, contemptuously disregarding all such 
 protests, the English legislators persevere in their hyper- 
 atlieistic notion, that an Act of Parliament duly enforced by 
 State-officers, will work out any object : no question being 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 307 
 
 put whether Laws of Nature permit. I forgot to ask whether 
 they considered that different kinds of food could be made 
 wholesome or unwholesome by State-decree. 
 
 " One thing that struck me was the curious way in which 
 the members of their House of Commons judge of one 
 another's capacities. Many who expressed opinions of the 
 crudest kinds^ or trivial platitudes^ or worn-out superstitions, 
 were civilly treated. Follies as great as that but a few 
 years since uttered by one of their ministers, who said that 
 free-trade was contrary to common sense, were received in 
 silence. But I was present when one of their number, who, 
 as I thought, was speaking very rationally, made a mistake 
 in his pronunciation — made what they call a wrong quantity; 
 andimmediately there arose a shout of derision. It seemed 
 quite tolerable that a member should know little or nothing 
 about the business he was there to transact ; but quite in- 
 tolerable that he should be ignorant on a point of no moment. 
 
 '* The English pique themselves on being especially 
 practical — have a great contempt for theorizers, and profess 
 to be guided exclusively by facts. Before making or alter- 
 ing a law it is the custom to appoint a committee of inquiry, 
 who send for men able to give information concerning the 
 matter in hand, and ask them some thousands of questions. 
 These questions, and the answers given to them, are printed 
 in large books, and distributed among the members of the 
 Houses of Parliament ; and I was told that they spent about 
 £100,000 a year in thus collecting and distributing evidence. 
 Nevertheless, it appeared to me that the ministers and 
 representatives of the English people, pertinaciously adhere 
 to theories long ago disproved by the most conspicuous 
 facts. They pay great respect to petty details of evidence, 
 but of large truths they are quite regardless. Thus, the 
 experience of age after age has shown that their state- 
 management is almost invariably bad. The national estates 
 are so miserably administered as often to bring loss 
 55 
 
308 EEPHESENTATIVK GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOE ? 
 
 instead of gam. The government ship-jards are uniformly 
 extravagant and inefficient. The judicial system works so 
 ill that most citizens will submit to serious losses rather 
 than run risks of being ruined by law-suits. Countless 
 facts prove the Government to be the worst owner^ the 
 worst manufacturer^ the worst trader : in fact^ the worst 
 manager^ be the thing managed what it may. But though 
 the evidence of this is abundant and conclusive — though^ 
 during a recent war^ the bunglings of officials were as glaring 
 and multitudinous as ever ; yet the belief that any proposed 
 duties will be satisfactorily discharged by a new public 
 department appointed to them, seems not a whit the 
 weaker. Legislators, thinking themselves practical, cling 
 to the plausible theory of an officially-regulated society, 
 spite of overwhelming evidence that official regulation 
 perpetually fails. 
 
 " Nay, indeed, the belief seems to gain strength among 
 these fact-loving English statesmen, notwithstanding the 
 facts are against it. Proposals for State-control over this 
 and the other, have been of late more rife than ever. And, 
 most remarkable of all, their representative assembly lately 
 listened with grave faces to the assertion, made by one of their 
 high authorities, that State-workshops are more economical 
 than private workshops. Their prime minister, in defending 
 a recently-established arms-factory, actually told them that, 
 at one of their arsenals, certain missiles of war were manu- 
 factured not only better than by the trade, but at about 
 one-third the price; and added, *so it would be in all things,' 
 The English being a trading people, who must be tolerably 
 familiar with the usual rates of profit among manufacturers 
 and the margin for possible economy, the fact that they 
 should have got for their chief representative one so utterly 
 in the dark on these matters, struck me as a wonderful 
 result of the representative system. 
 
 " I did not inquire much further, for it was manifest that 
 
EEPitESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD EOR ? 309 
 
 if these were really their wisest men^ the English were not 
 a wise people." 
 
 Representative government^ then, cannot be called a suc- 
 cess, in so far as the choice of men is concerned. Those it 
 puts into power are the fittest neither in respect of their 
 interests^ nor their culture, nor their wisdom. And as a 
 consequence, partly of this and partly of its complex and 
 cumbrous nature, representative government is anything 
 but efficient for administrative purposes. In these respects 
 it is manifestly inferior to monarchical government. This 
 has the advantage of simplicity, which is always conducive 
 to efficiency. And it has the further advantage that the 
 power is in the hands of one who is directly concerned in 
 the good management of national affairs; seeing that the 
 continued maintenance of his power — nay, often his very 
 life — depends on this. Por his own sake a monarch chooses 
 the wisest councillors he can find, regardless of class-dis- 
 tinctions. His interest in getting the best help is too 
 great to allow of prejudices standing between him and a 
 far-seeing man. We see this abundantly illustrated. Did 
 not the kings of France take Eichelieu, and Mazarin, and 
 Turgot to assist them ? Had not Henry YIII. his Wolsey, 
 Elizabeth her Burleigh, James his Bacon, Cromwell his 
 Milton ? And were not these men of greater calibre than 
 those who hold the reins under our constitutional regime ? 
 So strong is the motive of an autocrat to make use of ability 
 wherever it exists, that he will, like Louis XI., take even his 
 barber into council if he finds him a clever fellow. Besides 
 choosing them for ministers and advisers, he seeks out the 
 most competent men for other offices. Napoleon raised his 
 marshals from the ranks ; and owed his military success in 
 great part to the readiness with which he saw and availed 
 himself of merit wherever found. We have recently seen 
 in Russia how prompt was the recognition and promotion of 
 engineering talent in the case of Todleben ; and know to 
 
310 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 
 
 oar cost bow greatly the prolonged defence of Sebastopol 
 was due to this. In the marked contrast to these cases 
 supplied by our own army, in which genius is ignored while 
 tnuffs are honoured — in which wealth and caste make the 
 advance of plebeian merit next to impossible — in which 
 jealousies between Queen's service and Company^s service 
 render the best generalship almost unavailable ; we see that 
 the representative system fails in the officering of its 
 executive, as much as in the officering of its legislative. A 
 striking antithesis between the actions of the two forms of 
 government, is presented in the evidence given before the 
 Sebastopol Committee respecting the supply of huts to the 
 Crimean army — evidence showing that while, in his negotia- 
 tions with the English Government, the contractor for the 
 huts met with nothing but vacillation, delay, and official 
 rudeness, the conduct of the French Government was 
 marked by promptitude, decision, sound judgment, and 
 great civility. Everything goes to show that for adminis- 
 trative efficiency, autocratic power is the best. If your aim 
 is a well-organized army — if you want to have sanitary 
 departments, and educational departments, and charity- 
 departments, managed in a business-like way — if you would 
 have society actively regulated by staffs of State-agents ; 
 then by all means choose that system of complete central- 
 ization which we call despotism. 
 
 Probably, notwithstanding the hints dropped at the 
 outset, most have read the foregoing pages with surprise. 
 Very likely some have referred to the cover of the Review, 
 to see whether they have not, in mistake, taken up some 
 other than the " Westminster ; " while some may, perhaps, 
 have accompanied their perusal by a running commentary 
 of epithets condemnatory of our seeming change of prin- 
 ciples. Let them not be alarmed. We have not in the 
 least swerved from the confession of faith set forth in our 
 prospectus. On tlie contrary, as we shall shortly show. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 31 1 
 
 our adhesion to free institutions is as strong as ever — - 
 nay, has even gained strength through this apparently 
 antagonistic criticism. 
 
 The subordination of a nation to a man, is not a whole- 
 some but a vicious state of things : needful, indeed, for a 
 vicious humanity ; but to be outgrown as fast as may be. 
 The instinct which makes it possible is anything but a 
 noble one. Call it "hero-worship," and it looks respectable. 
 Call it what it is — a blind awe and fear of power, no 
 matter of what kind, but more especially of the brutal 
 kind ; and it is by no means to be admired. Watch it in 
 early ages deifying the cannibal chief ; singing the praises 
 of the successful thief ; commemorating the most blood- 
 thirsty warriors; speaking with reverence of those who 
 had shown undying revenge ; and erecting altars to such 
 as carried furthest the vices which disgrace humanity ; 
 and the illusion disappears. Read how, where it was 
 strongest, it immolated crowds of victims at the tomb of 
 the dead king — how, at the altars raised to its heroes, it 
 habitually sacrificed prisoners and children to satisfy their 
 traditional appetite for human flesh — how it produced that 
 fealty of subjects to rulers which made possible endless 
 aggressions, battles, massacres, and horrors innumerable — 
 how it has mercilessly slain those who would not lick the 
 dust before its idols ; — read all this, and the feeling no 
 longer seems so worthy an one. See it in later days 
 idealizing the worst as well as the bestmonarchs; receiving 
 assassins with acclamation ; hurrahing before successful 
 treachery; rushing to applaud the processions and shows 
 and ceremonies wherewith effete power strengthens itself; 
 and it looks far from laudable. Autocracy presupposes 
 inferiority of nature on the part of both ruler and subject : 
 on the one side a cold, unsympathetic sacrificing of other's 
 wills to self-will; on the other side a mean, cowardly 
 abandonment of the claims of manhood. Our very language 
 
312 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD POK ? 
 
 bear3 testimony to tLis. Do not dignity^ independence, 
 and other words of approbation, imply a nature at variance 
 witli this relation ? Are not tyrannicaly arbitrary, despotic, 
 epithets of reproach ? and are not truckling, fawning, 
 cringing J epithets of contempt ? Is not slavish a condem- 
 natory term ? Does not servile, that is^ serf-like^ iiiiply 
 littlenessj meanness ? And has not the word villain, which 
 originally meant bondsman, come to signify everything 
 which is hateful ? That language should thus inadver- 
 tently embody dislike for those who most display the 
 instinct of subordination, is alone sufficient proof that this 
 instinct is associated with evil dispositions. It has been 
 the parent of countless crimes. It is answerable for the 
 torturing and murder of the noble-minded who "would not 
 submit — for the horrors of Bastiles and Siberias. It has 
 ever been the represser of knowledge, of free thought, of 
 true progress. In all times it has fostered the vices of 
 courts, and made those vices fashionable throughout 
 nations. With a George IV. on the throne, it weekly tells 
 ten thousand lies^ in the shape of prayers for a " most 
 religious and gracious king." Whether you read the 
 annals of the far past — whether you look at the various 
 uncivilized races dispersed over the globe — or whether 
 you contrast the existing nations of Europe; you equally 
 find that submission to authority decreases as morality and 
 intelligence increase. From ancient warrior-worship down 
 to modern flunkeyism, the sentiment has ever been strongest 
 where human nature has been vilest. 
 
 This relation between barbarism and loyalty, is one of 
 those beneficent arrangements which '^the servant and 
 interpreter of nature" everywhere meets with. The sub- 
 ordination of many to one, is a form of society needful for 
 men so long as their natures are savage, or anti-social ; 
 and that it may be maintained, it is needful that they 
 should have an extreme awe of the one. Just in proportion 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 313 
 
 as their conduct to one another is such as to breed 
 perpetual antagonism, endangering social union ; just in 
 that proportion must there be a reverence for the strong, 
 determined, cruel ruler, who alone can repress their 
 explosive natures and keep them from mutual destruction. 
 Among such a people any form of free government is an 
 impossibilitj. There must be a despotism as stern as the 
 people are savage ; and, that such a despotism may exist, 
 there must be a superstitious worship of the despot. But 
 as fast as the discipline of social life modifies character — • 
 as fast as, through lack of use, the old predatory instincts 
 dwindle — as fast as the sympathetic feelings grow ; so 
 fast does this hard rule become less necessary ; so fast 
 does the authority of the ruler diminish ; so fast does the 
 awe of him disappear. From being originally god, or 
 demi-god, he comes at length to be a very ordinary person; 
 liable to be criticized^ ridiculed, caricatured. Various 
 influences conspire to this result. Accumulating knowledge 
 gradually divests the ruler of those supernatural attributes 
 at first ascribed to him. The conceptions which developing 
 science gives of the grandeur of creation, as well as the 
 constancy and irresistibleness of its Omnipresent Cause, 
 make all feel the comparative littleness of human power; 
 and the awe once felt for the great man is, by degrees, 
 transferred to that Universe of which the great man is 
 seen to form but an insignificant part. Increase of 
 population, with its average per-centage of great men, 
 involves the comparative frequency of such ; and the more 
 numerous they are the less respect can be given to each : 
 they dwarf one another. As society becomes settled and 
 organized, its welfare and progress become more and more 
 independent of any one. In a primitive society the death 
 of a chief may alter the whole course of things ; but in a 
 society like oars, things go on much as before, no matter 
 who dies. Thus, many influences combine to diminish 
 autocratic power, whether political or other. It is true. 
 
314) EEPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 not only in the sense in which Tennyson writes it, but also 
 in a higher sense, that — 
 
 ..." the individual withers, and the -world is more and more." 
 Further, it is to be noted that while the unlimited 
 authority of the greatest man ceases to be needful ; and 
 while the superstitious awe which upholds that unlimited 
 authority decreases ; it at the same time becomes impos- 
 sible to get the greatest man to the top. In a rude social 
 state, where might is right, where war is the business of 
 life, where the qualities required in the ruler, alike for 
 controlling his subjects and defeating his enemies, are 
 bodily strength, courage, cunning, will, it is easy to pick 
 out the best ; or rather — he picks himself out. The 
 qualities which make him the fittest governor for the 
 barbarians around him, are the qualities by which he gets 
 the mastery over them. But in an advanced, complex, 
 and comparatively peaceful state like ours, these are not 
 the qualities needed ; and even were they needed, the 
 firmly-organized arrangements of society do not allow the 
 possessor of them to break through to the top. For the 
 rule of a settled, civilized community, the characteristics 
 required are^not a love of conquest but a desire for the 
 general happiness; not undying hate of enemies but a 
 calm dispassionate equity ; not artful manoeuvring but 
 philosophic insight. How is the man most endowed with 
 these to be found ? In no country is he ordinarily born 
 heir to the throne ; and that he can be chosen out of 
 thirty millions of people none will be foolish enough to 
 think. The incapacity for recognizing the greatest worth, 
 we have already seen illustrated in our parliamentary 
 elections. And if the few thousands forming a consti- 
 tuency cannot pick out from among themselves their 
 wisest man, still less can the millions forming a nation 
 doit. Just as fast as society becomes populous, complex, 
 peaceful ; so fast does the political supremacy of the best 
 become impossible. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 315 
 
 But even were the relation of autocrat and slave a 
 morally wholesome one; and even were it possible to find 
 tlie fittest man to be autocrat; we should still contend that 
 such a form of government is bad. We should not contend 
 this simply on the ground that self-government is a valuable 
 educator. But we should take the ground that no human 
 being, however wise and good, is fit to be sole ruler over 
 the doings of an involved society ; and that, with the beat 
 intentions, a benevolent despot is very likely to produce 
 the most terrible mischiefs which would else have been 
 impossible. We will take the case of all others the most 
 favourable to those who would give supreme power to the 
 best. We will instance Mr. Carlyle^s model hero — Crom- 
 well. Doubtless there was much in the manners of the 
 times when Puritanism arose, to justify its disgust. Doubt- 
 less the vices and follies bequeathed by efi'ete Catholicism 
 still struggling for existence, were bad enough to create a 
 reactionary asceticism. It is in the order of Nature, how- 
 ever, that men^s habits and pleasures are not to be changed 
 suddenly. For any permanent efi"ect to be produced it must 
 be produced slowly. Better tastes, higher aspirations, must 
 be developed ; not enforced from without. Disaster is 
 sure to result from the withdrawal of lower gratifications 
 before higher ones have taken their places ; for gratification 
 of some kind is a condition to healthful existence. 
 Whatever ascetic morality^ or rather immorality, may say, 
 pleasures and pains are the incentives and restraints by 
 which Nature keeps her progeny from destruction. No 
 contemptuous title of " pig-philosophy '^ will alter the 
 eternal fact that Misery is the highway to Death; while 
 Happiness is added Life and the giver of Life. But indig- 
 nant Puritanism could not see this truth; and with the 
 extravagance of fanaticism sought to abolish pleasure in 
 general. Getting into power, it put down not only ques- 
 tionable amusements but all others along with them. And 
 
316 REPRESENTATIVE QDVEENMENT — ^WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 
 
 for these repressions Cromwell, either as enacting, main- 
 taining, or allowing them, was responsible. What, now, 
 was the result of this attempt to dragoon men into virtue ? 
 What came when the strong man who thought he was thus 
 ''helping God to mend all," died? A dreadful reaction 
 brought in one of the most degraded periods of our history. 
 Into the newly-garnished house entered '' seven other spirits 
 more wicked than the first." For generations the English 
 character was lowered. Yice was gloried in, virtue was 
 ridiculed ; dramatists made marriage the stock-subject of 
 laughter ; profaneness and obscenity flourished ; high 
 aspirations ceased; the whole age was corrupt. Not until 
 G-eorge III. reigned was there a better standard of living. 
 And for this century of demoralization we have, in great 
 measure, to thank Cromwell. Is it, then, so clear that the 
 domination of one man, righteous though he may be, is 
 a blessing ? 
 
 Lastly, it is to be remarked that when the political 
 supremacy of the greatest no longer exists in an overt form, 
 it still continues in a disguised and more beneficent form. 
 For is it not manifest that in these latter days the wise man 
 eventually gets his edicts enforced by others, if not by him- 
 self. Adam Smith, from his chimney-corner, dictated 
 greater changes than prime ministers do. A General 
 Thompson who forges the weapons with which the Anti- 
 Coru-Law battle is fought — a Oobden and a Bright who add 
 to and wield them, forward civilization much more than 
 those who hold sceptres. Repugnant as the fact may be to 
 statesmen, it is yet one not to be gainsayed. Whoever, 
 to the great effects already produced by Free-trade, joins 
 the far greater effects which will be hereafter produced, 
 must see that the revolution initiated by these men is far 
 wider than has been initiated by any potentate of modern 
 times. As Mr. Carlyle very well knows, those who elab- 
 orate new truths and teach them to their fellows, are now- 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 317 
 
 a-days the real rulers — " the unacknowledged legislators *' 
 — the virtual kings. Thus we have the good which great 
 men can do us, while we are saved from the evil. 
 
 No ; the old regime has passed away. For ourselves at 
 least, the subordination of the many to the one has become 
 alike needless, repugnant, and impossible. Good for its 
 time, bad for ours, the ancient "^ hero-worship" is dead; 
 and happily no declamations, be they never so eloquent, 
 can revive it. 
 
 Here seem to be two irreconcileable positions — two 
 mutually "destructive arguments. First, a condemnatory 
 criticism on representative government, and then a still 
 more condemnatory criticism on monarchical government : 
 each apparently abolishing the other. 
 
 Nevertheless, the paradox is easily explicable. It is 
 quite possible to say all that we have said concerning the 
 defects of representative government, and still to hold that 
 it is the best form of government. Nay, it is quite possible 
 to derive a more profound conviction of its superiority from 
 the very evidence which appears so unfavourable to it. 
 
 For nothing that we have urged tells against its goodness 
 as a means of securing justice between man and man, or 
 class and class. Abundant evidence shows that the main- 
 tenance of equitable relations among its subjects, which 
 forms the essential business of a ruling power, is surest 
 when the ruling power is of popular origin ; notwithstand- 
 ing the defects to which such a ruling power is liable. For 
 discharging the true function of a government, representa- 
 tive government is shown to be the best, alike by its origin^ 
 its theory J and its results. Let us glance at the facts under 
 these three heads. 
 
 Alike in Spain, in England, and in France, popular 
 power embodied itself as a check upon kingly tyranny, 
 that is — kingly injustice. The earliest accounts we have of 
 the Spanish Cortes, say that it was their office to advise 
 
318 EEPEESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 
 
 the King ; and to follow their advice was his duty. They 
 petitioned, remonstrated, complained of grievances, and 
 supplicated for redress. The King, having acceded to 
 their requirements, swore to observe them ; and it was 
 agreed that any act of his in contravention of the statutes 
 thus established, should be ^^ respected as the King's 
 commands, bufc not executed, as contrary to the rights and 
 privileges of the subject." In all which we see very clearly 
 that the special aim of the Cortes was to get rectified the 
 injustices committed by the King or others; that the King 
 was in the habit of breaking the promises of amendment 
 he made to them ; and that they had to adopt measures to 
 enforce the fulfilment of his promises. In England we 
 trace analogous facts. The Barons who bridled the tyranny 
 of King John, though not formally appointed, were vir- 
 tually impromptu representatives of the nation ; and in 
 their demand that justice should neither be sold, denied, 
 nor delayed, we discern the social evils which led to this 
 taking of the power into their own hands. In early times 
 the knights and burgesses, summoned by the King with 
 the view of getting supplies from them, had for their 
 especial business to obtain from him the redress of griev- 
 ances, that is — ^the execution of justice ; and in their 
 eventually-obtained and occasionally-exercised power of 
 withholding supplies until justice was granted, we see both 
 the need there was for remedying the iniquities of autocracy, 
 and the adaptation of representative institutions to this 
 end. And the further development of popular power 
 latterly obtained, originated from the demand for fairer laws 
 — for less class-privilege, class-exemption, class-injustice: 
 a fact which the speeches of the Reform-Bill agitation 
 abundantly prove. In France, again, representative govern- 
 ment grew into a definite form under the stimulus of 
 unbearable oppression. When the accumulated extortion 
 of centuries had reduced the mass of the people to misery 
 — when millions of haggard faces were seen throughout th© 
 
REPRESENTATITE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 319 
 
 land — when starving complainants were hanged on '^ a 
 gallows forty feet high" — when the exactions and cruelties 
 of good-for-nothing kings and vampire-nobles had brought 
 the nation to the eve of dissolution ; there came, as a 
 remedy, an assembly of men elected by the people. 
 
 That, considered a priorij representative government is 
 fitted for establishing just laws, is implied by the unanimity 
 with which Spanish, English, and French availed themselves 
 of it to this end; as well as by the endeavours latterly made 
 by other European nations to do the like. The rationale of 
 the matter is simple enough. Manifestly, on the average of 
 cases, a man will protect his own interests more solicitously 
 than others will protect them for him. Manifestly^ where 
 regulations have to be made affecting the interests of 
 several men, they are most likely to be equitably made 
 when all those concerned are present, and have equal 
 shares in the making of them. And manifestly, where 
 those concerned are so numerous and so dispersed, that it 
 is physically impossible for them all to take part in the 
 framing of such regulations, the next best thing is for the 
 citizens in each locality to appoint one of their number to 
 speak for them, to care for their claims, to be their repre- 
 sentative. The general principle is that the welfare of all will 
 be most secure when each looks after his own welfare ; and 
 the principle is carried out as directly as the circumstances 
 permit. It is inferable, alike from human nature and from 
 history, that a single man cannot be trusted with the 
 interests of a nation of men, where his real or imagined 
 interests clash with theirs. It is similarly inferable from 
 human nature and from history, that no small section of a 
 nation^ as the nobles, can be expected to consult the welfare 
 of the people at large in preference to their own. And it 
 is further inferable that only in a general diffusion of 
 political power, is there a safeguard for the general 
 welfare. This has all along been the conviction under 
 which representative government has been advocated^ main- 
 
320 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT ^WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 tainedj and extended. From the early writs summoning tlie 
 members of tlie House of Commons — writs whicli declared it 
 to be a most equitable rule that the laws which concerned 
 all should be approved of by all — down to the reasons now 
 urged by the unenfranchised for a participation in political 
 power, this is the implied theory. Observe, nothing is said 
 about wisdom or administrative ability. From the begin- 
 ning, the end in view has been justice. Whether we 
 consider the question in the abstract, or whether we 
 esamine the opinions men have entertained upon it from 
 old times down to the present day, we equally see the 
 theory of representative government to be, that it is the 
 best means of insuring equitable social relations. 
 
 And do not the results justify the theory ? Did not our 
 early Parliaments, after long-continued struggles, succeed 
 in curbing the licentious exercise of royal power, and in 
 establishing the rights of the subject ? Are not the com- 
 parative security and justice enjoyed under our form of 
 government, indicated by the envy with which other 
 nations regard it ? Was not the election of the French 
 Constituent Assembly followed by the sweeping away of 
 the grievous burdens that weighed down the people — by 
 the abolition of tithes, seignorial dues, gabelle, excessive 
 preservation of game — by the withdrawal of numerous 
 feudal privileges and immunities — by the manumission of 
 the slaves in the French colonies ? And has not that 
 extension of our own electoral system embodied in the 
 Reform-Bill, brought about more equitable arrangements ? 
 — as witness the repeal of the Corn-Laws, and the equaliza- 
 tion of probate and legacy duties. The proofs are undeniable. 
 It is clear, both a priori and a posteriori, that representa- 
 tive government is especially adapted for the establishment 
 and maintenance of just laws. 
 
 And now mark that the objections to representative 
 government awhile since urged, scarcely tell against it at all, 
 so long as it does not exceed this comparatively limited 
 
REPKESENTATIVB GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOB? 321 
 
 function. Though its mediocrity of intellect makes it 
 incompetent to oversee and regulate the countless inA^olved 
 processes which make up the national life ; it nevertheless 
 has quite enough intellect to enact and enforce those simple 
 principles of equity which underKe the right conduct of 
 citizens to one another. These are such that the commonest 
 minds can understand their chief applications. Stupid as 
 may be the average elector, he can see the propriety of 
 such regulations as shall prevent men from murdering and 
 robbing; he can understand the fitness of laws which en- 
 force the payment of debts ; he can perceive the need of 
 measures to prevent the strong from tyrannizing over the 
 weak; and he can feel the rectitude of a judicial system that 
 is the same for rich and poor. The average representative 
 may be but of small capacity, but he is competent, under 
 the leadership of his wiser fellows, to devise appliances for 
 carrying out these necessary restraints; or rather — he is 
 competent to uphold the set of appliances slowly elaborated 
 by the many generations of his predecessors, and to do 
 something towards improving and extending them in those 
 directions where the need is most manifest. It is true that 
 even these small demands upon electoral and senatorial 
 wisdom are but imperfectly met. But though constitu- 
 encies are blind to the palpable truth that if they would 
 escape laws which favour the nobility at the expense of the 
 commonalty, they must cease to choose representatives 
 from among the nobility; yet when the injustice of this 
 class-legislation is glaring — as in the case of the Corn- 
 Laws — they have sense enough to use means for getting 
 it abolished. And though most legislators have not suffi- 
 cient penetration to perceive that the greater part of the 
 evils which they attempt to cure by official inspection and 
 regulation, would disappear were there a certain, prompt, 
 and cheap administration of justice ; yet the County-Courts- 
 Act and other recent law-reforms, show that they do 
 eventually recognize the importance of more efficient 
 
322 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 
 
 judicial arrangements. While^ therefore^ the lower average 
 of intelligence whicli necessarily characterizes representative 
 government, unfits it for discliargiug the complex business 
 of regulating the entire national life ; it does not unfit it for 
 discharging the comparatively simple duties of protector. 
 Again, in respect of this all-essential function of a govern- 
 ment, there is a much clearer identity of interest between 
 representative and citizen, than in respect of the multi- 
 tudinous other functions which governments undertake. 
 Though it is generally of but little consequence to the mem- 
 ber of Parliament whether state-teachers, state-preachers, 
 state-officers of health, state-dispensers of charity, etc., do 
 their work well, it is of great consequence to him that life 
 and property should be secure ; and hence he is more likely 
 to care for the efficient administration of justice than for 
 the efficient administration of anything else. Moreover, the 
 complexity, incongruity of parts, and general cumbrousness 
 which deprive a representative government of that activity 
 and decision required for paternally-superintending the 
 affairs of thirty millions of citizens; do not deprive it of the 
 ability to establish and maintain the regulations by which 
 these citizens are prevented from trespassing against one 
 another. For the principles of equity are permanent as well 
 as simple; and once having been legally embodied in their 
 chief outlines, all that devolves on a government is to develop 
 them more perfectly, and improve the appliances for enforc- 
 ing them ; an undertaking for which the slow and involved 
 action of a representative government does not unfit it. So 
 that while by its origin^ theory, and results, representative 
 government is shown to be the best for securing justice 
 between class and class, as well as between man and man, 
 the objections which so strongly tell against it in all its 
 other relations to society, do not tell against it in this 
 fundamental relation. 
 
 Thus, then, we reach the solution of the paradox. Here is 
 the reconciliation between the two seemingly-contradictory 
 
EEPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR ? 323 
 
 positions awhile since taken. To the question — What is 
 representative government good for? our reply is — It is 
 good, especially good, good above all others, for doing the 
 thing which a government should do. It is bad, especially 
 bad, bad above all others, for doing the things which a 
 government should not do. 
 
 One point remains. We said, some distance back, that 
 not only may representative government be the best, not- 
 withstanding its many conspicuous deficiencies ; but that it is 
 even possible to discern in these very deficiencies further 
 proofs of its superiority. The conclusion just arrived at, 
 implying, as it does, that these deficiencies tend to hinder it 
 from doing the things which no government should do, has 
 already furnished a key to this strange-looking assertion. 
 But it will be well here to make a more specific justification 
 of it. This brings us to the pure science of the matter. 
 
 The ever-increasing complexity which characterizes ad- 
 vancing societies, is a complexity that results from the 
 multiplication of different parts performing different duties. 
 The doctrine of the division of labour is now-a-days under- 
 stood by most to some extent ; and most know that by 
 this division of labour each operative, each manufacturer, 
 each town, each district, is constantly more and more 
 restricted to one kind of work. Those who study the 
 organization of living bodies find the uniform process 
 of development to be, that each organ gradually acquires a 
 definite and limited function : there arises, step by step, 
 a more perfect '' physiological division of labour.^' And 
 in an article on " Progress : its Law and Cause,^' published 
 in our April number, we pointed out that this increasing 
 specialization of functions which goes on in all organized 
 bodies, social as well as individual, is one of the manifes- 
 tations of a still more general process pervading creation, 
 inorganic as well as organic. 
 
 Now this specialization of functions, which is the law of 
 
324 ItEPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOE ? 
 
 all organization^ lias a twofold implication. At tlie same 
 time that each part grows adapted to the particular duty 
 it has to discharge, it grows unadapted to all other duties. 
 The becoming especially fit for one things is a becoming 
 less fit than before for everything else. We have not 
 space here to exemplify this truth. Any modern work 
 on physiology^ however^ will furnish the reader with 
 abundant illustrations of it, as exhibited in the evolution 
 of living creatures ; and as exhibited in the evolution of 
 societies^ it may be studied in the writings of political 
 economists. All which we wish here to point out is, that 
 the governmental part of the body politic exemplifies this 
 truth equally with its other parts. In virtue of this 
 universal law, a government cannot gain ability to perform 
 its special work without losing such ability as it had to 
 perform other work. 
 
 This then is, as we say, the pure science of the matter. 
 The original and essential office of a government is that of 
 protecting its subjects against aggression external and 
 internal. In low, undeveloped forms of society, where 
 yet there is but little differentiation of parts, and little 
 specialization of functions, this essential work, discharged 
 with extreme imperfection, is joined with endless other 
 work : the government has a controlling action over all 
 conduct, individual and social — regulates dress, food, 
 ablutions, prices, trade, religion — exercises unbounded 
 power. In becoming so constituted as to discharge better 
 its essential function, the government becomes more limited 
 alike in the power and the habit of doing other things. 
 Increasing ability to perform its true duty, involves 
 decreasing ability to perform all other kinds of actions. 
 And this conclusion, deducible from the universal law of 
 organization, is the conclusion to which inductive reasoning 
 has already led us. We have seen that, whether considered 
 in theory or practice, representative government is the 
 best for securing justice. We have also seen that, whether 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT — WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? 325 
 
 considered in theory or practice, it is the worst for all 
 other purposes. And here we find that this last charac- 
 teristic is a necessary accompaniment of the first. These 
 various incapacities, which seem to tell so seriously against 
 the goodness of representative government, are but the 
 inevitable consequences of its more complete adaptation 
 to its proper work ; and, so understood, are themselves 
 indications that it is the form of government natural to a 
 more highly-organized and advanced social state. 
 
 We do not expect tliis consideration to weigh, much 
 with those whom it most concerns. Truths of so abstract 
 a character find no favour with, senates. The metamor- 
 phosis we have described is not mentioned in Ovid, 
 History, as at present written, makes no comments on it. 
 There is nothing about it to be found in blue-books and 
 committee-reports. Neither is ib proved by statistics. 
 Evidently, then, it has but small chance of recognition by 
 the *^ practical" legislator. But to the select few who 
 study the Social Science, properly so called, we commend 
 this general fact as one of the highest significance. Those 
 who know something of the general laws of life, and who 
 perceive that these general laws of life underlie all social 
 phenomena, will see that this dual change in the character 
 of advanced governments, involves an answer to the first 
 of all political questions. They will see that this speciali- 
 zation in virtue of which an advanced government gains 
 power to perform one function, while it loses power to 
 perform others, clearly indicates the true limitations of 
 State-duty. They will see that, even leaving out all other 
 evidence, this fact alone shows conclusively what is the 
 proper sphei'e of legislation. 
 
STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 
 {_First published in The Westminster Review for January 1858.] 
 
 Among unmitigated rogues, mutual trust is impossible. 
 Among people of absolute integrity, mutual trust would be 
 unlimited. These are truisms. Given a nation made up of 
 liars and thieves, and all trade among its members must be 
 carried on either by barter or by a currency of intrinsic value : 
 nothing in the shape of pro7nises-to~'pB,j can pass in place of 
 actual payments ; for, by the hypothesis, such promises 
 being never fulfilled, will not be taken. On the other 
 hand, given a nation of perfectly honest men — men as 
 careful of others^ rights as of their own — and nearly all 
 trade among its members may be carried on by memoranda 
 of debts and claims, eventually written off against one 
 another in the books of bankers ; seeing that as, by the 
 hypothesis, no man will ever issue more memoranda of 
 debts than his goods and his claims will liquidate, his 
 paper will pass current for whatever it represents. Coin 
 will be needed only as a measure of value, and to facilitate 
 those small transactions for which it is physically the most 
 convenient. These we take to be self-evident truths. 
 
 From them follows the corollary that in a nation neither 
 wholly honest nor wholly dishonest, there may, and event- 
 ually will, be established a mixed currency — a currency 
 
STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 327 
 
 partly of intrinsic value and partly of credit-value. Tlie 
 ratio between the quantities of these two kinds of currency, 
 will be determined by a combination of several causes. 
 
 Supposing that there is no legislative meddling to disturb 
 the natural balance^ it is clear from what has already been 
 said, that, fundamentally, the proportion of coin to paper 
 will depend on the average conscientiousness of the people. 
 Daily experience must ever be teaching each citizen, which 
 other citizens he can put confidence in, and which not. 
 Daily experience must also ever be teaching him how far 
 this confidence may be carried. From personal experiment, 
 and from current opinion, which results from the experiments 
 of others, every one must learn, more or less truly, what credit 
 may safely be given. If all find that their neighbours are 
 little to be trusted, but few promises-to-pay will circulate. 
 And the circulation of promises-to-pay will be great, if all 
 find that the fulfilment of trading engagements is tolerably 
 certain. The degree oi honesty characterizing a community, 
 being the first regulator of a credit-currency ; the second is 
 the degree of prudence. Other things equal, it is manifest 
 that among a sanguine, speculative people, promissory 
 payments will be taken more readily, and will therefore 
 circulate more largely, than among a cautious people. Two 
 men having exactly the same experiences of mercantile 
 risks will, under the same circumstances, respectively give 
 credit and refuse it, if they are respectively rash and 
 circumspect. And two nations thus contrasted in prudence, 
 will be similarly contrasted in the relative quantities of 
 notes and bills in circulation among them. Nay, they will 
 be more than similarly contrasted in this respect; seeing 
 that the prevailing incautiousness, besides making each 
 citizen unduly ready to give credit, will also produce in him 
 an undue readiness to risk his own capital in speculations, 
 and a consequent undue demand for credit; from other 
 citizens. There will be both an increased pressure for 
 credit and a diminished resistance ; and therefore a more 
 
328 STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 
 
 than proportionate excess of paper-currency. Of tliis 
 national cliaracteristic and its consequences^ we have a 
 conspicuous example in the United States. 
 
 To these comparatively permanent moral canseSj on which 
 the ordinary ratio of hypothetical to real money in a com- 
 munity depends, have to be added certain temporary moral 
 and physical causes, which produce temporary variations in 
 the ratio. The prudence of any people is liable to more or 
 less fluctuation. In railway-manias and the like, we see 
 that irrational expectations may spread through a wh.ole 
 nation, and lead its members to give and take credit almost 
 recklessly. But the chief causes of temporary variations are 
 those which directly affect the quantity of available capital. 
 Wars, deficient harvests, or losses consequent on the mis- 
 fortunes of other nations, Tvill^ by impoverishing the 
 community, inevitably lead to an increase in the ratio of 
 promissory payments to actual payments. For what must be 
 done by the citizen disabled by such causes from meeting his 
 engagements ? — the shopkeeper whose custom has fallen off 
 in consequence of the high price of bread; or the manu- 
 facturer whose goods lie in his ware-rooms unsaleable ; or 
 the merchant whose foreign correspondents fail him ? As 
 the proceeds of his business do not suffice to liquidate the 
 claims on him that are falling due, he is compelled either to 
 find other means of liquidating them, or to stop payment. 
 Rather than stop pa3mient, he will, of course, make 
 temporary sacrifices — will give high terms to whoever will 
 furnish him with the desired means. If, by depositing 
 securities with his banker, he can get a loan at an advanced 
 rate of interest, well. If not, by offering an adequate 
 temptation, he may mortgage his property to some one 
 having good credit ; who either gives bills, or draws on his 
 banker for the sum agreed to. In either case, extra 
 promises to pay are issued ; or, if the difiiculty is met by 
 accommodation-bills, the same result follows. And in pro- 
 portion to the number of citizens obliged to resort to ono 
 
BTATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 32Q 
 
 or otlier of these expedients, must be tlie increase of 
 pi'omissory payments in circulation. 
 
 Reduce tliis proposition to its most general terms, and 
 it becomes self-evident. Thus : — All bank-notes, cheques, 
 bills of exchange, etc., are so many mevioranda of claivis. 
 No matter what may be the technical distinctions among 
 them, on which upholders of the '^currency principle ^^ seek 
 to establish their dogma, they all come within this defini- 
 tion. Under the ordinary state of things, the amount of 
 available wealth in the hands, or at the command, of those 
 concerned, sufi&ces to meet these claims as they are severally 
 presented for payment; and they are paid either by equiva- 
 lents of intrinsic value, as coin, or by giving in place of 
 them other memoranda of claims on some body of undoubted 
 solvency. But now let the amount of available wealth in 
 the hands of the community be greatly diminished. Suppose 
 a large portion of the necessaries of life, or of coin, which 
 is the most exchangeable equivalent of such necessaries, 
 has been sent abroad to support an army, or to subsidize 
 foreign states ; or, suppose that there has been a failure in 
 the crops of grain or potatoes. What follows ? It follows 
 that part of the claims cannot be liquidated. And what 
 must happen from their non-liquidation ? It must happen 
 that those unable to liquidate them will either fail, or they 
 will redeem them by directly or indirectly giving in ex- 
 change certain memoranda of claims on their stock-in-trade, 
 houses, or land„ That is, such of these claims as the 
 deficient floating capital does not suffice to meet, are re- 
 placed by claims on fixed capital. The memoranda of 
 claims which should have cZisappeared by liquidation, ?*e- 
 appear in a new form; and the quantity of paper-currency 
 is increased. If the war, famine, or other cause of impover- 
 ishment, continues, the process is repeated. Those who 
 have no further fixed capital to mortgage, become bank- 
 rupt; while those whose fixed capital admits of it, mortgage 
 Btill further, and still further increase the promissory pay- 
 
330 STATE-TAMPE RINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 
 
 ments in circulation. Manifestly,, if the members of a 
 community whose annual returns but little more than suffice 
 to meet their annual payments suddenly lose part of their 
 annual returns, they must become proportionately in debt 
 to one another ; and the documents expressive of debt must 
 be proportionately multiplied. 
 
 This a 'priori conclusion is in perfect harmony with mer- 
 cantile experience. The last hundred years have furnished 
 repeated illustrations of its truth. After the enormous 
 export of gold in 1795-6 for war-loans to Germany, and to 
 meet bills drawn on the Treasury by British agents abroad; 
 and after large advances made under a moral compulsion 
 by the Bank of England to the Government ; there followed 
 an excessive issue of bank-notes. In 1796-7, there wero 
 failures of the provincial banks ; a panic in London ; a run 
 on the nearly-exhausted Bank of England ; and a suspen- 
 sion of cash-payments — a State-authorized refusal to redeem 
 promises to pay. In 1800, the further impoverishment 
 consequent on a bad harvest, joined with the legalized 
 inconvertibility of bank-notes, entailed so great a multipli- 
 cation of them as to cause their depreciation. During the 
 temporary peace of 1802, the country partly recovered 
 itself; and the Bank of England would have liquidated 
 the claims on it had the Government allowed. On the 
 subsequent resumption of war, the phenomenon was re- 
 peated; as in later times it has been on each occasion when 
 the community, carried away by irrational hopes, has locked 
 up an undue proportion of its capital in permanent works. 
 Moreover, we have still more conclusive illustrations — 
 illustrations of the sudden cessation of commercial distress 
 and bankruptcy, resulting from a sudden increase of credit- 
 circulation. When, in 1793, there came a general crash, 
 mainly due to an unsafe banking-system which had grown 
 up in the provinces in consequence of the Bank of Enoiaud 
 monopoly — when the pressure, extending to London, be- 
 came so great as to alarm the Bank-directors and to cause 
 
STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 331 
 
 them suddenly to restrict tlieir issues, thereby producing a 
 frightful multiplication of bankruptcies; the Government 
 (to mitigate an evil indirectly produced by legislation) 
 determined to issue Exchequer- Bills to such as could give 
 adequate security. That is, they allowed hard-pressed 
 citizens to mortgage their fixed capitals for equivalents of 
 State-promises to pay, with which to liquidate the demands 
 on them. The effect was magical. £2,202,000 only of 
 Exchequer-Bills were required. The consciousness that 
 loans could be had, in many cases prevented them from 
 being needed. The panic quickly subsided; and all the 
 loans were very soon repaid. In 1825, again, when the 
 Bank of England, after havingintensified a panic by extreme 
 restriction of its issues, suddenly changed its policy, and in 
 four days advanced £5,000,000 nofees on all sorts of securities, 
 the panic at ouce ceased. 
 
 And now, mark two important truths. As just implied, 
 those expansions of paper-circulation which naturally take 
 place in times of impoverishment or commercial difficulty, 
 are highly salutary. This issuing of securities for future 
 payment when there does not exist the wherewith for 
 immediate payment, is a means of mitigating national 
 disasters. The process amounts to a postponement of 
 trading-engagements which cannot at once be met. And the 
 alternative questions to be asked respecting it are — Shall 
 all the merchants, manufacturers, shopkeepers, etc., who, 
 by unwise investments, or war, or famine, or great losses 
 abroad, have been in part deprived of the means of meeting 
 the claims upon them, be allowed to mortgage their fixed 
 capital ? or, by being debarred from issuing memoranda of 
 claims on their fixed capital, shall they be made bankrupts? 
 On the one hand, if they are permitted to avail themselves 
 of that credit which their fellow-citizens willingly give 
 them on the strength of the proffered securities, most of 
 them will tide over their difficulties ; and in virtue of that 
 
 accumulation of surplus capital ever going on, they will be 
 
 50 
 
332 STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 
 
 able; by-and-by, to liquidate their debts in full. On the 
 other hand, if they are forthwith bankrupted, carrying 
 with them others, and these again others, there follows a 
 disastrous loss to all the creditors : property to an immense 
 amount being peremptorily sold at a time when there can be 
 comparatively few able to buy, must go at a great sacrifice ; 
 and those who in a year or two would have been paid in 
 full, must be content with 10s. in the pound. Added to 
 which evil comes the still greater one — an extensive damage 
 to the organization of society. Numerous importing, pro- 
 ducing, and distributing establishments are swept away ; 
 tens of thousands of their dependents are left without 
 work ; and before the industrial fabric can be repaired, a 
 long time must elapse, much labour must lie idle, and great 
 distress be borne. Between these alternatives, who, then, 
 can pause ? Let this spontaneous remedial process follow 
 its own course, and the evil will either be in great measure 
 eventually escaped, or will be spread little by little over a 
 considerable period. Stop this remedial process, and the 
 whole evil, falling at once on society, will bring wide-spread 
 ruin and misery. 
 
 The second of these important truths is, that an expanded 
 circulation of promises to pay, caused by absolute or 
 relative impoverishment, contracts to its normal limits as 
 fast as the need for expansion disappears. For the con- 
 ditions of the case imply that all who have mortgaged their 
 fixed capitals to obtain the means of meeting their engage- 
 ments, have done so on unfavourable terms; and are 
 therefore under a strong stimulus to pay off their mortgages 
 as quickly as possible. Every one who, at a time of com- 
 mercial pressure, gets a loan from a bank, has to give high- 
 interest. Hence, as fast as prosperity returns, and his 
 profits accumulate, he gladly escapes this heavy tax by 
 repaying the loan; in doing which he, directly or indirectly, 
 takes back to the bank as large a number of its credit 
 documents as he originally received, and so diminishes the 
 
STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKa. 333 
 
 credit-circulation as much as his original transaction had 
 increased it. Considered apart from technical distinctions, 
 a banker performs, in such case, the function of an agent 
 in whose name traders issue negotiable memoranda of claims 
 on their estates. The agent is already known to the pubhc 
 as one who issues memoranda of claims on capital that is 
 partly floating and partly fixed — memoranda of claims that 
 have an established character, and are convenient in their 
 amounts. What the agent does under the circumstances 
 specified, is to issue more such memoranda of claims, on the 
 security of more fixed, and partially-fixed, capital put in his 
 possession. His clients hypothecate their estates through 
 the banker, instead of doing it in their own names, simply 
 because of the facilities which he has and which they have 
 not. And as the banker requires to be paid for his agency 
 and his risk, his clients redeem their estates, and close these 
 special transactions with him, as quickly as they can : thereby 
 diminishing the amount of credit-currency. 
 
 Thus we see that the balance of a mixed currency of 
 voluntary origin is, under all circumstances, self-adjusting. 
 Supposing considerations of physical convenience out of the 
 question, the average ratio of paper to coin is primarily 
 dependent on the average trustworthiness of the people, 
 and secondarily dependent on their average prudence. 
 When, in consequence of unusual prosperity, there is an 
 unusual increase in the number of mercantile transactions, 
 there is a corresponding increase in the quantity of currency, 
 both metallic and paper, to meet the requirement. And 
 when from war, famine, or over-investment, the available 
 wealth in the hands of citizens is insuflScient to pay 
 their debts to one another, the memoranda of debts in 
 circulation acquire an increased ratio to the quantity of 
 gold : to decrease again as fast as the excess of debts can 
 be liquidated. 
 
 That these self-regulating processes act but imperfectly, 
 is doubtless true. With an imperfect humanity^ they cannot 
 
334 STATE-TAMPEETNGS WITH MOXEY AND BANKS. 
 
 act otherwise than imperfectly. People who ai-e dishonest, 
 or rash, or stupid, will inevitably suffer the penalties of dis- 
 honesty, or rashness, or stupidity. If any think that by 
 some patent legislative mechanism, a society of bad citizens 
 can be made to work together as well as a society of good 
 ones, we shall not take pains to show them the contrary. 
 If any think that the dealings of men deficient in upright- 
 ness and foresight, may be so regulated by cunningly- 
 devised Acts of Parliament as to secure the effects of 
 uprightness and foresight, we have nothing to say to them. 
 Or if there are any (and we fear there are numbers) who 
 think that in times of commercial difficulty, resulting from 
 impoverishment or other natural causes, the evil can be 
 staved-off by some ministerial sleight of hand, we despair 
 of convincing them that the thing is impossible. See it or 
 not, the truth is that the State can do none of these things. 
 As we shall show, the State can, and sometimes does, pro- 
 duce commercial disasters. As we shall also show, it can, 
 and sometimes does, exacerbate the commercial disasters 
 otherwise produced. But while it can create and can make 
 worse, it cannot prevent. 
 
 All which the State has to do in the matter is to discharge 
 its ordinary office — to administer justice. The enforcement 
 of contracts is one of the functions included in its general 
 function of maintaining the rights of citizens. And among 
 other contracts which it is called on to enforce, are the 
 contracts expressed in credit-documents — bills of exchange, 
 cheques, bank-notes. If any one issues a promise-to-pay, 
 either on demand or at specified date, and does not fulfil 
 that promise, the State, when appealed to by the creditor, 
 is bound in its protective capacity to obtain fulfilment of 
 the promise, at whatever cost to the debtor, or such partial 
 fulfilment of it as his effects suffice for. The State's duty 
 in the case of the currency, as in other cases, is sternly to 
 threaten the penalty of bankruptcy on all who make engage- 
 ments which they cannot meet, and sternly to inflict the 
 
STATE-TAMPE RINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 335 
 
 penalty when called on by those aggrieyed. If it falls short 
 of this^ mischief ensues. If it exceeds this, mischief ensues. 
 Let us glance at the facts. 
 
 Had we space to trace in detail the history of the Bank of 
 England — to show how the privileges contained in its first 
 charter were bribes given by a distressed Government in 
 want of a large loan — how^ soon afterwards, the law which 
 forbad a partnership of more than six persons from becoming 
 bankers_, was passed to prevent the issue of notes by the 
 South-Sea Company^ and so to preserve the Bank-monopoly 
 —how the continuance of State-favours to the Bank, corre- 
 sponded with the continuance of the Bank^s claims on the 
 State ; we should see that^ from the first, banking-legislation 
 has been an organized injustice. But passing over earlier 
 periods, let us begin with the events that closed the last 
 century. Our rulers of that day had entered into a war — 
 whether with adequate reason needs not here be discussed. 
 They had lent vast sums in gold to their allies. They bad 
 demanded large advances from the Bank of England, which 
 the Bank durst not refuse. They had thus necessitated an 
 excessive issue of notes by the Bank. That is, they had so 
 greatly diminished the floating capital of the community, 
 that engagements could not be met ; and an immense 
 number of promises-to-pay took the place of actual pay- 
 ments. Soon after, the fulfilment of these promises became 
 so difficult that it was forbidden by law ; that is, cash- 
 payments were suspended. Now for these results — for the 
 national impoverishment and consequent abnormal condition 
 of the currency, the State was responsible. How much of 
 the blame lay with the governing classes and how much 
 with the nation at large, we do not pretend to say. What 
 it concerns us here to note is, that the calamity arose from 
 the acts of the ruling power. When, again, in 1802, after 
 a short peace, the available capital of the community had so 
 far increased that the redemption of promises-to-pay became 
 
336 STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AVD BANKS. 
 
 possible^ and the Bank of England was anxious to begin 
 redeeming thenij the legislature interposed its veto ; and so 
 continued the evils of an inconvertible paper-currency after 
 they would naturally have ceased. Still more disastrous, 
 however, were the results that by-and-by ensued from State- 
 meddlings, Cash-payments having been suspended — the 
 Government^ instead of enforcing all contracts, having tem- 
 porarily cancelled a great part of them, by saying to every 
 banker^ ^^ You shall not be called on to liquidate in coin the 
 promises-to-pay which you issue;" the natural checks to 
 the multiplication of promises-to-pay, disappeared. What 
 followed ? Banks being no longer required to cash their 
 notes in coin; and easily obtaining from the Bank of Eng- 
 land, supplies of its notes in exchange for fixed securities; 
 were ready to make advances to almost any extent. Not 
 being obliged to raise their rate of discount in consequence 
 of the diminution of their available capital ; and reaping a 
 profit by every loan (of notes) made on fixed capital ; there 
 arose both an abnormal facility of borrowing, and an ab- 
 normal desire to lend. Thus were fostered the wild specu- 
 lations of 1809 — speculations that were not only thus 
 fostered, but were in great measure caused by the previous 
 over-issue of notes; which, by further exaggerating the 
 natural rise of prices, increased the apparent profitable- 
 ness of investments. And all this, be it remembered, took 
 place at a time when there should have been rigid economy 
 — at a time of impoverishment consequent on continued 
 war — at a time when, but for law -produced illusions, there 
 would have been commercial straitness and a corresponding 
 carefulness. Just when its indebtedness was unusually 
 great, the community was induced still further to increase 
 its indebtedness. Clearly, then, the progressive accumula- 
 tion and depreciation of promises-to-pay, and the com- 
 mercial disasters which finally resulted from it in 1814- 
 15-16, when ninety provincial banks were broken and 
 more dissolved, were State-produced evils : partly due to 
 
STATE-TAMPE RINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 337 
 
 a war which, whether necessary or not, was carried on by 
 the Government, and greatly exacerbated by the currency- 
 regulations which that Government had made. 
 
 Before passing to more recent facts, let us parentheti- 
 cally notice the similarly-caused degradation of the 
 currency which had previously arisen in Ireland. When 
 examined by a parliamentary committee in 1804, Mr. 
 Colville, one of the directors of the Bank of Ireland, stated 
 that before the passing of the Irish Bank-Restriction-Bill 
 (the bill by which cash-payments were suspended) the 
 directors habitually met any unusual demand for gold by 
 diminishing their issues. That is to say, in the ordinary 
 course of business, they raised their rate of discount when- 
 ever the demand enabled them; and so, both increased 
 their profits and warded-off the danger of bankruptcy. 
 During this unregulated period their note-circulation was 
 between £600,000 and £700,000. But as soon as they 
 were guaranteed by law against the danger of bankruptcy, 
 their circulation began rapidly to increase ; and very soon 
 reached £3,000,000. The results, as proved before the 
 committee, were these : — The exchange with England 
 became greatly depressed; nearly all the good specie was 
 exported to England; it was replaced in Dublin (where 
 small notes could not be issued) by a base coinage, 
 adulterated to the extent of fifty per cent. ; and elsewhere 
 it was replaced by notes payable at twenty-one days' date, 
 issued by all sorts of persons, for sums down even as low- 
 as sixpence. And this excessive multiplication of small 
 notes was necessitated by the impossibility of otherwise 
 carrying on retail trade, after the disappearance of the 
 silver coinage. For these disastrous effects, then, legis- 
 lation was responsible. The swarms of " silver-notes ^' 
 resulted from the exportation of silver ; the exportation of 
 silver was due to the great depression of the exchange 
 with England; this great depression arose from the 
 excessive issue of notes by the Bank of Ireland ; and this 
 
338 State-tampepjngs with money and banks. 
 
 excessive issue followed from tbeir legalized inconverti- 
 bility. Tefc^ though these facts were long ago established 
 by a cotnmittee of the House of Commons, the defenders 
 of the "currency-principle" are actually blind enough to 
 cite this multiphcation of sixpenny promises-to-pay, as 
 provivg the evils of an unregulated currency ! 
 
 Returning now to the case of the Bank of England^ let 
 us pass at once to the Act of 18-i4. While still a pro- 
 tectionist — while still a believer in the beneficence of law 
 as a controller of commerce — Sir Robert Peel undertook to 
 stop the recurrence of monetary crises, like those of 1825, 
 1836, and 1839. Overlooking the truth that, when not 
 caused by the meddlings of legislators, a monetary crisis is 
 due, either to an absolute impoverishment, or to a relative 
 impoverishment consequent on speculative over-investment; 
 and that for the bad season, or the imprudence, causing 
 this^ there is no remedy ; he boldly proclaimed that " it is 
 better to prevent the paroxysm than to excite it:'* and he 
 brought forward the Bank-Act of 1844 as the means of 
 prevention. How merciless has been Nature^s criticism on 
 this remnant of Protectionism, we all know. The monetary 
 sliding-scale has been as great a failure as its prototype. 
 Within three years arose one of these crises which were to 
 have been prevented. Within another ten years has arisen 
 a second of these crises. And on both occasions this 
 intended safeguard has so intensified the evil, that a 
 temporary repeal of it has been imperative. 
 
 We should have thought that, even without facts, 
 every one might have seen that it is impossible, by Act of 
 Parliament, to prevent imprudent people from doing im- 
 prudent things; and, if facts were needed, we should have 
 thought that our commercial history up to 1844 supplied a 
 sufficiency. But a superstitious faith in State-ordinances dis- 
 regards such facts. And we doubt not that even now, thous^h 
 there have been two glaring failures of this professed check 
 on over-speculation — though the evidence conclusively 
 
STATE-TAMPERINQS WITH MONEY AND BANES. 339 
 
 shows that the late commercial catastrophes have had 
 nothing whatever to do with the issue of bank-notes^ but, 
 as in the case of the Western Bank of Scotland, occurred 
 along with diminished issues — and though in Hamburg, 
 where the "currency principle'^ has been rigidly carried 
 out to the very letter, there has been a worse crisis than 
 anywhere else ; yet there will remain plenty of believers in 
 the efficiency of Sir R. Peel's prophylactic. 
 
 But, as already said, the measure has not only failed ; it 
 has made worse the panics it was to have warded-off. 
 And it was sure to do this. As shown at the outset, the 
 multiplication of promises-to-pay that occurs at a period of 
 impoverishment caused by war, famine, over-investment, or 
 losses abroad, is a salutary process of mitigation — is a 
 mode of postponing actual payments till actual payments 
 are possible — is a preventive of wholesale bankruptcy — is 
 a spontaneous act of self-preservation. We pointed out, 
 not only that this is an a priori conclusion, but that facts 
 in our own mercantile history illustrate at once the natural- 
 ness, the benefits, the necessity of it. And if this conclusion 
 needs enforcing by further evidence, we have it in the recent 
 events at Hamburg. In that city, there are no notes in 
 circulation but such as are represented by actual equivalents 
 of bullion or jewels in the bank : no one is allowed, as with 
 us, to obtain bank-promises-to-pay in return for securities. 
 Hence it resulted that when the Hamburg merchants, 
 lacking their remittances from abroad, were suddenly 
 deprived of the wherewith to meet their engagements; and 
 were prevented by law from getting bank-promises-to-pay 
 by pawning their estates ; bankruptcy swept them away 
 wholesale. And what finally happened ? To prevent 
 universal ruin, the Government was obliged to decree that 
 all bills of exchange coming due, should have a month's 
 grace; and that there should be immediately formed a 
 State-Discount-Bank — an office for issuing State-promises- 
 to-pay in return for securities. That is, having first by its 
 
340 STATE-TAMPERIJ^GS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 
 
 restrictive law ruined a host of mercliants, the Government 
 was obliged to legalize that postponement of payments 
 which, but for its law, would have spontaneously taken 
 place. With such further confirmation of an a priori 
 conclusion, can it be doubted that our late commercial 
 difficulties were intensified by the measure of 1844 ? Is it 
 not, indeed, notorious in the City, that the progressively- 
 increasing demand for accommodation, was in great part 
 due to the conviction that, in consequence of the Bank- Act, 
 there would shortly be no accommodation at all ? Does not 
 every London merchant know that his neighbours who had 
 bills coming due, and who saw that by the time they were 
 due the Bank would discount only at still higher rates, 
 or not at all, decided to lay in beforehand the means of 
 meeting those bills ? Is it not an established fact that the 
 hoarding thus induced, not only rendered the pressure on 
 the Bank greater than it would otherwise have been, but, 
 by taking both gold and notes out of circulation, made the 
 Bank^s issues temporarily useless to the general public ? 
 Did it not happen in this case, as in 1793 and 1825, that 
 when at last restriction was removed, the mere conscious- 
 ness that loans could be had, itself prevented them from 
 being required ? And, indeed, is not the simple fact that 
 the panic quickly subsided when the Act was suspended, 
 sufficient proof that the Act had, in great measure, 
 produced it. 
 
 See, then, for what we have to thank legislative meddling. 
 During ordinary times Sir R. Peel's Act, by obliging the 
 Bank of England, and occasionally provincial banks, to 
 keep more gold than they would otherwise have kept (and 
 if it has not done this it has done nothing), has inflicted a 
 tax on the nation to the extent of the interest on such 
 portion of the gold-currency as was in excess of the need: 
 a tax which, in the course of the last thirteen years, has 
 probably amounted to some millions. And then, on the two 
 occasions when there have arisen the crises that were to 
 
STATE-TAMFE RINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS, 341 
 
 hare been prevented, the Act^ after having intensified the 
 pressure, made bankrupt a great number of respectable 
 firms which would else have stood, and increased the 
 distress not only of the trading but of the working popula- 
 tion, has been twice abandoned at the moment when its 
 beneficence was to have been conspicuous. It has been 
 a cost, a mischief, and a failure. Yet such is the 
 prevailing delusion that, judging from appearances, it will 
 be maintained ! 
 
 **^But," ask our opponents, ''^ shall the Bank be allowed 
 to let gold drain out of the country without check? Shall 
 it have permission to let its reserve of gold diminish so 
 greatly as to risk the convertibility of its notes ? Shall it 
 be enabled recklessly to increase its issues, and so produce 
 a depreciated paper-currency?^^ 
 
 Really, in these Free-trade days, it seems strange to have 
 to answer questions like these; and, were it not for the con- 
 fusion of facts and ideas which legislation has produced, it 
 would be inexcusable to ask them. 
 
 In the first place, the common notion that the draining of 
 gold out of the country is intrinsically, and in all cases, an 
 evil, is nothing but a political superstition — a superstition in 
 part descended from the antique fallacy that money is the 
 only wealth, and in part from the maxims of an artificial, 
 law-produced state of things, under which the exportation of 
 gold really was a sign of a corrupted currency : we mean, 
 during the suspension of cash-payments. Law having can- 
 celled millions of contracts which it was its duty to enforce 
 — law having absolved bankers from liquidating their 
 promises-to-pay in coin, having rendered it needless to keep 
 a stock of coin with which to liquidate them, and having 
 thus taken away that natural check which prevents the 
 over-issue and depreciation of notes — law having partly 
 suspended that home demand for gold which ordinarily 
 competes with and balances the foreign demand ; there 
 resulted an abnormal exportation of gold. By-and-by it 
 
342 BTATE-TAMPEItlNGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 
 
 was seen tliat this efflux of gold was a consequence of the 
 over-issue of notes ; and that the accompanying high price 
 of gold, as paid for in notes, proved the depreciation of 
 notes. And then it became an established doctrine that an 
 adverse state of the foreign exchanges^ indicating a drain of 
 goldj "was significant of an excessive circulation of notes; 
 and that the issue of notes should be regulated by the state 
 of the exchanges. 
 
 This unnatural condition of the currency having continued 
 for a quarter of a century, the concomitant doctrine rooted 
 itself in the general mind. And now mark one of the multi- 
 tudinous evils of legislative meddling. This artificial test, 
 good only for an artificial state, has survived the return to a 
 natural state ; and men^s ideas about currency have been 
 reduced by it to chronic confusion. 
 
 The truth is thatwhile^ during a legalized inconvertibility 
 of bank-notes, an efflux of gold may, and often does, indicate 
 an excessive issue of bank-notes ; under ordinary circum- 
 stances an efflux of gold has little or nothing to do with the 
 issue of bank-notes, but is determined by merely mercantile 
 causes. And the truth is that far from being an evil, an 
 efflux of gold thus brought about by mercantile causes, is a 
 good. Leaving out of the question, as of course we must, 
 such exportations of gold as take place for the support 
 of armies abroad; the cause of efflux is either an actual 
 plethora of all commodities, gold included, which results 
 in gold being sent out of the country for the purpose of 
 foreign investment; or else an abundance of gold as 
 compared with other leading commodities. And while, in 
 this last case, the efflux of gold indicates some absolute 
 or relative impoverishment of the nation, it is a means of 
 mitigating the bad consequences of that impoverishment. 
 Consider the question as one of political economy, and 
 this truth becomes obvious. Thus: — The nation habitually 
 requires for use and consumption certain quantities of 
 commodities, of which gold is one. These commodities 
 
STATE-TAMPERINaa WITH MONET AND BANKS. 343 
 
 are severally and collectively liable to fall short; either 
 from deficient harvests, from waste in war_, from losses 
 abroad, or from too great a diversion of labour or capital 
 in some special direction. When a scarcity of some chief 
 commodity or necessary occurs, what is the remedy ? The 
 commodity of which there is an excess (or if none is in 
 excess, th.en that which can best be spared) is exported 
 in exchange for an additional supply of the deficient 
 commodity. And, indeed, the whole of our foreign trade, 
 alike in ordinary and extraordinary times, consists in this 
 process. But when it happens either that the commodity 
 which we can best spare is not wanted abroad ; or (as 
 recently) that a chief foreign customer is temporarily 
 disabled from buying ; or that the commodity which we 
 can best spare is gold ; then gold itself is exported in 
 exchange for the thing which we most want. Whatever 
 form the transaction takes, it is nothing but bringing the 
 supplies of various commodities into harmony with the 
 demands for them. The fact that gold is exported, is 
 simply a proof that the need for gold is less than the need 
 for other things. Under such circumstances an efflux of 
 gold will continue, and ought to continue, until other 
 things have become relatively so abundant, and gold 
 relatively so scarce, that the demand for gold is equal to 
 other demands. And he who would prevent this process, 
 is about as wise as the miser who, finding his house 
 without food, chooses to starve rather than draw upon 
 his purse. 
 
 The second question — " Shall the Bank have permission 
 to let its reserve of gold diminish so greatly as to risk the 
 convertibility of its notes ? " is not more profound than 
 the first. It may fitly be answered by the more general 
 question — '^ Shall the merchant, the manufacturer, or the 
 shopkeeper, be allowed so to invest his capital as to risk 
 the fulfilment of his engagements ? '^ If the answer to the 
 first be "No," it must be " No " to the second. If to the 
 
344 STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 
 
 second it be '' Yes/' it must be " Yes " to the first. Any 
 one who proposed that the State should oversee the 
 transactions of every trader^ so as to insure his ability to 
 cash all demands as they fell due, might with consistency 
 argue that bankers should be under like control. But 
 while no one has the folly to contend for the one, nearly 
 all contend for the other. One would think that the 
 banker acquired, in virtue of his occupation, some abnormal 
 desire to ruin himself — that while traders in other things 
 are restrained by a wholesome dread of baukruptcy, traders 
 in capital have a longing to appear in the Gazette, which 
 law alone can prevent them from gratifying ! Surely the 
 moral checks which act on other men will act on bankers. 
 And if these moral checks do not suffice to produce perfect 
 security, we have ample proof that no cunning legislative 
 checks will supply their place. The current notion that 
 bankers can, and will, if allowed, issue notes to any extent, 
 is one of the absurdest illusions — an illusion, however, 
 which would never have arisen but for the vicious over- 
 issues induced by law. The truth is that, in the first 
 place, a banker cannot increase his issue of notes at will. 
 It has been proved by the unanimous testimony of all 
 bankers who have been examined before successive parlia- 
 mentary committees, that ^* the amount of their issues is 
 exclusively regulated by the extent of local dealings and 
 expenditure in their respective districts ; '^ and that any 
 notes issued in excess of the demand are '^ immediately 
 returned to them." And the truth is, in the second place, 
 that a banker will not, on the average of cases, issue 
 more notes than in his judgment it is safe to issue ; seeing 
 that if his promises-to-pay in circulation, are much in 
 excess of his available means of paying them, he runs a 
 great risk of having to stop payment — a result of which he 
 has no less a horror than other men. If facts are needed 
 in proof of this, they are furnished by the history of both 
 the Bank of England and the Bank of Ireland ; which, 
 
STATE-TAMPERIKGa WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 345 
 
 before they were debauclied by the State^ habitually regu- 
 lated their issues according to their stock of bullion^ and 
 would probably always have been still more careful but for 
 the consciousness that there was the State-credit to fail 
 back upon. 
 
 The third question — " Shall the Bank be allowed to issue 
 notes in such numbers as to cause their depreciation ? " 
 has, in effect, been answered in answering the first two. 
 There can be no depreciation of notes so long as they are 
 exchangeable for gold on demand. And so long as the 
 State, in discharge of its duty, insists on the fulfilment of 
 contracts, the alternative of bankruptcy must ever be a 
 restraint on such over-issue of notes as endangers that 
 exchangeability. The bugbear of depreciation is one that 
 wonld have been unknown but for the sins of governments. 
 In the case of America, where there have been occasional 
 depreciations, the sin has been a sin of omission : the State 
 has not enforced the fulfilment of contracts — has not forth- 
 with bankrupted those who failed to cash their notes; and, 
 if accounts are true, has allowed those to be mobbed who 
 brought back far-wandering notes for payment."^ In all 
 other cases the sin has been a sin of commission. The 
 depreciated paper- currency in France, during the revolution, 
 was a State-currency, The depreciated paper-currencies 
 of Austria and Russia have been State-currencies. And 
 the only depreciated paper-currency we have known, has 
 been to all intents and purposes a State-currency. It was 
 the State which, in 17 9 b-Qj forced upon the Bank of England 
 that excessive issue of notes which led to the suspension of 
 cash-payments. It was the State which, in 1802, forbad 
 the resumption of cash-payments, when the Bank of Eng- 
 land wished to resume them. It was the State which, 
 during a quarter of a century, maintained that suspension 
 of cash-payments from which the excessive multiplication 
 and depreciation of notes resulted. The entire corruption 
 * This was written in 1858 ; when " greenbacks '* were unknown. 
 
346 STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 
 
 was entailed by State-expenditure, and established by 
 State-warrant. Yet now the State affects a virtuous 
 horror of the crime committed at its instigation ! Having 
 contrived to shuffle-off the odium on to the shoulders of its 
 tools, the State gravely lectures the banking- community 
 upon its guilt ; and with sternest face passes naeasures to 
 prevent it from sinning ! 
 
 We contend, then^ that neither to restrain the efflux of 
 gold, nor to guard against the over-issue of bank-notes, 
 is legislative interference warranted. If Government will 
 promptly execute the law against all defaulters, the self- 
 interest of bankers and traders will do the rest : such evils 
 as would still result from mercantile dishonesties and 
 imprudences, being evils which legal regulation may 
 augment but cannot prevent. Let the Bank of England, 
 in common with every other bank, simply consult its own 
 safety and its own profits ; and there will result just as 
 much check as should be put^ on the efflux of gold or the 
 circulation of paper ; and the only check that can be put 
 on the doings of speculators. Whatever leads to unusual 
 draughts on the resources of banks, immediately causes a 
 rise in the rate of discount — a rise dictated both by the 
 wish to make increased profits, and the wish to avoid a 
 dangerous decrease of resources. This raised rate of 
 discount prevents the demand from being so great as it 
 would else have been — alike checks undue expansion of the 
 note-circulation ; stops speculators from making further 
 engagements ; and, if gold is being exported, diminishes 
 the profit of exportation. Successive rises successively 
 increase these effects ; until, eventuallj'", none will give the 
 rate of discount asked, save those in peril of stopping 
 payment ; the increase of the credit-currency ceases ; and 
 the efflux of gold, if it is going on, is arrested by the 
 home-demand out-balancing the foreign demand. And if, 
 in times of great pressure, and under the temptation of 
 high discounts, banks allow their circulation to expand to 
 
STATE-TAMPEKINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 347 
 
 a sotnewliat dangerous extent, tlie course is justified by tlie 
 necessities. As sliown at tlie outset^ the process is one by 
 whicli banks, on the deposit of good securities^ loan their 
 credit to traders "who but for loans would be bankrupt. 
 And that banks should run some risks to saye hosts of 
 solvent men from inevitable ruin, few will deny. More- 
 over, during a crisis which thus runs its natural course, 
 there will really occur that purification of the mercantile 
 world "which many think can be effected only by some 
 Act-of- Parliament ordeal. Under the circumstances de- 
 scribed, men who have adequate securities to offer will 
 get bank-accommodation ; but those who, having traded 
 without capital or beyond their means, have not, will be 
 denied it, and will fail. Under a free system the good 
 will be sifted from the bad; whereas the existing restric- 
 tions on bank-accommodation, tend to destroy good and 
 bad together. 
 
 Thus it is not true that there need special regulations to 
 prevent the inconvertibility and depreciation of notes. It 
 is not true that, but for legislative supervision, bankers 
 would let gold drain out of the country to an undue extent. 
 It is not true that these " currency theorists " have 
 discovered a place at which the body-politic would bleed 
 to death but for a State-styptic. 
 
 What else we have to say on the general question, may 
 best be joined with some commentaries on provincial and 
 joint-stock banking, to which let us now turn. 
 
 Government, to preserve the Bank of England-monopoly, 
 having enacted that no partnership exceeding six persons 
 should become bankers ; and the Bank of England having 
 refused to establish branches in the provinces; it happened, 
 during the latter half of the last century, when the indus- 
 trial progress was rapid and banks much needed, that 
 numerous private traders, shopkeepers and others, began 
 t issue notes payable on demand. And when, of the four 
 
MS STATE-TAMPEEINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS- 
 
 liundred small banks wKicli had thus grown up in less 
 tlian fifty years^ a great number gave way under the 
 first pressure— when, on several subsequent occasions, 
 like results occurred — wken in Ireland, where the Bank 
 of Ireland-monopoly had been similarly guaranteed, it 
 happened that out of fifty private provincial banks, forty 
 became bankrupt — and when, finally, it grew notorious 
 that in Scotland, where there had been no law limiting the 
 number of partners, a whole century had passed with 
 scarcely a single bank-failure; legislators at once decided 
 to abolish the restriction which had entailed such mischiefs. 
 Having, to use Mr. Mill's words, ^' actually made the 
 formation of safe banking-establishments a punishable 
 offence " — having, for one hundred and twenty years, main- 
 tained a law which first caused great inconvenience and then 
 extensive ruin, time after time repeated — Government, in 
 1826, conceded the liberty of joint-stock banking: a liberty 
 which the good easy public, not distinguishing between a 
 right done and a wrong undone, regarded as a great boon ! 
 
 But the liberty was not without conditions. Having 
 previously, in anxiety for its protege, the Bank of England, 
 been reckless of the banking-security of the community at 
 large, the State, like a repentant sinner rushing into 
 asceticism, all at once became extremely solicitous on this 
 point ; and determined to put guarantees of its own 
 devising, in place of the natural guarantee of mercantile 
 judgment. To intending bank-shareholders it said — '^ You 
 shall not unite on such publicly-understood conditions as 
 you think fit, and get such confidence as will naturally 
 come to you on those conditions." And to the pubHc it 
 said—" You shall not put trust in this or that association 
 in proportion as, from the character of its membei's and 
 constitution, you judge it to be worthy of trust.'-' But to 
 both it said — " You shall the one give, and the other 
 receive, my infallible safeguards." 
 
 And now what have been the results ? Every one knows 
 
STATE-TAMPEEINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 349 
 
 that these safeguards have proved anything but infallible. 
 Every one knows that these banks with State-constitutions 
 have been especially characterized by instability. Every 
 one knows that credulous citizens, with a faith in legis- 
 lation which endless disappointments fail to diminish, have 
 trusted implicitly in these law-devised securities ; and, not 
 exercising their own judgments, have been led into ruinous 
 undertakings. The evils of substituting artificial guarantees 
 for natural ones, which the clear-sighted long ago discerned, 
 have, by the late catastrophes, been made conspicuous to all. 
 
 Wlien commencing this article we had intended to dwell 
 on this point. For though the mode of business which 
 brought about these joint-stock-bank failures was, for weeks 
 after their occurrence, time after time clearly described; 
 yet nowhere did we see drawn the obvious corollary. 
 Though in three separate City-articles of The Times, it was 
 explained that, ^^ relying upon the ultimate liability of large 
 bodies of infatuated shareholders, the discount houses 
 supply these banks with unlimited means, looking not to 
 the character of the bills sent up, but simply to the security 
 afforded by the Bank endorsement ;" yet, in none of them 
 was it pointed out that, but for the law of unlimited 
 liability, this reckless trading would not have gone on. 
 More recently, however, this truth has been duly recog- 
 nized, alike in Parliament and in the Press ; and it is 
 therefore needless further to elucidate it. We will simply 
 add that as, if there had been no law of unlimited liability, 
 the London houses would not have discounted these bad 
 bills; and as, in that case, these provincial joint-stock-banks 
 could not have given these enormous credits to insolvent 
 speculators ; and as, if they had not done this, they would 
 not have been ruined; it follows, inevitably, that these 
 joint-stock-bank failures have been law-produced disasters. 
 
 A measure for further increasing the safety of the pro- 
 vincial public, was that which limited the circulation of 
 provincial bank-notes. At the same time that it established 
 
350 STATK-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 
 
 a sliding-scale for the issues of tlie Bank of England^ tlie 
 Act of 1844 fixed tlie maximum circulation of every pro- 
 vincial hank-of-issue; and forbad any further banks-of -issue. 
 We have not space to discuss at length the effects of this 
 restriction ; which must have fallen rather hardly on those 
 especially-careful bankers who had, during the twelve 
 weeks preceding the 27th April, 1844, narrowed their 
 issues to meet any incidental contingencies ; while it gave 
 a perennial license to such as had been incautious during 
 that period. All which we can notice is, that this rigorous 
 limitation of provincial issues to a low maximum (and a 
 low maximum was purposely fixed) effectually prevents 
 those local expansions of bank-note circulation which, as 
 we have shown, ought to take place in periods of com- 
 mercial difficulty. And further, that by transferring all 
 local demands to the Bank of England, as the only place 
 from which extra accommodation can be had, the tendency 
 is to concentrate a pressure which would else be diffused, 
 and so to create panic. 
 
 Saying nothing more, however, respecting the impolicy 
 of the measure, let us mark its futility. As a means of 
 preserving the convertibility of the provincial bank-note, 
 it is useless unless it acts as some safeguard against bank- 
 failures; and that it does not do this is demonstrable. 
 While it diminishes the likelihood of failures caused by 
 over-issue of notes, it increases the likelihood of failures 
 from other causes. For what will be done by a provincial 
 banker whose issues are restricted by the Act of 1844, to a 
 level lower than that to which he would otherwise have let 
 them rise ? If he would, but for the law, have issued more 
 notes than he now does — if his reserve is greater than, in 
 his judgment, is needful for the security of his notes; is it 
 not clear that he will simply exteud his operations in other 
 directions ? Will not the excess of his available capital be 
 to him a warrant either for entering into larger specu- 
 lations himself, or for allowing his customers to draw on 
 
STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 351 
 
 Him beyond the limit he would else have fixed ? If, in the 
 absence of restriction^ his rashness would have led him to 
 risk bankruptcy by over-issue, will it not now equally lead 
 him to risk bankruptcy by over-banking? And is not the 
 one kind of bankruptcy as fatal to the convertibility of 
 notes as the other ? 
 
 Nay, the case is even worse. There is reason to believe 
 that bankers are tempted into greater dangers under this 
 protective system. They can and will hypothecate their 
 capital in ways less direct than by notes ; and may very 
 likely be led, by the unobtrusiveness of the process, to 
 commit themselves more than they would else do. A 
 trader, applying to his banker in times of commercial 
 difficulty, will often be met by the reply— "I cannot make 
 you any direct advances, having already loaned as much as 
 I can spare; but knowing you to be a safe man I will lend 
 you my name. Here is my acceptance for the sum you 
 require : they will discount it for you in London." Now, 
 as loans thus made do not entail the same immediate 
 responsibilities as when made in notes (seeing that they are 
 neither at once payable, nor do they add to the dangers of 
 a possible run), a banker is under a temptation to extend 
 his liabilities in this way further than he would have done, 
 had not law forced him to discover a new channel through 
 which to give credit. 
 
 And does not the evidence that has lately transpired go 
 to show that these roundabout ways of giving credit do 
 take the place of the interdicted ways ; and that they are 
 more dangerous than the interdicted ways ? Is it not 
 notorious that dangerous forms of paper-currency have had 
 an unexampled development since the Act of 1844? Do 
 not the newspapers and the debates give daily proofs of 
 this ? And is not the process of causation obvious ? 
 
 Indeed it might have been known, a priori, that such a 
 result was sure to take place. It has been shown conclu- 
 
352 BTATE-TAMPE RINGS WITH MONET AND BANKS. 
 
 sively tliat^ when uninterfered with, the amount of note- 
 circulation at any given time, is determined by the amount 
 of trade going on — the quantity of payments that are being 
 made. It has been repeatedly testi6ed before committees, 
 that when any local banker contracts his issues, he simply 
 causes an equivalent increase in the issues of neighbouring 
 bankers. And in past times it has been more than once 
 complained, that when from prudential motives the Bank 
 of England withdrew part of its notes, the provincial 
 bankers immediately multiplied their notes to a propor- 
 tionate extent. Well, is it not manifest that this inverse 
 variation, which holds between one class of bank-notes and 
 another, also holds between bank-notes and other forms of 
 paper-currency ? Will it not happen that just as diminish- 
 ing the note-circulation of one bank, merely adds to the 
 note-circulation of other banks; so, an artificial restriction 
 on the circulation of bank-notes in general, will simply 
 cause an increased circulation of some substituted kind of 
 promise-to-pay ? And is not this substituted kind, in 
 virtue of its novelty and irregularity, likely to be a more 
 unsafe kind ? See, then, the predicament. Over all the 
 bills of exchange, cheques, etc., which constitute nine- 
 tenths of the paper-currency of the kingdom, the State 
 exercises, and can exercise, no control. And the limit it 
 puts on the remaining tenth vitiates the other nine-tenths, 
 by causing an abnormal growth of new forms of credit, 
 which experience proves to be especially dangerous. 
 
 Thus, all which the State does when it exceeds its true 
 duty is to hinder, to disturb, to corrupt. As already 
 pointed out, the quantity of credit men will give each 
 other, is determined by natural causes, moral and physical 
 — their average characters, their temporary states of 
 feeling, their circumstances. If the Government forbids 
 one mode of giving credit, they will find another, and 
 probably a worse. Be the degree of mutual trust prudent 
 
STATE-TAMPEEINGS WITH" MONEY AND BANKS. 353 
 
 or imprudent, it must take its course. The attempt to 
 restrict it by law is notliing but a repetition of the old story 
 of keeping out the sea with a fork. 
 
 And now mark that were it not for these worse than 
 futile State-safeguards, there might grow up certain natural 
 safeguards, which would really put a check on undue credit 
 and abnormal speculation. Were it not for the attempts to 
 insure security by law, it is very possible that, under our 
 high-pressure system of business, banks would compete with 
 each other in respect of the degree of security they offered 
 — would endeavour to outdo eacb other in the obtainment of 
 a legitimate public confidence. Consider the position of a 
 new joint-stock-bank with limited liability, and unchecked 
 by legal regulations. It can do nothing until it has gained 
 the general good opinion. In the way of this there stand 
 great difficulties. Its constitution is untried, and is sure to 
 bo looked upon by the trading world with considerable 
 distrust. The field is already occupied by old banks with 
 established connexions and reputations. Out of a constitu- 
 ency satisfied with th.e present accommodation, it has to 
 obtain supporters for a system which is apparently less 
 safe than the old. How shall it do this ? Evidently it 
 must. find some unusual mode of assuring the community of 
 its trustworthiness. And out of a number of new banks so 
 circumstanced, it is not too much, to suppose that ultimately 
 one would hit on some mode. It might be, for instance, 
 that such a bank would give to all who held deposits over 
 £1000 the liberty of inspecting its books — of ascertaining 
 from time to time its liabilities and its investments. 
 Already this plan is frequently adopted by private traders, 
 as a means of assuring those who lend money to them ; and 
 this extension of it might naturally take place under the 
 pressure of competition. We bave put the question to a 
 gentleman who has had long and successful experience, as 
 manager of a joint-stock-bank, and his reply is, that some 
 such course would very probably be adopted ' adding that. 
 
004i STATE-TAMPERINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 
 
 under this arrangement^ a depositor would practically 
 become a partner witli limited liability. 
 
 Were a system of tbis kind to establisb itself, it would 
 form a double cbeck to unhealthy trading. Consciousness 
 that its rashness would become known to its chief clients, 
 would prevent the bank-management from being rash ; and 
 consciousness that his credit would be damaged when his 
 large debt to the bank was whispered, would prevent the 
 speculator from contracting so large a debt. Both lender 
 and borrower would be restrained from reckless enterprize, 
 Yery little inspection would suffice to effect this end. One 
 or two cautious depositors would be enough; seeing that 
 the mere expectation of immediate disclosure, in case of 
 misconduct, would mostly keep in order all those concerned. 
 
 Should it however be contended, as by some it may, that 
 this safeguard would be of no avail — should it be alleged 
 that, having in their own hands the means of safety, citizens 
 would not use them, but would still put blind faith in 
 directors, and give unlimited trust to respectable names ; 
 then we reply that they would deserve whatever bad con- 
 sequences fell on them. If they did not take advantage of 
 the proffered guarantee, the penalty be on their own heads. 
 We have no patience with the mawkish philanthropy which 
 would ward-off the punishment of stupidity. The ultimate 
 result of shielding men from the effects of folly^ is to fill 
 the world with fools. 
 
 A few words in conclusion respecting the attitude of our 
 opponents. Leaving joint-stock-bank legislation, on which 
 the eyes of the public are happily becoming opened ; and 
 returning to the Bank-Charter, with its theory of currency- 
 regulation ; we have to charge its supporters with gross, if 
 not wilful, misrepresentation. Their established policy is 
 to speak of all antagonism as identified with adhesion to 
 the vulgarest fallacies. They daily present, as the only 
 alternatives, their own dogma or some wild doctrine too 
 
ST ATE-TAMPE RINGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS. 355 
 
 absurd to be argued. " Side with us or cboose anarchy," 
 is the substance of their homilies. 
 
 To speak specifically : — They boldly assert^ in the first 
 place, that they are the upholders of "principle;" and on 
 all opposition they seek to fasten the title of " empiricism." 
 Now we are at a loss to see what there is " empirical" in 
 the position, that a bank-note-circulation will regulate 
 itself in the same way that the circulation of other paper- 
 currency does. It seems to us anything but " empirical," 
 to say that the natural check of prospective bankruptcy, 
 which restrains the trader from issuing too many promises- 
 to-pay at given dates, will similarly restrain the banker 
 from issuing too many promises-to-pay on demand. We 
 take him to be the very opposite of an "empiric," who holds 
 that people's characters and circumstances determine the 
 quantity of credit-memoranda in circulation ; and that the 
 monetary disorders which their imperfect characters and 
 changing circumstances occasionally entail, can be exacer- 
 bated, but cannot be prevented, by State-nostrums. On 
 the other hand, we do not see in virtue of what " principle" 
 it is, that the contract expressed on the face of a bank- 
 note must be dealt with differently from any other contract. 
 We cannot understand the " principle ^' which requires the 
 State to control the business of bankers, so that they may 
 not make engagements they cannot fiilfil, but which does 
 not require the State to do the like with other traders. 
 To us it is a very incomprehensible " principle " which 
 permits the Bank of England to issue £14,000,000 on the 
 credit of the State ; but which is broken if the State- 
 credit is mortgaged beyond this — a " principle " which im- 
 plies that £14,000,000 of notes may be issued without gold 
 to meet them, but insists on rigorous precautions for the 
 convertibility of every pound more. We are curious to 
 learn how it was inferred from this " principle " that the 
 average note-circulation of each provincial bank, during 
 certain twelve weeks in 1844, was exactlv the note-circula- 
 57 
 
356 STATE-TAMPERIKGS WITH MONEY AND BANKS, 
 
 tion which its capital justified. So far from discerning a 
 "principle/^ it seems to us that both the idea and its applica- 
 tions are as empirical as they can well be. 
 
 Still more astounding, however, is the assumption of these 
 "currency-theorists/^ that their doctrines are those of Free- 
 trade. In the Legislature, Lord Overstonej and in the 
 presSj the Saturday Review^ have, among others, asserted 
 this. To call that a Free-trade measure, which has the 
 avowed object of restricting certain voluntary acts of ex- 
 change, appears so manifest a contradiction in terms that it 
 is scarcely credible it should be made. The whole system 
 of currency-legislation is restrictionist from beginning to 
 end : equally in spirit and detail. Is that a Free-trade 
 regulation which has all along forbidden banks of issue 
 within sixty-five miles of London? Is that Free-trade 
 which enacts that none but such as have now the State- 
 warrant, shall henceforth give promises-to-pay on demand ? 
 Is that Free-trade which at a certain point steps in between 
 the banker and his customer, and puts a veto on any 
 further exchange of credit-documents ? We wonder what 
 would be said by two merchants, the one about to draw a 
 bill on the other in return for goods sold, who should be 
 stopped by a State-officer with the remark that, having 
 examined the buyer's ledger, he was of opinion that ready 
 as the seller might be to take the bill, it would be unsafe 
 for him to do so ; and that the law, in pursuance of the 
 principles of Free-trade, negatived the transaction ! Yet 
 for the promise-to-pay in six months, it needs but to sub- 
 stitute a promise-to-pay on demand, and the case becomes 
 substantially that of banker and customer. 
 
 It is true that the '^ currency-theorists ^^ have a colourable 
 excuse in the fact, that among their opponents are the 
 advocates of various visionary schemes, and propounders of 
 regulations quite as protectionist in spirit as their own. It 
 is true that there are some who contend for inconvertible 
 '^labour-notes;^' and others who argue that^ in times of 
 
STATE-TAMPEEINGS WITH MONET AND BANK3. 357 
 
 commercial pressure, banks should not raise their rates of 
 discount. But is this any justification for recklessly stigma- 
 tizing all antagonism as coming from these classes, in the 
 face of the fact that the Bank-Act has been protested 
 against by the highest authorities in political economy ? Do 
 not the defenders of the ^' currency-principle ^^ know that 
 among their opponents are Mr. Thornton^ long known as 
 an able writer on currency-questions ; Mr. Tooke and 
 Mr, Newmarch, famed for their laborious and exhaustive 
 researches respecting currency and prices ; Mr. Fullarton, 
 whose " Regulation of Currencies " is a standard work j 
 Mr, Macleod, whose just-issued book displays the endless 
 injustices and stupidities of our monetary history ; Mr. 
 James Wilson, m.p., who, in detailed knowledge of com- 
 merce^ currency, and banking, is probably unrivalled ; and 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill, who both as logician and economist, 
 stands in the first rank ? Do they not know that the alleged 
 distinction between bank-notes and other credit-documents, 
 which forms the professed basis of the Bank- Act (and for 
 which Sir R. Peel could quote only the one poor authority 
 of Lord Liverpool) is denied, not only by the gentlemen 
 above named^ but also by Mr. Huskisson, Professor Storch, 
 Dr. Travers TwisSj and the distinguished French Professors, 
 M. Joseph Grarnier and M. Michel Chevalier ?'^ Do they 
 not know, in short, that both the profoundest thinkers and 
 the most patient inquirers are against them ? If they do 
 not know this, it is time they studied the subject on which 
 they write with such an air of authority. If they do know 
 it, a little more respect for their opponents would not 
 be unbecoming. 
 
 * See Mr. Tooke's "Bank Charter Act of 1844," etc. 
 
PARLIAMEKTAUY REFORM: THE DANGERS AND 
 THE SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 [First puhUslied in The Westminster 'Review for April 18G0.] 
 
 Thtrtt years ago^ the dread of impending evils agitated 
 not a few breasts throughout England. Instinctive fear of 
 change, justij&ed as it seemed bj outbursts of popular 
 violencOj conjured up visions of the anarchy which would 
 follow the passing of a Reform Bill. In scattered farm- 
 houses there was chronic terror, lest those newly endowed 
 with political power should in some way filch all the profits 
 obtained by rearing cattle and growing corn. The 
 occupants of halls and manors spoke of ten-pound house- 
 holders almost as though they formed an army of spoilers, 
 threatening to overrun and devastate the property of 
 landholders. Among townspeople there were some who 
 interpreted the abolition of old corruptions into the 
 establishment of mob-government ; which they thought 
 equivalent to spoliation. And even in Parliament, such 
 alarms found occasional utterance : as, for instance, through 
 the mouth of Sir Robert Inglis, who hinted that the national 
 debt would not improbably be repudiated if the proposed 
 measure became law. 
 
 There may perhaps be a few who regard the now pending 
 change in the representation with similar dread — who think 
 
PARLIAMENTARY EEFOEM. 859 
 
 that artizans and others of their grade are prepared, when 
 the power is given to them, to lay hands on property. We 
 presume, however, that such irrational alarmists form but a 
 small percentage of the nation. Not only throughout the 
 Liberal party, but among the Conservatives, there exists 
 a much fairer estimate of the popular character than is 
 implied by anticipations of so gloomy a kind. Many of the 
 upper and middle classes are conscious of the fact that, if 
 critically compared, the average conduct of the wealthy 
 would not be found to differ very widely in rectitude from 
 that of the poor. Making due allowance for differences in 
 the kinds and degrees of temptations to which they are 
 exposed, the respective grades of society are tolerably 
 Uniform in their morals. That disregard of the rights of 
 property which, among the people at large, shows itself in 
 the direct form of petty thefts, shows itself among their 
 richer neighbours in various indirect forms, which are 
 scarcely less flagitious and often much more detrimental 
 to fellow-citizens. Traders, wholesale and retail^ commit 
 countless dishonesties, ranging from adulteration and short 
 measure up to fraudulent bankruptcy — dishonesties of 
 which we sketched out some of the ramifications in a late 
 article on " The Morals of Trade." The trickeries of the 
 turf ; the bribery of electors ; the non-payment of trades- 
 menu's bills; the jobbing in railway- shares J the obtainment 
 of exorbitant prices for land from railway- companies ; the 
 corruption that attends the getting of private bills through 
 Parliament — these, and other such illustrations, show that 
 the unconscientiousness of the upper class, manifested 
 though it is in different forms, is not less than that of the 
 lower class : bears as great a ratio to the size of the class, 
 and, if traced to its ultimate results, produces evils as great 
 if not greater. 
 
 And if the facts prove that in uprightness of inteutio 
 there is little to choose between one class of the community 
 and another^ an extension of the franchise cannot rationally 
 
360 PARLIAMENTAET REFORM. 
 
 be opposed on tlie ground tliat property would be directly 
 endangered. There is no more reason to suppose that the 
 mass of artizans and labourers would use political powerwith 
 conscious injustice to their richer neighbours^ than there is 
 reason to suppose that their richer neighbours now consciously 
 commit legal injustices against artizans and labourers. 
 
 What, theuj is the danger to be apprehended ? If land, 
 and houses^ and railways, and funds, and property of all 
 other kindSj would be held with no less security than now, 
 why need there be any fears that the franchise would be 
 misused ? What are the misuses of it which are rationally 
 to be anticipated ? 
 
 The ways in which those to be endowed with political 
 power are Hkely to abuse it, may be inferred from the ways 
 in which political power has been abused by those who have 
 possessed it. 
 
 What general trait has characterized the rule of the 
 classes hitherto dominant ? These classes have not habitually 
 sought their own direct advantage at the expense of other 
 classes ; but their measures have nevertheless frequently 
 been such as were indirectly advantageous to themselves. 
 Voluntary self-sacrifice has been the exception. The rule 
 has been so to legislate as to preserve private interests 
 from injury ; whether public interests were injured or not. 
 Though^ in equity, a landlord has no greater claim on a 
 defaulting tenant than any other creditor ; yet landlords, 
 having formed the majority of the legislature, have made 
 laws giving them power to recover rent in anticipation of 
 other creditors. Though the duties payable to government 
 on the transfer of property to heirs and legatees, might 
 justly have been made to' fall more heavily on the wealthy 
 than on the comparatively poor, and on real property rather 
 than on personal property; yet the reverse arrangement 
 was enacted and long maintained^ and is even still partially 
 in force. Eights of presentation to places in the Church, 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 361 
 
 obtained however completely in violation of the spirit of the 
 laWj are yet tenaciously defended^ with little or no regard 
 to the welfare of those for whom the Church ostensibly 
 exists. Were it not accounted for by the bias of personal 
 interests, it would be impossible to explain the fact that^ on 
 the question of protection to agriculture^ the landed classes 
 and their dependents were ranged against the other classes : 
 the same evidence^being open to both. And if there needs 
 a still stronger illustration^ we have it in the opposition 
 made to the repeal of the Corn-Laws by the established 
 clergy. Though, by their office^ preachers of justice and 
 mercy — though constantly occupied in condemning selfish- 
 ness and holding up a supreme example of self-sacrifice; 
 yet so swayed were they by those temporal interests which 
 they thought endangeredj that they offered to this proposed 
 change an almost uniform resistance. Out of some ten 
 thousand ex officio friends of the poor and needy, there was 
 but one (the Eev. Thomas Spencer), who took an active 
 part in abolishing this tax imposed on the people's bread 
 for the maintenance of landlords' rents. 
 
 Such are a few of the ways in which, in modern times, 
 those who have the power seek their own benefit at the 
 expense of the rest. It is in analogous ways that we must 
 expect any section of the community which may be made 
 predominant by a political change, to sacrifi.ce the welfare 
 of other sections to its own. While we do not see reason 
 to think that the lower classes are intrinsically less con- 
 scientious than the upper classes, we do not see reason to 
 think that they are more conscientious. Holding, as we 
 doy that in each society and in each age, the morality is, 
 on the average, the same throughout all ranks ; it seems to 
 us clear that if the rich, when they have the opportunity, 
 make laws which unduly favour themselves^ the poor, if 
 their power was in excess, will do the like in similar ways 
 and to a similar extent. Without knowingly enacting 
 injustice, they will be unconsciously biased by personal 
 
362 PAELIAMENTAEY KEFOEM. 
 
 considerations ; and our legislation will err as mucli in a 
 new direction as it has hitherto done in the old. 
 
 This abstract conclusion we shall find confirmed on con- 
 templating the feelings and opinions current among artizans 
 and labourers. "What the working classes now wish done^ 
 indicates what they would be likely to doj if a reform in the 
 representation made them preponderate. Judging from 
 their prevailing sentiments^ they would doubtless do, or aid 
 in doing, many things which it is desirable to have done. 
 Such a question as that of Church-rates would have been 
 settled long ago had the franchise been wider. Any great 
 increase of popular influence, would go far to rectify the 
 present inequitable relation of the established religions sect 
 to the rest of the community. And other remnants of 
 class-legislation would be swept away. But besides ideas 
 likely to eventuate in changes which we should regard as 
 beneficial, the working classes entertain ideas that could 
 not be realized without gross injustice to other classes and 
 ultimate injury to themselves. There is amoug them a 
 prevailing enmity towards capitalists. The fallacy that 
 machinery acts to their damage, is still widely spread, both 
 among rural labourers and the inhabitants of towns. And 
 they show a wish, not only to dictate how long per day 
 men shall work, but to regulate all the relations between 
 employers and employed. Let us briefly consider the 
 evidence of this. 
 
 When, adding another to the countless errors which it 
 has taught the people, the Legislature, by passing the Ten- 
 Hours-Bill, asserted that it is the duty of the State to limit 
 the duration of labour, there naturally arose among the 
 working classes the desire for further ameliorations to be 
 secured in the same way. First came the formidable strike 
 of the Amalgamated Engineers. The rules of this body 
 aim to restrict the supply of labour in various ways. No 
 member is allowed to work more than a fixed number of 
 hours per week ; nor for less than a fixed rate of wages. 
 
PAELIAMENTAET BEFOEM. 363 
 
 No man is admitted into the trade who has not " earaed a 
 right by probationary servitude/' There is a strict regis- 
 tration ; which is secured by fines on any one who neglects 
 to notify his marriage, remoyal^ or change of service. The 
 council decides^ without appeal, on all the affairs^ individual 
 and general, of the body. How tyrannical are the regula- 
 tions may be judged from the fact, that members are 
 punished for divulging anything concerning the society^s 
 business ; for censuring one another ; for vindicating the 
 conduct of those fined, etc. And their own unity of action 
 having been secured by these coercive measures, the 
 Amalgamated Engineers made a prolonged effort to impose 
 on their employers, sundry restrictions which they supposed 
 would be beneficial to themselves. More recently, we have 
 seen similar objects worked for by similar means during 
 the strike of the Operative Builders. In one of their early 
 manifestoes, this body of men contended that they had ''^an 
 equal right to share with other workers, that large amount 
 of public sympathy which is now being so widely extended 
 in the direction of shorteDing the hours of labour : '^ thus 
 showing at once their delusion and its source. Believing, 
 as they had been taught by an Act of Parliament to believe, 
 that the relation between the quantity of labour given and 
 the wages received, is not a natural but an artificial one ; 
 they demanded that while the wages remained the same, 
 the hours should be reduced from ten to nine. They 
 recommended their employers so to make their future 
 contracts, as to allow for this diminished day^s work : 
 saying they were " so sanguine as to consider the consum- 
 mation of their desire inevitable : " a polite way of hinting 
 that their employers must succumb to the irresistible power 
 of their organization. Referring to the threat of the master- 
 builders to close their works, they warned them against 
 '^ the responsibility of causing the public disaster '' thus 
 indicated. And when the breach finally took place, the 
 
364 PAELIAMENTAET EEFOBM. 
 
 Unionists set in action tlie approved appliances for bringing 
 masters to terms ; and would have succeeded had it not 
 been that their antagonists, believing that concessions 
 would be ruinous, made a united resistance. During 
 several previous years, master-builders had been yielding 
 to various extravagant demands, of which those recently 
 made were a further development. Had they assented to 
 the diminished day^s work, and abolished systematic over- 
 time, as they were required to do, there is no reason to 
 suppose the dictation would have ended. Success would 
 have presently led to still more exacting requirements; and 
 future years would have witnessed further extensions of 
 this mischievous meddling between capital and labour. 
 
 Perhaps the completest illustration of the industrial 
 regulations which find favour with artizans, is supplied by 
 the Printers' Union. With the exception of those engaged 
 in The Times office, and in one other large establishment, 
 the proprietors of which successfully resisted the combina- 
 tion, the compositors, pressmen, etc., throughout the 
 kingdom, form a society which controls all the relations 
 between employers and employed. There is a fixed price 
 for setting up type — so much per thousand letters ; no 
 master can give less ; no compositor being allowed by the 
 Union to work for less. There are established rates for 
 press-work ; and established numbers less than which you 
 cannot have printed without paying for work that is not 
 done. The scale rises by what are called '*" tokens'' of 260; 
 and if but 50 copies are required, the charge is the same as 
 for printing 250 ; or if 300 are wanted, payment must be 
 made for 500. Besides regulating prices and modes of 
 charging to their own advantage, in these and other ways^ 
 the members of the Union restrict competition by limiting 
 the number of apprentices brought into the business. So 
 well organized is this combination that the masters are 
 obliged to succumb. An infraction of the rules in any 
 
PARLTAMENTARY REFOEM. 365 
 
 printing-office leads to a strike of tlie men ; and as this is 
 supported by the Union at large^ the employer has to yield. 
 
 That in other trades artizans would^ if they could_, estab- 
 lish restrictive systems equally complete with this^ we take 
 to be sufficiently proved by their often-repeated attempts. 
 The Tin-plate-Workers' strike^ the Coventry- We avers' 
 strikes, the Engineers' strike, the Shoemakers' strike, the 
 Builders' strike, all show a most decided leaning towards a 
 despotic regulation of trade-prices, hours, and arrangements 
 — towards an abolition of free trade between employers 
 and employed. Should the men engaged in our various 
 industries succeed in their aims, each industry would be so 
 shackled as seriously to raise the cost of production. The 
 chief penalty would thus fall on the working classes 
 themselves. Each producer, while protected in the exercise 
 of his own occupation, would on every commodity he bought 
 have to pay an extra price, consequent on the protection of 
 other producers. In short, there would be established, 
 under a new form, the old mischievous system of mutual 
 taxation. And a final result would be such a diminished 
 ability to compete with other nations as to destroy our 
 foreign trade. 
 
 Against results like these it behoves us to guard. It 
 becomes a grave question how far we may safely give 
 political power to those who entertain views so erroneous 
 respecting fundamental social relations; and who so pertina- 
 ciously struggle to enforce these erroneous views. Men 
 who render up their private liberties to the despotic rulers 
 of trades-unions, seem scarcely independent enough rightly 
 to exercise political liberties. Those who so ill understand 
 the nature of freedom, as to think that any man or body of 
 men has a right to prevent employer and employed from 
 making any contract they please, would almost appear to be 
 incapacitated for the guardianship of their own freedom and 
 that of their fellow-citizens. When their notions of rectitude 
 are so confused, that they think it a duty to obey the arbitrary 
 
366 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 comniands of tlieir union-autliorities, and to abandon the 
 right of individually disposing of their labour on their own 
 terms — when^ in conformity with this inverted sense of duty, 
 they even risk the starvation of their families — when they 
 call that an ''' odious document" which simply demands that 
 master and man shall be free to make their own bargains — 
 when their sense of justice is so obtuse that they are ready 
 to bully, to deprive of work, to starve, and even to kill, 
 members of their own class who rebel against dictation, and 
 assert their rights to sell their labour at such rates and to 
 such persons as they think fit — when in short they prove 
 themselves ready to become alike slaves and tyrants, we may 
 well pause before giving them the franchise. 
 
 The objects which artizans have long sought to achieve by 
 their private organizations^ they would, had they adequate 
 political power, seek to achieve by public enactments. If, 
 on points like those instanced, their convictions are so strong 
 and their determination so great, that they will time after 
 time submit to extreme privations in the effort to carry 
 them; it is a reasonable expectation that these convictions, 
 pushed with this determination, would soon be expressed in 
 law, if those who held them had predominant power. With 
 working men, questions concerning the regulation of labour 
 are of the highest interest. Candidates for Parliament 
 would be more likely to obtain their suffrages by pandering 
 to their prejudices on such questions, than in any other way. 
 Should it be said that no evil need be feared unless the 
 artizan-class numerically preponderated in the constituen- 
 cies ; it may be rejoined that not unfrequently, where two 
 chief political parties are nearly balanced, some other party, 
 though much smaller^ determines the election. When we 
 bear in mind that the trades-unions throughout the kingdom 
 number 600,000 members, and command a fund of £300,000 
 — when we remember that these trades-unions are in the 
 habit of aiding each other, and have even been incorporated 
 into one national association — when we also remember that 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY REFORM. 867 
 
 their organization is very complete^ and tteir pov/er over 
 their members mercilessly exercised ; it seems likely that at 
 a general election their combined action would decide the 
 result in many towns : even though the artizans in each case 
 formed but a moderate portion of the constituency. How 
 influential small but combined bodies are^ the Irish Members 
 of our House of Commons prove to us ; and still more 
 clearly the Irish emigrants in America. Certainly these 
 trade-combinations are not less perfectly organized; nor 
 are the motives of their members less strong. Judge then 
 how efficient their political action would be. 
 
 It is true that in county-constituencies and rural towns, 
 the artizan class have no power ; and that in the antagonism 
 of agriculturists there would be a restraint on their projects. 
 But, on the other hand^ the artizans wouldj on these questions, 
 have the sympathy of many not belonging to their own body. 
 Numerous small shopkeepers and others who are in point of 
 means about on their level, would go with them in their 
 efforts to regulate the relations of capital and labour. 
 Among the middle classes, too, there are not a few kindly- 
 disposed men who are so ignorant of political economy as to 
 think the artizans justified in their aims. Even among the 
 landed class they might find supporters. We have but to 
 recollect the antipathy shown by landowners in Parliament 
 to the manufacturing interest, during the ten-hours' agita- 
 tion, to see that it is quite possible for country squires to 
 join the working men in imposing restrictions unfavourable 
 to emploj^ers. True, the angry feeling which then prompted 
 them has in some measure died away. It is to be hoped, 
 too, that they have gained wisdom. But still, remembering 
 the past, we must take this contingency into account. 
 
 Here, then, is one of the dangers to which an extension 
 of the franchise opens the door. While the fear that the 
 rights of property may be directly interfered with, is 
 absurd, it is a very rational fear that the rights of property 
 may be indirectly interfered with — that, by cramping laws, 
 
368 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 the capitalist may be prevented from using his money as 
 lie finds bestj and the workman from selling Ms labour as 
 lie pleases. We are not prepared to say what widening of 
 the representation would bring about such results. We 
 profess neither to estimate what amount of artizan-power a 
 £6 or a £5 borough-franchise would give'; nor to determine 
 whether the opposing powers would suffice to keep it in 
 check. Our purpose hei;e is simply to indicate this establish- 
 ment of injurious industrial regulations^ as one of the 
 dangers to be kept in view. 
 
 Turn we now to another danger^ distinct from the fore- 
 going though near akin to it. Next after the evils of that 
 over-legislation which restricts the exchange of capital and 
 labour, come the evils of that over-legislation which pro- 
 vides for the community, by State-agency^ benefits which 
 capital and labour should be left spontaneously to provide. 
 And it naturally, thoug*h unfortunately, happens, that those 
 who lean to the one kind of over-legislation, lean also to 
 the other kind. Men leading laborious lives, relieved by 
 little in the shape of enjoyment, give willing ears to the 
 doctrine that the State should provide them with various 
 positive advantages and gratifications. The much-enduring 
 poor cannot be expected to deal very critically with those 
 who promise them gratis pleasures. As a drowning man 
 catches at a straw, so will one whose existence is burden- 
 some catch at anything, no matter how unsubstantial, 
 which holds out the slightest hope of a little happiness. 
 We must not, thereforOj blame the working-classes for 
 being ready converts to socialistic schemes, or to a belief 
 in '"'^the sovereign power of political machinery." 
 
 Not that the working-classes alone fall into these delu- 
 sions. Unfortunately they are countenanced, and have 
 been in part misled, by those above them. In Parliament 
 and out of Parliament, well-meaning men among the upper 
 and middle ranks, have been active apostles of these false 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 869 
 
 doctrines. Tliere Las ever been, and continues to be, mucli 
 law-making based on the assumption, that it is the duty of 
 the State, not simply to insure each citizen fair play in the 
 battle of life, but to help him in fighting the battle of life : 
 having previously taken money from his, or some one else's, 
 pocket to pay the cost of doing this. And we cannot 
 glance oyer the papers without seeing how active are the 
 agitations carried on out of doors in furtherance of this 
 policy; and how they threaten to become daily more active. 
 The doings of the Chadwick-school furnish one set of 
 illustrations. From those of the Shaftesbury- school other 
 illustrations may be gathered. And in the transactions of 
 the body, absurdly self-entitled '^The National Association 
 for the Promotion of Social Science," we find still more 
 numerous developments of this mischievous error. 
 
 When we say that the working-classes, and more 
 especially the artiz an- classes, have strong leanings towards 
 these Utopianisms which they have unhappily been en- 
 couraged to entertain by many who should have known 
 better, we do not speak at random. We are not drawing 
 an a priori inference as to the doctrines likely to find 
 favour with men in their position. Nor are we guided 
 merely by evidence to be gathered from newspapers. We 
 have a basis of definite fact in the proceedings of reformed 
 municipal governments. These bodies have from year to 
 year extended their functions ; and so heavy has in some 
 cases become the consequent local taxation, as to have 
 caused a reaction against the political party which was 
 responsible. Town-councils almost exclusively Whig, have 
 of late been made comparatively Conservative, by the 
 efforts of those richer classes who suffer most from municipal 
 extravagance. With whom, then, has this extravagance 
 been popular ? With the poorer members of the constitu- 
 encies. Candidates for town-councillorships have found no 
 better means of obtaining the suffrages of the mass, than 
 the advocacy of this or the other local undertaking. To 
 
370 PAELIAMENTAEY REFORM. 
 
 build baths and wasb-bouses at tbe espense of tbe toTvnj 
 bas proved a popular proposal. Tbe support of public 
 gardens out of funds raised bj local rates^ bas been ap- 
 plauded by tbe majority. So, too^ witb tbe establishment 
 of free libraries, which has, of course, met with encourage- 
 ment from working-men, and from those who wish to find 
 favour with them. Should some one, taking a hint from 
 the cheap concerts now common in our manufacturing 
 townSj propose to supply music at the public cost, we doubt 
 not he would be hailed as a friend of the people. And 
 similarly witb countless socialistic schemes, of which, when 
 once commenced, there is no end. 
 
 Such being the demonstrated tendencies of municipal 
 governments, with their extended bases of representation, 
 is it not a fair inference that a Central Government having a 
 base of representation much wider than the present, would 
 manifest like tendencies ? We shall see the more reason 
 for fearing this, when we remember that those who approve 
 of multiplied State-agencies, would generally ally themselves 
 with those who seek for the legislative regulation of labour. 
 The doctrines are near akin; and they are, to a considerable 
 extent, held by the same persons. If united the two bodies 
 would have a formidable power ; and, appealed to, as they 
 would often be, by candidates expressing agreement on 
 both these points, they might, even though a minority, get 
 unduly represented in the legislature. Such, at least, 
 seems to us a further danger. Led by philanthropists 
 having sympathies strong'er than their intellects, the 
 working-classes are very likely to employ their influence 
 in increasing over-legislation : not only by agitating for 
 industrial regulations, but in various other ways. What 
 extension of franchise would make this danger a serious 
 one, we do not pretend to say. Here, as before, we would 
 simply indicate a probable source of mischief. 
 
 And now what are tbe safeguards ? Not such as we 
 
PARLIAMENTAET REFORM. 371 
 
 believe will be adopted.* To meet evils like those wliich 
 tbreaten to follow tlie impendirig political cbange, the 
 common plan is to devise special checks — minor limitations 
 and qualifications. Not to dry up the evil at its source but 
 to dam it out^ is^ in analogous cases, the usual aim. We 
 have no faith in such methods. The only efiiciftnt safe- 
 guard lies in a change of convictions and motives. And, 
 to work a change of this kind, there is no certain way but 
 that of letting men directly feel the penalties which mis- 
 taken legislation brings on them. ^^ How is this to be 
 done ? " the reader will doubtless ask. Simply by letting 
 causes and effects stand in their natural relations. Simply 
 by taking away those vicious arrangements which now 
 mostly prevent men from seeing the reactions that follow 
 legislative actions. 
 
 At present the extension of public administrations is 
 popular, mainly because there has not been established 
 in the minds of the people, any distinct connexion between 
 the benefits to be gained and the expenses to be paid. 
 Of the conveniences or gratifications secured to them by 
 some new body of officials with a fund at its disposal, 
 they have immediate experience ; but of the way in which 
 the costs fall on the nation, and ultimately on themselves, 
 they have no immediate experience. Our fiscal arrange- 
 ments dissociate the ideas of increased public expenditure 
 and increased burdens on all who labour; and thus 
 encourage the superstition that law can give gratis benefits. 
 This is clearly the chief cause of that municipal extra- 
 vagance to which we have above adverted. The working 
 men of our towns possess public power, while most of 
 them do not directly bear public burdens. On small 
 houses the taxes for borough-purposes are usually paid 
 by the landlords; and of late years, for the sake of 
 convenience and economy, there has grown up a system 
 of compounding with landlords of small houses even for 
 the poor-rates chargeable to their tenants Under this 
 
372 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 arrangeiDGBt, at first voluntary but now compulsory, a 
 certain discount off the total rates due from a number 
 of houses is allowed to the owner, in consideration of his 
 paying the rates, and thus saving the authorities trouble 
 and loss in collection. And he is supposed to raise his 
 rents by the full amount of the rates charged. Thus, 
 most municipal electors, not paying local taxes in a separate 
 form, are not constantly reminded of the connexion 
 between public expenditure and personal costs ; and hence 
 it happens that any outlay made for local purposes, no 
 matter how extravagant and unreasonable, which brings 
 to them some kind of advantage, is regarded as pure gain. 
 If the corporation resolves, quite unnecessarily, to rebuild 
 a town-hall, the resolution is of course approved by the 
 majority. "It is good for trade and it costs us nothing," 
 is the argument which passes vaguely through their minds. 
 If some one proposes to buy an adjoining estate and turn 
 it into a public park, the working classes naturally give 
 their support to the proposal ; for ornamental grounds 
 cannot but be an advantage, and though the rates may be 
 increased that will be no affair of theirs. Thus necessarily 
 ai^ises a tendency to multiply public agencies and increase 
 public outlay. It becomes an established policy with 
 popularity-hunters to advocate new works to be executed 
 by the town. Those who disapprove this course are in 
 fear that their seats may be jeopardized at the next 
 election, should they make a vigorous opposition. And 
 thus do these local administrations inevitably lean towards 
 abnormal developments. 
 
 No one can, we think, doubt that were the rates levied 
 directly on all electors, a check would be given to this 
 municipal communism. If each small occupier found that 
 every new work undertaken by the authorities cost him 
 so many pence extra in the pound, he would begin to 
 consider with himself whether the advantage gained was 
 equivalent to the price paid; and would often reach a 
 
PAELIAMENTARY EEFORM, 373 
 
 negative conclusion. It would become a question with 
 him whether, instead of letting the local government 
 provide him with certain remote advantages in return for 
 certain moneys, he might not himself purchase with such 
 moneys immediate advantages of greater worth; and, 
 generally, he would decide that he could do this. Without 
 saying to what extent such a restraint would act, we may 
 safely say that it would be beneficial. Every one must 
 admit that each inhabitant of a town ought constantly to 
 be reminded of the relation between the work performed 
 for him by the corporation and the sum he pays for it. 
 No one can deny that the habitual experience of this 
 relation would tend to keep the action of local governments 
 within proper bounds. 
 
 Similarly with the Central Government. Here the effects 
 wrought by public agencies are still more dissociated from 
 the costs they entail on each citizen. Tlie bulk of the 
 taxes being raised in so unobtrusive a way, and affecting 
 the masses in modes so difficult to trace, it is scarcely 
 possible for the masses to realize the fact that the sums 
 paid by Government for supporting schools, for facilitating 
 emigration, for inspecting mines, factories, railways, ships, 
 etc., have been in great part taken from their own pockets. 
 The more intelligent of them understand this as an abstract 
 truth ; but it is not a truth present to their minds in such 
 a definite shape as to influence their actions. Quite 
 otherwise, however, would it be if taxation were direct; 
 and the expense of every new State-agency were felt by 
 each citizen as an additional demand made on him by the 
 tax-gatherer. Then would there be a clear, constantly- 
 recurring experience of the truth, that for everything 
 which the State gives with one hand it takes away 
 something with the other ; and then would it be less easy 
 to propagate absurd delusions about the powers and duties 
 of Governments. No one can question this conclusion who 
 calls to mind the reason currently given for maintaining 
 
374 PARLIAMENTAET EEFOEM. 
 
 indirect taxation ; namely, tliat tlie required revenue could 
 not otherwise be raised. Statesmen see that if instead of 
 taking from the citizen here a little and there a little, 
 in ways that he does not know or constantly forgets, the 
 whole amount were demanded in a lump sum, it would 
 scarcely be possible to get it paid. Glrambling and 
 resistance would rise probably to disaffection. Coercion 
 would in hosts of cases be needed to obtain this large 
 total tax; which, indeed^ even with this aid, could not 
 be obtained from the majority of the people, whose 
 improvident habits prevent the accumulation of considerable 
 sums. And so the revenue would fall immensely short 
 of that expenditure which is supposed necessary. This 
 being assented to, it must perforce be admitted that under 
 a system of direct taxation, further extension of public 
 administrations, entailing further costs, would meet with 
 general opposition. Instead of multiplying the functions 
 of the State, the tendency would obviously be to reduce 
 their number. 
 
 Here, then, is one of the safeguards. The incidence 
 of taxation must be made moi^e direct in proportion as 
 the franchise is extended. Our changes ought not to be 
 in the direction of the Compound-Householders-Act of 
 1 851, which makes it no longer needful for a Parliamentary 
 elector to have paid poor-rates before giving a vote ; but 
 they ought to be in the opposite direction. The exercise 
 of power over the national revenue, should be indissolubly 
 associated with the conscious payment of contributions to 
 that revenue. Direct taxation instead of being limited, as 
 many wish, must be extended to lower and wider classes, 
 as fast as these classes are endowed with political power. 
 
 Probably this proposal will be regarded with small favour 
 by statesmen. It is not in the nature of things for men 
 to approve a system which tends to restrict their powers. 
 We know, too, that any great extension of direct taxation 
 will bo held at present impossible ; and we are not prepared 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 375 
 
 to assert tlie contrary. This^ however^ is no reason against 
 reducing the indirect taxation and augmenting the direct 
 taxation as far as circumstances allow. And if when the 
 last had been increased and the first decreased to the 
 greatest extent now practicable, it were made an established 
 principle that any additional revenue must be raised by 
 direct taxes, there would be an efficient check to one of the 
 evils likely to follow from further political enfranchisement. 
 
 The other evil which we have pointed out as rationally 
 to be feared, cannot be thus met, however. Though an 
 ever-recurring experience of the relation between State- 
 action and its cost, would hinder the growth of those 
 State-agencies which undertake to supply citizens with 
 positive conveniences and gratifications ; it would be no 
 restraint on that negative and inexpensive over-legislation 
 which trespasses on individual freedom — it would not pre- 
 vent mischievous meddling with the relations between labour 
 and capital. Against this danger the only safeguards 
 appear to be, the spread of sounder views among the 
 working classes, and the moral advance which such sounder 
 views imply. 
 
 ^^That is to say, the people must be educated," responds 
 the reader. Yes, education is the thing wanted ; but not 
 the education for which most men agitate. Ordinary 
 school-training is not a preparation for the right exercise 
 of political power. Conclusive proof of this is given by the 
 fact that the artizans, from whose mistaken ideas the most 
 danger is to be feared, are the best informed of the working 
 classes. Far from promising to be a safeguard, the spread 
 of sach education as is commonly given appears more likely 
 to increase the danger. Raising the working classes in 
 general to the artizan-level of culture, threatens to augment, 
 rather than to diminish, their power of working political 
 evil. The current faith in Heading, Writing, and Arith- 
 metic, as fitting men for citizenship, seems to us quite 
 
376 PAELTAMENTART REFORM, 
 
 unwarranted ; as are^ indeed^ most other anticipations of 
 the benefits to be derived from learning lessons. There is 
 no connexion between the ability to parse a sentence, and 
 a clear understanding of the causes which determine the 
 rate of wages. The multiplication-table affords no aid in 
 seeing through the fallacy that the destruction of property 
 is good for trade. Long practice may have produced 
 extremely good penmanship without having given the least 
 power to understand the paradox that machinery eventually 
 increases the number of persons employed in the trades 
 into which it is introduced. Nor is it proved that smatter- 
 ings of mensuration, astronomy, or geography, fit men for 
 estimating the characters and motives of Parliamentary 
 candidates. Indeed we have only thus to bring together 
 the antecedents and the anticipated consequents, to see 
 how untenable is the belief in a relation between them. 
 "When we wish a girl to become a good musician, we seat 
 her before the piano : we do not put drawing implements 
 into her hands, and expect music to come along Avith skill in 
 the use of pencils and colour-brushes. Sending a boy to pore 
 over law-books would be thought an extremely irrational way 
 of preparing him for civil engineering. And if in these and 
 all other cases, we do not expect fitness for any function 
 except through instruction and exercise in that function ; 
 why do we expect fitness for citizenship to be produced by 
 a discipline which has no relation to the duties of the citizen ? 
 Probably it will be replied that by making the working 
 man a good reader, we give him access to sources of infor- 
 mation from which he may learn how to use his electoral 
 power; and that other studies sharpen his faculties and 
 make him a better judge of political questions. This is 
 true ; and the eventual tendency is unquestionably good. 
 But what if for a long time to come he reads only to obtain 
 confirmation of his errors : What if there exists a literature 
 appealing to his prejudices, and supplying him with fallacious 
 arguments for the mioia^ien beliefs which he naturally takes 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 377 
 
 Up ? "What if he rejects all teaching that aims to disabuse 
 him of cherished delusions ? Must we not say that the 
 culture which, thus merely helps the workman to establish 
 himself in error, rather unfits than fits him for citizenship ? 
 And do not the trades'-unions furnish evidence of this ? 
 
 How little that which people commonly call education 
 prepares them for the use of political power, may be judged 
 from the incompetency of those who have received the 
 highest education the country afibrds. Glance back at the 
 blunders of our legislation, and then remember that the 
 men who committed them had mostly taken University- 
 degrees; and you must admit that the profoundest ignorance 
 of Social Science may accompany intimate acquaintance 
 with all which our cultivated classes regard as valuable 
 knowledge. Do but take a young member of Parliament, 
 fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, and ask him what he 
 thinks Law should do, and why ? or what it should not do, 
 and why ? and it will become manifest that neither his 
 familiarity with. Aristotle nor his readings in Thucydides, 
 h.ave prepared him to answer the very first question a 
 legislator ought to solve. A single illustration will suffice 
 to show how different an education from that usually given, 
 is required by legislators, and consequently by those who 
 elect them : we mean the illustration which the Free-trade 
 agitation supplies. By kings, peers, and members of 
 Parliament, mostly brought up at universities, trade had 
 been hampered by protections, prohibitions, and bounties. 
 For centuries had been maintained these legislative 
 appliances which a very moderate insight shows to be 
 detrimentals Yet, of all the highly-educated throughout 
 the nation during these centuries, scarcely a man saw how 
 mischievous such appliances were. Not from one who 
 devoted himself to the most approved studies, came the 
 work which set politicians right on these points ; but from 
 one wh.0 left college without a degree, and prosecuted 
 inquiries which the established education ignored. Adam 
 
378 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 Smitli examined for himself tlie industrial phenomena of 
 societies; contemplated the productive and distributive 
 activities going on around him ; traced out their compli- 
 cated mutual dependences; and thus reached general 
 principles for political guidance. In recent days, those 
 who have most clearly understood the truths he enunciated, 
 and by persevering exposition have converted the nation 
 to their views, have not been graduates of universities. 
 While^ contrariwise, those who have passed through the pre- 
 scribed curriculum, have commonly been the most bitter and 
 obstinate opponents of the changes dictated by politico- 
 economical science. In this all-important direction, right 
 legislation was urged by men deficient in the so-called 
 best education, and was resisted by the great majority 
 of men who had received this so-called best education ! 
 
 The truth for which we contend, and which is so 
 strangely overlooked, is, indeed, almost a truism. Does 
 not our whole theory of training imply that the right 
 preparation for political power is political cultivation ? 
 Must not that teaching which can alone guide the citizen 
 in the fulfilment of his public actions, be a teaching that 
 acquaints him with the effects of his public actions ? 
 
 The second chief safeguard to which we must trust is, 
 then, the spread, not of that mere technical and miscel- 
 laneous knowledge which men are so eagerly propagating, 
 but of political knowledge; or, to speak more accurately 
 — knowledge of Social Science. Above all, the essential 
 thing is the estabhshment of a true theory of government 
 -T-a true conception of what legislation is for, and what are 
 its proper limits. This question which our political discus- 
 sions habitually ignore, is a question of greater moment 
 than any other. Inquiries which statesmen deride as 
 speculative and unpractical, will one day be found infinitely 
 more practical than those which they wade through Blue 
 Books to master, and nightly spend many hours in debating. 
 The considerations that every morning fill a dozen columns 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 379 
 
 of The Times, are mere frivolities when compared with the 
 fundamental consideration — What is the proper sphere of 
 government ? Before discussing the way in which law 
 should regulate some particular thing, would it not be wise 
 to put the previous question — Whether law ought or ought 
 not to meddle with that thing ? and before answering this, 
 to put the more general questions — What law should do ? 
 and what it should leave undone ? Surely^ if there are any 
 limits at all to legislation, the settlement of these limits 
 must have effects far more profound than any particular 
 Act of Parliament can have ; and must be by so much the 
 more momentous. Surely, if there is danger that the 
 people may misuse political power, it is of supreme import- 
 ance that they should be taught for what purpose political 
 power ought alone to be used. 
 
 Did the upper classes understand their position they 
 would, we think, see that the diffusion of sound views on 
 this matter more nearly concerns their own welfare and 
 that of the nation at large, than any other thing whatever. 
 Popular influence will inevitably go on increasing. Should 
 the masses gain a predominant power while their ideas of 
 social arrangements and legislative action remain as crude 
 as at present, there will certainly result disastrous meddlings 
 with the relations of capital and labour, as well as a disas- 
 trous extension of State-administrations. Immense damage 
 will be inflicted : primarily on employers ; secondarily on 
 the employed ; and eventually on the nation as a whole. 
 If these evils can be prevented at all, they can be prevented 
 only by establishing in the public mind a profound convic- 
 tion that there are certain definite limits to the functions of 
 the State ; and that these limits ought on no account to be 
 transgressed. Having learned what these limits are, the 
 upper classes ought to use all means of making them 
 clear to the people. 
 
 In No. XXIY. of this Eeview, for October, 1S57, we 
 58 
 
380 PAELIAMENTAEY REFORM. 
 
 endeavoured to show tliat while representative government 
 is, by its intrinsic nature, better than anj other for admin- 
 istering justice or insuring equitable relations among citizens, 
 it is, by its intrinsic nature, worse than any other for all the 
 various additional functions which governments commonly 
 undertake. To the question — What is representative 
 government good for ? our reply was — " It is good, 
 especially good, good above all others, for doing the thing 
 which a government should do. It is bad, especially bad, 
 bad above all others, for doing the things which a govern- 
 ment should not do." 
 
 To this truth we may here add a correlative one. As 
 fast as a government, by becoming representative, grows 
 better fitted for maintaining the rights of citizens, it grows 
 not only unfitted for other purposes, but dangerous for 
 other purposes. In gaining adaptation for the essential 
 function of a government, it loses such adaptation as it had 
 for other functions ; not only because its complexity is a 
 hindrance to administrative action, but also because in 
 discharging other functions it must be mischievously 
 influenced by class bias. So long as it is confined to the 
 duty of preventing the aggressions of individuals on one 
 another, and protecting the nation at large against external 
 enemies, the wider its basis the better ; for all men are 
 similarly interested in the security of life, property, and 
 freedom to exercise the faculties. But let it undertake 
 to bring home positive benefits to citizens, or to interfere 
 with any of the special relations between class and 
 class, and there necessarily enters an incentive to injustice. 
 For in no such cases can the immediate interests of all 
 classes be alike. Therefore do we say that as fast as 
 representation is extended, the sphere of government must 
 be contracted. 
 
 Postscript, — Since the foregoing pages were written, 
 Lord John Russell has introduced his Reform Bill ; and in 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 381 
 
 application of the general principles we contend for, a few 
 words may fitly be added respecting it. 
 
 Of the extended county-francliise most will approve, 
 save those whose illegitimate influence is diminished by it. 
 Adding to the rural constituencies a class less directly 
 dependent on large landowners, can scarcely fail to be 
 beneficial. Even should it not at first perceptibly affect 
 the choice of representatives, it will still be a good stimulus 
 to political education and to consequent future benefits. 
 Of the re-distribution of seats little is to be said, further 
 than that, however far short it may fall of an equitable 
 arrangement, it is perhaps as much as can at present 
 be obtained. 
 
 Whether the right limit for the borough-frauchise has 
 been chosen is, on the other hand, a question that admits 
 of much discussion. Some hesitation will probably be felt 
 by all who duly weigh the evidence on both sides. Believ- 
 ing, as we do, that the guidance of abstract equity, however 
 much it may need qualification, must never be ignored, we 
 should be glad were it at once practicable more nearly to 
 follow it; since it is certain that only as fast as the injustice 
 of political exclusion is brought to an end, will the many 
 political injustices which grow out of it disappear. Never- 
 theless, we are convinced that the forms which freedom 
 requires will not of themselves produce the reality of 
 freedom, in the absence of an appropriate national character; 
 any more than the most perfect mechanism will do its 
 work in the. absence of a motive power. There seems 
 reason to think that the degree of liberty a people is 
 capable of in any given age, is a fixed quantity ; and that 
 any artificial extension of it in one direction brings about 
 an equivalent limitation in some other direction. French 
 republics show scarcely any more respect for individual 
 rights than the despotisms they supplant ; and Fi*ench 
 electors use their freedom to put themselves again in 
 slavery. In America the feeble restraints imposed by the 
 
382 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 State are supplemented by tlie strong restraints of a public 
 opinion wliich, in many respects^ holds tlie citizens in 
 greater bondage than here. And i£ there needs a demon- 
 stration that representative equality is an insufficient safe- 
 guard for freedom, we have it in the trades'-unions already 
 referred to; which, purely democratic as are their organiza- 
 tions, yet exercise over their members a tyranny almost 
 Neapolitan in its rigour and unscrupulousness. The 
 greatest attainable amount of individual liberty being the 
 true end; and the diffusion of political power being 
 regarded mainly as a means to this end ; the real question 
 when considering further extensions of the franchise, is — 
 whether the average freedom of action of citizens will be 
 increased ? — whether men will be severally freer than 
 before to pursue the objects of life in their own way ? Or, 
 in the present case, the question is — whether the good 
 which £7, £6, or £5 householders would do in helping to 
 abolish existing injustices, will be partly or wholly 
 neutralized by the evil they may do in establishing other 
 injustices ? The desideratum is as large an increase in the 
 electorate as can be made without enabling the people to 
 carry out their delusive schemes of over-legislation. 
 Whether the increase proposed is greater or less than this, 
 is the essential point. Let us briefly consider the evidence 
 on each side. 
 
 As shown by Lord J. RusselFs figures, the new borough- 
 electors will consist mainly of artizans; and these, as we 
 have seen, are in great part banded together by a common 
 wish to regulate the relations of capital and labour. As a 
 class, they are not as Lord J. Russell describes them, 
 ^'fitted to exercise the franchise freely and independently." 
 On the contrary, there are no men in the community so 
 shackled. They are the slaves of the authorities they have 
 theni selves set up. The dependence of farmers on land- 
 lords, or of operatives on employers, is much less servile ; 
 for they can carry their capital or labour elsewhere. But 
 
PAELIAMENTAEY KEFOEM. 383 
 
 fclie penalty for disobedience to trades-union dictates, 
 pursues the rebel throughout the kingdom. Hence the 
 great mass of the new borough-electors must be expected 
 to act simultaneously, on the word of command being 
 issued from a central council of united trades. Even while 
 we write we meet with fresh reason for anticipating this 
 result. An address from the Conference of the Building 
 Trades to the working classes throughout the kingdom, 
 has just been published; thanking them for their support; 
 advising the maintenance of the organization ; anticipating 
 future success in their aims ; and intimating the propriety 
 of recommencing the nine-hours^ agitation. We must, 
 then, be prepared to see these industrial questions made 
 leading questions; for artizans have a much keener interest 
 in them than in any others. And we may feel certain that 
 many elections will turn upon them. 
 
 How many ? There are some thirty boroughs in which 
 the newly-enfranchised will form an actual majority — will, 
 if they act together, be able to outvote the existing electors ; 
 even supposing the parties into which they ai'e now 
 divided were to unite. In half-a-dozen other boroughs the 
 newly-enfranchised will form a virtual majority — will pre- 
 ponderate unless the present liberal and conservative voters 
 co-operate with great unanimity, which they will be unlikely 
 to do. And the number proposed to be added to the con- 
 stituency, is one-half or more in nearly fifty other boroughs : 
 that is, in nearly fifty other boroughs, the new party will 
 be able to arbitrate between the two existing parties ; and 
 will give its support to whichever of these promises most 
 aid to artizan-schemes. It may be said that in this estimate 
 we assume the whole of the new borough-electors to belong 
 to the artizan-class, which they do not. This is true. But, 
 on the other hand, it must be remembered that among the 
 £10 householders there is a very considerable sprinkling of 
 this class, while the freemen chiefly consist of it ; and hence 
 the whole artizan body in each constituency will probably 
 
o84 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 be not smaller than we liave assuraecl. If so, it follows 
 that should the trades-union organization be brought to 
 bear on borough-elections, as it is pretty certain to be, it 
 may prevail in some eighty or ninety places, and sway the 
 votes of representatives in from 100 to 150 seats — suppos- 
 ing, that is, that it can obtain as many eligible candidates. 
 
 Meanwhile, the county-constituencies in their proposed 
 state, as much as in their existing state, not being under 
 trades-union influence, may be expected to stand in anta- 
 gonism to the artizan-constituencies; as may also the small 
 boroughs. It is just possible, indeed, that irritated by the 
 ever-growing power of a rich mercantile class, continu^illy 
 treading closer on their heels, the landowners, carrying 
 with them their dependents, might join the employed in 
 their dictation to employers ; just as, in past times, the 
 nobles joined the commonalty against the kings, or the 
 kings joined the commonalty against the nobles. But 
 leaving out this remote contingency, we may fairly expect 
 the rural constituencies to oppose the large urban ones 
 on these industrial questions. Thus, then, the point to be 
 decided is, whether the benefits that will result from this 
 extended suffrage — benefits which we doubt not will be 
 great — may not be secured while the accompanying evil 
 tendencies are kept in check. It may be that these new 
 artizau-electors will be powerful for good, while their 
 power to work evil will be in a great degree neutralized. 
 But this we should like to see well discussed. 
 
 On one question, however, we feel no hesitation; namely, 
 the question of a ratepaying-qualification. From Lord 
 John Russell^s answer to Mr. Bright, and more recently 
 from his answer to Mr. Steel, we gather that on this 
 point there is to be no alteration — that £6 householders 
 will stand on the same footing that £10 householders do 
 at present. Now by the Compound-Householders-Act of 
 1851, to which we have already referred, it is provided 
 that tenants of £10 houses whose rates are paid by their 
 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 385 
 
 landlords, sliallj after having once tendered payment of 
 rates to the authorities, be thereafter considered as rate- 
 payers, and have votes accordingly. That is to say^ the 
 ratepaying-qualification is made nominal ; and that in 
 practice it has become so, is proved by the fact that 
 under this Act, 4000 electors were suddenly added to the 
 constituency of Manchester. 
 
 The continuance and extension of this arrangement we 
 conceive to be wholly vicious. Already we have shown 
 that the incidence of taxation ought to be made more 
 direct as fast as popular power is increased, and that, as 
 diminishing the elector's personal experience of the costs 
 of public administration, this abolition of a ratepaying- 
 qualification is a retrograde step. But this is by no means 
 the sole ground for disapproval. The ratepaying-qualifi- 
 cation is a valuable test— a test which tends to separate 
 the more worthy of the working classes from the less 
 worthy. Nay more, it tends to select for enfranchisement, 
 those who have the moral and intellectual qualities espe- 
 cially required for judicious political conduct. For what 
 general mental characteristic does judicious political conduct 
 presuppose ? The power of realizing remote consequences. 
 People who are misled by demagogues, are those who are 
 impressed with the proximate results set forth to them but 
 are not impressed by the distant results, even when these 
 are explained — regard them as vague, shadowy, theoretical, 
 and are not to be deterred by them from clutching at a 
 proniised boon. Conversely, the wise citizen is the one 
 who conceives the distant evils so clearly that they are 
 practically present to him, and thus outweigh the immediate 
 temptation. Now these are just the respective charac- 
 teristics of the two classes of tenants whom a ratepaying- 
 qualification separates: — the one having their rates paid 
 by their landlords and so losing their votes ; the other 
 paying their own rates that they may get votes : — the one 
 unable to resist present temptations, unable to save money. 
 
386 PARLIAMENTAET REFORM 
 
 and. tlierefore so inconvenienced by the payment of rates 
 as to be disfranchised rather than pay them ; the other 
 resisting present temptations and saving money, -with the 
 viewj among other ends^ of paying rates and becoming 
 electors. Trace these respective traits to their sources^ 
 and it becomes manifest that, on the average^ the pecu- 
 niarily improvident must be also the politically improrident; 
 and that the politically provident must be far more 
 numerous among those who are pecuniarily provident, 
 HencOj it is folly to throw aside a regulation under which 
 these spontaneously separate themselves — severally dis- 
 franchise themselves and enfranchise themselves. 
 
"THE COLLEOTIYE WISDOM." 
 {^First published in The Reader /or April 15, 1865. J 
 
 A TEST of senatorial capacity is a desideratum. We 
 rarely learn how near the mark or how wide of the mark 
 the calculations of statesmen are : the slowness and com- 
 plexity of social changes, hindering, as they do, the definite 
 comparisons of results with anticipations. Occasionally, 
 however, parliamentary decisions admit of being definitely 
 valued. One which was arrived at a few weeks ago fur- 
 nished a measure of legislative judgment too significant to 
 be passed by. 
 
 On the edge of the Cotswolds, just above the valley of 
 the Severn, occur certain springs, which, as they happen 
 to be at the end of the longest of the hundred streams 
 which join to form the Thames, have been called by a 
 poetical fiction ''^the sources of the Thames." Names, even 
 when poetical fictions, suggest conclusions; and conclusions 
 drawn from words instead of facts are equally apt to influence 
 conduct. Thus it happened that when, recently, there was 
 formed a company for supplying Cheltenham and some 
 other places from these springs, great opposition arose. 
 The Times published a paragraph headed ^' Threatened 
 Absorption of the Thames,'^ stating that the application of 
 
388 
 
 tHis company to Parliament had '' caused some little con- 
 sternation in the city of Oxford^ and will, doubtless, 
 throughout the valley of the Thames ; " and that " such a 
 measure^ if carried oufc^ will diminish the water of that 
 noble river a million of gallons per day." A million is 
 an alarming Avord — suggests something necessarily vast. 
 Translating words into thoughts, however, would have 
 calmed the fears of the Times paragraphist. Considering 
 that a million gallons would be contained by a room fift}'- 
 six feet cube, the nobility of the Thames would not be 
 much endangered by the deduction. The simple fact is, 
 that the current of the Thames, above the point at which 
 the tides influence it, discharges in twenty-four hours eight 
 hundred times this amount ! 
 
 When the bill of this proposed water-company was brought 
 before the House of Commons for second reading, it became 
 manifest tbat the imaginations of our rulers were affected 
 by such expressions as the "" sources of the Thames," and 
 ^^ a million gallons daily," in much the same way as the 
 imaginations of the ignorant. Though the quantity of 
 water proposed to be taken bears, to the quantity which 
 runs over Teddington weir, about the same ratio that a yard 
 bears to half a mile, it was thought by many members that 
 its loss would be a serious evil. No method of measurement 
 would be accurate enough to detect the difference between 
 the Thames as it now is, and the Thames minus the Cerney 
 springs ; and yet it was gravely stated in the House that, 
 were the Thames diminished in the proposed way, ^' the 
 proportion of sewage to pure water would be seriously in- 
 creased."" Taking a minute out of twelve hourSj would be 
 taking as large a proportion as the Cheltenham people wish 
 to take from the Thames. Nevertheless, it was contended 
 that to let Cheltenham have this quantity would be '' to rob 
 the towns along the banks of the Thames of their rights." 
 Though, of the Thames flowing by each of these towns, 
 some 999 parts out of 1,000 pass by unused, it was held 
 
"the collective wisdom." 389 
 
 tbafc a great injustice would be committed were one or two 
 of these 999 parts appropriated by the inhabitants of a 
 town who can now obtain daily but four gallons of foul 
 water per head ! 
 
 But the apparent inability thus shown to think of causes 
 and effects in something like their true quantitative relations, 
 was still more conspicuously shown. It was stated by 
 several members that the Thames Navigation Commissioners 
 would have opposed the bill if the commission had not been 
 bankrupt; and this hypothetical opposition appeared to 
 have weight. If we may trust the reports, the House of 
 Commons listened with gravity to the assertion of one of 
 its members, that, if the Cerney springs were diverted, 
 " shoals and flats would be created," Not a laugh nor a 
 cry of " Oh ! oh,'' appears to have been produced by the 
 prophecy, that the volume and scouring power of the Thames 
 would be seriously affected by taking away from it twelve 
 gallons per second ! The whole quantity which these 
 springs supply would be delivered by a current moving 
 through a pipe one foot in diameter at the rate of less than 
 two miles per hour. Yet, when it was said that the nav- 
 igabihty of the Thames would be injuriously affected by 
 this deduction, there were no shouts of derision. On the 
 contrary, the House rejected the Cheltenham Water Bill by 
 a majority of one hundred and eighteen to eighty-eight. It 
 is true that the data were not presented in the above shape. 
 J3ut the remarkable fact is that, even in the absence of a 
 specific comparison, it should not have been at once seen 
 that the water of springs which drain but a few square miles 
 at most, can be but an inappreciable part of the water which 
 runs out of the Thames basin, extending over several 
 thousand square miles. In itself, this is a matter of small 
 moment. It interests us here simply as an example of 
 legislative judgment. The decision is one of those small 
 holes through which a wide prospect may be seen, and a 
 disheartening prospect it is. In a very simple case there 
 
390 "the collective wisdom/' 
 
 is tere displayed a scarcely ci-edible inability to see how 
 much effect will follow so much cause ; and yet the business 
 of the assembly exhibiting this inability is that of dealing 
 with causes and effects of an extremely involved kind. All 
 the processes going on in society- arise from the concur- 
 rences and conflicts of human actions, which are determined 
 in their nature and amounts by the human constitution as 
 it now is — are as much results of natural causation as any 
 other results, and equally imply deflnite quantitative rela- 
 tions between causes and effects. Every legislative act 
 presupposes a diagnosis and a prognosis ; both of them 
 involving estimations of social forces and the work done by 
 them. Before it can be remedied^ an evd must be traced 
 to its source in the motives and ideas of men as they are, 
 living under the social conditions which exist — a problem 
 requiring that the actions tending toward the result shall 
 be identified, and that there shall be something like a true 
 idea of the quantities of their effects as well as the qualities. 
 A further estimation has then to be made of the kinds and 
 degrees of influence that will be exerted by the additional 
 factors which the proposed law will set in motion : what 
 will be the resultants produced by the new forces co- 
 operating with preexisting forces — a problem still more 
 complicated than the other. 
 
 We are quite prepared to hear the unhesitating reply, 
 that men incapable of forming an approximately true 
 judgment on a matter of simple physical causation may yet* 
 be very good law-makers. So obvious will this be thought 
 by most, that a tacit implication to the contrary will seem 
 to them absurd ; and that it will seem to them absurd 
 is one of the many indications of the profound ignorance 
 that prevails. It is true that mere empirical generali- 
 zations which men draw from their dealings with their 
 fellows suffice to give them some ideas of the proximate 
 effects which new enactments will work ; and, seeing these, 
 they think they see as far as needful. Discipline in physical 
 
"the collective wisdom.'* 891 
 
 science, however, would help to show them the futility of 
 calculatiBg consequences based on such simple data. And 
 if there needs proof that calculations of consequences so 
 based are futile, we have it in the enormous labour annually 
 entailed on the Legislature in trying to undo the mischiefs 
 it has previously done. 
 
 Should any say that it is useless to dwell on this in- 
 competency, seeing that the House of Commons contains 
 the select of the nation, than whose judgments no better 
 are to be had, we reply that there may be drawn two 
 inferences which have important practical bearings. In 
 the first place, we are shown how completely tLe b:)asted 
 intellectual discipline of our upper classes fails to give them 
 the power of following out in thought, with any correctness, 
 the sequences of even simple phenomena, much less those 
 of complex phenomena. And, in the second place, we 
 may draw the corollary, that if the sequences of those com- 
 plex phenomena which societies display, difficult beyond all 
 others to trace out, are so unlikely to be understood by 
 them, they may advantageously be restricted in their inter- 
 ferences with such sequences. 
 
 In one direction, especially, shall we see reason to resist 
 the extension of legislative action. There has of late been 
 urged the proposal that the class contemptuously described 
 as dividing its energies between business and bethels shall 
 have its education regulated by the class which mighty with 
 equal justice, be described as dividing its energies between 
 club-rooms and game preserves. This scheme does not 
 seem to us a hopeful one. Considering that during the 
 last half century our society has been remoulded by ideas 
 that have come from the proposed pupil, and have had to 
 overcome the dogged resistance of the proposed teacher, 
 the propriety of the arrangement is not obvious. And if the 
 propriety of the arrangement is not obvious on the face of 
 it, still less obvious does it become when the competency of 
 
392 
 
 tlie proposed teacher comes to be measured. British 
 intelligence, as distilled through the universities and re- 
 distilled into the House of Commons, is a product admitting 
 of such great improvement in quality, that we should be 
 sorry to see the present method of manufacture extended 
 and permanently established. 
 
POLITICAL FETICHISM. 
 
 \_First puhlislied in The Reader /or June 10, 1SG5.J 
 
 A HiNDOOj whoj before beginning his day's workj salaams 
 to a bit of plastic claj^ out of wliich, in a few moments, lie 
 has extemporized a god in his own image, is an object 
 of amazement to the European. We read with surprise 
 bordering on scepticism of worship done by machinery, 
 and of prayers which owe their supposed efficacy to the 
 motion given by the wind to the papers they are written on. 
 "When told how certain of the Orientals, if displeased with 
 their wooden deities, take them down and beat them, men 
 laugh and wonder. 
 
 Why should men wonder ? Kindred superstitions are 
 exhibited by their fellows every day — superstitions that 
 are, indeed, not so gross, but are intrinsically of the same 
 nature. There is an idolatry which, instead of carving the 
 object of its worship out of dead matter, takes humanity 
 for its raw material, and expects, by moulding a mass of 
 this humanity into a particular form, to give it powers or 
 properties quite different from those it had before it was 
 moulded. In the one case as in the other, the raw material 
 is, as much as may be, disguised. There are decorative 
 appliances by which the savage helps himself to think that 
 he has something more than wood before him ; and the 
 
394 POLITICAL FETICHISM. 
 
 citizen gives to tbe political agencies he has helped to 
 create, such imposing externals and distinctire names 
 expressive of power, as serve to strengthen his belief in 
 the benefits prayed for. Some faint reflection of that 
 " divinity " which '^ doth hedge a king '' spreads down 
 through every state department to the lowest ranks ; so 
 that, in the eyes of the people, even the policeman puts on 
 along with his uniform a certain indefinable power. Nay, 
 the mere dead symbols of authority excite reverence in 
 spite of better knowledge. A legal form of words seems to 
 have something especially binding in it ; and there is a 
 preternatural efficiency about a government stamp. 
 
 The parallelism is still more conspicuous between the 
 persistency of faith in the two cases, notwithstanding per- 
 petual disappointments. It is difficult to perceive how 
 graven images, that have been thrashed for not responding 
 to their worshipper's desires, should still be reverenced and 
 petitioned ; but the difficulty of conceiving this is diminished 
 when we remember how, in their turns, all the idols in onr 
 political pantheon undergo castigations for failing to do 
 what was expected of them, and are nevertheless daily 
 looked up to in the trustful hope that future prayers will be 
 answered. The stupidity, the slowness, the perversity, the 
 dishonesty of officialism, in one or other of its embodiments, 
 are demonstrated afresh in almost every newspaper that 
 issues. Probably half the leading articles written have for 
 texts some absurd official blunder, some exasperating official 
 delay, some astounding official corruption, some gross official 
 injustice, some incredible official extravagance. And yet 
 these whippings, in which balked expectation continually 
 vents itself, are immediately followed by renewed faith : 
 the benefits that have not come are still hoped for, and 
 prayers for others are put up. Along with proof that the 
 old State-machines are in themselves inert, and owe such 
 powers as they seem to have to the public opinion which 
 sets their parts in motion, there are continually proposed 
 
POLITICAL rETrCHIS]tf. 895 
 
 new State-macliines of the same type as the old. This 
 inexhaustible credulity is counted on by men of the widest 
 political experience. Lord Palmerston^ who probably 
 knows his public better than any other man, lately said^ in 
 reply to a charge made in the House — " I am quite con- 
 vinced that no person belonging to the government, in 
 whatever department he may be, high or low, would be 
 guilty of any breach of faith in regard to any matter 
 confided to him/^ To assert as much in the face of 
 facts continually disclosed, implies that Lord Palmerston 
 knows well that men's faith in oflBcialism survives all 
 adverse evidence. 
 
 In which case are the hopes from State-agency realized ? 
 One might have thought that the vital interests at stake 
 would have kept the all-essential apparatus for administer- 
 ing justice up to its work; but they do not. On the one 
 hand, here is a man wrongly convicted, and afterward 
 proved to be innocent, who is *^ pardoned " for an offence 
 he did not commit; and has this as consolation for his 
 unmerited suffering. On the other hand, here is a man 
 whose grave delinquencies a Lord Chancellor overlooks, on 
 partial restitution being made — nay, more, countenances 
 the granting of a pension to him. Proved guilt is rewarded, 
 while pi'oved innocence is left without compensation for 
 pains borne and fortunes blasted ! This marvellous anti- 
 thesis, if not often fully paralleled in the doings of officialism 
 as administrator of justice, is, in endless cases, paralleled 
 in part. The fact that imprisonment is the sentence on a 
 boy for stealing a pennyworth of fruit, while thousands of 
 pounds may be transferred from a public into a private 
 purse without any positive punishment being adjudged, is 
 an anomaly kept in countenance by numerous other judicial 
 acts. Theoretically, the State is a protector of the rights of 
 subjects; practically, the State continually plays the part 
 of aggressor. Though it is a recognized principle of equity 
 that he who makes a false charge shall pay the costs of the 
 
396 
 
 POLITICAL PETICHISM. 
 
 defence, jet, until quite recently^ tlie Crown has persisted 
 in refusing to pay the costs of citizens against whom it has 
 brought false charges. Nay, worse, deliberate attempts 
 used to be made to establish charges by corrupt means. 
 Within the memory of those now living, the Crown, in 
 excise-prosecutions, bribed juries. When the verdict was 
 for the Crown, the custom was to give double fees ; and the 
 practice was not put an end to until the counsel for a 
 defendant announced in open court that the jury should 
 have double fees if their verdict was for his client ! 
 
 Not alone in the superior parts of our judicial apparatus 
 is this ill-working of officialism so thrust on men's notice as 
 to have become proverbial; not alone in the life-long delays 
 and ruinous expenses which have made Chancery a word of 
 dread ; not alone in the extravagances of bankruptcy courts, 
 which lead creditors carefully to shun them ; not alone in 
 that uncertainty which makes men submit to gross injustice 
 rather than risk the still grosser injustice which the law 
 will, as likely as not, inflict on them ; but down through the 
 lower divisions of the judicial apparatus are all kinds of 
 failures and absurdities daily displayed. If may be fairly 
 urged in mitigation of the sarcasms current respecting the 
 police, that among so many men cases of misconduct and 
 inefficiency must be frequent ; but we might have expected 
 the orders under which they act to be just and well con- 
 sidered. Yery little inquiry shows that they are not. 
 There is a story current that, in the accounts of an Irish 
 official, a small charge for a telegram which an emergency 
 had called for, was objected to at the head office in London, 
 and, after a long correspondence, finally allowed, but with 
 the understanding that in future no such item would be 
 passed, unless the department in London had authorized it ! 
 We cannot vouch for this story, but we can vouch for one 
 which gives credibility to it. A friend who had been 
 robbed by his cook went to the police-office, detailed the 
 case, gave good reasons for inferring the direction of her 
 
POLITICAIi PETICHISM. 397 
 
 flight, and requested the police to telegraph, that she 
 might be intercepted. He was told, however, that they 
 could not do this without authority ; and this authority was 
 not to be had without a long delay. The result was that 
 the thief, who had gone to the place supposed, escaped, 
 and has not since been heard of. Take another f auction 
 assumed by the police — the regulation of traffic. Daily, 
 all through London, ten thousand fast-going vehicles, with 
 hard-pressed men of business in them, are stopped by a 
 sprinkle of slow-going carts and wagons. Greater speed 
 in these comparatively few carts and wagons, or limitation 
 of them to early and late hours, would immensely diminish 
 the evil. But, instead of dealing with these really great 
 hinderances to traffic, the police deal with that which is 
 practically no hindrance. Men with advertisement-boards 
 were lately forbidden to walk about, on the groundless plea 
 that they are in the way ; and incapables, prevented thus 
 from getting a shilling a day, were driven into the ranks of 
 paupers and thieves. Worse cases may be observed. For 
 years past there has been a feud between the police and 
 the orange-girls, who are chased hither and thither because 
 they are said to be obstructions to foot-passengers. Mean- 
 while, in some of the chief thoroughfares, may constantly 
 be seen men standing with toys, which they delude children 
 and their parents into buying by pretending that the toys 
 make certain sounds which they themselves make ; and 
 when the police, quietly watching this obtainment of money 
 under false pretences, are asked why they do not interfere, 
 they reply that they have no orders. Admirable contrast ! 
 Trade dishonestly, and you may collect a small crowd on 
 the pavement without complaint being made that you 
 interrupt the traffic. Trade honestly, and you shall be 
 driven from the pavement-edge as an impediment — shall be 
 driven to dishonesty ! 
 
 One might have thought that the notorious inefficiency 
 of officialism as a protector against injustice would have 
 
398 POLITICAL FETICHISM. 
 
 made men sceptical of its efficiency in otlier tMngg. If 
 here, where citizens have such intense interests in getting 
 a function well discharged, they have failed through all 
 these centuries in getting it well discharged — if this 
 agency, which is in theory the guardian of each citizen, is 
 in so many cases his enemy, that going to law is suggestive 
 of impoverishment and possible ruin; it might have been 
 supposed that officialism would scarcely be expected to 
 work well where the interests at stake are less intense. 
 But so strong is political fetichism, that neither these 
 experiences, nor the parallel experiences which every state- 
 department affords, diminish men's faith. For years past 
 there has been thrust before them the fact that, of the 
 funds of Greenwich Hospital, one-third goes to maintain 
 the sailors, while two-thirds go in administration; but this 
 and other such facts do not stop their advocacy of more 
 public administrations. The parable of straining at gnats 
 and swallowing camels they see absolutely paralleled by 
 officialism, in the red-tape particularity with which all 
 minute regulations are enforced, and the astounding care- 
 lessness with which the accounts of a whole department, 
 like the Patent Office, are left utterly nncontrolled ; and 
 yet we continue to hear men propose government-andits 
 as checks for mercantile companies ! No diminution of 
 confidence seems to result from disclosure of stupidities 
 which even a wild imagination would scarcely have thought 
 possible : instance the method of promotion lately made 
 public, under which a clerk in one branch of a department 
 takes the higher duties of some deceased superior clerk, 
 without any rise of salary, while some clerk in another 
 branch of the department gets the rise of salary without 
 any increase in his responsibilities ! 
 
 Endless as are these evils and absurdities, and survivina* 
 generation after geueration as they do, spite of commis- 
 sions and reports and debates, there is an annual crop of 
 new schemes for government agencies which are expected 
 
POLITICAL TETICHISM. 399 
 
 to work just as legislators propose they shall work. With 
 a system of army-promotion which insures an organized 
 incompetence, but which survives perpetual protests ; with 
 a notoriously ill-constituted admiralty, of which the doings 
 are stock-subjects of ridicule ; with a church that maintains 
 effete formulas, notwithstanding almost universal repudia- 
 tion of them ; there are daily demands for more law- 
 established appliances. With building acts under which 
 arise houses less stable than those of the last generation ; 
 with coal-mine inspection that does not prevent coal-mine 
 explosions ; with railway inspection that has for its 
 accompaniment plenty of railway accidents — with these 
 and other such failures continually displayed, there still 
 prevails what M. Guizot rightly calls that *' gross delusion, 
 a belief in the sovereign power of political machinery/^ 
 
 A great service would be done by any man who would 
 analyze the legislation, say of the last half century, and 
 compare the expected results of Acts of Parliament with 
 their proved results. He might make it an instructive 
 revelation by simply taking all the preambles, and observ- 
 ing how many of the evils to be rectified were evils 
 produced by preceding enactments. His chief difficulty 
 would be that of getting within any moderate compass the 
 immense number of cases in which the benefits anticipated 
 were not achieved, while unanticipated disasters were 
 caused. And then he might effectively close his digest by 
 showing what immense advantages have, in instance after 
 instance, followed the entire cessation of legislative action. 
 Not, indeed, that such an accumulation of cases, however 
 multitudinous and however conclusive, would have an 
 appreciable effect on the average mind. Political, fetichism 
 will continue so long as men remain without scientific 
 discipline — so long as they recognize only proximate 
 causes, and never think of the remoter and more general 
 causes by which their special agencies are set in motion. 
 Until the thing which now usurps the name of education 
 
400 POLITICAL FETICHISM. 
 
 has been dethroned by a true education, having for its end 
 to teach men the nature of the world they live in, new 
 political delusions will grow up as fast as old ones are 
 extinguished. But there is a select class existing, aud a 
 larger select class arising, on whom a work of the kind 
 described would have an effect^ and for whom it would be 
 well worth while to write it. 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION". 
 
 [_First puhlished in The Fortnightly Review /or December ISVl.] 
 
 It is contrary to common-sense that fish should be more 
 difficult to get at the sea-side than in London ; but it is 
 true, nevertheless. No less contrary to common-sense 
 seems the truth that though, in the West Highlands, oxen 
 are to be seen everywhere, no beef can be had without 
 sending two or three hundred miles to Glasgow for it. 
 Rulers who, guided by common-sense, tried to suppress 
 certain opinions by forbidding the books containing them, 
 never dreamed that their interdicts would cause the 
 difosion of these opinions ; and rulers who, guided by 
 common-sense, forbade excessive rates of interest, never 
 dreamed that they were thereby making the terms harder 
 for borrowers than before. When printing replaced 
 copying, any one who had prophesied that the number 
 of persons engaged in the manufacture of books would 
 immensely increase, as a consequence, would have been 
 thought wholly devoid of common-sense. And equally 
 devoid of common-sense would have been thought any one 
 who, when railways were displacing coaches, said that the 
 number of horses employed in bringing passengers and 
 goods to and from railways, would be greater than the 
 number directly displaced by railways. Such cases might 
 
402 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 be multiplied. Whoso remembers that^ among quite simple 
 phenomena, causes produce effects which, are sometimes 
 utterly at variance with anticipation, will see how frequently 
 this must happen among complex phenomena. That a 
 balloon is made to rise by the same force which, makes a 
 stone fall ; that the melting of ice may be greatly retarded 
 by wrapping the ice in a blanket ; that tke simplest way of 
 setting potassium on fire is to throw it into the water ; are 
 truths which those who know only the outside aspect of 
 things would regard as manifest falsehoods. And, if, when 
 tbe factors are few and siuiple, the results may be so 
 absolutely opposed to seeming probability, much more will 
 they be often thus opposed when the factors are many and 
 involved. The saying of the French respecting political 
 events, that '^'^ it is always the unexpected which happens '' 
 — a saying whicb they have been abundantly re-illustrating 
 of late — is one whicb legislators, and those who urge on 
 schemes of legislation, sliould have ever in mind. Let us 
 pause a moment to contemplate a seemingly-impossible set 
 of results which, social forces have wrought out. 
 
 Up to quite recent days, Language was held to be of 
 supernatural origin. That this elaborate apparatus of 
 symbols, so marvellously adapted for the conveyance of 
 thought from mind to mind, was a miraculous gift, seemed 
 unquestionable. No possible alternative way could be 
 tliought of by which there had come into existence these 
 multitudinous assemblages of words of various orders, 
 genera, and species, moulded into fitness for articulating 
 with, one another, and capable of being united from 
 moment to moment into ever-new combinations, which 
 represent with precision each idea as it arises. The 
 supposition that, in the slow progress of things. Language 
 grew out of the continuous use of signs — at first mainly 
 mimetic, afterward partly mimetic, pai-tly vocal, and at 
 length almost wholly vocal — was an hypothesis never even 
 conceived by men in early stages of civilization ; and when 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 403 
 
 the hypothesis was at length conceived, it was thought 
 too monstrous an absurdity to be even entertained. Yet 
 this monstrous absurdity proves to be true. Already the 
 evolution of Language has been traced back far enough 
 to show that all its particular words^ and all its leading 
 traits of structure, have had a natural genesis ; and day 
 by day investigation makes it more manifest that its 
 genesis has been natural from the beginning. Not only 
 has it been natural from the beginning, but it has been 
 spontaneous. No language is a cunningly-devised scheme 
 of a ruler or body of legislators. There was no council 
 of savages to invent the parts of speech, and decide on 
 what principles they should be used. Nay, more. Going 
 on without any authority or appointed regulation, this 
 natural process went on without any man observing that 
 it was going on. Solely under pressure of the need for 
 communicating their ideas and feelings — solely in pursuit 
 of their personal interests — men little by little developed 
 speech in absolute unconsciousness that they were doing 
 any thing more than pursuing their personal interests. 
 Even now the unconsciousness continues. Take the 
 whole population of the globe, and there is probably not 
 above one in a million who knows that in his daily talk 
 he is carrying on the process by which Language has 
 been evolved. 
 
 I commence thus by way of giving the key-note to 
 the argument which follows. My general purpose, in 
 dwelling a moment on this illustration, has been that of 
 showing how utterly beyond the conceptions of common- 
 sense, literally so called, and even beyond the conceptions 
 of cultivated common-sense, are the workings-out of 
 sociological processes — -how these workings-out are such 
 that even those who have carried to the uttermost " the 
 scientific use of the imagination," would never have antici- 
 pated them. And my more special purpose has been that 
 of showing how marvellous are the results indirectly and 
 59 
 
404 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 unintentionally acliieved by the cooperation of men who 
 are severally pursuing tlieir private ends. Let me pass 
 now to the particular topic to be here dealt with. 
 
 I have greatly regretted to see Prof. Huxley strength- 
 ening, by his deservedly high authority, a school of 
 politicians which can scarcely be held to need strength- 
 ening : its opponents being so few. I regret it the more 
 because^ thus far^ men prepared for the study of Sociology 
 by previous studies of Biology and Psychology, have 
 scarcely expressed any opinions on the question at issue ; 
 and that Prof. Huxley, who by both general and special 
 culture is so eminently fitted to judge, should have come 
 to the conclusions set forth in the last number of the 
 Fortnightly Revieiu, will be discouraging to the small 
 number who have reached opposite conclusions. Greatly 
 regretting however, though I do, this avowed antagonism 
 of Prof. Huxley to a general political doctrine with which 
 I am identified, I do not propose to make any reply to 
 his arguments at large : being deterred partly by reluc- 
 tance to dwell on points of difference with one whom I so 
 greatly admire, and partly by the consciousness that what 
 I should say would be mainly a repetition of what I have 
 explicitly or implicitly said elsewhere. But with one point 
 raised I feel obliged to deal. Prof. Huxley tacitly puts to 
 me a question. By so doing he leaves me to choose 
 between two alternatives, neither of which is agreeable to 
 me. I must either, by leaving it unanswered, accept the 
 implication that it is unanswerable, and the doctrine I hold 
 untenable ; or else I must give it an adequate answer. 
 Little as I like it, I see that the latter of these alternatives 
 is that which, on public as well as on personal grounds, I 
 must accept. 
 
 Had I been allowed to elaborate more fully the E-eview- 
 article from which Prof. Huxley quotes, this question 
 would possibly not have been raised. That article closes 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 405 
 
 ■witL. the following words: — ^^We had hoped to say some- 
 tliing respecting the different types of social organization, 
 and something also on social metamorphoses ; bat we have 
 reached our assigned limits." These further developments 
 of the conception — developments to be hereafter set forth 
 in the Principles of Sociology — I must here sketch in 
 outline before my answer can be made intelligible. In 
 sketching them, I must say much that would be needless 
 were my answer addressed to Prof. Huxley only. Bare 
 allusions to general phenomena of organization, with which 
 he is immeasurably more familiar than I am, would suffice. 
 But, as the sufficiency of my answer has to be judged by 
 the general reader, the general reader must be supplied 
 with tbe requisite data: my presentation of them being 
 under correction from Prof, Huxley if it is inaccurate. 
 
 The primary diferentiation in organic structures, mani- 
 fested alike in the history of each organism and in the 
 history of the organic world as a whole, is the differentiation 
 between outer and inner parts — the parts which hold direct 
 converse with the environment and the parts which do 
 not hold direct converse with the environment. We see 
 this alike in those smallest and lowest forms improperly, 
 though siig'gestively, sometimes called unicellular, and also 
 in the next higher division of creatures which, with 
 considerable reason, are regarded as aggregations of the 
 lower. In these creatures the body is divisible into endo- 
 derm and ectoderm, differing very little in their characters, 
 but serving the one to form the digestive sac, and the 
 other to form the outer wall of the body. As Prof. Huxley 
 describes them in his Oceanic Hydrozoa, these layers repre- 
 sent respectively the organs of nutrition and the organs 
 of external relation — generally, tbough not universally; 
 for there are exceptions, especially among parasites. In 
 the embryos of higher types, these two layers severally 
 become double by the splitting of a layer formed between 
 
406 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 tliem; and from tlie outer double layer is developed tlie 
 body -wall witli its limbsj neryous system^ senses^ muscles^ 
 etc. ; while from tlie inner double layer there arise the 
 alimentary canal and its appendages, together with the 
 heart and lungs. Though in such higher types these two 
 systems of organs, which respectively absorb nutriment 
 and expend nutriment, become so far connected by rami- 
 fying blood-vessels and nerves that this division cannot 
 be sharply made, still the broad contrast remains. At 
 the very outset, then, there arises this separation, which 
 implies at once a cooperation and an antagonism — a co- 
 operation, because, while the outer organs secure for the 
 inner organs the crude food, the inner organs elaborate 
 and supply to the outer organs the prepared materials by 
 which they are enable to do their work; and an antagonism, 
 because each set of organs, living and growing at the cost 
 of these prepared materials, cannot appropriate any portion 
 of the total supply without diminishing by so much the 
 supply available for the other. This general cooperation 
 and general antagonism becomes complicated with special 
 cooperations and special antagonisms, as fast as these two 
 great systems of organs develop. The originally simple 
 alimentary canal, differentiating into many parts, becomes 
 a congeries of structures which, by cooperation, fulfil 
 better their general function, but between which there 
 nevertheless arise antagonisms ; since each has to make 
 good its waste and to get matter for growth, at the cost of 
 the general supply of nutriment available for them all. 
 Similarly, as fast as the outer system develops into special 
 senses and limbs, there arise among these, also, secondary 
 cooperations and secondary antagonisms. By their variously- 
 combined actions, food is obtained more effectually; and 
 yet the activity of each set of muscles, or each directive 
 nervous structure, entails a draft upon the stock of pre- 
 pared nutriment which the outer organs receive, and is 
 by so much at the cost of the rest. Thus the method of 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 407 
 
 organization^ both in general and in detail^ is a simultaneous 
 combination and opposition. All the organs unite in 
 subserving the interests of the organism they form ; and 
 yet they have all their special interests^ and compete with 
 one another for blood. 
 
 A form of government, or control^ or coordination^ 
 develops as fast as these systems of organs develop. 
 Eventually this becomes double. A general distinction 
 arises between tbe two controlling systems belonging to 
 the two great systems of organs. Whether the inner con- 
 trolling system is or is not originally derived from the 
 outer, matters not to the argument — when developed it is 
 in great measure independent.* If we contemplate their 
 respective sets of functions, we shall perceive the origin of 
 this distinction. That the outer organs may cooperate 
 effectively for the purposes of catching prey, escaping 
 danger, etc., it is needful that they should be under a 
 government capable of directing their combined actions, 
 now in this way and now in that, according as outer 
 circumstances vary. From instant to instant there must 
 be quick adjustments to occasions that are more or less 
 new ; and hence there requires a complex and centralized 
 nervous apparatus, to which all these organs are promptly 
 and completely obedient. The government needful for the 
 
 ■ Here, and throughout the discussion, I refer to these controlling systems 
 only as they exist in the Vertebrata^ because their relations are far better 
 known in this great division of the animal kingdom — not because like rela- 
 tions do not exist elsewhere. Indeed, in the great sub-kingdom Annulosa, 
 these controlling systems have relations that are extremely significant to us 
 here. For while an inferior annulose animal has only a single set of nervous 
 structures, a superior annulose animal (as a moth) has a set of nervous 
 structures presiding over the viscera, as well as a more conspicuous set 
 presiding over the organs of external relation. And this contrast is 
 analogous to one of the contrasts between undeveloped and developed 
 societies ; for, while among the uncivilized and incipiently civilized there is 
 but a single set of directivQ agencies, there are among the fully civilized, as 
 we shall presently see, two seta of directive agencies, for the outer and inner 
 structures respectively. 
 
408 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION, 
 
 inner system of organs is a different and mucli simpler one. 
 When the food obtained by the outer organs has been put 
 into the stomachj the cooperation required of the visceraj 
 though it varies somewhat as the quantity or kind of food 
 varies, has nevertheless a general uniformity ; and it is 
 required to go on in much the same way whatever the 
 outer circumstances may be. In each case th.e food has 
 to be reduced to a pulp_, supplied with various solvent 
 secretions, propelled onward, and its nutritive part taken 
 up by absorbent surfaces. That these processes may be 
 effective, the organs which, carry tbem on must be supplied 
 with fit blood; and to this end the heart and the lungs 
 bave to act with greater vigor. This visceral cooperation, 
 carried on with this comparative uniformity, is regulated 
 by a nervous system which is to a large extent independent 
 of that higher and more complex nervous system controlling 
 the external organs. The act of swallowing is, indeed, 
 mainly effected by the higher nervous system ; but, being 
 swallowed, the food affects by its presence the local nerves, 
 through them the local ganglia, and indirectly, through 
 nervous connexions with other ganglia, excites the rest of 
 the viscera into cooperative activity. It is true that the 
 functions of the sympathetic or ganglionic nervous system, 
 or *^^ nervous system of organic life," as it is otherwise 
 called, are imperfectly understood. But^ since we know 
 positively that some of its plexuses, as the cardiac, are 
 centres of local stimulation and coordination, which can 
 act independently, though, they are influenced by higher 
 centres, it is fairly to be inferred that the other and still 
 larger plexuses, distributed among the viscera, are also 
 such local and largely independent centres ; especially as 
 the nerves they send into the viscera, to join the many 
 subordinate ganglia distributed through them, greatly ex- 
 ceed in quantity the cerebro-spinal fibres accompanying 
 them. Indeed, to suppose otherwise is to leave unanswered 
 the question — What are their functions ? as well as the 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 409 
 
 question — How are these unconscious visceral coodinations 
 effected ? There remains only to observe the kind of co- 
 operation which exists between the two nervous systems. 
 This is both a general and a special cooperation. The 
 general cooperation is that by which either system of 
 organs is enabled to stimulate the other to action. The 
 alimentary canal yields through certain nervous connexions 
 the sensation of hunger to the higher nervous system; 
 and so prompts efforts for procuring food. Conversely^ 
 the activity of the nervo-muscular system, or, at least, its 
 normal activity, sends inward to the cardiac and other 
 plexuses a gush of stimulus which excites the viscera to 
 action. The special cooperation is one by which it would 
 seem that each system puts an indirect restraint on the 
 other. Fibres from the sympathetic accompany every artery 
 throughout the organs of external relation, and exercise 
 on the artery a constrictive action ; and the converse is 
 done by certain of the cerebro-spinal fibres which ramify 
 with the sympathetic throughout the viscera : through the 
 vagus and other nerves, an inhibitory influence is exercised 
 on the heartj intestines, pancreas^ etc. Leaving doubtful 
 details, however, the fact which concerns us here is sufficiently 
 manifest. There are, for these two systems of organs, two 
 nervous systems, in great measure independent ; and, if it 
 is true that thehigher system influences the lower, it is no 
 less true that the lower very powerfully influences the 
 higher. The restrictive action of the sympathetic upon the 
 circulation, throughout the nervo-muscular system, is un- 
 questionable ; and it is possibly through this that, when 
 the viscera have much work to do, the nervo-muscular 
 system is incapacitated in so marked a manner.* 
 
 The one further fact here concerning* us is the contrast 
 * To meet the probable objection that the experiments of Bernard, Ludwig, 
 and others, show that in the case of certain glands the nerves of the cerebro- 
 spinal system are those which set up the secreting process, I would remark 
 that in these cases, and in many others where the relative functions of the 
 cerebro-spinal nerves and the sympathetic nerves have been studied, the 
 
4j10 specialized administration. 
 
 presented in different kinds of animals, between the degrees 
 of development of these two great sets of structures that 
 carry on respectively the outer functions and the inner 
 functions. There are active creatures in which the loco- 
 motive organs, the organs of sense, together with the 
 nervous apparatus which combines their actions, bear a 
 large ratio to the organs of alimentation and their append- 
 ages ; while there are inactive creatures in which these 
 organs of external relation bear a very small ratio to the 
 organs of alimentation. And a remarkable fact, here 
 especially instructive to us, is that very frequently there 
 occurs a metamorphosis, which has for its leading trait a 
 great change in the ratio of these two systems — a meta- 
 morphosis which accompanies a great change in the mode 
 of life. The most familiar metamorphosis is variously 
 illustrated among insects. During the early or larval 
 stage of a butterfly, the organs of alimentation are largely 
 developed, while the organs of external relation are but 
 little developed; and then, during a period of quiescence, 
 the organs of external relation undergo an immense develop- 
 ment, making possible the creature's active and varied 
 .adjustments to the surrounding world, while the alimentary 
 system becomes relatively small. On the other hand, among 
 the lower invertebrate animals there is a very common 
 metamorphosis of an opposite kind. When young, the 
 creature, with scarcely any alimentary system, but supplied 
 
 organs have been those in which sensation is either the stimulus to activity 
 or its accompaniment ; and that from these cases no conclusion can be 
 drawn applying to the cases of those viscera which normally perform their 
 functions without sensation. Perhaps it may even be that the functions of 
 those sympathetic fibres which accompany the arteries of the outer organs 
 are simply ancillary to those of the central parts of the sympathetic system, 
 which stimulate and regulate the viscera — ancillary in this sense, that they 
 check the diffusion of blood in external organs when it is wanted in internal 
 organs : cerebro- spinal inhibition (except in its action on the heart) working 
 the opposite way. And possibly this is the instrumentality for carrying on 
 that competition for nutriment which, as we saw, arises at the very outset 
 between these two great systems of organs. 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 411 
 
 witli limbs and sense organs^ swims about actively. Pre- 
 sently it settles in a habitat where food is to be obtained 
 without moving about, loses in great part its organs of 
 external relation, develops its visceral system, and, as it 
 grows, assumes a nature utterly unlike that which it origin- 
 ally had — a nature adapted almost exclusively to alimenta- 
 tion and the propagation of the species. 
 
 Let us turn now to the social organism, and the analogies 
 of structure and function which may be traced in it. Of 
 course these analogies between the phenomena presented 
 in a physically coherent aggregate forming an individual, 
 and the phenomena presented in a physically incoherent 
 aggregate of individuals distributed over a wide area, 
 cannot bfe analogies of a visible or sensible kind ; but can 
 only be analogies between the sj^stems, or methods, of 
 organization. Such analogies as exist result from the one 
 unquestionable community between the two organizations : 
 thei'e is in hoth a mutual dependence of 'parts. This is the 
 origin of all organization; and determines what similarities 
 there are between an individual organism and a social 
 organism. Of course the similarities thus determined are 
 accompanied by transcendent differences, determined, as 
 above said, by the unlikenesses of the aggregates. One 
 cardinal difference is that, while in the individual organism 
 there is but one centre of consciousness capable of pleasure 
 or pain, there are, in the social organism, as many such 
 centres as there are individuals, and the aggregate of them 
 has no consciousness of pleasure or pain — a difference 
 which entirely changes the ends to be pursued. Bearing 
 in mind this qualification, let us now glance at the 
 parallelisms indicated. 
 
 A society, like an individual, has a set of structures 
 fitting it to act upon its environment — appliances for attack 
 and defence, armies, navies, fortified and garrisoned places. 
 At the same time, a society has an industrial organization 
 
412 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 wliicli carries on all those processes that make possible the 
 national life. Though these two sets of organs for external 
 activity and internal activity do not bear to one another 
 just the same relation which the outer and inner organs of 
 an animal do (since the industrial structures in a society 
 supply themselves with raw materials, instead of being 
 supplied by the external organs) , yet they bear a relation 
 otherwise similar. There is at once a cooperation and an 
 antagonism. By the help of the defensive system the 
 industrial system is enabled to carry on its functions with- 
 out injury from foreign enemies ; and by the help of the 
 industrial system, which supplies it with food and materials, 
 the defensive system is enabled to maintain this security. 
 At the same time the two systems are opposed in so far 
 that they both depend for their existence upon the common 
 stock of produce. Further, in the social organism, as in 
 the individual organism, this primary cooperation and 
 antagonism subdivides into secondary cooperations and 
 antagonisms. If we look at the industrial organization, 
 we see that its agricultural part and its manufacturing 
 part aid one another by the exchange of their products, 
 and are yet otherwise opposed to one another; since each 
 takes of the other's products the most it can get in return 
 for its own products. Similarly throughout the manu- 
 facturing system itself. Of the total returns secured by 
 Manchester for its goods, Liverpool obtains as much as 
 possible for the raw material, and Manchester gives as 
 little as possible — the two at the same time cooperating 
 in secreting for the rest of the community the woven 
 fabrics it requires, and in jointly obtaining from the rest of 
 the community the largest payment in other commodities. 
 And thus it is in all kinds of direct and indirect ways 
 throughout the industrial structures. Men prompted by 
 their own needs as well as those of their children, and 
 bodies of such men more or less aggregated, are quick to 
 find every unsatisfied need of their fellow-men, and to 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 413 
 
 satisfy it in return for the satisfaction of tbeir own needs ; 
 and the working of this process is inevitably such that the 
 strongest need, ready to pay the most for satisfaction, is 
 that which draws most workers to satisfy it, so that there 
 is thus a perpetual balancing of the needs and of the appli- 
 ances which subserve them. 
 
 This brings us to the regulative structures under which 
 these two systems of cooperating parts work. As in the 
 individual organism, so in the social organism, the outer 
 parts are under a rigorous central control. For adjustment 
 to the varying and incalculable changes in the environ- 
 ment, the external organs, offensive and defensive, must 
 be capable of prompt combination ; and that their actions 
 may be quickly combined to meet each exigency as it 
 arises, they must be completely subordinated to a supreme 
 executive power : armies and navies must be despotically 
 controlled. Quite otherwise is it with the regulative 
 apparatus required for the industrial system. This, which 
 carries on the nutrition of a society, as the visceral system 
 carries on the nutrition of an individual, has a regulative 
 apparatus in great measure distinct from that which 
 regulates the external organs. It is not by any "order 
 in council " that farmers are determined to grow so much 
 wheat and so much barley, or to divide their land in due 
 proportion between arable and pasture. There requires 
 no telegram from the Home Office to alter the production 
 of woollens in Leeds, so that it may be properly adjusted 
 to the stocks on hand and the forthcoming crop of wool. 
 Staffordshire produces its due quantity of pottery, and 
 Sheffield sends out cutlery with rapidity adjusted to the 
 consumption, without any legislative stimulus or restraint. 
 The spurs and checks to production which manufacturers 
 and manufacturing centres receive, have quite another 
 origin. Partly by direct orders from distributors and 
 partly by the indirect indications furnished by the market 
 reports throughout the kingdom, they are prompted to 
 
414 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 secrete actively or to diminisli tlieir rates of secretion, 
 Tlie regulative apparatus by which these industrial organs 
 are made to cooperate harmoniouslyj acts somewhat as the 
 sympathetic does in a vertebrate animal. There is a 
 system of communications among the great producing 
 and distribating centres^ which excites or retards as the 
 circumstances vary. From hour to hour messages pass 
 between all the chief provincial towns^ as well as between 
 each of them and London ; from hour to hour prices are 
 adjusted^ supplies are ordered hither or thither^ and 
 capital is drafted from place to place^ according as there 
 is greater or less need for it. All this goes on without 
 any ministerial overseeing — without any dictation from 
 those executive centres which combine the actions of 
 the outer organs. There is^ however^ one all-essential 
 influence which these higher centres exercise over the 
 industrial activities — a restraining influence which prevents 
 aggression^ direct and indirect. The condition under 
 which only these producing and distributing processes can 
 go on healthfully^ is that^ wherever there is work and 
 wastOj there shall be a proportionate supply of materials 
 for repair. And securing this is nothing less than securing 
 fulfilment of contracts. Just in the same way that a 
 bodily organ which performs function^ but is not adequately 
 paid in bloody must dwindle_, and the organism as a whole 
 eventually suffer ; so an industrial centre which has made 
 and sent out its special commodity, but does not get 
 adequately paid in other commodities, must decay. And 
 when we ask what is requisite to prevent this local 
 innutrition and decay, we find the requisite to be that 
 agreements shall be carried out ; that goods shall be 
 paid for at the stipulated prices; that justice shall 
 be administered. 
 
 One further leading parallelism must be described — 
 that between the metamorphoses which occur in the two 
 cases. These metamorphoses are analogous in so far that 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION, 415 
 
 iliey are changes in the ratios of the innei* and outer 
 systems of organs; and also in so far as they take place 
 under analogous conditions. At the one extreme we have 
 that small and simple type of society which a wandering 
 horde of savages presents. This is a type almost wholly 
 predatory in its organization. It consists of little else 
 than a cooperative structure for carrying on warfare — the 
 industrial part is almost absent^ being represented only by 
 the women. When the wandering tribe becomes a settled 
 tribcj an industrial organization begins to show itself — 
 especially where^ by conquest^ there has been obtained a 
 slave-class that may be forced to labour. The predatory 
 structure^ however, still for a long time predominates. 
 Omitting the slaves and the womeUj the whole body politic 
 consists of parts organized for offence and defence^ and is 
 efficient in proportion as the control of them is centralized. 
 Communities of this kind^ continuing to subjugate their 
 neighbours, and developing an organization of some com- 
 plexity^ nevertheless retain a maiuly-predatory type, with 
 just such industrial structures as are needful for supporting- 
 the offensive and defensive structures. Of this Sparta 
 furnished a good example. The characteristics of such a 
 social type are these — that each member of the ruling 
 race is a soldier ; that war is the business of life ; that 
 every one is subject to a rigorous discipline fitting him for 
 this business; that centralized authority regulates all the 
 social activities, down to the details of each man's daily 
 conduct ; that the welfare of the State is every thing, and 
 that the individual lives for public benefit. So long as 
 the environing societies are such as necessitate and keep 
 in exercise the militant organization^ these traits continue ; 
 but when, mainly by conquest and the formation of large 
 aggregates^ the militant activity becomes less constant^ 
 and war ceases to be the occupation of every free man, 
 the industrial structures begin to predominate. Without 
 tracing the transition, it will suffice to take, as a sample 
 
416 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 o£ the pacific or industrial type, the Northern States of 
 America before the late war. Here military organization 
 had almost disappeared; the infrequent local assemblings 
 of militia had turned into occasions for jollity^ and every 
 thing martial had fallen into contempt. The traits of 
 the pacific or industrial type are these — that the central 
 authority is relatively feeble ; that it interferes scarcely 
 at all with the private actions of individuals ; and that 
 the State, instead of being that for the benefit of which 
 individuals exist, has become that which exists for the 
 benefit of individuals. 
 
 It remains to add that this metamorphosis, which takes 
 place in societies along with a higher civilization^ very 
 rapidly retrogrades if the surrounding conditions become 
 unfavorable to it. During the late war in America^ Mr. 
 Seward's boast — '^1 touch this bell, and any man in the 
 remotest State is a prisoner of the Government ^^ (a boast 
 which was not an empty one^ and which was by many of 
 the Republican party greatly applauded) — shows us how 
 rapidly, along with militant activities, there tends to be 
 resumed the needful type of centralized structure ; and 
 how there quickly grow up the cori-esponding sentiments 
 and ideas. Our own history since 1815 has shown a 
 double change of this kind. During the thirty years^ 
 peace^ the militant organization dwindledj the military 
 sentiment greatly decreased, the industrial organization 
 rapidly developed^ the assertion of the individuality of the 
 citizen became more decided, and many restrictive and 
 despotic regulations were got rid of. Conversely, since 
 the revival of militant activities and structures on the 
 Continent, our own offensive and defensive structures 
 have been re-developing; and the tendency toward increase 
 of that centralized control which accompanies such struct- 
 ures has become marked. 
 
 And now, closing this somewhat elaborate introduction. 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 417 
 
 I am prepai'ed to deal with the question put to me. Prof. 
 Huxley, after quoting some passages from that essay on 
 the " Social Organism ^^ which I have supplemented in the 
 foregoing paragraphs ; and after expressing a qualified 
 concurrence which I greatly value as coining from so highly 
 fitted a judge, proceeds^ with characteristic acumen, to 
 comment on what seems an incongruity between certain 
 analogies set forth in that essay, and the doctrine I hold 
 respecting the duty of the State. Eeferring to a passage 
 in which I have described the function of the individual 
 brain as " that of averaging the interests of life, physical, 
 intellectual, moral, social,'^ and have compared it to the 
 function of Parliament as " that of averaging the interests 
 of the various classes in a community," adding that '^ a 
 good Parliament is one in which the parties answering to 
 these respective interests are so balanced that their united 
 legislation concedes to each class as much as consists with 
 the claims of the rest ; ^' Prof. Huxley proceeds to say ; — 
 
 ** All this appears to be very just. But if the resemblances between the 
 body physiological and the body politic are any indication, not only of what 
 the latter is, and how it has become what it is, but what it ought to be, and 
 what it is tending to become, I cannot but think that the real force of the 
 analogy is totally opposed to the negative view of State function. 
 
 "Suppose that, in accordance with this view, each muscle were to 
 maintain that the nervous system had no right to interfere with its 
 contraction, except to prevent it from hindering the contraction of another 
 muscle ; or each gland, that it had a right to secrete, so long as its secretion 
 interfered with no other ; suppose every separate cell left free to follow 
 its own "interests," and laissez-faire Lord of all, what would become of the 
 body physiological ? " 
 
 On this question the remark I have first to make is, that 
 if I held the doctrine of M. Proudhon, who deliberately 
 named himself an '^ anarchist," and if along with this 
 doctrine I held the above-indicated theory of social 
 structures and functions, the inconsistency implied by the 
 question put would be clear, and the question would be 
 unanswerable. But since I entertain no such view as that of 
 Proudhon — since I hold that within its proper limits govern- 
 
418 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 
 
 mental action is not simply legitimate but all-important — I 
 do not see how I am concerned with a question which 
 tacitly supposes that I deny the legitimacy and the import- 
 ance. !Not only do I contend that the restraining power 
 of the State over individuals, and bodies or classes of 
 individuals^ is requisite, but I have contended that it should 
 be exercised much more effectually^ and carried out much 
 further, than at present.* And as the maintenance of this 
 control implies the maintenance of a controlling apparatus, 
 I do not see that I am placed in any difficulty when I am 
 asked what would happen were the controlling apparatus 
 forbidden to interfere. Further, on this general aspect of 
 the question I have to say that, by comparing the deliberative 
 assembly of a nation to the deliberative nervous centre of a 
 vertebrate animal, as respectively averaging the interests 
 of the society and of the individual, and as both doing this 
 through processes of representation, I do not mean to 
 identify the two sets of interests ; for these in a society (or 
 at least a peaceful society) refer mainly to interior actions, 
 while in an individual creature they refer mainly to exterior 
 actions. The '^ interests '' to which I refer, as being 
 averaged by a representative governing body, are the 
 conflicting interests between class and class, as well as 
 between man and man — conflicting interests the balancing 
 of which is nothing but the preventing of aggression and 
 the administration of justice. 
 
 I pass now from this general aspect of the question, 
 which does not concern me, to a more special aspect which 
 does concern me. Dividing the actions of governing struc- 
 tures, whether in bodies individual or bodies politic, into 
 the -positively regulative and the negatively regulative^ or 
 those which stimulate and direct, as distinguished from 
 those which simply restrain, I may say that if there is 
 raised the question — What will happen when the controlling 
 
 * See Social Statics chap, xxi., " The Duty of the State." See also essay 
 on "Over-Legislation." 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 419 
 
 apparatus does not act ? there are quite different replies 
 according as one or other system of organs is referred to. 
 If J in the individual body^ the muscles were severally 
 independent of the deliberative and executive centres^ utter 
 impotence would result : in the absence of muscular 
 coordination^ there would be no possibility of standings 
 much less of acting on surrounding things^ and the body 
 would be a prey to the firsfc enemy. Properly to combine 
 the actions of these outer organs^ the great nervous centres 
 must exercise functions that are both positively regulative 
 and negatively regulative — must both command action and 
 arrest action. Similarly with the outer organs of a political 
 body. Unless the offensive and defeusive structures can 
 be despotically commanded by a central authority^ there 
 cannot be those prompt combinations and adjustments 
 required for meeting the variable actions of external 
 enemies. But if^ instead of asking what would happen 
 supposing the outer organs in either case were without 
 control from the great governing centres^ we ask what 
 would happen were the inner organs (the industrial and 
 commercial structures in the one case, and the alimentary 
 and distributive in the other) without such control, the 
 answer is quite different. Omitting the respiratory and 
 some minor ancillary parts of the individual organism, to 
 which the social organism has nothing analogous; and 
 limiting ourselves to absorptive, elaborative, and distributive 
 structures, which are found in both ; it may, I think, be 
 successfully contended that in neither the one case nor the 
 other do they require the positively regulative control of 
 the great governing centres, but only the negatively 
 regulative. Let us glance at the facts.* 
 
 Digestion and circulation go on very well in lunatics 
 • Lest there should be any misunderstanding of the terms ijositively 
 regulative and negatively regulative, let me briefly illustrate them. If a man 
 has land, and I either cultivate it for him, partially or wholly, or dictate any 
 or all of his modes of cultivation, my action is positively regulative ; but if, 
 leaving him absolutely unhelped and unregulated in his farming, I simply 
 
420 SPECIALIZED ABMTNISTEATION. 
 
 and idiots, thougli tlie higlier nervous centres are either 
 deranged or partly absent. The vital functions proceed 
 properly during sleep, though less actively than when the 
 brain is at work. In infancy, while the cerebro-spinal 
 system is almost incapable, and cannot even perform such 
 simple actions as those of commanding the sphincters, the 
 visceral functions are active and regular. Nor in an adult 
 does that arrest of cerebral action shown by insensibility, 
 or that extensive paralysis of the spinal system which 
 renders all the limbs immovable, prevent these functions 
 from being carried on for a considerable time ; though they 
 necessarily begin to flag in the absence of the demand 
 which an active system of outer organs makes upon them. 
 These internal organs are, indeed, so little under the 
 positively directive control of the great nervous centres, 
 that their independence is often very inconvenient. No 
 mandate sent into the interior stops an attack of diarrhcea ; 
 nor, when an indigestible meal excites the circulation at 
 night, and prevents sleep, will the bidding of the brain 
 cause the heart to pulsate more quietly. It is doubtless 
 true that these vital processes are modified in important 
 ways, both by general stimulation and by inhibition, from 
 the cerebro-spinal system ; but that they are mainly indepen- 
 dent cannot, I think, be questioned. The facts that 
 peristaltic motion of the intestines can go on when their 
 nervous connexions are cut, and that the heart (in cold- 
 blooded vertebrates, at least) continues to pulsate for some 
 time after being detached from the body, make it manifest 
 that the spontaneous activities of these vital organs sub- 
 serve the wants of the body at large without direction from 
 its higher governing centres. And this is made even 
 prevent him from taking his neighbom-'s crops, or from making approach-roads 
 over his neighbour's land, or from depositing rubbish upon it, my action is 
 negatively regulative. There is a tolerably sharp distinction between the act 
 of securing a citizen's ends for him or interfering with his mode of securing 
 them, and the act of checking him when he interferes with another citizen 
 in the pursuit of his ends. 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 421 
 
 moi-e manifest if it be a fact^ as alleged by Scliniulewitscli 
 experimenting under Lndwig's direction^ that, under duly- 
 adjusted condifcions^ tlie secretion of bile may be kept up 
 for some time wlien blood is passed tbrougli tbe excised 
 liver of a newly-killed rabbit. There is an answer, not, I 
 think, unsatisfactory, even to the crucial part of the ques- 
 tion—" Suppose every separate cell left free to follow its 
 own interests, and laissez faire Lord of all^ what would 
 become of the body physiological?" Limiting the applica- 
 tion of this question in the way above shown to the organs 
 and parts of organs which carry on vital actions, it seems 
 to me that much evidence may be given for the belief that, 
 when they follow their respective '^ interests "" (limited here 
 to growing and multiplying), the general welfare will be 
 tolerably well secured. It was proved by Hunter's experi- 
 ments on a kite and a sea-gull, that a part of the alimentary 
 canal which has to triturate harder food than that which the 
 creature naturally eats, acquires a thicker and harder lining. 
 ^When a stricture of the iutestine impedes the passage of its 
 contents, the muscular walls of the intestine above, thicken 
 and propel the contents with greater force. When there 
 is somewhere in the course of the circulation a serious resist- 
 ance to the passage of blood, there habitually occurs 
 hypertrophy of the heart, or thickening of its muscular 
 walls ; giving it greater power to propel the blood. And 
 similarly, when the duct through which it discharges its 
 contents is obstructed, the gall-bladder thickens and 
 strengthens. These changes go on without any direction 
 from the brain — without any consciousness that they are 
 going on. They are effected by the growth, or multiplica- 
 tion, or adaptation, of the local units, be they cells or fibres, 
 which results from the greater action or modified action 
 thrown upon them. The only pre-requisite to this sponta- 
 neous adaptive change is, that these local units shall be 
 supplied with extra blood in proportion as they perform 
 extra function — a pre-requisite answering to that secured 
 
422 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 by tlie administratioD. of justice in a society ; namely^ that 
 more work shall bring more pay. If j however^ direct proof 
 be called for tliat a system of organs may, by carrying on 
 their several independent activities uncontrolled^ secure the 
 "welfare of the aggregate they form^ we have it in that 
 extensive class of creatures which, do not possess any 
 nervous systems at all; and which nevertheless show, some 
 of them, considerable degrees of activity. The Oceanic 
 Hydrozoa supply good examples. Notwithstanding "the 
 multiplicity and complexity of tlie organs which some of 
 them possess," these creatures have no nervous centres — no 
 regulative apparatus by which the actions of their organs 
 are coordinated. One of their higher kinds is composed of 
 dilferent parts distinguished as ccenosarc, polypites, tent- 
 acles, bydrocystsj nectocalyces, genocalyces, etc., and each 
 of these different parts is composed of many partially- 
 independent units — thread-cells, ciliated cells, contractile 
 fibres, etc. ; so that the wliole organism is a group of 
 heterogeneous groups, each one of which is itself a more or 
 less heterogeneous group. And, in the absence of a nervous 
 system, the arrangement must necessarily be such tkat these 
 different units, and different groups of units, severally 
 pursuing their individual lives without positive direction 
 from the rest, nevertheless do, by virtue of their constitu- 
 tions, and the relative positions into which they have grown, 
 cooperate for the maintenance of one another and the entire 
 aggregate. And if this can be so with a set of organs that 
 are not connected by nerves, much more can it be so with a 
 set of organs which, like the viscera of a higher animal, 
 have a special set of nervous communications for exciting 
 one another to cooperation. 
 
 Let us turn now to the parallel classes of phenomena 
 which the social organism presents. In it, as in the 
 individual organism, we find that while the system of 
 external organs must be j^jgorously subordinated to a great 
 governing centre which positively regulates it, the system 
 
ePECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 423 
 
 of internal organs needs no sucli positive regulation. The 
 production and interchange by which the national life is 
 maintained^ go on as well while Parliament is not sitting as 
 while it is sitting. When the members of the Ministry are 
 following grouse or stalking deer^ Liverpool imports^ 
 Manchester manufactureSj London distributes^ just as 
 usual. All that is needful for the normal performance of 
 these internal social functions is^ that the restraining or 
 inhibitory structures shall continue in action : these 
 activities of individuals^ corporate bodies^ and classes, must' 
 be carried on in such ways as not to transgress certain con- 
 ditionSj necessitated by the simultaneous carrying on of 
 other activities. So long as order is maintained^ and the 
 fulfilment of contracts is everywhere enforced — so long as 
 there is secured to each citizen, and each combination of 
 citizens, the full return agreed upon for work done or com- 
 modities produced; and so long as each may enjoy what he 
 obtains by labour, without trenching on his neighbour's like 
 ability to enjoy; these functions will go on healthfully — 
 more healthfully, indeed, than when regulated in any other 
 way. Fully to recognize this fact, it is needful only to look 
 at the origins and actions of the leading industrial structures. 
 We will take two of them, the most remote from one 
 another in their natures. 
 
 The first shall be those by which food is produced and 
 distributed. In the fourth of his Introductory Lectures on 
 Political Uconomyj Archbishop Whately remarks that : — 
 
 " Many of the most important objects are accomplished by the joint 
 agency of persons who never think of them, nor have any idea of acting in 
 concert ; and that, with a certainty, completeness, and regularity, which 
 probably the most diligent benevolence, under the guidance of the greatest 
 human wisdom, could never have attained." 
 
 To enforce this truth he goes on to say : — ^' Let any one 
 propose to himself the problem of supplying with daily 
 provisions of all kinds such a city as our metropolis, 
 containing above a million of inhabitants." And then he 
 points out the many immense difficulties of the task 
 
424 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 
 
 caused by inconstancy in the arrival of supplies ; by the 
 perishable nature of many of tlie commodities; by the 
 fluctuating number of consumers ; by the heterogeneity 
 of their demands ; by variations in the stocks^ immediate 
 and remote, and the need for adjusting the rate of con- 
 sumption ; and by the complexity in the process of 
 distribution required to bring due quantities of these 
 many commodities to the homes of all citizens. And, 
 having dwelt on these many difficulties, he finishes his 
 picture by saying : — 
 
 " Yet this object is accomplished far better than it could be by any efiort 
 of human wisdom, through the agency of men who think each of nothing 
 beyond his own immediate interest — who, with that object in view, perform 
 their respective parts with cheerful zeal — and combine unconsciously to 
 employ the wisest means for effecting an object, the vastness of which it 
 would bewilder them even to contemplate." 
 
 But though the far-spreading and complex organization 
 by which foods of all kinds are produced, prepared, and 
 distributed throughout the entire kingdom, is a natural 
 growth and not a State-manufacture ; though the State 
 does not determine where and in what quantities cereals 
 and cattle and sheep shall be reared ; though it does not 
 arrange their respective prices so as to make supplies last 
 until fresh supplies can come ; though it has done nothing 
 toward causing that great improvement of quality which 
 has taken place in food since early times ; though it has 
 not the credit of that elaborate apparatus by which bread, 
 and meatj and milk, come round to our doors with a daily 
 pulse that is as regular as the pulse of the heart ; yet the 
 State has not been wholly passive. It has from time to 
 time done a great deal of mischief. When Edward I. 
 forbade all towns to harbour forestallers, and when 
 Edward YI. made it penal to buy grain for the purpose of 
 selling it again, they were preventing the process by which 
 consumption is adjusted to supply : they were doing all 
 that could be done to insure alternations of abundance and 
 starvation. Similarly with the many legislative attempts 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 425 
 
 since made' to regulate one branch or other of the food- 
 industrjj down to the corn-law sliding-scale of odious 
 memory. For the marvellous efficiency of this organization 
 we are indebted to private enterprise ; while the derange- 
 ments of it we owe to the positively-regulative action of 
 the Government. Meanwhile^ its negatively-regulative 
 action^ required to keep this organization in order^ Grovern- 
 ment has not duly performed. A quick and costless 
 remedy for breach of contract^ when a trader sells^ as the 
 commodity asked for, what proves to be wholly or in part 
 some other commodity, is still wanting. 
 
 Our second case shall be the organization which so 
 immensely facilitates commerce by transfers of claims and 
 credits. Banks were not inventions of rulers or their 
 counsellors. They grew up by small stages out of the 
 transactions of traders with one another. Men who for 
 security deposited money with goldsmiths, and took 
 receipts; goldsmiths who began to lend out at interest 
 the moneys left with them, and then to offer interest at 
 lower rates to those who would deposit money ; were the 
 founders of them. And when, as presently happened, the 
 receipt-notes became transferable by indorsement, banking 
 commenced. From that stage upward the development, 
 notwithstanding many hinderances, has gone on naturally. 
 Banks have sprung up under the same stimulus which has 
 produced all other kinds of trading bodies. The multiplied 
 forms of credit have been gradually differentiated from the 
 original form ; and while the banking system has spread 
 and become complex, it has also become consolidated into 
 a whole by a spontaneous process. The clearing-house, 
 which is a place for carrying on the banking between 
 bankers, arose unobtrusively out of an effort to economize 
 time and money. And when, in 1862, Sir John Lubbock 
 — not in his legislative capacity but in his capacity as 
 banker — succeeded in extending the privileges of the 
 clearing-house to country banks, the unification was made 
 
42G SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 perfect; so that now tlie transactions of any trader in 
 the kingdom with any other may be completed by the 
 writing off and balancing of claims in bankers' books. 
 This natural evolution, be it observed, has reached with 
 nt a higher phase than has been reached where the 
 positively-regulative control of tlae State is more decided. 
 They have no clearing-house in France ; and in France 
 the method of making payments by cbecks, so dominant 
 among ourselves^ is very little employed and in an imper- 
 fect way. I do not mean to imply that in England the 
 State has been a mere spectator of this development. 
 Unfortunately, it has from the beginning had relations 
 with banks and bankers : not much, however, to their 
 advantage, or that of the public. The first kind of deposit- 
 bank was in some sense a State-bank : merchants left funds 
 for security at the Mint in the Tower. But when Charles 
 I. appropriated their property without consent, and gave 
 it back to them only under pressure, after a long delay, 
 he destroyed their confidence. Similarly, when Charles 
 II., in furtherance of State-business, came to have habitual 
 transactions with the richer of the private bankers ; and 
 when, having got nearly a million and a lialf of their 
 money in the Exchequer, he stole it, ruined a multitude 
 of merchants, distressed ten thousand depositors, and 
 made some lunatics and suicides, he gave a considerable 
 shock to the banking system as it then existed. Though 
 the results of State-relations with banks in later times 
 have not been so disastrous in this direct way, yet they 
 have been indirectly disastrous — perhaps even in a greater 
 degree. In return for a loan, the State gave the Bank of 
 England special privileges ; and for the increase and con- 
 tinuance of this loan the bribe was the maintenance of 
 these privileges — privileges which, immensely hindered the 
 development of banks. The State did worse. It led the 
 Bank of England to the verge of bankruptcy by a forced 
 issue of notes, and then authorized it to break its promises 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 427 
 
 to pay. Nay, worse still, it prevented the Bank of 
 England from fulfilling its promises to pay when it wished 
 to fulfil them. The evils that have arisen from the 
 positively-regulative action of the State on banks are too 
 multitudinous to be here enumerated. They may be 
 found in the writings of Tooke, Newmarch, Fullarton, 
 Macleod, Wilson, J. S. Mill, and others. All we ha^e 
 here to note is, that while the enterprise of citizens in the 
 pursuit of private ends has developed this great trading- 
 process, which so immensely facilitates all other trading- 
 processes. Governments have over and over again disturbed 
 it to an almost fatal extent; and that, while they have 
 done enormous mischief of one kind by their positively- 
 regulative action, they have done enormous mischief of 
 another kind hj failing in their negatively -regulative 
 action. They have not done the one thing they had to do : 
 they have not uniformly insisted on fulfilment of contract 
 between the banker and the customer who takes his 
 promise to pay on demand. 
 
 Between these two cases of the trade in food and the 
 trade in money, might be put the cases of other trades : 
 all of them carried on by organizations similarly evolved^ 
 and similarly more or less deranged from time to time by 
 State-meddling. Passing over these, however, let us turn 
 from the positive method of elucidation to the comparative 
 method. When it is questioned whether the spontaneous 
 cooperation of men in pursuit of personal benefits will ade- 
 quately work out the general good, we may get guidance for 
 judgment by comparing the results achieved in countries 
 where spontaneous cooperation has been most active and 
 least regulated^ with the results achieved in countries 
 where spontaneous cooperation has been less trusted and 
 State-action more trusted. Two cases, furnished by the 
 two leading nations on the Continent, will suffice. 
 
 In France, the Ecole des Fonts et Chaussees was founded 
 in 1747 for educating civil engineers; and in 1795 was 
 60 
 
4<28 SPECIALIZED ADIUNISTKATION. 
 
 founded the Ecole Polytecliniqiie, serving, among other 
 puq^oses, to give a general scientific training to those 
 who were afterward to be more specially trained for civil 
 engineering. Averngiug the two dates, we may say that for 
 a century Prance has had a State-established and State- 
 maintained appliance for producing skilled men of this 
 class — a double gland, we may call it, to secrete engineering 
 faculty for public use. In England, until quite recently, 
 we have had no institution for preparing civil engineers. 
 Not by intention, but unconsciously, we left the furnishing 
 of engineering faculty to take place under the law of 
 supply and demand — -a law which at present seems to be 
 no more recognized as applying to education, than it was 
 recognized as applying to commerce in the days of bounties 
 and restrictions. This, however, by the way. We have 
 here simply to note that Brindley, Smeaton, Rennie, 
 Telford, and the rest, down to George Stephenson, 
 acquired their knowledge, and got their experience, 
 Avithout State-aid or supervision. What have been the 
 comparative results in the two nations ? Space does not 
 allow a detailed comparison : the later results must suffice. 
 Railways originated in England, not in France, Railways 
 spread through England faster than through Prance. 
 Many railways in France were laid out and officered by 
 English engineers. The eai-lier French railways were 
 made by English contractors; and English locomotives 
 served the French makers as models. The first French 
 work written on locomotive engines, published about 1840 
 (at least I had a copy at that date), was by the Comte de 
 Pambour, who had studied in England, and who gave in 
 his work nothing whatever but drawings and descriptions 
 of the engines of English makers. 
 
 The second illustration is supplied to us by the model 
 nation, now so commonly held up to us for imitation. Let 
 us contrast London and Berlin in respect of an all-essential 
 appliance for the comfort and health of citizens. When, 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 429 
 
 at the beginning of the seventeentli century, the springs 
 and local conduits, supplemented by water-carriers, failed 
 to supply the Londoners ; and when the water-famine, for 
 a long time borne, had failed to make the Corporation do 
 more than propose schemes, and had not spurred the central 
 government to do any tbing; Hugh Myddleton, a merchant 
 citizen, took in hand himself the work of bringing the 
 New River to Islington. When he had half completed the 
 work, the king came to his help — not, indeed, in his 
 capacity of ruler, but in the capacity of speculator, invest- 
 ing his money with a view to profit : his share being 
 disposed of by his successor after the formation of the New 
 River Company, which finished the distributing system. 
 Subsequently, the formation of other water-companies, 
 utilizing other sources, has given London a water-supply 
 that has grown with its gi-owth. What, meanwhile, 
 happened at Berlin? Did there in 1613, when Hugh 
 Myddleton completed his work, grow up there a like 
 efficient system ? Not at all. The seventeenth century 
 passed, the eighteenth century passed, the middle of the 
 nineteenth century was reached, and still Berlin had no 
 water-supply like that of London. What happened then ? 
 Did the paternal government at length do what had been 
 so long left undone ? No. Did the citizens at length 
 unite to secure the desideratum ? No. It was finally 
 achieved by the citizens of another nation, more accustomed 
 to cooperate in gaining their own profits by ministering 
 to public needs. In 1845 an English company was formed 
 for giving Berlin an adequate water-supply; and the 
 work was executed by English contractors — Messrs. Eox 
 and Crampton, 
 
 Should it be said that great works of ancient nations, in 
 the shape of aqueducts, roads, etc., might be instanced in 
 proof that State agency secures such ends, or should it be 
 said that a comparison between the early growth of inland 
 navigation on the Continent, and its later growth here. 
 
430 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 
 
 would be to our disadvantage, I reply tliat, little as they 
 at first seem so^ these facts are congruous with the general 
 doctrine. While the militant social type is dominant, and 
 the industrial organization but little developed^ there is 
 but one coordinating agency for regulating both sets of 
 activities ; just as we saw happens with the lower types 
 of individual organisms. It is only when a considerable 
 advance has been made in that metamorphosis which. 
 develops the industrial structures at the expense of the 
 militant structures, and which brings along with it a 
 substantially- independent coordinating agency for the 
 industrial structures — it is only then that the efficiency of 
 these spontaneous cooperations for all purposes of internal 
 social life becomes greater than the efficiency of the central 
 governing agency. 
 
 Possibly it will be said that though, for subserving 
 material needs, the actions of individuals, stimulated by 
 necessity and made quick by competition, are demonstrably 
 adequate, they are not adequate for subserving other 
 needs. I do not see, however, that the facts justify this 
 position. We have but to glance around to find in abun- 
 dance similarly-generated appliances for satisfying our 
 higher desires, as well as our lower desires. The fact that 
 the Fine Arts have not thriven here as much as in some 
 Continental countries, is ascribable to natural character, to 
 absorption of our energies in other activities, and to the 
 repressive influence of chronic asceticism, rather than to 
 the absence of fostering agencies : these the interests of 
 individuals have provided in abundance. Literature, in 
 which we are second to none, owes, with us, nothing to 
 State-aid. The poetry which will live is poetry which has 
 been written without official prompting; and though we 
 have habitually had a prize-poet, paid to write loyal verses, 
 it may be said, without disparaging the present one, that 
 a glance over the entire list does not show any benefit 
 derived by poetry from State-patronage. Nor are other 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATIOIT- 431 
 
 forms of literature any more indebted to State-patronage. 
 It was because there was a public liking for fiction that 
 fiction began to be produced; and the continued public 
 liking causes a continued production, including, along 
 ■ with much that is worthless, much that could not have 
 been made better by any academic or other supervision. 
 And the like holds of biographies, histories, scientific 
 books, etc. Or, as a still more striking case of an agency 
 that has grown up to meet a non-material want, take the 
 newspaper press. What has been the genesis of this 
 marvellous appliance, which each day gives us an abstract 
 of the world's life the day before ? Under what promptings 
 have there been got together its staffs of editors, sub-editors, 
 article-writers, reviewers ; its reporters of parliamentary 
 debates, of public meetings, of law cases and police cases; 
 its critics of music, theatricals, paintings, etc. ; its corre- 
 spondents in all parts of the world ? Who devised and 
 brought to perfection this system which at sis o'clock in 
 the morning gives the people of Edinburgh a report of the 
 debates that ended at two or three o^ clock in the House of 
 Commons, and at the same time tells them of events that 
 occurred the day before in America ? It is not a Govern- 
 ment invention. It is not a Government suggestion. It 
 has not been in any way improved ordeveloped by legislation. 
 On the contrary, it has grown up in spite of many hinderances 
 from the Government and burdens which the Government 
 has imposed on it. For a long time the reporting of 
 parliamentary debates was resisted ; for generations censor- 
 ships and prosecutions kept newspapers down, and for 
 several subsequent generations the laws in force negatived 
 a cheap press, and the educational benefits accompanying 
 it. From the war-correspondent, whose letters give to the 
 very nations that are fighting their only trustworthy 
 accounts of what is being done, down to the newsboy who 
 biings round the third edition with the latest telegrams, 
 the whole organization is a product of spontaneous 
 
432 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION, 
 
 cooperation among private individuals^ aiming to benefit 
 themselves by ministering to tlie intellectual needs of their 
 fellows — aiming also, not a few of themj to benefit their 
 fellows by giving them clearer ideas and a higher standard 
 of right. Nay^ more than this is true. While the press is 
 not iudebted to the Governmentj the Government is enor- 
 mously indebted to the press ; without which^ indeed, it 
 would stumble daily in the performance of its functions. 
 This agency which the State once did its best to put down, 
 and has ail along impeded, now gives to the ministers news 
 in anticipation of their dispatches, gives to members of 
 Parliament a guiding knowledge of public opinion, enables 
 them to speak from the House of Commons benches to their 
 constituents, and gives to both legislative chambers a full 
 record of their proceedings. 
 
 I do not see, therefore, how there can be any doubt 
 respecting the sufficiency of agencies thus originating. 
 The truth that in this condition of mutual dependence 
 br ught about by social life, there inevitably grow np ar- 
 rangements such that each secures his own ends by 
 ministering to the ends of others, seems to have been for a 
 long time one of those open secrets which remain secret 
 because they are so open ; and even now the conspicuous- 
 ness of this truth seems to cause an imperfect consciousness 
 of its full meaning. The evidence shows, however, that 
 even were there no other form of spontaneous cooperation 
 among men than that dictated by self-interest, it might be 
 rationally held that this, under the negatively-regulative 
 control of a central power, would work out, in proper 
 order, the appliances for satisfying all needs, and carrying 
 on healthfully all the essential social functions. 
 
 But there is a further kind of spontaneous cooperation, 
 arising, like the other, independently of State-action, which 
 takes a large share in satisfying certain classes of needs. 
 Familiar though it is, this kind of spontaneous cooperation 
 is habitually ignored in sociological discussions. Alike 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 433 
 
 from newspaper articles and parliamentary debates, it 
 might be inferred that, beyond the force due to men's 
 selfish activities, there is no other social force than the 
 goyernmental force. There seems to be a deliberate omis- 
 sion of the fact that, in addition to their selfish interests, 
 men have sympathetic interests, which, acting individually 
 and cooperatively, work out results scarcely less remarkable 
 than those which the selfish interests work out. It is true 
 that, during the earlier phases of social evolution, while yet 
 the type is mainly militant, agencies thus produced do not 
 exist : among the Spartaus, I suppose, there were few, iE 
 any, philanthropic agencies. But as there arise forms of 
 society leading toward the pacific type — forms in which the 
 industrial organization develops itself, and men's activities 
 become of a kind that do not perpetually sear their sym- 
 pathies ; these structures which their sympathies generate 
 become many and important. To the egoistic interests, 
 and the cooperations prompted by them, there come to be 
 added the altruistic interests and their cooperations ; and 
 what the one set fails to do, the other does. That, in his 
 presentation of the docti'ine he opposes. Prof. Huxley did 
 not set down the effects of fellow-feeling as supplementing 
 the effects of self-regarding feelings, surprises me the more, 
 because he displays fellow-feeling himself in so marked a 
 degree, and shows in his career how potent a social agency 
 it becomes. Let us glance rapidly over the results wrought 
 out among ourselves by individual and combined "altruism" 
 — to employ M. Comte's useful word. 
 
 Though they show a trace of this feeling, I will not 
 dwell upon the numerous institutions by which men are 
 enabled to average the chances throughout life by insur- 
 ance societies, which provide against the evils entailed by 
 premature deaths, accidents, fires, wrecks, etc.; for these 
 are mainly mercantile and egoistic in their origin. JSTor 
 will I do more than name those multitudinous Eriendly 
 Societies that have arisen spontaneously among the work- 
 
434 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 ing-classes to give mutual aid in time of sickness, and 
 whicli the Commission now sitting is stowing to be 
 immensely beneficial, notwithstanding their defects ; for 
 these also, though containing a larger element of sympathy, 
 are prompted chiefly by anticipations of personal benefits. 
 Leaving these, let us turn to the organizations in which 
 altruism is more decided : taking first that by which 
 religious ministrations are carried on. Throughout Scot- 
 land and England, cut away all that part of it which is 
 not established by law — in Scotland, the Episcopal Church, 
 the Free Church, the United Presbyterians, and other 
 Dissenting bodies; in England, the Wesleyans, Indepen- 
 dents, and the various minor sects. Cut off, too, from 
 the Established Church itself, all that part added in 
 recent times by voluntary zeal, made conspicuous enough 
 by the new steeples thab have been rising on all sides; and 
 then also take out, from the remainder of the Established 
 Church, that energy which has during these three gener- 
 ations been infused into it by competition with the 
 Dissenters : so reducing it to the degraded, inert state 
 in which John Wesley found it. Do this, and it becomes 
 manifest that more than half the organisation, and im- 
 mensely more than half its function, is extra-governmental. 
 Look round, again, at the multitudinous institutions for 
 mitigating men's ills — the hospitals, dispensaries, alms- 
 houses, and the like — the various benevolent and mendicity 
 societies, etc., of which London alone contains between 
 six and seven hundred. From our vast St. Thomases, 
 exceeding the palace of the Legislature itself in bulk, 
 down to Dorcas societies and village clothiug-clubs^ we 
 have charitable agencies, many in kind and countless in 
 number, which supplement, perhaps too largely, the legally- 
 established one ; and which, whatever evil they may have 
 done along with the good, have done far less evil than the* 
 Poor-Law organization did before it was reformed in 1834. 
 Akin to these are still more striking examples of power in 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 435 
 
 agencies tlias originating, such, as that furnislied by tlie 
 Anti-slavery Society^ wliicli carried the emancipation of 
 the slaves, notwithstanding the class-opposition so pre- 
 dominant in the Legislature. And if we look for more 
 recent like instanceSj we have them in the organization 
 which promptly and efficiently dealt with the cotton-famine 
 in Lancashire, and in that which last year ministered to 
 the wounded and distressed in France. Once more, 
 consider our educational system as it existed till within 
 these few years. Such part of it as did not consist of 
 private schools, carried on for personal profit, consisted of 
 schools or colleges set up or maintained by men for the 
 benefit of their fellows, and the posterity of their fellows. 
 Omitting the few founded or partially founded by kings, 
 the numerous endowed schools scattered throughout the 
 kingdom, originated from altruistic feelings (so far, at least, 
 as they were not due to egoistic desires for good places in 
 the other world). And then, after these appliances for 
 teaching the poor had been almost entirely appropriated by 
 the rich, whence cam.e the remedy ? Another altruistic 
 organization grew up for educating the poor, struggled 
 against the opposition of the Church and the governing 
 classes, eventually forced these to enter into competition 
 and produce like altruistic organizations, until by school 
 systems, local and general, ecclesiastical, dissenting, and 
 secular, the mass of the people had been brought from a 
 state of almost entire ignorance to one in which nearly all 
 of them possessed the rudiments of knowledge. But for 
 these spontaneously-developed agencies, ignorance would 
 have been universal. Not only such knowledge as the 
 poor now possess — not only the knowledge of the trading- 
 classes — not only the knowledge of those who write books 
 and leading articles ; but the knowledge of those who carry 
 on the business of the country as ministers and legislators, 
 has been derived from these extra-governmental agencies, 
 egoistic or altruistic. Teb now, strangely enough, the 
 
436 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 cultured intelligence of the country has taken to spurning 
 its parent; and that to which ifc owes both its existence and 
 the consciousness of its own value is pooh-poohed as though 
 it had done, and could do, nothing of importance ! One 
 other fact let me add. While such teaching organizations, 
 and their results in the shape of enlightenment, are due to 
 these spontaneous agencies^ to such agencies also are due 
 the great improvements in the quality of the culture now 
 happily beginning to take place. The spread of scientific 
 knowledge^ and of the scientific spirit, has not been brought 
 about by laws and officials. Our scientific societies have 
 arisen from the spontaneous cooperation of those interested 
 in the accumulation and diffusion of the kinds of truth they 
 respectively deal with. Though the British Association 
 has from time to time obtained certain small subsidies^ 
 their results in the way of advancing science have borne 
 but an extremely small ratio to the results achieved without 
 any such aid. If there needs a conclusive illustration of 
 the power of agencies thus arising, we have it in the history 
 and achievements of the Royal Institution. From this, 
 which is a product of altruistic cooperation, and which has 
 had for its successive professors Young, Davy, Faraday, 
 and Tyndall, there has come a series of brilliant discoveries 
 which cannot be paralleled by a series from any State- 
 nurtured institution. 
 
 I hold, then, that forced, as men in society are, to seek 
 satisfaction of their own wants by satisfying the wants of 
 others ; and led as they also are by sentiments which social 
 life has fostered, to satisfy many wants of others irrespective 
 of their own ; they are moved by two sets of forces which, 
 working together, will amply suffice to carry on all needful 
 activities; and I think the facts fully justify this belief. 
 It is true that, a priori, one would not have snnposed that 
 by their unconscious cooperations men could have wrought 
 out such results, any more than one would have supposed, 
 a priori, that by their unconscious cooperation they could 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 437 
 
 have evolved Language. But reasoning a posteriori, wliich 
 it is best to do wlien we have the facts before uSj it becomes 
 manifest tliat thej can do this ; that they have done it in 
 very astonishing ways ; and perhaps may do it hereafter 
 in ways still more astonishing. Scarcely any scientific 
 generalization has, I think, a broader inductive basis than 
 we have for the belief that these egoistic and altruistic 
 feelings are powers which, taken together, amply suffice 
 to originate and carry on all the activities which con- 
 stitute healthy national life : the only pre-requisite being, 
 that they shall be under the negatively-regulative control 
 of a central power — that the entire aggregate of in- 
 dividuals, acting through the legislature and executive as 
 its agents, shall put upon each individual, and group 
 of individuals, the restraints needful to prevent a^'gression, 
 direct and indirect. 
 
 And here I might go on to supplement the argument by 
 showing that the immense majority of the evils which 
 government aid is invoked to remedy, are evils which arise 
 immediately or remotely because it does not perform 
 properly its negatively-regulative function. From the 
 waste of, probably, £100,000,000 of national capital in un- 
 productive railways, for which the Legislature is responsible 
 by permitting the original proprietary contracts to be 
 broken,"^ down to the railway accidents and loss of life 
 caused by unpunctuality, which would never have grown 
 to its present height were there an easy remedy for breach 
 of contract between company and passenger ; nearly ail the 
 vices of railway management have arisen from the non- 
 administration of justice. And everywhere else we shall 
 find that, were the restraining action of the State prompt, 
 eifective, and costless to those aggrieved, the pleas put in 
 for positive regulation would nearly all disappear. 
 
 I am thus brought naturally to remark on the title given 
 • See Essay on *' Kailway Morals and Kailway Policy.'* 
 
438 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 to this theory of State-functions. That "Administrative 
 Nihilism " adequately describes the view set forth by Yon 
 Humboldtj may be : I have not read his work. But I can- 
 not see how it adequately describes the doctrine I have 
 been defending; nor do I see how this can be properly 
 expressed by the more' positive title^ "police-government." 
 The conception suggested by police-government does' not 
 include the conception of an organization for external 
 protection. So long as each nation is given to burglary^ I 
 quite admit each other nation must keep guards^ under the 
 forms of army or navy^ or both^ to prevent burglars from 
 breaking in. And the title police-government does not, in 
 its ordinary acceptation^ comprehend these offensive and 
 defensive appliances needful for dealing with foreign 
 enemies. At the other extreme, too, it falls short of the 
 full meaning to be expressed. While it duly conveys the 
 idea of an organization required for checking and punishing 
 criminal aggression, it does not convey any idea of the no 
 less important organization required for dealing with civil 
 aggression — an organization quite essential for properly 
 discharging the negatively-regulative function. Though 
 latent police-force may be considered as giving their 
 efficiency to legal decisions on all questions brought into 
 nisi prius courts, yet, since here police-force rarely comes 
 into visible play, police-government does not suggest this 
 very extensive part of the administration of justice. Far 
 from contending for a laissez-faire policy in the sense which 
 the phrase commonly suggests, I have contended for a more 
 active control of the kind distinguishable as negatively 
 regulative.' One of the reasons I have urged for excluding 
 State-action from other spheres, is, that it may become 
 more efficient within its proper sphere. And I have argued 
 that the wretched performance of its duties within its 
 proper sphere continues, because its time is chiefly spent 
 over imaginary duties."^ The facts that often, in bankruptcy 
 * See Essay on "Over-Legislation." 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 439 
 
 cases^ three-fourths and more of the assets go in costs ; 
 that creditors are led by the expectation of great delay and 
 a miserable dividend to accept almost any composition 
 offered ; and that so the bankruptcy-law offers a premium 
 to roguery ; are facts which would long since have ceased 
 to be facts, had citizens been mainly occupied in getting an 
 efficient judicial system. If the due performance by the 
 State of its all-essential function had been the question on 
 which elections were fought, we should not see, as we now 
 do, that a shivering cottager who steals palings for 
 firewood, or a hungry tramp who robs an orchard, gets 
 punishment in more than the old Hebrew measure, while 
 great financial frauds which ruin their thousands bring no 
 punishments. Were the negatively-regulative function of 
 the State in internal affairs dominant in the thoughts of 
 men, within the Legislature and without, there would be 
 tolerated no such treatment as that suffered lately by 
 Messrs. Walker, of Cornhill; who, having been robbed of 
 £G,000 worth of property and having spent £950 in rewards 
 for apprehending thieves and prosecuting them, cannot get 
 back the proceeds of their property found on the thieves — 
 who bear the costs of administering justice, while the 
 Corporation of London makes £940 profit out of their loss. 
 It is in large measure because I hold that these crying 
 abuses and inefficiencies, which everywhere characterize 
 the administration of justice, need more than any other 
 evils to be remedied ; and because I hold that remedy of 
 them can go on only as fast as the internal function of the 
 State is more and more restricted to the administration of 
 justice; that I take the view which I have been re-explaining. 
 It is a law illustrated hy organizations of every hind, thatj 
 in 'proportion as there is to he efficiency, there must he 
 specialization y both of structure and function — specialization 
 which, of necessity, implies accompanyiiKj limitation. And, 
 as I have elsewhere argued, the development of represen- 
 tative government is the development of a type of govern- 
 
440 SPECIAIIZED ADMINISTEATION. 
 
 ment fitted above all others for tliis negatively-regulative 
 control, and, above all others, ill fitted for positively- 
 regulative control.* This doctrine, that while the 
 negatively-regulative control should be extended and 
 made better, the positively-regulative control should be 
 diminished, and that the one change implies the other, 
 may properly be called the doctrine of Specialized Admin- 
 istration — if it is to be named from its administrative 
 aspect. I regret that my presentation of this doctrine has 
 been such as to lead to misinterpretation. Either it is that 
 I have not adequately explained it, which, if true, surprises 
 me, or else it is that the space occupied in seeking to show 
 what are not the duties of the State is so much greater 
 than the space occupied in defining its duties, that these 
 last make but little impression. In any case, that Prof. 
 Huxley should have construed my view in the way he has 
 done, shows me that it needs fuller exposition ; since, had 
 he put upon it the construction I intended, he would not, I 
 think, have included it under the title he has used, nor 
 would he Lave seen it needful to raise the question I have 
 endeavoured to answer. 
 
 Postscript. — Since the above article was written, a fact 
 of some significance in relation to the question of State- 
 management has come under my notice. There is one 
 department, at any rate, in which the State succeeds well 
 — the Post-Office. And this department is sometimes 
 instanced as showing the superiority of pubKc over 
 private administration. 
 
 I am not about to call in question the general satisfac- 
 toriness of our postal arrangements; nor shall I contend 
 that this branch of State-organization, now well-established, 
 could be replaced with advantage. Possibly the type of 
 our social structure has become, in this respect, so far 
 fixed that a radical change would be injurious. In dealing 
 
 * See Essay on " Kepresentative Government — What is it good for ? " 
 
SPECIALIZKD ADMimSTIlATION. 441 
 
 "with those who make much of this success^ I have contented 
 myself ' with showing that the developments which have 
 made the Post-Ofl&ce efficient, have not originated with tbe 
 Governmentj but have been thrust upon it from without. 
 I have in evidence cited the facts that the mail-coach 
 system was established by a private individual^ Mr. Palmer, 
 and lived down official opposition; that the reform originated 
 by Mr. Rowland Hill had to be made against the wills of 
 employes; and, further, I have pointed out that, even as it 
 is, a large part of the work is done by private enterprise — ■ 
 that the Government gets railway-companies to do for it 
 most of the inland carriage, and steam-boat companies the 
 outland carriage : contenting itself with doing the local 
 collection and distribution. 
 
 Respecting the general question whether, in the absence 
 of our existing postal system^ private enterprise would 
 have developed one as good or better, I have been able 
 to say only that analogies like that furnished by our 
 newspaper-system, with its efficient news-vending organ- 
 ization, warrant us in believing* tbat it would. Recently, 
 however, I have been shown both that private enterprise 
 is capable of this, and that, but for a legal interdict, it 
 would have done long ago what the State has but lately 
 done. Here is the proof : — 
 
 " To facilitate correspondence between one part of London and another 
 was not originally one of the objects of the Post-Office. But, in the reign of 
 Charles II., an enterprising citizen of London, William Dockwray, set up, 
 at great expense, a penny post, which delivered letters and parcels six or 
 eight times a-day in the busy and crowded streets near the Exchange, and 
 four times a-day in the outskirts of the capital. ... As soon as it became 
 clear that the speculation would be lucrative, the Duke of York complained 
 of it as an infraction of his monopoly, and the courts of law decided in hia 
 favour." — Macaulai/y History of England, 1866, i., 302-3. 
 
 Thus it appears that two centuries since, private enter- 
 prise initiated a local postal system, similar, in respect 
 both of cheapness and frequency of distribution^ to that 
 lately-established one boasted of as a State-success. Judging 
 by what has happened in other cases with private enter- 
 
442 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 prises wticli had small beginmngs, we may mfer that the 
 system thus commenced^ would have developed throughout 
 the kingdom as fast as the needs pressed and the possibilities 
 allowed. So far from being indebted to the State, we 
 have reason to believe that, but for State-repression, we 
 should have obtained a postal organization like our present 
 one generations ago ! 
 
 Second Postscript. — When the foregoing essay was 
 republished in the third series of my EssaySj Scientific, 
 Political^ and Speculative, I included, in the preface to 
 the volume^ some comments upon Prof. Huxley's reply. 
 In the absence of this preface, now no longer appropriate, 
 there seems no other fit place for these comments than 
 this. I therefore here append them. 
 
 ^' On the brief rejoinder to my arguments which Prof. 
 Huxley makes in the preface to his Gritiques and Addresses, 
 I may here say a few words. The reasons he gives for 
 still thinking that the name ^ Administrative Nihilism ' 
 fitly indicates the system which I have described as 
 * negatively regulative,^ are, I think, adequately met by 
 asking whether " Ethical Nihilism ' would fitly describe 
 the remnant of the decalogue, were all its positive in- 
 junctions omitted. If the eight commandments which, 
 substantially or literally, come under the form 'thou sbalt 
 not,' constitute by themselves a set of rules which can 
 scarcely be called nihilistic ; I do not see how an adminis- 
 trative system limited to the enforcement of such rules can 
 be called nihiUstic : especially if to the punishment of 
 murder, adultery, stealing, and false-witness, it adds the 
 punishment of assault, breach of contract, and all minor 
 aggressions, down to the annoyance of neighbours by 
 nuisances. Respecting the second and essential question, 
 whether limitation of the internal functions of government 
 to those which are negatively regulative, is consistent with 
 that theory of the social organism and its controlling 
 
SPECIALIZED ADMINISTRATION. 443 
 
 agencies held by vie, 1 may say that the insufficiency of 
 my reply has not, I think, been shown. I was tacitly 
 asked how the analogy I have drawn between those 
 governmental structures by which the parts of the body 
 politic have their actions regulated and those nervous 
 structures which regulate the organic actions of the indi- 
 vidual living body, is to be reconciled with my belief that 
 social activities will in the main adjust themselves. My 
 answer was this. I recognized as essential the positively- 
 regulative functions of the State in respect to the 
 offensive and defensive appliances needful for national 
 self-preservation, during the predatory phase of social 
 evolution; and I not only admitted the importance of its 
 negatively-regulative functions in respect to the internal 
 social activities, but insisted that these should be carried 
 out much more efficiently than now. Assuming always, 
 however, that the internal social activities continue subject 
 to that restraining action of the State which consists in 
 preventing aggressions, direct and indirect, I contended 
 that the coordination of these internal social activities 
 is effected by other structures of a different kind. I 
 aimed to show that my two beliefs are not inconsistent, by 
 pointing out that in the individual organism, also, those 
 vital activities which parallel the activities constituting 
 national life, are regulated by a substantially-independent 
 nervous system. Prof. Huxley does, indeed, remind me 
 that recent researches show increasingly the influence of 
 the cerebro-spinal nervous system over the processes of 
 organic life ; against which, however, has to be set the 
 growing evidence of the power exercised by the visceral 
 nervous system over the cerebro-spinal. But, recognizing 
 the influence he names (which, indeed, corresponds to that 
 governmental influence I regard as necessary) ; I think 
 the consistency of my positions is maintainable so long 
 as it is manifest that the viscera, under the control of their 
 
444 SPECIALIZED ADMINISTEATION. 
 
 own nervous system, can carry on the vital actions when 
 the control of the cerebro-spinal system is substantially 
 arrested by sleeps or by anaesthetics, or by other causes of 
 insensibility; and while it is shown tbat a considerable 
 degree of coordination may exist among the organs of a 
 creature which has no nervous system at all/' 
 
FEOM FREEDOM TO BOISTDAGE. 
 
 \_Ftrst ptihlished as the Introduction to a volume entitled A Plea 
 for Liberty, &c. ; a series of anti- socialistic essays, issued at the 
 beginning of 1891. j 
 
 Of the many ways in wMcli common-sense inferences 
 about social affairs are flatly contradicted by events (as 
 when measures taken to suppress a book cause increased 
 circulation of it^ or as wken attempts to prevent usurious 
 rates of interest make the terms harder for the borrower, 
 or as when there is greater difficulty in getting things at 
 the places of production than elsewhere) one of the most 
 curious is the way in which the more things improve the 
 louder become the exclamations about their badness. 
 
 In days when the people were without any political 
 power, their subjection was rarely complained of ; but 
 after free institutions had so far advanced in England that 
 our political arrangements were envied by continental 
 peoples, the denunciations of aristocratic rule grew grad- 
 ually stronger, until there came a great widening of the 
 franchise, soon followed by complaints that things were 
 going wrong for want of still further widening. If we trace 
 up the treatment of women from the days of savagedom, 
 when they bore all the burdens and after the men had 
 eaten received such food as remained, up through the 
 middle ages when they served the men at their meals, to 
 
446 PfiOM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 our OAvn day wten tlirougliout our social arrangements fho 
 claims of women are always put first, we see that along 
 with the worst treatment there went the least apparent 
 consciousness that the treatment was bad ; while now that 
 they are better treated than ever before, the proclaiming 
 of their grievances daily strengthens : the loudest outcries 
 coming from ^' the paradise of women,'^ America. A 
 century ago, when scarcely a man could be found who was 
 not occasionally intoxicated, and when inability to take one 
 or two bottles of wine brought contempt, no agitation arose 
 against the vice of drunkenness ; but now that, in the course 
 of fifty years, the voluntary efforts of temperance societies, 
 joined with more general causes, have produced comparative 
 sobriety, there are vociferous demands for laws to prevent 
 the ruinous effects of the liquor traffic. Similarly again 
 with education. A few generations back, ability to read 
 and write was practically limited to the upper and middle 
 classes, and the suggestion that the rudiments of culture 
 should be given to labourers was never made, or, if made, 
 ridiculed; but when, in the days of our grandfathers, the 
 Sunday-school system, initiated by a few philanthropists, 
 began to spread and was followed by the establishment of 
 day-schools, with the result that among the masses those 
 who could read and write were no longer the exceptions, 
 and the demand for cheap literature rapidly increased, 
 there began the cry that the people were perishing for lack 
 of knowledge, and that the State must not simply educate 
 them but must force education upon them. 
 
 And so is it, too, with the general state of the population in 
 respect of food, clothing, shelter, and the appliances of life. 
 Leaving out of the comparison early barbaric states, there 
 has been a conspicuous progress from the time when most 
 rustics lived on barley bread, rye bread, and oatmeal, down 
 to our own time when the consumption of white wheaten 
 bread is universal — from the days when coarse jackets 
 reaching to the knees left the legs bare, down to the present 
 
FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 447 
 
 day when labouring* people^ like their employers, have the 
 whole body covered, by two or more layers of clothing — 
 from the old era of single-roomed huts without chimneys, 
 or from the 15th century when even an ordinary gentle- 
 man's house was commonly without wainscot or plaster on 
 its walls, down to the present century when every cottage 
 has more rooms than one and the houses of artizans 
 usually have several, while all have fire-places, chimneys, 
 and glazed windows, accompanied mostly by paper-hangings 
 and painted doors • there has been, I say, a conspicuous 
 progress in the condition of the people. And this progress 
 has been still more marked within our own time. Any one 
 who can look back 60 years, when the amount of pauperism 
 was far greater than now and beggars abundant, is struck 
 by the conaparative size and finish of the new hoases 
 occupied by operatives — by the better dress of workmen, 
 who wear broad-cloth on Sundays, and that of servant girls, 
 who vie with their mistresses — by the higher standard 
 of living which leads to a great demand for the best 
 qualities of food by working people : all results of the double 
 change to higher wages and cheaper commodities, and a dis- 
 tribution of taxes which has relieved the lower classes at 
 the expense of the upper classes. He is struck, too, by the 
 contrast between the small space which popular welfare then 
 occupied in public attention, and the large space it now 
 occupies, with the result that outside and inside Parliament, 
 plans to benefit the millions form the leading topics, and 
 everyone having means is expected to join in some philan- 
 thropic effort. Yet while elevation, mehtal and physical, of 
 the masses is going on far more rapidly than ever before — 
 while the lowering of the death-rate proves that the aver- 
 age life is less trying, there swells louder and louder the 
 cry that the evils are so great that nothing short of a social 
 revolution can cure them. In presence of obvious improve- 
 ments, joined with that increase of longevity which even 
 alone yields conclusive proof of general amelioration, it is 
 
448 PROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 proclaimed^ with increasing vehemence, that things are so 
 bad that society must he palled to pieces and re-organized 
 on another plan. In this case, then, as in the previous 
 cases instanced, in proportion as the evil decreases the 
 denunciation of it increases ; and as fast as natural causes 
 are shown to be powerful there grows up the belief that 
 they are powerless. 
 
 Not that the evils to be remedied are small. Let no one 
 suppose that, by emphasizing the above paradox, I wish to 
 make light of the sufferings which most men have to bear. 
 The fates of the great majority have ever been, and doubt- 
 less still are, so sad that it is painful to think of them. 
 Unquestionably the existing type of social organization is 
 one which none who care for their kind can contemplate 
 with satisfaction ; and unquestionably men^s activities 
 accompanying this type are far from being admirable. 
 The strong divisions of rank and the immense inequalities 
 of means, are at variance with that ideal of human relations 
 on which the sympathetic imagination likes to dwell ; and 
 the average conduct, under the pressure and excitement 
 of social life as at present carried on, is in sundry respects 
 repulsive. Though the many who revile competition 
 strangely ignore the enormous benefits resulting from it — ■ 
 though they forget that most of the appliances and products 
 distinguishing civilization from savagery, and making 
 possible the maintenance of a large population on a small 
 area, have been developed by the struggle for existence — 
 though they disregard the fact that while every man, as 
 producer, suffers from the under-bidding of competitors, yet, 
 as consumer, he is immensely advantaged by the cheapening 
 of all he has to buy — though they persist in dwelling on 
 the evils of competition and saying nothing of its benefits ; 
 yet it is not to be denied that the evils are great, and form 
 a large set-off from the benefits. The system under which 
 we at present live fosters dishonesty and lying. It prompts 
 adulterations of countless kinds ; it is answerable for tho 
 
FKOM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 440 
 
 clieap imitations "which eventually in many cases thrust 
 the genuine articles out of the mai-ket ; it leads to the use 
 of short weights and false measures ; it introduces bribery, 
 which vitiates most trading relations^ from those of the 
 ma.nufacturer and buyer down to those of the shopkeeper 
 and servant ; it encourages deception to such an extent 
 that an assistant who cannot tell a falsehood with a good 
 face is blamed ; and often it gives the conscientious trader 
 the choice between adopting the malpractices of his com- 
 petitors, or greatly injuring his creditors by bankruptcy. 
 Moreover, the extensive frauds, common throughoub the 
 commercial world and daily exposed in law-courts and 
 newspapers, are larg*ely due to the pressure under which 
 competition places the higher industrial classes ; and are 
 otherwise due to that lavish expenditure which, as imply- 
 ing success in the commercial struggle, brings honour. 
 With these minor evils must be joined the major one, that 
 the distribution achieved by the system, gives to those who 
 regulate and superintend, a share of the total produce 
 which bears too large a ratio to the share it gives to the 
 actual workers. Let it not be thought, then, that in saying 
 what I have said above, I under-estimate those vices of our 
 competitive system which, 30 years ago, I described and 
 denounced."^ But it is not a question of absolute evils ; it 
 is a question of relative evils — ^whether the evils at present 
 suffered are or are not less than the evils which would 
 be suffered under another system — whether efforts for 
 mitigation along the lines thus far followed are not more 
 likely to succeed than efforts along utterly diff'erent lines. 
 
 This is the question here to be considered. I must be 
 excused for first of all setting forth sundry truths which 
 are, to some at any rate, tolerably familiar, before proceed- 
 ing^ to draw inferences which are not so familiar. 
 
 ■^o 
 
 Speaking broadly, every man works that he may avoid 
 * See essay on *' The Morals of Trade." 
 
450 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 suffering. Here, remembrance of tlie pangs of tunger 
 prompts him ; and therOj he is prompted by the sight of the 
 slave-driver^s lash. His immediate dread may be the 
 punishment which physical circumstances will inflict, or 
 may be punishment inflicted by human agency. He must 
 have a master ; but the master may be Nature or may be a 
 fellow man. When he is under the impersonal coercion of 
 NaturCj we say that he is free ; and when he is under the 
 personal coercion of some one above him, we call him, 
 according to the degree of his dependence, a slave, a serf, 
 or a vassal. Of course I omit the small minority who 
 inherit means : an incidental, and not a necessary, social 
 element. I speak only of the vast majority, both cultured 
 and uncultured, who maintain themselves by labour, bodily 
 or mental, and must either exert themselves of tfieir own 
 unconstrained wills, prompted only by thoughts of naturally- 
 resulting evils or benefits, or must exert themselves with 
 constrained wills, prompted by thoughts of evils and benefits 
 artificially resulting. 
 
 Men may work together in a society under either of 
 these two forms of control : forms which, though in many 
 cases mingled, are essentially contrasted. Using the word 
 cooperation in its wide sense, and not in that restricted 
 sense now commonly given to it, we may say that social 
 life must be carried on by either voluntary cooperation or 
 compulsory cooperation ; or, to use Sir Henry Maine's 
 words, the system must be that of contract or that of status 
 — that in which the individual is left to do the best he can 
 by his spontaneous efforts and get success or failure 
 according to his efficiency, and that in which he has his 
 appointed place, works under coercive rule, and has his 
 apportioned share of food, clothing, and shelter. 
 
 The system of voluntary cooperation is that by which, 
 in civilized societies, industry is now everywhere carried 
 on. Under a simple form we have it on every farm, where 
 the labourers, paid by the farmer himself and taking orders 
 
FEOM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 451 
 
 directly from him^ are free to stay or go as they please. 
 And of its more complex form an example is yielded by 
 every manufacturing concern, in whiclij under partners, 
 come managers and clerks, and under these, time-keepers 
 and over-lookers, and under tkese operatives of different 
 grades. In each of these cases there is an obvious working 
 together, or cooperation, of emjDloyer and employed, to 
 obtain in the one case a crop and in the other case a manu- 
 factured stock. And then, at the same time, there is a far 
 more extensive, though unconscious, cooperation with 
 other workers of all grades throughout the society. For 
 while these particular employers and employed are severally 
 occupied with their special kinds of work, other employers 
 and employed are making other things needed for the 
 carrying on of their lives as well as the lives of all others. 
 This voluntary cooperation, from its simplest to its most 
 complex forms, has the common trait that those concerned 
 work together by consent. There is no one to force terms 
 or to force acceptance. It is perfectly true that in many 
 cases an employer may give, or an employe may accept, 
 with reluctance : circumstances he says compel him. But 
 what are the circumstances ? In the one case there are 
 goods ordered, or a contract entered into, which he cannot 
 supply or execute without yielding; and in the other case he 
 submits to a wage less than he likes because otherwise he 
 will have no money wherewith to procure food and warmth. 
 The general formula is not — '' Do this, or I will make 
 you/' but it is — "Do this^ or leave your place and take 
 the consequences." 
 
 On the other hand compulsory cooperation is exemplified 
 by an army — not so much by our own army, the service in 
 which is under agreement for a specified period, but in a 
 continental army, raised by conscription. Here, in time of 
 peace, the daily duties — cleaning, parade, drill, sentry 
 work, and the rest — and in time of war the various actions 
 of the camp and the battle-field, are done under command. 
 
^■52 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 without room for any exercise of choice. Up from tlie 
 private soldier through the non-comtnissioned officers and 
 the half-dozen or more grades of commissioned officers, the 
 universal law is absolute obedience from the grade below 
 to the grade above. The sphere of individual will is such 
 only as is allowed by the will of the superior. Breaches of 
 subordination are, according to their gravity, dealt with by 
 deprivation of leave, extra drill, imprisonment, flogging, 
 and, in the last resort, shooting. Instead of the under- 
 standing that there must be obedience in respect of specified 
 duties under pain of dismissal; the understanding now is — - 
 " Obey in everything ordered under penalty of inflicted 
 suffering and perhaps death. ^' 
 
 This form of cooperation, still exemplified in an army, 
 has in days gone by been the form of cooperation through- 
 out the civil population. Everywhere, and at all times, 
 chronic war generates a militant type of structure, not in 
 the body of soldiers only but throughout the community at 
 large. Practically, while the conflict between societies is 
 actively going on, and fighting is regarded as the only 
 manly occupation, the society is the quiescent army and 
 the army the mobilized society : that part which does not 
 take part in battle, composed of slaves, serfs, women, 
 &c., constituting the commissariat. Naturally, therefore, 
 throughout the mass of inferior individuals constituting the 
 commissariat, there is maintained a system of discipline 
 identical in nature if less elaborate. The fighting body being, 
 under such conditions, the ruling body, and the rest of the 
 community being incapable of resistance, those who control 
 the fighting body will, of course, impose their control upon 
 the non-fighting body ; and the regime of coercion will be 
 applied to it with such modifications only as the different 
 circumstances involve. Prisoners of war become slaves. 
 Those who were free cultivators before the conquest of 
 their country, become serfs attached to the soil. Petty 
 chiefs become subject to superior chiefs; these smaller lords 
 
PROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 453 
 
 become vassals to over-lords ; and so on up to the highest : 
 the social ranks and powers being of like essential nature with 
 the ranks and powers throughout the military organization . 
 And while for the slaves compulsory cooperatian is the 
 unqualified system^ a cooperation which is in part 
 compulsory is the system that pervades all grades above. 
 Each man's oath of fealty to his suzerain takes the form — 
 "I am your man/' 
 
 Throughout Europe, and especially in our own country; 
 this system of compulsory cooperation gradually relaxed in 
 rigour, while the system of voluntary cooperation step by 
 step replaced it. As fast as war ceased to be the business 
 of life, the social structure produced by war and appro- 
 priate to it, slowly became qualified by the social structure 
 produced by industrial life and appropriate to it. In 
 proportion as a decreasing part of the community was 
 devoted to offensive and defensive activities, an increasing 
 part became devoted to production and distributiou. 
 Growing more numerous, more powerful, and taking refuge 
 in towns where it was less under the power of the militant 
 class, this industrial population carried on its life under the 
 system of voluntary cooperation. Though municipal govern- 
 ments and guild-regulations, partially pervaded by ideas 
 and usages derived from the militant type of society, were 
 in some degree coercive; yet production and distribution 
 were in the main carried on under agreement — alike 
 between buyers and sellers, and between masters and 
 workmen. As fast as these social relations and forms 
 of activity became dominant in urban populations, they 
 influenced the whole community : compulsory cooperation 
 lapsed more and more, through money commutation for 
 services, military and civil; while divisions of rank became 
 less rigid and class-power diminished. Until at length, 
 restraints exercised by incorporated trades having fallen 
 into desuetude, as well as the rule of rank over rank, 
 voluntary cooperation became the universal principle. 
 
454 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 Purchase and sale became the law for all kinds of services 
 as well as for all kinds of commodities. 
 
 Tlie restlessness generated by pressure against the con- 
 ditions of existence, perpetually prompts tlie desire to try a 
 new position. Everyone knows how long-continued rest in 
 one attitude becomes wearisome — everyone has found how 
 even the best easy chair, at first rejoiced in, becomes after 
 many hours intolerable ; and change to a hard seat, previously 
 occupied and rejected, seems for a time to be a great 
 relief. It is the same with incorporated humanity. Having 
 by long struggles -emancipated itself from the hard discipline 
 of the ancient regime^ and having discovered that the new 
 regime into which it has grown, though relatively easy, is not 
 without stresses and pains, its impatience with these prompts 
 the wish to try another system: which other system is, in 
 principle if not in appearance, the same as that which during 
 past generations was escaped from with much rejoicing. 
 
 For as fast as the regime of contract is discarded the 
 regime of status is of necessity adopted. As fast as 
 voluntary cooperation is abandoned compulsory cooperation 
 must be substituted. Some kind of organization labour 
 must have ; and if it is not that which arises by agreement 
 under free competition, it must be that which is imposed by 
 authority. Unlike in appearance and names as it may be to 
 the old order of slaves and serfs, working under masters, 
 who were coerced by barons, who were themselves vassals 
 of dukes or kings, the new order wished for_, constituted 
 by workers under foremen of small groups, overlooked by 
 superintendents, who are subject to higher local managers, 
 who are controlled by superiors of districts, themselves 
 under a central government, must be essentially the same 
 in principle. In the one case, as in the other, there must 
 be established grades, and enforced subordination of each 
 grade to the grades above. This is a truth which the 
 communist or the socialist does not dwell upon. Angry 
 
FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 455 
 
 "wltli tlie existiT]g system under whicli each of us takes care 
 of himselfj while all of us see that each has fair play, he 
 thinks how much better it would be for all of us to take 
 care of each of us ; and he refrains from tbinking of the 
 machinery by which this is to be done. Inevitably, if each 
 is to be cared for by all, then the embodied all must get the 
 means — the necessaries of life. What it gives to each must 
 be taken from the accumulated contributions ; and it must 
 therefore require from each his proportion — must tell him 
 how much he has to give to the general stock in the shape 
 of production, that he may have so much in the shape of 
 sustentation. Hence, before he can be provided for, he must 
 put himself under orders, and obey those who say what 
 he shall do, and at what hours, and where ; and who give 
 him his share of food, clothing, and shelter. If competition 
 is excluded, and with it buying and selling, there can be no 
 voluntary exchange of so much labour for so much produce; 
 but there must be apportionment of the one to the other by 
 appointed officers. This apportionment must be enforced. 
 Without alternative the work must be done, and without 
 alternative the benefit, whatever it may be, must be accepted. 
 Eor the worker may not leave his place at will and offer 
 himself elsewhere. Under such a system he cannot be 
 accepted elsewhere, save by order of the authorities. And 
 it is manifest that a standing order would forbid employment 
 in one place of an insubordinate member from another place: 
 the system could not be worked if the workers were severally 
 allowed to go or come as they pleased. With corporals and 
 sergeants under them, the captains of industry must carry 
 out the orders of their colonels^ and these of their generals, 
 up to the council of the commander-in-chief ; and obedience 
 must be required throughout the industrial array as through- 
 out a fighting army. " Do your prescribed duties, and 
 take your apportioned rations/' must be the rule of the one 
 as of the other. 
 
 ^^Well, be it so;" replies the socialist. "The workers 
 
456 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 ■will appoint their own officers, and these will always be 
 subject to criticisms of the mass they regulate- Being thus 
 in fear of public opinion, they will be sure to act judiciously 
 and fairly; or when they do not, will be deposed by the 
 popular vote, local or general. Where will be the grievance 
 of being under superiors, when the superiors themselves 
 are under democratic control ? '^ And in this attractive 
 vision the socialist has full belief. 
 
 Iron and brass are simpler things than flesh and blood, 
 and dead wood than living nerve ; and a machine con- 
 structed of the one works in more definite ways than an 
 organism constructed of the other, — especially when the 
 machine is worked by the inorganic forces of steam or 
 water, while the organism is worked by the forces of living 
 nerve-centres. Manifestly, then, the ways in which the 
 machine will work are much more readily calculable than 
 the ways in which the organism will work. Yet in how 
 few cases does the inventor foresee rightly the actions of 
 his new apparatus ! Read the patent-list, and it will be found 
 that not more than one device in fifty turns out to be of any 
 service. Plausible as his scheme seemed to the inventor^ 
 one or other hitch prevents theintended operation, and brings 
 out a widely different result from that which he wished. 
 
 What, then, shall we say of these schemes which have 
 to do not with dead matters and forces, but with complex 
 living organisms working in ways less readily foreseen, 
 and which involve the cooperation of multitudes of such 
 organisms ? Even the units out of which this re-arranged 
 body politic is to be formed are often incomprehensible. 
 Everyone is from time to time surprised by others^ behaviour, 
 and even by the deeds of relatives who are best known to 
 hira. Seeing, then, how uncertainly anj^one can foresee the 
 actions of an individual, how can he with any certainty fore- 
 see the operation of a social structure ? He proceeds on the 
 assumption that all concerned will judge rightly and act 
 
FKOM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 457 
 
 fairly — will tMiik as they ought to think, and act as they 
 ought to act ; and he assumes this regardless of the daily 
 experiences which show him that men do neither the one 
 nor the other, and forgetting that the complaints he makes 
 against the existing system show his belief to be that men 
 have neither the wisdom nor the rectitude which his plan 
 requires them to have. 
 
 Paper constitutions raise smiles on the faces of those 
 who have observed their results ; and paper social systems 
 similarly affect those who have contemplated the available 
 evidence. How little the men who wrought the French 
 revolution and were chiefly concerned in setting up the 
 new governmental apparatus, dreamt that one of the early 
 actions of this apparatus would be to behead them all ! 
 How little the men who drew up the American Declaration 
 of Independence and framed the republic, anticipated that 
 after some generations the legislature would lapse into the 
 hands of wire-pullers ; that its doings would turn upon the 
 contests of offiice-seekers ; that political action would be 
 everywhere vitiated by the intrusion of a foreign element 
 holding the balance between parties; that electors, instead of 
 judging for themselves, would habitually be led to the polls 
 in thousands by their "bosses;" and that respectable men 
 would be driven out of public life by the insults and slanders 
 of professional politicians. Nor were there better previsions 
 in those who gave constitutions to the various other states of 
 the New World, in which unnumbered revolutions have shown 
 with wonderful persistence the contrasts between the 
 expected results of political systems and the achieved 
 results. It has been.no less thus with proposed systems of 
 social re-organization, so far as they have been tried. Save 
 where celibacy has been insisted on, their history has been 
 everywhere one of disaster; ending with the history of 
 Cabet^s Icarian colony lately given by one of its members, 
 Madame Fleury Robinson, in The Open Court — a history of 
 splittings, re-splittings and re-re-splittings, accompanied by 
 
458 FEOM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 numerous individual secessions and final dissolution. And 
 for tlie failure of such social schemes^ as for the failure of 
 the political schemes^ there has been one general cause. 
 
 Metamorphosis is the universal law, exemplified through- 
 out the Heavens and on the Earth : especially throughout 
 the organic world; and above all in the animal division 
 of it. No creature, save the simplest and most minute, 
 commences its existence in a •form like that which it 
 eventually assumes; and in most cases the unlikeness is 
 great — so great that kinship between the first and the last 
 forms would be incredible were it not daily demonstrated 
 in every poultry-yard and every garden. More than this 
 is true. The changes of form are often several : each of them 
 being an apparently complete transformation — ogg, larva, 
 pupa, imago, for example. And this universal metamor- 
 phosis, displayed alike in the development of a planet and 
 of every seed which germinates on its surface, holds also of 
 societies, whether taken as wholes or in their separate 
 institutions. No one of them ends as it begins ; and the differ- 
 ence between its original structure and its ultimate structure 
 is such that, at the outset, change of the one into the other 
 would have seemed incredible. In the rudest tribe the 
 chief, obeyed as leader in war, loses his distinctive position 
 when the fighting is over; and even where continued warfare 
 has produced permanent chieftainship, the chief, building 
 his own hut, getting his own food, making his own imple- 
 ments, differs from others only by his predominant influence. 
 There is no sign that in course of time, by conquests and 
 unions of tribes, and consolidations of clusters so formed 
 with other such clusters, until a nation has been produced, 
 there will originate from the primitive chief, one who, as czar 
 or emperor, surrounded with pomp and ceremony, has despotic 
 power over scores of millions, exercised through hundreds of 
 thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of officials. 
 When the early Christian missionaries, having humble 
 
PROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 459 
 
 externals and passing self-denying lives, spread over pagan 
 Europe, preaching forgiveness of injuries and the returning 
 of good for evil^ no one dreamt that in course of time their 
 representatives would form a vast hierarchyj possessing 
 everywhere a large part of the land, distinguished by the 
 haughtiness of its members grade above grade, ruled by 
 military bishops who led their retainers to battle, and 
 headed by a pope exercising supreme power over kings. 
 So, too^ has it been with that very industrial system which 
 many are now so eager to replace. In its original form 
 there was no prophecy of the factory-system or kindred 
 organizations of workers. Differing from them only as 
 being the head of his house, the master worked along with 
 his apprentices and a journeyman or two, sharing with 
 them his table and accommodation, and himself selling 
 their joint produce. Only with industrial growth did there 
 come employment of a larger number of assistants, and a 
 relinquishment, on the part of the master, of all other 
 business than that of superintendence. And only in the 
 course of recent times did there evolve the organizations 
 under which the labours of hundreds and thousands of men 
 receiving wages, are regulated by various orders of paid 
 officials under a single or multiple head. These originally 
 small, semi-socialistic, groups of producers, like the com- 
 pound families or house-communities of early ages, slowly 
 dissolved because they could not hold their ground : the 
 larger establishments, with better sub-division of labour, 
 succeeded because they ministered to the wants of society 
 inore effectually. But we need not go back through the 
 centuries to trace transformations sufficiently great and 
 unexpected. On the day when £30,000 a year in aid of 
 education was voted as an experiment, the name of idiot 
 would have been given to an opponent who prophesied 
 that in 50 years the sum spent through imperial taxes and 
 local rates would amount to £10,000,000 or who said that the 
 aid to education would be followed by aids to feeding and 
 
460 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE, 
 
 clothing, or who said that parents and children^ aliko 
 deprived of all option, would, even if starving, be com- 
 pelled by fine or imprisonment to conform, and receive that 
 which, with papal assumption, the State calls education. 
 No one, I say, would have dreamt that out of so innocent- 
 looking a germ would have so quickly evolved this tyran- 
 nical system, tamely submitted to by people who fancy 
 themselves free. 
 
 Thus in social arrangements, as in all other things, 
 change is inevitable. It is foolish to suppose that new 
 institutions set up, will long retain the character given 
 them by those who set them up. Rapidly or slowly they 
 will be transformed into institutions unlike those intended 
 — so unlike as even to be unrecognizable by their 
 devisers. And what, in the case before us, will be the 
 metamorphosis ? The answer pointed to by instances above 
 given, and warranted by various analogies, is manifest. 
 
 A cardinal trait in all advancing organization is the 
 development of the regulative apparatus. If the parts of 
 a whole are to act together, there must be appliances by 
 which their actions are directed; and in proportion as the 
 whole is large and complex, and has many requirements 
 to be met by many agencies, the directive apparatus must 
 be extensive, elaborate, and powerful. That it is thus with 
 individual organisms needs no saying; and that it must be 
 thus with social organisms is obvious. Beyond the regu- 
 lative apparatus such as in our own society is required for 
 carrying on national defence and maintaining public order 
 and personal safety, there must, under the regime of 
 socialism, be a regulative apparatus everywhere controlling 
 all kinds of production and distribution, and everywhere 
 apportioning the shares of products of each kind required 
 for each locality, each working establishment, each indi- 
 vidual. Under our existing voluntary cooperation, with 
 its free contracts and its competition, production and 
 distribution need no ofiicial oversight. Demand and 
 
FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 461 
 
 supply, and the desire of eacli man to gam a living" by 
 supplying the needs of his fellows, spontaneously evolve 
 that wonderful system whereby a great city has its food- 
 daily brought round to all doors or stored at adjacent 
 shops ; has clothing for its citizens everywhere at hand in 
 .multitudinous varieties ; has its houses and furniture and 
 fuel ready made or stocked in each locality ; and has 
 mental pabulum from halfpenny papers hourly hawked 
 round, to weekly shoals of novels, and less abundant books 
 of instruction, furnished without stint for small payments. 
 And throughout the kingdom, production as well as distri- 
 bution is similarly carried on with the smallest amount of 
 superintendence which proves efiicient; while the quanti- 
 ties of the numerous commodities required daily in each 
 locality are adjusted without any other agency than the 
 pursuit of profit. Suppose now that this industrial regime 
 of willinghood, acting spontaneously, is replaced by a regime 
 of industrial obedience, enforced by public officials. Imagine 
 the vast administration required for that distribution of 
 all commodities to all people in every city, town and 
 village, which is now effected by traders ! Imagine, again, 
 the still more vast administration required for doing all 
 that farmers, manufacturers, and merchants do; having 
 - not only its various orders of local superintendents, but its 
 sub-centres and chief centres needed for apportioning the 
 quantities of each thing everywhere needed, and the 
 adjustment of them to the requisite times. Then add the 
 staffs wanted for working mines, railways, roads, canals ; 
 the staffs required for conducting the importing and 
 exporting businesses and the administration of mercantile 
 shipping ; the staffs required for supplying towns not only 
 with water and gas but with locomotion by tramways, 
 omnibuses, and other vehicles, and for the distribution of 
 power, electric and other. Join with these the existing 
 postal, telegraphic, and telephonic administrations; and 
 finally those of the police and army, by which the dictates 
 
462 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 of this immense consolidated regulative system are to be 
 everywhere enforced. Imagine all this and then ask what 
 will be the position of the actual workers ! Already on the 
 continent^ where governmental organizations are more 
 elaborate and coercive than here, there are chronic com- 
 plaints of the tyranny of bureaucracies — the hauteur and 
 brutality of their members. What will these become when 
 not only the more public actions of citizens are controlled, 
 but there is added this far more extensive control of 
 all their respective daily duties ? What will happen 
 when the various divisions of this vast army of officials, 
 united by interests common to officialism — the interests 
 of the regulators versus those of the regulated — have 
 at their command 'whatever force is needful to suppress 
 insubordination and act as '^ saviours of society " ? Where 
 will be the actual diggers and miners and smelters 
 and weavers, when those who order and superintend, 
 everywhere arranged class above class, have come, after 
 some generations, to inter-marry with those of kindred 
 grades, under feelings such as are operative in existing 
 classes ; and when there have been so produced a series of 
 castes rising in superiority ; and when all these, having 
 everything in their own power, have arranged modes of 
 living for their own advantage : eventually forming a new 
 aristocracy far more elaborate and better organized than* 
 the old F How will the individual worker fare if he is 
 dissatisfied with his treatment — thinks that he has not 
 an adequate share of the products, or has more to do 
 than can rightly be demanded, or wishes to undertake 
 a function for which he feels himself fitted but which is 
 not thought proper for him by his superiors, or desires to 
 make an independent career for himself ? This dissatisfied 
 unit in the immense machine will be told he must submit 
 or go. The mildest penalty for disobedience will be indus- 
 trial excommunication. And if an international organization 
 of labour is formed as proposed, exclusion in one country 
 
PROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 463 
 
 ■will mean exclusion in all others — industrial excommunica- 
 tion will mean starvation. 
 
 That things must take this course is a conclusion reached 
 not by deduction only, nor only by induction from those 
 experiences of the past iustanced above^ nor only from 
 consideration of the analogies furnished by organisms of 
 all orders ; but it is reached also by observation of cases 
 daily under our eyes. The truth that the regulative 
 structure always tends to increase in power, is illustrated 
 by every established body of men. The history of each 
 learned society, or society for other purpose, shows how 
 the staff, permanent or partially permanent^ sways the 
 proceedings and determines the actions of the society with 
 but little resistance, even when most members of the society 
 disapprove : the repugnance to anything like a revolutionary 
 step being ordinarily an efficient deterrent. So is it with 
 joint-stock companies — -those owning railways for example. 
 The plans of a board of directors are usually authorized 
 with little or no discussion ; and if there is any considerable 
 opposition, this is forthwith crushed by an overwhelming 
 number of proxies sent by those who always suppt)rt the 
 existing administration. Only when the misconduct is extreme 
 does the resistance of shareholders suffice to displace the 
 ruling body. Nor is it otherwise with societies fprmed of 
 working men and having the interests of labour especially 
 at heart — the trades-unions. In these, too, the regulative 
 agency becomes all powerful. Their members, even when 
 they dissent from the policy pursned, habitually yield to the 
 authorities they have set up. As they cannot secede without 
 making enemies of their fellow workmen, and often losing 
 all chance of employment, they succumb. We are shown, 
 too, by the late congress, that already, in the general 
 organization of trades-unions so recently formed, there are 
 complaints of ^^wire-pullers" and ^'bosses" and ^''permanent 
 officials." If, then, this supremacy of the regulators is 
 seen in bodies of quite modern origin, formed of men who 
 
464 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 Have, in many of tHe cases instanced, unHindered powers 
 of asserting their independence, what will the supremacy of 
 the regulators become in long-established bodies, in bodies 
 which have become vast and highly organized, and in bodies 
 which, instead -of controlling only a small part of the unites 
 life, control the whole of his life ? 
 
 Again there will come the rejoinder — '''We shall guard 
 against all that. Everybody will be educated; and all, with 
 their eyes constantly open to the abuse of power, will be 
 quick to prevent it/^ The worth of these expectations would 
 be small even could we not identify the causes which 
 will bring disappointment ; for in human affairs the most 
 promising schemes go wrong in ways which no one antici- 
 pated. But in this case the going wrong will be necessitated 
 by causes which are "conspicuous. The working of institu- 
 tions is determined hymen's characters; and the existing 
 defects in their characters will inevitably bring about the 
 results above indicated. There is no adequate endow- 
 ment of those sentiments required to prevent the growth 
 of a despotic bureaucracy. 
 
 Were it needful to dwell on indirect evidence, much might 
 be made of that furuished by the behaviour of the so-called 
 Liberal party — a party which, relinquishing the original 
 conception of a leader as a mouthpiece for a known and 
 accepted policy, thinks itself bound to accept a policy which 
 its leader springs upon it without consent or warning — a 
 party so utterly without the feeling and idea implied by 
 liberalism, as not to resent this trampling on the right of 
 private judgment, which constitutes the root of liberalism — 
 nay, a party which vilifies as renegade liberals, those of its 
 members who refuse to surrender their independence ! But 
 without occupying space with indirect proofs that the mass 
 of men have not the natures required to check the develop- 
 ment of tyrannical officialism, it will suffice to contemplate 
 the direct proofs furnished by those classes among whom 
 
FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 465 
 
 the socialistic idea most predominates, and wlio tliink 
 themselves most interested in propagating it — the operative 
 classes. These would constitute the great body of the 
 socialistic organization, and their characters would deter- 
 mine its nature. What, then, are their characters as dis- 
 played in such organizations as they have already formed? 
 
 Instead of the selfishness of the employing classes and 
 the selfishness of competition, we are to have the unselfish- 
 ness of a mutually-aiding system. How far is this 
 unselfishness now shown in the behaviour of working men 
 to one another ? What shall we say to the rules limiting 
 the numbers of new hands admitted into each trade, or 
 to the rules which hinder ascent from inferior classes of 
 workers to superior classes ? One does not see in such 
 regulations any of that altruism by which socialism is to be 
 pervaded. Contrariwise, one sees a pursuit of private 
 interests no less keen than among traders. Hence, unless 
 we suppose that men^s natures will be suddenly exalted, 
 we must conclude that the pursuit of private interests 
 will sway the doings of all the component classes in a 
 socialistic society. 
 
 With passive disregard of others' claims goes active 
 encroachment on them. '^ Be one of us or we will cut off 
 your means of living,^' is the usual threat of each trades- 
 union to outsiders of the same trade. While their members 
 insist on their own freedom to combine and fix the rates at 
 which they will work (as they are perfectly justified in 
 doing), the freedom of those who disagree with them is not 
 only denied but the assertion of it is treated as a crime. 
 Individuals who maintain their rights to make their own 
 contracts are vilified as " blacklegs " and '' traitors," and 
 meet with violence which would be merciless were there no 
 legal penalties and no police. Along with this trampling 
 on the liberties of men of their own class, there goes 
 peremptory dictation to the employing class : not prescribed 
 terms and working arrangements only shall be conformed 
 
466 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 to, but none save those belonging to their body shall be 
 employed — nay, in some cases, there shall be a strike if the 
 employer carries on transactions with trading bodies that 
 give work to non-union men. Here, then, we are variously 
 shown by trades-unions, or at any rate by the newer trades- 
 unions, a determination to impose their regulations without 
 regard to the rights of those who are to be coerced. So 
 complete is the inversion of ideas and sentiments that 
 maintenance of these rights is regarded as vicious and 
 trespass upon them as virtuous."*^ 
 
 Along with this aggressiveness in one dii^ection there 
 goes submissiveness in another direction. The coercion of 
 outsiders by unionists is paralleled only by their subjection 
 to their leaders. That they may conquer in the struggle 
 they surrender their individual liberties and individual 
 judgments, and show no resentment however dictatorial may 
 be the rule exercised over them. Everywhere we see such 
 subordination that bodies of workmen unanimously leave 
 their work or return to it as their authorities order them. 
 Nor do they resist when taxed all round to support strikers 
 whose acts they may or may not approve, but instead, ill- 
 treat recalcitrant members of their body who do not subscribe. 
 
 * Marvellous are the conclusions men reach when once they desert the 
 simple principle, that each man should be allowed to pursue the objects of 
 life, restrained only by the Hmits which the similar pursuits of their objects 
 by other men impose. A generation ago we heard loud assertions of 'the 
 right to labour,' that is, the right to have labour provided; and there are 
 still not a few who think the community bound to find work for each person. 
 Compare this with the doctrine current in France at the time when the 
 monarchical power culminated ; namely, that ' the right of working is a 
 royal right which the prince can sell and the subjects must buy.' This 
 contrast is startling enough ; but a contrast still more startling is being 
 provided for us. We now see a resuscitation of the despotic doctrine, 
 differing only by the substitution of Trades-Unions for kings. For now 
 that Trades-Unions are becoming universal, and each artisan has to pay 
 prescribed monies to one or another of them, with the alternative of being 
 a non-unionist to whom work is denied by force, it has come to this, that 
 the right to labour is a Trade-Union right, which the Trade-Union can sell 
 and the individual worker must buyl 
 
FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 467 
 
 The traits thus shown must be operative in any new 
 social organizatiouj and the question to be asked is — -What 
 will result from their operation when they are relieved 
 from all restraints ? At present the separate bodies of men 
 displaying them are in the midst of a society partially 
 passive, partially antagonistic ; are subject to the criticisms 
 and reprobations of an independent press ; and are under 
 the control of law, enforced by police. If in these circum- 
 stances these bodies habitually take courses which over- 
 ride individual freedom, what will happen when, instead of 
 being only scattered parts of the community, governed by 
 their separate sets of regulators, they constitute the whole 
 community, governed by a consolidated system of such 
 regulators ; when functionaries of all orders, including those 
 who officer the press, form parts of the regulative organiza- 
 tion ; and when the law is both enacted and administered 
 by this regulative organization ? The fanatical adherents 
 of a social theory are capable of taking any measures, no 
 matter how extreme, for carrying out their views : holding, 
 like the merciless priesthoods of past times, that the end 
 justifies the means. And when a general socialistic organ- 
 ization has been established, the vast, ramified, and con- 
 solidated body of those who direct its activities, using 
 without check whatever coercion seems to them needful in 
 the interests of the system (which will practically become 
 their own interests) will have no hesitation in imposing 
 their rigorous rule over the entire lives of the actual 
 workers ^ until, eventually, there is developed an official 
 oligarchy, with its various grades, exercising a tyranny more 
 gigantic and more terrible than any which the world has seen. 
 
 Let me again repudiate an erroneous inference. Any 
 one who supposes that the foregoing argument implies 
 contentment with things as they are, makes a profound 
 mistake. The present social state is transitional, as past 
 social states have been transitional. There will, I hope 
 
468 FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 and believe^ come a future social state differing as mucli 
 from the present as the present differs from the past 
 with its mailed barons and defenceless serfs. In Social 
 Statics, as well as in The Study of Sociology d^ndi in Political 
 Institutions^ is clearly shown the desire for an organization 
 more conducive to the happiness of men at large than 
 tiiat which, exists. My opposition to socialism results from 
 th.e belief that it would stop the progress to such, a higher 
 state and bring back a lower state. Nothing but the slow 
 modification of human natare by the discipline of social 
 life, can produce permanently advantageous changes. 
 
 A fundamental error pervading the thinking of nearly 
 all parties, political and social, is that evils admit of 
 immediate and radical remedies. '' If you will but do this, 
 the mischief will be prevented.'^ '^ Adopt my plan and 
 the suffering will disappear.'' '' The corruption will un- 
 questionably be cured by enforcing this measure." Every- 
 where one meets with beliefs, expressed or implied, of these 
 kinds. They are all ill-founded. It is possible to remove 
 causes which intensify the evils ; it is possible to change 
 the evils from one form into another ; and it is possible^ and 
 very common, to exacerbate the evils by the efforts made to 
 prevent them ; but anything like immediate cure is impos- 
 sible. In the course of thousands of years mankind have, 
 by multiplication, been forced out of that original savage 
 state in which, small numbers supported themselves on wild 
 food, into the civilized state in which the food required for 
 supporting great numbers can be got only by continuous 
 labour. The nature required for this last mode of life is 
 widely different from the nature required for the first ; 
 and long-continued pains have to be passed through in 
 re-moulding the one into the other. Misery has necessarily 
 to be borne by a constitution out of harmony with its con- 
 ditions ; and a constitution inherited from primitive men is 
 out of harmony with the conditions imposed on existing 
 men. Hence it is impossible to establish forthwith a satis- 
 
FllOM FREKDOM TO BONDAGE. 469 
 
 factory social state. No such nature as that which has 
 filled Europe with millions of armed men, here eager for 
 conquest and there for revenge — no such nature as that 
 which prompts the nations called Christian to vie with one 
 another in filibustering expeditions all over the worlds 
 regardless of the claims of aborigines, while their tens of 
 thousands of priests of the religion of love look on approv- 
 ingly — no such nature as that which, in dealing with 
 weaker races, goes beyond the primitive rule of life for 
 life, and for one life takes many lives — no such nature, I 
 say, can, by any device, be framed into a harmonious com- 
 munity. The root of all well-ordered social action is a 
 sentiment of justice, which at once insists on personal 
 freedom and is solicitous for the like freedom of others ; 
 and there at present exists but a very inadequate amount 
 of this sentiment. 
 
 Hence the need for further long continuance of a social 
 discipline which requires each man to carry on his activities 
 with due regard to the like claims of others to carry on 
 their activities ; and which, while it insists that he shall 
 have all the benefits his conduct naturally brings, insists 
 also that he shall not saddle on others the evils his conduct 
 naturally brings: unless they freely undertake to bear them. 
 And hence the belief that endeavours to elude this discip- 
 line, will not only fail, but will bring worse evils than 
 those to be escaped. 
 
 It is not, then, chiefly in the interests of the employing 
 classes that socialism is to be resisted, but much more in 
 the interests of the employed classes. In one way or 
 other production must be regulated ; and the regulators, 
 in the nature of things, must always be a small class as 
 compared with the actual producers. Under voluntary co- 
 operation as at present carried on, the regulators, pursuing 
 their personal interests, take as large a share of the 
 produce as they can get; but, as we are daily shown by 
 trades-union successes, are restrained in the selfish pursuit 
 
470 T'EOM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 
 
 of tteir ends. Under that con^pulsory cooperation wliicli 
 socialism would necessitate, the regulators, pursuing their 
 personal interests "with no less selfishness, could not be 
 met by the combined resistance of free workers ; and their 
 power, unchecked as now by refusals to work save on 
 prescribed terms, would grow and ramify and consolidate 
 till it became irresistible. The ultimate result, as I have 
 before pointed out, must be a society like that of ancient 
 Peru, dreadful to contemplate, in which the mass of the 
 people, elaborately regimented in groups of 10^ 50, 100, 
 500, and 1000, ruled by officers of corresponding grades, 
 and tied to their districts, were superintended in their 
 private lives as well as in their industries, and toiled 
 hopelessly for the support of the governmental organization. 
 
THE AMERICANS: 
 
 A Conversation and a Speech, with an Addition. 
 
 \_Originally published in America and afterwards published in 
 England in The Contemporary Review /or Jamiary 1883, preceded 
 by the folloioi^ig editorial note : — *' The state of Mr, Spencer's 
 health unfortunately not permitting him to give in the form of 
 articles the results of his observations on American society, it is 
 thought useful to reproduce, under his own revision and with some 
 additional remarks, what he has said on the subject; especially as 
 the accounts of it which have appeared in this country are imper- 
 fect : reports of the conversation having been abridged, and the 
 speech being knoivn only by telegraphic summary. 
 
 The earlier paragraphs of the conversation, which refer to Mr. 
 Spencer s persistent exclusion of reporters and his objections to the 
 interviewing system., are omitted, as not here concerning the reader. 
 Th&}-e was no eventual yielding, as has been supposed. It was not 
 to a newspaper-reporter that the opinions ivhich follow were ex- 
 pressed, but to an intimate Avierican friend : the priinary purpose 
 being to correct the many misstatements to which the excluded inter- 
 viewers had given currency ; and the occasion being taken for giving 
 utterance to impressions of American affairs."" — Ed. J 
 
 I. —A Conversation : October 20, 1882. 
 
 Has what you have seen answered your expectations ? 
 
 It has far exceeded them. Such books about America 
 as I had looked into had given me no adequate idea of 
 the immense developments of material civilization which 
 
472 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 I have everywhere found. The extent; wealthy and mag- 
 nificence of your cities, and especially the splendour of 
 New York, have altogether astonished me. Though I have 
 not visited the wonder of the West, Chicago, yet some of 
 your minor modern places, such as Cleveland, have suffi- 
 ciently amazed me by the results of one generation's activity. 
 Occasionally, when I have been in places of some ten 
 thousand inhabitants where the telephone is in general 
 use, I have felt somewhat ashamed of our own unenter- 
 prising towns, many of which, of fifty thousand inhabitants 
 and more, make no use of it. 
 
 I suppose you recognize in these results .the great 
 benefits of free institutions ? 
 
 Ah ! Now comes one of the inconveniences of interview- 
 ing. I have been in the country less than two months, 
 have seen but a relatively small part of it, and but com- 
 paratively few people, and yet you wish from me a definite 
 opinion on a difficult question. 
 
 Perhaps you will answer, subject to the qualification that 
 you are but giving your first impressions ? 
 
 Well, with that understanding, I may reply that though 
 the free institutions have ' been partly the cause, I think 
 they have not been the chief cause. In the first place, the 
 American people have come into possession of an un- 
 paralleled fortune — the minei'al wealth and the vast tracts 
 of virgin soil producing abundantly with small cost of 
 culture. Manifestly, that alone goes a long way towards 
 producing this enormous prosperity. Then they have pro- 
 fited by inheriting all the arts, appliances, and methods, 
 developed by older societies, while leaving behind the 
 obstructions existing in them. They have been able to 
 pick and choose from the products of all past experience, 
 appropriating the good and rejecting the bad. Then, 
 besides these favours of fortune, there are factors proper 
 to themselves. I perceive in American faces generally a 
 great amount of determination — a kind of '^ do or die " 
 
THE AMERICANS. 473 
 
 expression ; and this trait of cliaracter^ joined with a power 
 of work exceeding that of any other people, of course pro- 
 duces an unparalleled rapidity of progress. Once more, 
 there is the inventiveness which, stimulated by the need 
 for economizing labour, has been so wisely fostered. Among 
 us in England, there are many foolish people who, while 
 thinking that a man who toils with his hands has an equit- 
 able claim to the product, and if he has special skill may 
 rightly have the advantage of it, also hold that if a man 
 toils with his brain, perhaps for years, and, uniting genius 
 with perseverance, evolves some valuable invention, the 
 public may rightly claim the benefit. The Aj^ericans have 
 been more far-seeing. The enormous museum of patents 
 which I saw at Washins^ton is significant of the attention 
 paid to inventors' claims ; and the nation profits immensely 
 from having in this direction (though not in all others) 
 recognized property in mental products. Beyond question, 
 in respect of mechanical appliances the Americans are 
 ahead of all nations. If along with your material progress 
 there went equal progress of a higher kind, there would 
 remain nothing to be wished. 
 
 That is an ambiguous qualification. What do you mean 
 by it? 
 
 You will understand me when I tell you wliat I was 
 thinking the other day. After pondering over what I have 
 seen of your vast manufacturing and trading establishments, 
 the rush of traffic in your street-cars and elevated railways, 
 your gigantic hotels and Fifth Avenue palaces, I was sud- 
 denly reminded of the Italian Republics of the Middle Ages ; 
 and recalled the fact that while there was growing up in 
 them great commercial activity, a development of the arts, 
 which made them the envy of Europe, and a building of 
 princely mansions which continue to be the admiration of 
 travellers, their people were gradually losing their freedom. 
 
 Do you mean this as a suggestion that we are doing 
 the like ? 
 
 It seems to me tlint you are. You retain the forms of 
 
474. THE AMERICANS. 
 
 fi^eedom; but, so far as I can gather, tliere has been a 
 considerable loss of the substance. It is true that those who 
 rule yon do not do it by means of retainers armed with 
 swords ; but they do it through regiments of men armed 
 with voting papers, who obey the word of command as 
 loyally as did the dependants of the old feudal nobles, and 
 who thus enable their leaders to override the general will, 
 and make the community submit to their exactions as 
 effectually as their prototypes of old. It is doubtless true 
 that each of your citizens votes for the candidate he chooses 
 for this or that office, from President downwards; bat his 
 hand is guided by an agency behind which leaves him 
 scarcely any choice. ^^ Use your political power as we tell 
 you, or else throw it away," is the alternative offered to the 
 citizen. The political machinery as it is now worked, has 
 little resemblance to that contemplated at the outset of 
 your political life. Manifestly, those who framed your Con- 
 stitution never dreamed that twenty thousand citizens would 
 go to the poll led by a "boss." America exemplifies at the 
 other end of the social scale, a change analogous to that 
 which has taken place under sundry despotisms. You 
 know that in Japan, before the recent Revolution, the 
 divine ruler, the Mikado, nominally supreme, was practi- 
 cally a puppet in the hands of his chief minister, the 
 Shogun. Here it seems to me that ^* the sovereign people ^^ 
 is fast becoming a puppet which moves and speaks as wire- 
 pullers determine. 
 
 Then you think that Republican institutions are a failure? 
 
 By no means : I imply no such conclusion. Thirty years 
 ago, when often discussing politics with an English friend, 
 and defending Republican institutions, as I always have 
 done and do still, and^hen he urged against me the ill- 
 working of such institutions over here, I habitually replied 
 that the Americans got their form of government by 
 a happy accident, not by normal progress, and that they 
 would have to go back before they could go forward. What 
 has since happened seems to nio to have justified thnt 
 
THE AMERICANS. 475 
 
 view; and what I see now, confirms me in it. America 
 is showing, on a larger scale than ever before, that " paper 
 Constitutions ^' will not work as they are intended to 
 work. The truth, first recognized by Mackintosh, that 
 Constitutions are not made but grow, which is part 
 of the larger truth that societies, throughout their whole 
 organizations, are not made but grow, at once, when 
 accepted, disposes of the notion that you can work as 
 you hope any artificially-devised system of government. 
 It becomes an inference that if your political structure has 
 been manufactured and not grown, it will forthwith begin 
 to grow into something different from that intended — 
 something in harmony with the natures of the citizens, and 
 the conditions under which the society exists. And it 
 evidently has been so with you. Within the forms of yonr 
 Constitution there has grown up this organization of profes- 
 sional politicians altogether uncontemplated at the outset, 
 which has become in large measure the ruling power. 
 
 But will not education and the diffusion of political 
 knowledge fit men for free institutions ? 
 
 No. It is essentially a question of character, and only in 
 a secondary degree a question of knowledge. But for the 
 universal delusion about education as a panacea for political 
 evils, this would have been made sufficiently clear by the 
 evidence daily disclosed in your papers. Are not the men 
 who officer and control your Federal, your State, and your 
 Municipal organizations — who manipulate your caucuses 
 and conventions, and run your partisan campaigns — all 
 educated men ? And has their education prevented tbem 
 from engaging in, or permitting, or condoning, the 
 briberies, lobbyings, and other corrupt methods which 
 vitiate the actions of your administrations ? Perhaps party 
 newspapers exaggerate these things ; but what am I to 
 make of the testimony of your civil service reformers — 
 men of all parties ? If I understand the matter aright, 
 they are attacking, as vicious and dangerous, a system 
 62 
 
476 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 wliicli has gro-wTi up under tlie natural spontaneous work- 
 ing of your free institutions — are exposing vices wMch 
 education has proved powerless to prevent ? 
 
 Of course, ambitious and unscrupulous men will secure 
 the offices, and education will aid them in their selfish 
 purposes. But would not those purposes be thwarted, and 
 better Grovernment secured, by raising the standard of 
 knowledge among th.e people at large ? 
 
 Very little. The current theory is that if the young are 
 taught what is right, and the reasons why it is right, they 
 will do what is right when they grow up. But considering 
 what religious teachers have been doing these two thousand 
 years, it seems to me that all history is against the conclu- 
 sion, as much as is the conduct of these well-educated 
 citizens I have referred to ; and I do not see why you 
 expect better results among the masses. Personal interests 
 will sway the men in the ranks, as they sway the men 
 above them; and the education which fails to make the 
 last consult public good rather than private good, will fail to 
 make the first do it. The benefits of political purity are so 
 general and remote, and the profit to each individual is so 
 inconspicuous, that the common citizen, educate him as you 
 like, will habitually occupy himself with his personal affairs, 
 and hold it not worth his while to fight against each abuse 
 as soon as it appears. Not lack of information, but lack of 
 certain moral sentiment, is the root of the evil. 
 
 You mean that people have not a sufficient sense of 
 public duty ? 
 
 Well, that is one way of putting it ; but there is a more 
 specific way. Probably it will surprise you if I say the 
 American has not, I think, a sufficiently quick sense of his 
 own claims, and, at the same time, as a necessary conse- 
 quence, not a sufficiently quick sense of the claims of others 
 — for the two traits are organically related. I observe that 
 tbey tolerate various small interferences and dictations 
 which Engliskmen are prone to resist. I am told that the 
 
THE AMERICANS. 477 
 
 Etiglisli are remarked on for their tendency to grumble in 
 such cases ; and I have no doubt it is true. 
 
 Do you think it worth while for people to make themselves 
 disagreeable by resenting every trifling aggression ? We 
 Americans think it involves too much loss of time and 
 temper^ and doesn't pay. 
 
 Exactly; that is what I mean by character. It is this 
 easy-going readiness to permit small trespasses, because it 
 would be troublesome or profitless or unpopular to oppose 
 them, which leads to the habit of acquiescence in wrong, 
 and the decay of free institutions. Free institutions can be 
 maintained ouly by citizens, each of whom is instant to 
 oppose every illegitimate act, every assumption of suprem- 
 acy, every official excess of power, however trivial it may 
 seem. As Hamlet says, there is such a thing as '*^ greatly 
 to find quarrel in a straw," when the straw implies a 
 principle. If, as you say of the American, he pauses to 
 consider whether he can afford the time and trouble — 
 whether it will pay, corruption is sure to creep in. All 
 these lapses from higher to lower forms begin in trifling 
 ways, and it is only by incessant watchfulness that they can 
 be prevented. As one of your early statesmen said — "The 
 price of liberty is eternal vigilance.^' But it is far less 
 against foreign aggressions upon national liberty that this 
 vigilance is required, than against the insidious growth of 
 domestic interferences with personal liberty. In some 
 private administrations which I have been concerned with, 
 I have often insisted that instead of assuming, as people 
 usually do, that things are going right until it is proved 
 that they are going wrong, the proper course is to assume 
 that they are going wrong until it is proved that they 
 are going right. You will find continually that private 
 corporations, such as joint-stock banking companies, come 
 to grief from not acting on this principle; and what holds 
 of these small and simple private administrations holds still 
 more of the great and complex public administrations. 
 
478 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 People are taugtt, and I suppose believe^ tliat the lieart 
 of man "is deceitful aboye all things^ and desperately 
 wicked;" and yetj strangely enough, believing this, they 
 place implicit trust in those they appoint to this or that 
 function. I do not think so ill of human nature; but, on 
 the other hand, I do not think so well of human nature as 
 to believe it will go straight without being watched. 
 
 You hinted that while Americans do not assert their own 
 individualities sufficiently in small matters, they, reciprocally, 
 do not sufficiently respect the individualities of others. 
 
 Did I ? Here, then, comes another of the inconveniences 
 of interviewing, I should have kept this opinion to myself 
 if you had asked me no questions; and now I must either 
 say what I do not think, which I cannot, or I must refuse 
 to answer, which, perhaps, will be taken to mean more than 
 I intend, or I must specify, at the risk of giving offence. 
 As the least evil, I suppose I must do the last. The trait I 
 refer to comes out in various ways, small and great. It is 
 shown by the disrespectful manner in which individuals are 
 dealt with in your journals — the placarding of public men 
 in sensational headings, the dragging of private people and 
 their affairs into print. There seems to be a notion that the 
 public have a right to intrude on private life as far as they 
 like ; and this I take to be a kind of moral trespassing. 
 Then, in a larger way, the trait is seen in this damaging of 
 private property by your elevated railways without making 
 compensation ; and it is again seen in the doings of railway 
 autocrats, not only when overriding the rights of share- 
 holders, but in dominating over courts of justice and State 
 governments. The fact is that free institutions can be 
 properly worked only by men, each of whom is jealous of 
 his own rights, and also sympathetically jealous of the 
 rights of others — who will neither himself aggress on his 
 neighbours in small things or great, nor tolerate aggression 
 on them by others. The Eepublican form of government 
 13 the highest form of government ; but because of this it 
 
THE AMEEICAK9. 479 
 
 requires the highest type of human nature — a typo 
 nowhere at present existing. We have not grown up to it; 
 nor have you. 
 
 But we thought, Mr, Spencer, you were in favour of 
 free government in the sense of relaxed restraints, and 
 letting men and things very much alone, or what is called 
 laissez faire ? 
 
 That is a persistent misunderstanding of my opponents. 
 Everywhere, along with the reprobation of Government 
 intrusion into various spheres where private activities 
 should be left to themselves, I have contended that in its 
 special sphere, the maintenance of equitable relations 
 among citizens, governmental action should be extended 
 and elaborated. 
 
 To return to your various criticisms, must I then under- 
 stand that you think unfavourably of our future ? 
 
 No one can form anything more than vague and general 
 conclusions respecting your future. The factors are too 
 numerous, too vast, too far beyond measure in their quantities 
 and intensities. The world has never before seen social 
 phenomena at all comparable with those presented in the 
 United States. /A society spreading over enormous tracts, 
 while still preserving its political continuity, is a new thing. 
 This progressive incorporation of vast bodies of immigrants 
 of various bloods, has never occurred on such a scale before. 
 Large empires, composed of different peoples, have, in 
 previous cases, been formed by conquest and annexation. 
 Then your immense plexus of rq.ilways and telegraphs 
 tends to consolidate this vast aggregate of States in a way 
 that no such aggregate has ever before been consolidated. 
 And there are many minor co-operating causes, unlike those 
 hitherto known. 'No one can say how it is all going to 
 work out. That there will come hereafter troubles of 
 various kinds, and very grave ones, seems highly probable ; 
 but all nations have had, and will have, their troubles. 
 Already you have triumphed over one great trouble, and 
 
480 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 may reasonably hope to triumph over others. It may, I 
 think, be concluded that, both because of its size and the 
 heterogeneity of its components, the American nation will 
 be a long time in evolving its ultimate form, but that its 
 ultimate form will be high. One great result is, I think, 
 tolerably clear. From biological truths it is to be inferred 
 that the eventual mixture of the allied varieties of the 
 Aryan race forming the population, will produce a finer 
 type of man than has hitherto existed; and a type of man 
 more plastic, more adaptable, more capable of undergoing 
 the modifications needful for complete social life. I think 
 that whatever difficulties they may have to surmount, and 
 whatever tribulations they may have to pass through, the 
 Americans may reasonably look forward to a time when 
 they will have produced a civilization grander than any the 
 world has known. 
 
 II. — A Speech : 
 
 Delivered on the occasion of a Complimentary Dinner in 
 New York, on November 9, 1882. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen : — Along with your kind- 
 ness there comes to me a great uukindness from Fate ; for, 
 now that, above all times in my life, I need full command 
 of what powers of speech I possess, disturbed health so 
 threatens to interfere with them that I fear I shall very 
 inadequately express myself. Any failure in my response 
 yon must please ascribe, in part at least, to a greatly dis- 
 ordered nervous system. Eegarding you as representing 
 Americans at large, I feel that the occasion is one on which 
 arrears of thanks are due. I ought to begin with the time, 
 some two-and-twenty years ago, when my highly valued 
 friend Professor Youmans, making efforts to diffuse my 
 books here, interested on their behalf the Messrs. Appleton, 
 who have ever treated me so honourably and so handsomely; 
 and I ought to detail from that time onward the various 
 
THE AMEEICANS. 481 
 
 marks and acts of sympatliy by wliicli I liave been encour- 
 aged in a struggle whicli was for many years disheartening. 
 But, intimating thus briefly my general indebtedness to my 
 numerous friends, most of them unknown, on this side of 
 the Atlantic, I must name more especially the many atten- 
 tions and proffered hospitalities met with during my late 
 tour, as well as, lastly and chiefly, this marked expression of 
 the sympathies and good wishes which many of you have 
 travelled so far to give, at great cost of that time which is 
 so precious to the American, I believe I may truly say, 
 that the better health which you have so cordially wished 
 me, will be in a measure furthered by the wish ; since all 
 pleasurable emotion is conducive to health, and, as you will 
 fully believe, the remembrance of this event will ever con- 
 tinue to be a source of pleasurable emotion, exceeded by 
 few, if any, of my remembrances. 
 
 And now that I have thanked you, sincerely though too 
 briefly, I am going to find fault with you. Already, in some 
 remarks drawn from me respecting American affairs and 
 American character, I have passed criticisms, which have 
 been accepted far more good-humouredly than I could 
 have reasonably expected; and it seems strange that I 
 should now propose again to transgress. However, the 
 fault I have to comment upon is one which most will 
 scarcely regard as a fault. It seems to me that in one 
 respect Americans have diverged too widely from savages, 
 I do not mean to say that they are in general unduly 
 civilized. Throughout large part* of* the population, even 
 in long-settled regions, there is no excess of those virtues 
 needed for the maintenance of social harmony. Especially 
 out in the West, men's dealings do not yet betray too much 
 of the " sweetness and light '^ which we are told distinguish 
 the cultured man from the barbarian. Nevertheless, there 
 is a sense in which my assertion is true. You know that 
 the primitive man lacks power of application. Spurred by 
 hunger, by danger, by revenge, he can exert himself 
 
482 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 energetically for a time; but his energy ia spasmodic. 
 Monotonous daily toil is impossible to him. It is otherwise 
 with the more developed man. The stern discipline of 
 social life has gradually increased the aptitude for persistent 
 industry; until, among us, and still more among you, work 
 has become with many a passion. This contrast of nature 
 has another aspect. The savage thinks only of present 
 satisfactions, and leaves future satisfactions uncared for. 
 Contrariwise, the American, eagerly pursuing a future good, 
 almost ignores what good the passing day offers him ; and 
 when the future good is gained, he neglects that while 
 striving for some still remoter good. 
 
 What I have seen and heard during my stay among you 
 has forced on me the belief that this slow change from 
 habitual inertness to persistent activity has reached an 
 extreme from which there must begin a counterchange — a 
 reaction. Everywhere I have been struck with the 
 number of faces which told in strong lines of the burdens 
 that had to be borne. I have been struck, too, with the 
 large proportion of gray-haired men ; and inquiries have 
 brought out the fact, that with you the hair commonly 
 begins to turn some ten years earlier than with us. More- 
 over, in every circle I have met men who had themselves 
 suffered from nervous collapse due to stress of business, or 
 named friends who had either killed themselves by overwork, 
 or had been permanently incapacitated, or had wasted long 
 periods in endeavours to recover health, I do but echo the 
 opinion of all the observant persons I have spoken to, that; 
 immense injury is being done by this high-pressure life — 
 the physique is being undermined. That subtle thinker 
 and poet whom you have lately had to mourn, Emerson 
 says, in his essay on the Gentleman, that the first requisite 
 is that he shall be a good animal. The requisite is a general 
 one — it extends to the man, to the father, to the citizen. 
 We hear a great deal about " the vile body ; " and many 
 are encouraged by the phrase to transgress the laws of 
 
THE AMEEICANS. 483 
 
 tealth. But Nature quietly suppresses those wlio treat thus 
 disrespectfully one of her highest products^ and leaves the 
 world to be peopled by the descendants of those who are 
 not so foolish. 
 
 Beyond these immediate mischiefs there are remoter 
 mischiefs. Exclusive devotion to work has the result that 
 amusements cease to please ; and, when relaxation becomes 
 imperative, life becomes dreary from lack of its sole interest 
 ' — the interest in business. The remark current in England 
 that, when the American travels, his aim is to do the 
 greatest amount of sight-seeing in the shortest time, I find 
 current here also : it is recognized that the satisfaction of 
 getting on devours nearly all other satisfactions. When 
 recently at Niagara, which gave us a whole week^s pleasure, 
 I learned from the landlord of the hotel that most Americans 
 come one day and go away the next. Old Froissart, who 
 said of the English of his day that " they take their pleasures 
 sadly after their fashion," would doubtless, if he lived now, 
 say of the Americans that they take their pleasures 
 hurriedly after their fashion. In large measure with us, 
 and still more with you, there is not that abandonment to 
 the moment which is requisite for full enjoyment ; and this 
 abandonment is prevented by the ever-present sense of 
 multitudinous responsibilities. So that, beyond the serious 
 physical mischief caused by overwork, there is the further 
 mischief that it destroys what value there would otherwise 
 be in the leisure part of life. 
 
 Nor do the evils end here. There is the injury to 
 posterity. Damaged constitutions reappear in children, and 
 entail on them far more of ill than great fortunes yield 
 them of good. When life has been duly rationalized by 
 science, it will be seen that among a man^s duties, care of 
 the body is imperative ; not only out of regard for personal 
 welfare, but also out of regard for descendants. His con- 
 stitution will be considered as an entailed estate, which he 
 ought to pass on uninjured, if not improved, to those who 
 follow ; and it will be held that millions bequeathed by him 
 
484 THE AMEEICANa. 
 
 will not compensate for feeble health and decreased ability 
 to enjoy life. Once more, there is the injury to fellow- 
 citizenSj taking the shape of undue disregard of competitors. 
 I hear that a great trader among you deliberately 
 endeavoured to crush out every one whose business competed 
 with his own ; and manifestly the man who, making himself 
 a slave to accumulation, absorbs an inordinate share of the 
 trade or profession he is engaged in, makes life harder for 
 all others engaged in it, and excludes from it many who 
 might otherwise gain competencies. Thus, besides the 
 egoistic motive, there are two altruistic motives which should 
 deter from this excess in work. 
 
 The truth is, there needs a revised ideal of life. Look 
 back through the past, or look abroad through the present, 
 and we find that the ideal of life is variable, and depends on 
 social conditions. Every one knows that to be a successful 
 warrior was the highest aim among all ancient peoples of 
 note, as it is still among many barbarous peoples. When 
 we remember that in the Norseman's heaven the time was 
 to be passed in daily battles, with magical healing of 
 wounds, we see how deeply rooted may become the con- 
 ception that fighting is man's proper business, and that 
 industry is fit only for slaves and people of low degree. 
 That is to say, when the chronic struggles of races neces- 
 sitate perpetual wars, there is evolved an ideal of life 
 adapted to the requirements. We have changed all that in 
 modern civilized societies ; especially in England, and still 
 more in America. With the decline of militant activity, and 
 the growth of industrial activity, the occupations once 
 disgraceful have become honourable. The duty to work has 
 taken the place of the duty to fight ; and in the one case, 
 as in the other, the ideal of life has become so well established 
 that scarcely any dream of questioning it. Practically, 
 business has been substituted for war as the purpose 
 of existence. 
 
 Is this modern ideal to survive throughout the future ? 
 I think not. While all other things undergo continuous 
 
THE AMEEICANS. 485 
 
 change, it Is impossible that ideals should remain fixed. The 
 ancient ideal was appropriate to the ages of conquest by 
 man over man, and spread of the strongest races. The 
 modern ideal is appropriate to ages in "which, conquest of the 
 earth and subjection of the powers of Nature to human use, 
 is the predominant need. But hereafter, when both these ends 
 have in tbe main been achieved, the ideal formed will probably 
 dififer considerably from the present one. May we not foresee 
 the nature of the difference? I think we may. Some twenty 
 years ago, a good friend of mine, and a good friend of yours 
 too, though you never saw him, John Stuart Mill, delivered 
 at St. Andrews an inaugural address on tbe occasion of his 
 appointment to the Lord Rectorship. It contained much, 
 to be admired, as did all he wrote. There ran through it, 
 however, the tacit assumption that life is for learning and 
 working. I felt at the time that I should have liked to 
 take up the opposite thesis. I should have liked to contend 
 that life is not for learning, nor is life for working, but 
 learning and working are for life. The primary use of 
 knowledge is for such guidance of conduct under all 
 circumstances as shall make living complete. All other 
 uses of knowledge are secondary. It scarcely needs saying 
 that the primary use of work is that of supplying the 
 materials and aids to living completely; and that any other 
 uses of work are secondary. But in men^s conceptions the 
 secondary has in great measure usurped the place of the 
 primary. The apostle of culture as it is commonly con- 
 ceived, Mr. Matthew Arnold, makes little or no reference 
 to the fact that the first use of knowledge is the right 
 ordering. of all actions; and Mr. Carlyle, who is a good 
 exponent of current ideas about work, insists on its virtues 
 for quite other reasons than that it achieves sustentation. 
 "VVe may trace everywhere in human affairs a tendency to 
 transform the means into the end. All see that the miser 
 does this when, making the accumulation of money his sole 
 satisfaction, he forgets that money is of value only to 
 
486 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 purchase satisfactions. But it is less commonly seen tliat 
 the like is true of the work by wliicli the money is accu- 
 mulated—that industry too^ bodily or mental^ is but a 
 means; and that it is as irrational to pursue it to the 
 exclusion of that complete living it subserves^ as it is for the 
 miser to accumulate money and make no use of it. Here- 
 after^ when this age of active material progress has yielded 
 mankind its benefits^ there will^ I think, come a better 
 adjustment of labour and enjoyment. Among reasons for 
 thinking this, there is the reason that the process of evolu- 
 tion throughout the organic world at large, brings an 
 increasing surplus of energies that are not absorbed in 
 fulfilling material needs, and points to a still larger surplus 
 for the humanity of the future. And there are other reasons, 
 which I must pass over. In brief, I may say that we have 
 had somewhat too much of ^' the gospel of work.^-* It is 
 time to preach the gospel of relaxation. 
 
 This is a very unconventional after-dinner speech. 
 Especially it will be thought strange that in returning 
 thanks I should deliver something very much like a homily. 
 But I have thought I could not better convey my thanks 
 than by the expression of a sympathy which issues in a fear. 
 If, as I gather, this intemperance in work affects more 
 especially the Anglo-American part of the population — if 
 there results an undermining of the physique, not only in 
 adults, but also in the young, who, as I learn from your 
 daily journals, are also being injured by overwork — if the 
 ultimate consequence should be a dwindling away of those 
 among you who are the inheritors of free institutions and 
 best adapted to them; then there will come a further 
 difficulty in the working out of that great future which lies 
 before the American nation. To my anxiety on this 
 account you must please ascribe the unusual character of 
 my remarks. 
 
 And now I must bid you farewell. When I sail by the 
 Germanic on Saturday, I shall bear with me pleasant 
 
THE AMERICANS. 487 
 
 remembrances of my intercourse with many Americans 
 joined witli regrets that my state of health has prevented, 
 me from seeing a larger number. 
 
 Postscript. — A few words may fitly be added respecting 
 the causes of this over-activity in American life — causes 
 which may be identified as having in recent times partially 
 operated among ourselves, and as having wrought kindred, 
 though less marked, effects. It is the more worth while to 
 trace the genesis of this undue absorption of the energies 
 in work, since it well serves to illustrate the general truth 
 which should be ever present to all legislators and politi- 
 cians, that the indirect and unforeseen results of any cause 
 affecting a society are frequently, if not habitually, greater 
 and more important than the direct and foreseen results. 
 
 This high pressure under which Americans exist, and 
 which is most intense in places like Chicago, where the 
 prosperity and rate of growth are greatest, is seen by many 
 intelligent Americans themselves to be an indirect result of 
 their free institutions and the absence of those class- 
 distinctions and restraints existing in older communities. 
 A society in which the man who dies a millionaire is so 
 often one who commenced life in poverty, and in which (to 
 paraphrase a French saying concerning the soldier) every 
 news-boy carries a president's seal in his bag, is, by 
 consequence, a society in which all are subject to a stress of 
 competition for wealth and honour, greater than can exist 
 in a society whose members are nearly all prevented from 
 rising out of the ranks in which they were born, and have 
 but remote possibilities of acquiring fortunes. In those 
 European societies which have in great measure preserved 
 their old types of structure (as in our own society up to the 
 time when the great development of industrialism began to 
 open ever-multiplying careers for the producing and distri- 
 buting classes) there is so little chance of overcoming the 
 obstacles to any great rise in position or possessions, that 
 
483 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 nearly all have to be content witli their places : entertaining 
 little or no thouglit of bettering themselves. A manifest con- 
 comitant is that, fulfilling^ with such efficiency as a moderate 
 competition requires, the daily tasks of their respective 
 situations, the majority become habituated to making the best 
 of such pleasures as their lot affords, during whatever leisure 
 they get. But it is otherwise where an immense growth of 
 trade multiplies greatly the chances of success to the enter- 
 prising; and still more is it otherwise where class-restric- 
 tions are partially removed or wholly absent. Not only 
 are more energy and thought put into the time daily 
 occupied in work, but the leisure comes to be trenched 
 upon, either literally by abridgment, or else by anxieties 
 concerning business. Clearly, the larger the number who, 
 under such conditions, acquire property, or achieve higher 
 positions, or both, the sharper is the spur to the rest. A 
 raised standard of activity establishes itself and goes on 
 rising. Public applause given to the successful, becoming 
 in communities thus circumstanced the most familiar kind 
 of public applause, increases continually the stimulus to 
 action. The struggle grows more and more strenuous, 
 and there comes an increasing dread of failure — a dread of 
 being ^^left," as the Americans say: a significant word, 
 since it is suggestive of a race in which the harder any one 
 runs, the harder others have to run to keep up with him — 
 a word suggestive of that breathless haste with which each 
 passes from a success gained to the pursuit of a further 
 success. And on contrasting the English of to-day with 
 the English of a century ago, we may see how, in a con- 
 siderable measure, the like causes have entailed here 
 kindred results. 
 
 Even those who are not directly spurred on by thit 
 intensified struggle for wealth and honour, are indirectly 
 spurred on by it. For one of its effects is to raise the 
 standard of living, and eventually to increase the average 
 rate of expenditure for all. Partly for personal enjoyment, 
 
THE AMERICANS. 489 
 
 but much more for the display which brings admiration, 
 those who acquire fortunes distinguish themselves by 
 luxurious habits. The more numerous they become, the 
 keener becomes the competition for that kind of public 
 attention given to those who make themselves conspicuous 
 by great expenditure. The competition spreads downwards 
 step by step ; until, to be " respectable," those having 
 relatively small means feel obliged to spend more on houses, 
 furniture, dress, and food; and are obliged to work the 
 harder to get the requisite larger income. This process of 
 causation is manifest enough among ourselves ; and it is 
 still more manifest in America, where the extravagance in 
 style of living is greater than here. 
 
 Thus, though it seems beyond doubt that the removal of 
 all political and social barriers, and the giving to each 
 man an unimpeded career, must be purely beneficial ; yet 
 there is (at first) a considerable set-off from the benefits. 
 Among those who in older communities have by laborious 
 lives gained distinction, some may be heard privately to 
 confess that "the game is not worth the candle;" and 
 when they hear of others who wish to tread in their steps, 
 shake their heads and say — " If they only knew ! " With- 
 out accepting in full so pessimistic an estimate of success, 
 we must still say that very generally the cost of the candle 
 deducts largely from the gain of the game. That which in 
 these exceptional cases holds among ourselves, holds more 
 generally in America. An intensified life, which may be 
 summed up as — great labour, great profit, great expendi- 
 ture — has for its concomifcant a wear and tear which con- 
 siderably diminishes in one direction the good gained in 
 another. Added together, the daily strain through many 
 hours and the anxieties occupying many other hours — the 
 occupation of consciousness by feelings that are either in- 
 different or painful, leaving relatively little time for occupa- 
 tion of it by pleasurable feelings — tend to lower its level more 
 than its level is raised by the gratifications of achievement 
 
490 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 and the accompanying benefits. So tliat it may, and in 
 many cases does, result that diminished happiness goes along 
 with increased prosperity. Unquestionably, as long as 
 order is fairly maintained, that absence of political and 
 social restraints which gives free scope to the struggles 
 for profit and honour, conduces greatly to material advance 
 of the society — develops the industrial arts, extends and 
 improves the business organizations, augments the wealth ; 
 but that it raises the value of individual life^ as measured 
 by the average state of its feeling, by no means follows. 
 That it will do so eventually, is certain ; but that it does 
 so now seems, to say the least, very doubtful. 
 
 The truth is that a society and its members act and 
 react in such wise that while, on the one hand, the nature 
 of the society is determined by the natures of its members ; 
 on the other hand, the activities of its members (and 
 presently their natures) are re-determined by the needs 
 of the society, as these alter ; change in either entails 
 change in the other. It is an obvious implication that, to 
 a great extent the life of a society so sways the wills of its 
 members as to turn them to its ends. That which is 
 manifest during the militant stage, when the social aggre- 
 gate coerces its units into co-operation for defence, and 
 sacrifices many of their lives for its corporate preservation 
 holds under another form during the industrial stage, as we 
 at present know it. Though the co-operation of citizens 
 is now voluntary instead of compulsory; yet the social forces 
 impel them to achieve social ends while apparently achieving 
 only their own ends. The man who, carrying out an inven- 
 tion, thinks only of private welfare to be thereby secured, 
 is in far larger measure working for public welfare : instance 
 the contrast between the fortune made by Watt and the wealth 
 which the steam-engine h-as given to mankind. He who 
 utilizes a new material, improves a method of production, 
 or introduces a better way of carrying on business, and 
 does this for the purpose of distancing competitors, gains 
 
THE AMERICANS. 491 
 
 for himself little compared witli that whicli he gains for 
 the community by facilitating the lives of all. Either 
 unknowingly or in spite of themselves^ Nature leads men by 
 purely personal motives to fulfil her ends : Nature being one 
 of our expressions for the Ultimate Cause of things, and the 
 end, remote when not proximate, being the highest form of 
 human life. 
 
 Hence no argument, however cogent, can be expected to 
 produce much effect : only here and there one may be 
 influenced. As in an actively militant stage of society it is 
 impossible to make many believe that there is any glory 
 preferable to that of killing enemies; so, where rapid 
 material growth is going on, and affords unlimited scope 
 for the energies of all, little can be done by insisting that 
 life has higher uses than work and accumulation. While 
 among the most powerful of feelings continue to be the 
 desire for public applause and dread of public censure — 
 while the anxiety to achieve distinction^ now by conquering 
 enemies, now by beating competitors, continues predominant 
 — while the fear of public reprobation affects men more than 
 the fear of divine vengeance (as witness the long survival 
 of duelling in Christian societies) ; this excess of work which 
 ambition prompts, seems likely to continue with but small 
 qualification. The eagerness for the honour accorded to 
 success, first in war and then in commerce, has been indis- 
 pensable as a means to peopling the Earth with the higher 
 types of man, and the subjugation of its surface and its forces 
 to human use. Ambition may fitly come to bear a smaller 
 ratio to other motives, when the working out of these needs 
 is approaching completeness; and when also, by consequence, 
 the scope for satisfying ambition is diminishing. Those who 
 draw the obvious corollaries from the doctrine of Evolution 
 — those who believe that the process of modification upon 
 modification which has brought life to its present height 
 must raise it still higher, will anticipate thatj the " last 
 infirmity of noble mind '' will in the distant future slowly 
 
492 THE AMEEICAN3. 
 
 decrease. As the sphere for achievenient becomes smaller, 
 the desire for applaase will lose that predominance which it 
 now has. A better ideal of life may simultaneously come to 
 prevail. When there is fully recognized the truth that 
 moral beauty is higher than intellectual power — when the 
 wish to be admired is in large measure replaced by the wish 
 to be loved ; that strife for distinction which the present 
 phase of civilization shows us will be greatly moderated. 
 Along with other benefits may then come a rational propor- 
 tioning of work and relaxation ; and the relative claims of 
 to-day and to-morrow may be properly balanced. 
 
 THE END. 
 
SUBJECT-INDEX. 
 
 (For this Index the Author is indebted to F. Howard Collins, Esci., 
 of Edgbaston, Birmingham.) 
 
 A priori, method, HI, 190-203. 
 Absolute, The : Martineau on, II, 250-8 ; 
 
 and relativity of knowledge, II, 260. 
 Abstract, definition of, II, 78. 
 Abstract nouns, succeed concrete, I, 
 
 323. 
 Abstraction, comparative psychology, I, 
 
 365-6. 
 Accommodation bills : morals of bank- 
 ing, III, 133-7 ; state tamperings with 
 
 money, III, 326-35, 335-47. 
 Acoustics : genesis, II, 57, 60-1 ; " beats," 
 
 II, 169-70. 
 Acquisitiveness, comparative psychology, 
 
 I, 367. 
 Action and reaction : universal. III, 
 
 101 ; the axiom. III, 221. 
 Activity, relation to growth, I, 63-4. 
 Adaptation: individual and social, III, 
 
 277-8 ; of alimentary canal. III, 421. 
 Address, forms of. III, 15-6. 
 Adelaide, Admiralty certificate of. III, 
 
 239. 
 Adjective, collocation of substantive, III, 
 
 340-1. 
 Administrative Nihilism, the title, II, 
 
 438, 442. 
 Admiralty, ship certificates, III, 239. 
 Adulteration : examples, III, 113 ; silk, 
 ^ III, 124-7. 
 Esthetics, and natural selection, 1, 408. 
 Agriculture, in France, III, 267-8. 
 Air, expansion without pressure, I, 118. 
 Alas I intonation of, II, 409. 
 Albert, Prince, on representative govern- 
 ment, III, 284. 
 Algte : development and homogeneity, I, 
 
 90 ; cell membrane, I, 439 ; cells, I, 
 
 446. 
 Algebra : genesis, II, 5Q ; classification 
 
 of sciences, II, 85; subject matter, II, 
 
 113, 115; evolution, II, 156 ; {see also 
 
 Mathematics.) 
 Alimentary canal: evolution. III, 204; 
 
 differentiation, III, 406 ; and nervous 
 
 system. III, 409 ; adaptation, HI, 
 
 421. 
 Allegory, compound metaphor, II, 354. 
 
 Allotropism, complexity of elements, I, 
 155, 373. 
 
 Alternative necessity, law of, II, 191-2, 
 
 Altruism: development, I, 346-50; com- 
 parative psychology, I, 367-9. 
 
 Amazon, burning of the ship. III, 239. 
 
 America : paleontological evidence, I, 
 17; effects of subsidence, I, 42-3; age 
 of rocks, I, 200-5, 206, 209, 210; 
 admiration for wealth. III, 149-51 ; 
 progress in. III, 278 ; paper currency, 
 III, 328, 345; liberty, III, 381-2; 
 militancy and industrialism. III, 415- 
 6, 484-92; pohtics, III, 457; the 
 Americans, III, 471-92; New York, III, 
 472 ; Cleveland, III, 472 ; free insti- 
 tutions, III, 472 ; patents, 473 ; free- 
 dom, III, 473-4, 477 ; republicanism, 
 HI, 474-5; education. III, 475-6; 
 character, III, 476, 482-7; railways, 
 III, 478 ; future, III, 479-80 ; hair. III, 
 482 ; health, III, 482, 483-4 ; pleasures 
 in, III, 482-3 ; causes of over-activity, 
 III, 487-92. 
 
 Avia;ba, instability of homogeneous, I, 86. 
 
 Amsterdam, English enterprise in, III, 
 278. 
 
 Analysis, psychology and classification, 
 I, 245-57. 
 
 Anarchy, and despotism. III, 159. 
 
 Anatomy: transcendental, I, 63 ; organic 
 correlation, I, 96-101. 
 
 Andes, age of rocks, I, 200-1. 
 
 Andrews, Prof. T., researches, I, 164-7. 
 
 Anger: natural language of, 1, 340-50; 
 indications, II, 402, 404, 405 ; and 
 laughter, II, 462-3. 
 
 Anglesea, age of rocks, I, 198. 
 
 Animals : number of species, I, 1-2 ; in- 
 crease in heterogeneity, I, 14-7, 35 ; 
 structure, I, 73, 76, 372-3 ; form, I, 
 73, 76 ; chemical composition, I, 74, 
 76 ; specific gravity, I, 74, 76 ; tem- 
 perature, I, 74, 76 ; self-mobility, I, 
 75, 76 ; evolution and homogeneity, I, 
 83-4 ; distribution and heat, I, 223-4 ; 
 also terrestrial change, I, 224-6 ; social 
 analogy, I, 272-7 ; origin of worship, 
 
494 
 
 AITNULOSA — BANKINa. 
 
 I, 303-30; indistinguishable from 
 plants, I, 375-6 ; function, I, 392-3 ; 
 gracefulness, II, 381, 385 ; muscular 
 excitement, II, 400, 403. 
 Annulosa : integration, I, 67-71 ; division 
 of labour, I, 287-8 ; nervous system, 
 
 I, 300 ; controlling system. III, 407. 
 Anthropology, comparative psychology 
 
 of man, I, 351-70. 
 Antipodes, belief in, II, 199. 
 Anti-realism, H. Sidgwick's criticism, 
 
 II, 242-50. 
 
 Aphis, development, I, 65-6. 
 
 Apoplexy : belief in spirits, I, 311-2 ; 
 heart disease, I, 411. 
 
 Appleton, D. & Co., as publishers, III, 
 480, 
 
 Approbation, love of, I, 36-7, II, 421. 
 
 Arago, F. J. D. : distribution of nebulfe, 
 I, 112 ; also forms, I, 122, 123, 124. 
 
 Architect, the State as. III, 239. 
 
 Architecture : relation to painting and 
 sculpture, I, 24 ; types, II, 375-80 ; 
 symmetry in buildings, II, 376-7 ; 
 Gothic type, II, 374, 377, 378 ; Gre- 
 cian, II, 376, 377, 378. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, criticism of, I, 467-78. 
 
 Arithmetic, and test of necessity, II, 
 196-7; {See also Mathematics.) 
 
 Army : maladministration. III, 233, 
 247, 257, 308, 310, 399 ; parhamentary 
 representatives, III, 297, 303, 304 ; 
 compulsory co-operation. III, 451-4. 
 
 Arrest, H. L. d', planetoids, I, 174. 
 
 Art: recognition of likeness, II, 34; 
 interdependence of the arts, II, 
 68-71; use and beauty in historical 
 pictures, II, 373 ; contrast in, II, 373- 
 4 ; English and continental. Ill, 430. 
 
 Arthur, Sir G., Van Diemen's Land con- 
 victs, III, 161. 
 
 Articulata, nervous system, I, 301. 
 
 Assyrians : language and painting, I, 
 25-6 ; sculpture, I, 26, 29. 
 
 Astronomy : evolution and increase in 
 heterogeneity, I, 10-11, 35 ; nebular 
 hypothesis and multiplication of 
 elt'ects, I, 38-9, 59 ; history and gene- 
 ralization in, I, 192; geology and 
 earth's motion, I, 221-4 ; analogy 
 from survival of the fittest, I, 478 ; 
 science and common knowledge, II, 
 3 ; Hegel's classification, II, 13 ; 
 Comte's, II, 21-7 ; genesis, 11, 48-9, 
 62, 55 ; genesis of trigonometry, II, 
 65-6 ; genesis of physical, II, 59 ; in- 
 
 terdependence of sciencea, II, 66-7, 
 70-1 ; and abstract science, 11, 80 ; 
 and concrete, II, 88-92; terrestrial 
 evolution, II, 94-9 ; deals with aggre- 
 gates, II, 99 ; Bain on classification 
 of sciences, II, 111 ; also MiU, II, 114 ; 
 discovery of laws, II, 149 ; evolution, 
 II, 152; judgments of reason and 
 common sense, II, 243-4 ; laws of 
 motion, II, 271-5, 283-8 ; motion of 
 system, II, 293; exact science, III, 
 199. 
 
 Australia : size of the human limb, I, 
 17 ; age of rocks, I, 206 ; fauna, I, 
 216. 
 
 Australian, the ship, and admiralty cer- 
 tificate, III, 239. 
 
 Austria, paper currency, HI, 345. 
 
 Authority, and iuteUigence, III, 311. 
 
 Axioms : knowledge impHed by, II, 270, 
 277-88 ; origin of physical, II, 298-301 
 313-4, 315-20 ; Thomson and Tait on 
 physical, III, 220-1. 
 
 Baeinet, M., on nebular hypothesis, I, 
 
 121. 
 Bach, J. S., and heredity, I, 407. 
 Bacon, Francis, Viscount St. Alban's : 
 
 organization of sciences, II, 121 ; 
 
 literary style, II, 365; "A crowd is 
 
 not company," III, 44. 
 Bacteria, action of light, I, 465-6. 
 Baer, C, von, formula of, and general 
 
 evolution, I, 35, II, 137-8. 
 Bail, prison discip^ne. III, 180-7. 
 Baillie-Coehrane, Mr., on Munich prison, 
 
 III, 172. 
 Bain, A. : Emotions and the Will, I, 241- 
 
 64 ; Mental and Moral Science, X, 332 ; 
 
 classification of sciences, II, 105-17 ; 
 
 on logic, II, 105-6 ; mathematics, II, 
 
 106-7 ; incongruities, II, 463. 
 Balfour, F. M. : on invagination, 1, 452; 
 
 development of nervous system, I, 
 
 454. 
 Ball, embryological analogy, I, 452, 
 Balloon, reason for ascent, I, 427. 
 Ballot, Carlyle on. III, 300. 
 Balzac, H. de, quoted, II, 364. 
 Bank notes: forgery, III, 134; issue, 
 
 III, 349-50, 352, 355. 
 Bank of England : advances by. III, 
 
 330-5, 335-47; note issue. III, 349-50, 
 Bankers, local integration, I, 103. 
 Banking: morals of trade, III, 131-7; 
 
BANKRUPTCY — CAMBIUM, 
 
 495 
 
 accommodation bills, III, 133-7 ; evo- 
 lution, III, 255-6. 
 
 Bankruptcy : morals of trade, III, 129- 
 31 ; and Bank of England, III, 330-2, 
 341; evils of law, III, 438-9. 
 
 Banks : State tamperings, III, 326-57 ; 
 joint-stock, III, 347-54; and free-trade, 
 III, 355-7 ; and government, III, 425-7. 
 
 Barbadoes, sugar. III, 122. 
 
 Barnacle goose, myth of, II, 162. 
 
 Barometer: action, I, 426; scientific 
 knowledge, II, 3, 5. 
 
 Baron, the title, III, 15, 28. 
 
 Barracks,maladministration,III,233,257. 
 
 Barristers : and traders. III, 139 ; num- 
 ber in parliament. III, 298, 303, 304, 
 
 Barter, and measures, II, 46 ; {see also 
 Exchange.) 
 
 Bas-reiief, increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 26, 27. 
 
 Beats, aucnstical, II, 169-70. 
 
 Beautv: ot oialism, I, 335-6; and use, 
 II, 370-4 ; personal, II, 387-99. 
 
 Bees : sex of, I, 48 ; analogy for distri- 
 bution of nebulte, I, 114. 
 
 Beethoven, L. von : heredity, I, 406 ; 
 Adelaide of, II, 447. 
 
 Beliefs : and pedigree, I, 108 ; different 
 meaning of, II, 188-91, 193, 222. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, subject and object, II, 
 329. 
 
 Berlin : English enterprise, III, 278 ; 
 water supply, III, 429. 
 
 Bills of accommodation, morals of bank- 
 ing, m, 133-7. 
 
 Biluchis, robbery, III, 218, 221. 
 
 Biology : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 14-7, 35 ; multiplication of effects, I, 
 46-53 ; concrete science, II, 89-92; 
 deals with aggregates, II, 103; Baiu 
 on classification, II, 109-11; origin 
 of species, II, 131; evolution of science, 
 II, 153; universality of law, II, 159; 
 organic matter and incident forces, 
 II, 177 ; organic differentiation, III, 
 405. 
 
 Birds: in newly discovered lands, I, 
 255-6 ; use and disuse, I, 418 ; colour 
 as illustrating propositions, H, 205-8 ; 
 muscular excitement, II, 400, 403 ; 
 origin of music, II, 428 ; evolution, II, 
 438. 
 
 Black horse, the phrase, II, 340. 
 
 Blacksmith, arm and heredity, I, 475. 
 
 Blackstone, Sir Wm., persons ineligible 
 for parliament, III, 296, 
 
 Blister ; effect on walking, 1, 403 ; action 
 of medicine, I, 448. 
 
 Blood : multiplication of effects, I, 47 ; 
 nutrition and growth, I, 289 ; function 
 and supply, I, 290; social analogy, I, 
 291-8 ; mental mass and bodily state, 
 I, 354. 
 
 Board-meetings, railway. III, 77-80. 
 
 Bondage, from freedom to, III, 445-70. 
 
 Bones : evolution and ratio of, I, 17 ; 
 weight in duck, I, 417-8; water hen, 
 I, 418. 
 
 Bookkeeping : railway, III, 59 ; official- 
 ism, III, 253. 
 
 Books, serial arrangement, II, 28. 
 
 Botany: classification, II, 64 ; discovery 
 of laws, II, 150. 
 
 Bow, the obeisance, III, 18, 19. 
 
 Braid, morals of trade, III, 119. 
 
 Brain: effect on viscera, I, 290; ana- 
 logy to parliament, I, 302-5 ; mental 
 and bodily mass, I, 353-4 ; size of 
 jaw, I, 397 ; embryo development, I, 
 454. 
 
 Bribery : of buyers, III, 114-8 ; of juries, 
 III, 396. 
 
 Bricks: position of falling, I, 99; and 
 building, III, 239 ; tax on, III, 243. 
 
 British Association, and government, 
 III, 436. 
 
 British Quarterly BevietOf criticism, II, 
 267-30^, 315-20. 
 
 Bronze, multiplication of effects, I, 55-6. 
 
 Brown-Sequard, E., epilepsy in guinea 
 pigs, I, 415-6. 
 
 Builders, strike of. III, 363-4, 365, 383. 
 
 Buildings Acts : failure, III, 239, 240-1, 
 275 ; displacements caused by. III, 
 281 ; representative government. III, 
 301. 
 
 Bull-dog, jaws of, I, 401. 
 
 Burial, primitive ideas, III, 6-11. 
 
 Buyers, in clothing trades. III, 114-8. 
 
 Caeet, S., Icarian colony. III, 457. 
 Cabs: officialism. Ill, 250; in New York, 
 
 III, 291 ; representative government, 
 
 III, 302. 
 Cadence, defined, II, 422. 
 Caird, Kev. Princ, reply to criticism; 
 
 II, 219-21. 
 Calculus : implies absolute equality, II, 
 
 38 ; classification of sciences, 11, 84; 
 
 evolution, II, 156. 
 Cambium, in plants, I, 450. 
 
406 
 
 CAMBKIAN CLIMATE. 
 
 Cambrian system, thiclrness' I, 231. 
 
 Campbell, G., on style, II, 338-9. 
 
 Canals : first English, III, 257 ; official- 
 ism, III, 2G7. 
 
 Candles : multiplication of effects, I, 
 37 ; morals of trade, III, 123 ; Price's 
 school, III, 256. 
 
 Cannibalism, in Fiji, III, 217-8. 
 
 Cannon ball, disintegration. I, 436. 
 
 Caoutchouc, effects of, I, 58. 
 
 Capital : direction of flow. III, 101-3, 
 264 ; amount of railway, III, 108 ; 
 relative and absolute ethics, III, 155- 
 7 ; State tamperings with, III, 326-35, 
 335-47. 
 
 Captains, certificated, of ships, III, 241. 
 
 Caradoc sandstone, a^e, I, 201, 
 
 Carat, a small bean, II, 44. 
 
 Carboniferous system, origin, I, 237- 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas : on people. III, 293 ; 
 the ballot. III, 300 ; the real rulers, 
 III, 316-7 ; quotation from Heroes and 
 Hero-worship, II, 357. 
 
 Carpenter, W. B., evolution and pale- 
 ontology, I, 16. 
 
 Carus, P., on Kantian ethics, III, 206-7. 
 
 Castles : use and beauty, II, 371 ; situa- 
 tion, II, 376. 
 
 Cat, muscular excitement, II, 400-1,403. 
 
 Catalepsy, belief in spirits, I, 311-2. 
 
 Caterpillar, mistake by, I, 419. 
 
 Causation : establishment of beUef, I, 
 109 ; ignorance of, III, 487-92. 
 
 Cause : multiplication of effects, I, 37 ; 
 consciousness of , II, 127; proportion- 
 ality to effect, II, 300-1, 302-5, 305-7, 
 310-11, 318-20. 
 
 Cell, doctrine of, I, 442-3. 
 
 Centralization, French, III, 268. 
 
 Cerebrum, consciousness of, representa- 
 tive, I, 303. 
 
 Ceremony : increase of heterogeneity, 
 I, 20-1 ; evolution, III, 11-6, 23, 50; 
 obeisances, III, 17-22 ; primitive man, 
 III, 24 ; Chinese, III, 25 ; evolution 
 of governments, III, 27-8, 50. 
 
 Cerney springs, III, 387-92. 
 
 Chaldeans, prediction of echpses, II, 
 48-9. 
 
 Chalk, complexity of, III, 195-6. 
 
 Chancery: rules, III, 232; maladminis- 
 tration, III, 247, 272 ; dread of, III, 
 396. 
 
 Change : pleasure of, III, 454 ; uni- 
 versal, III, 458-60. 
 
 Charity, and government. III, 434. 
 
 Charlotte, The, naval maladministration, 
 III, 234. 
 
 Cheek-bones, personal beauty, I, 390-2. 
 
 Cheltenham, water supply, III, 387-92. 
 
 Chemistry : multiplication of effects, I, 
 43-5, 59; unstable equilibrium, I, 
 83; organic evolution, I, 83-4; com- 
 plexity of elements, I, 155-9, 371-4; 
 organic synthesis, I, 374 ; genesis, II, 
 51, 58, 60 ; galvanic electricity, II, 
 61 ; classification, II, 64 ; abstract 
 concrete science, II, 85-8 ; terrestrial 
 evolution, II, 95-9 ; deals with proper- 
 ties, II, 102, 103 ; Bain on classifica- 
 tion, II, 107-11; elements, U, 195; 
 development, II, 423. 
 
 Cheques {see Money). 
 
 Chesil Beach, size of stones, I, 432 
 
 Chicken, evolution of mind, I, 377. 
 
 Chiefs : differentiation, I, 284-5 ; duties 
 and individual nervous system, I, 
 299-307 ; primitive belief in spirits, 
 
 I, 344. 
 
 ' Children : emotions and expression, I, 
 339-50; lack generalization, I, 354; 
 and traits of savage, I, 355 ; mental 
 variability, I, 356-7 ; impulsiveness, I, 
 358; vocabulary, II, 336; poor law 
 and illegitimate. III, 244; old and 
 new education, III, 277. 
 
 China, manners and fashion, III, 25. 
 
 Chisholme, Mrs., colonization society, 
 III, 258. 
 
 Cholera, private and state enterprise, 
 III, 238-9. 
 
 Chopin, F., character, II, 417. 
 
 Chrysalis, transformations, II, 163. 
 
 Church : differentiation from State, I, 
 21; ofiicialisra, III, 251, 252; corn 
 laws. III, 361 ; franchise and rates, 
 III, 362. 
 i Circle, relation to hyperbola, I, 5. 
 I Circulars, morals of trade. III, 123-4. 
 ! Cirrhipedia, classification, I, 248. 
 
 Civilization, development of sympathy, 
 
 II, 425. 
 
 Classification : psychology and analysis, 
 I, 245-57 ; historical, 1, 248 ; non-linear 
 of sciences, II, 27-9; recognition of 
 likeness and unlikeness, II, 29-31, 34; 
 and language, II, 31-3, 40; and 
 reasoning, II, 33, 34, 40 ; genesis of 
 science, II, 63-5, 72 ; [See also 
 Sciences, Classification of the.) 
 
 Clearing house, banker's, III, 425. 
 
 Climate: increase of heterogeneity, I, 
 
COACH — d'aLEMBEUT, 
 
 497 
 
 13-4, 35 ; and paleontological evi- 
 dence, I, 221-4. 
 
 Coach : and railway travelling, HI, 
 110-2 ; Palmer, III, 441. 
 
 Coats of arms, derivation, I, 28. 
 
 Cognitions, defined, I, 261-2, II, 241. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., sonnet quoted, II, 352. 
 
 Colligation, the word, II, 368-9. 
 
 Colloids, evolution of life, I, 374. 
 
 Comets, origin, direction and constitu- 
 tion, I, 125-8, 153, 177-8. 
 
 Common sense : judgment of reason, 
 
 II, 243-4 ; anomalies. III, 401-4, 445. 
 Companies {see Joint-stock companies.) 
 Comparative Psychology (see Psycho- 
 logy.) 
 
 Compass, faulty Admiralty, III, 234, 252. 
 
 Competition: effect of railway, III, 97, 
 
 106-7; effects, lU, 448-9; American, 
 
 III, 487-92. 
 
 Comte, A. : classification of sciences, II, 
 15-29 ; mathematics, II, 15-19 ; as- 
 tronomy, II, 21-3; progress of ma- 
 thematics, II, 56 ; on gravitation, 
 II, 65, 66; on education, II, 72, 
 133 ; Littr6 on classification of, II, 
 74-6 ; abstract and concrete science, 
 II, 79; science and positivism, II, 
 118-22, 128, 139; origin of knowledge, 
 
 II, 122-5 ; propositions of, II, 125-32 ; 
 and social statics, II, 134-7 ; Mill on 
 philosophy, II, 143; Fouill^e on, II, 
 143-4 ; progress from simple to com- 
 plex, II, 147 ; positivism rejected by 
 Mr. Spencer, II, 221. 
 
 Concrete : precedes abstract, I, 323 ; 
 
 definition, II, 78. 
 Conduct [see Morals.) 
 Conglomerate, origin, I, 444. 
 Conic sections, relation of circle to 
 
 hyperbola, I, 5. 
 Conscience : corporate and individual, 
 
 III, 61-2 ; Kant on human. III, 192 ; 
 Lubbock, III, 192-3 ; and duty. III, 
 210-1. 
 
 Consciousness, the phrase, state of, II, 
 326-7. 
 
 Conservatism : and social state, I, 356 ; 
 of women, I, 363 ; Emerson on. III, 
 35 ; effects, III, 43-4, 
 
 Contract : principle of, III, 90, 108 ; and 
 expediency. III, 95-6; railway pro- 
 prietary, III, 108-12 ; enforcement in 
 Spain, III, 218 ; effect of breaches. III, 
 220 ; State to enforce, III, 334, 336. 
 
 Contractors ; sociological division of 
 
 labour, I, 106; railway, III, 72-4, 
 83, 88, 108. 
 
 Contrast : in literature and art, II, 
 373-4 ; in music, II, 444, 446. 
 
 Convicts (see Prison Ethics.) 
 
 Cooperation : needful to social life, III, 
 450; voluntary, III, 450-1; compul- 
 sory, III, 451-4 ; and socialism, III, 
 454-6. 
 
 Copernicus, N., solar theory, I, 193. 
 
 Copula, arrangement of sentences, II, 
 342-4. 
 
 Corn laws: representative government, 
 III, 294; and clergy. III, 361. 
 
 Corporations, representative govern- 
 ment, III, 289. 
 
 Correlation, organic, I, 96-101. 
 
 Costume : and political opinion. III, 
 1-5,30; reform and custom, III, 30-6, 
 36-7 ; development, III, 447. 
 
 Cotton : industry and locality, I, 104 ; 
 manufacture, II, 68. 
 
 Counterpoint, origin of music, II, 448. 
 
 Counties, social development, I, 288. 
 
 Courage, emotional expression, I, 343-50. 
 
 Crabs, of Kentucky caves, I, 400-1, 402. 
 
 Creation {see Special creation.) 
 
 Credit, State tamperings with money, 
 III, 326-35, 335-47. 
 
 Creed : fatal to science, I, 463 ; use and 
 beauty, II, 371. 
 
 Criminals [see Prison Ethics.) 
 
 Critical point, of gases, I, 164-7. 
 
 Critics, faith in, II, 322. 
 
 Crofton, Captain, prison discipline. III, 
 186. 
 
 Cromwell, 0., and representative govern- 
 ment, III, 315-6. 
 
 Croshek, the name, I, 313. 
 
 Crosse, A. F., on Hungarian music, II, 
 449. 
 
 Croydon, board of health, III, 241. 
 
 Crustacea : integration, I, 68-71. 
 
 Cubit, length of. If, 43, 44. 
 
 Curiosity, comparative psychology, I, 
 364-5. 
 
 Curtsy, obeisance, III, 18-9. 
 
 Custom : and political opinion, III, 1-5, 
 30 ; Eastern, III, 25 ; and reform. III, 
 30-6, 36-7; effect on raUways, III, 
 110-2, 
 
 Cuvier, Baron de, organic correlation, I, 
 96-101. 
 
 D'Alembert, J. le E., composition of 
 forces, II, 24. 
 
408 
 
 DAMAKAS — EDUCATION, 
 
 Damaras, ethics of the, III, 193, 
 
 Dancing : origin and differentiation, I, 
 30-2; grace in, II, 381, 382; and plea- 
 sure, II, 402 ; evolution, II, 441. 
 
 Darwin, Charles: natural selection of 
 one variation, I, 407, 421; natural 
 selection and heredity, I, 408-12, 421 ; 
 on E. Darwin, I, 417 ; inheritance of 
 functionally produced changes, I, 
 417-21, 422 ; origin of music, II, 426- 
 37 ; on the phrase natural selection, 
 I, 429 ; effect of changed conditions, 
 I, 433. 
 
 Darwin, Dr, E., organic evolution, I, 
 390-1, 397. 
 
 Davy, Sir H., chemical elements, III, 
 195. 
 
 Dawn, as name, I, 318, 319, 324. 
 
 Death : primitive ideas. III, 6 ; punish- 
 ment and associations. III, 158, 187 ; 
 duty and inclination, HI, 212, 213, 
 215 ; rate in barracks, III, 257 ; im- 
 provement in rate, III, 447. 
 
 Deduction : and physiology, I, 77-81, 
 107 ; qualitative and quantitative 
 science, II, 7. 
 
 Deer, growth of horns, I, 393. 
 
 Defoe, D., Complete English Tradesman, 
 III, 141. 
 
 Deities, primitive ideas. III, 6-11, 12. 
 
 De la Beche, Sir H., paleontological 
 evidence, I, 205. 
 
 Democracy, change inaugurated, III, 
 49. 
 
 Desire, associated with talent, I, 54. 
 
 Despotism : and social state, I, 268, 
 III, 313 ; and anarchy. III, 159; and 
 representative government, III, 309- 
 10. 
 
 Development : hypothesis, I, 1-7 ; rela- 
 tion to function, I, 63-4 ; [see also Evo- 
 lution.) 
 
 Devonian System, age of, I, 203-5, 210. 
 
 Dewar, Prof., complexity of elements, 
 
 I, 162. 
 
 Differentiation, sociological, I, 102-7. 
 Directors : and railway companies, III, 
 
 62-63, 69; and shareholder's interests, 
 
 III, 82-8, 108 ; morals of banking, III, 
 
 131-7. 
 Disease ; multiplication of effects, I, 47 ; 
 
 dissimilar effects, 1, 100 ; beliefs about, 
 
 II, 153 ; criminality. III, 167 ; repre- 
 Bentative government. III, 301, 304 ; 
 body and nerve functions, III, 419-22, 
 443. 
 
 Distribution, individual and social, I, 
 291-8. 
 
 Dividends, railway, III, 57, 98. 
 
 Division of labour: multiplication of 
 ei^ects, I, 53-8 ; sociological, I, 105-6, 
 202-3, III, 323 ; illustrations and 
 growth, I, 266 ; social and individual 
 nervous system, I, 299-307 ; progress 
 of science, 11, 24-7. 
 
 Dixon, T. H., on Norfolk Island con- 
 victs, III, 176. 
 
 Dogs : size of jaws, I, 398-400, 401, 422 ; 
 use and disuse, I, 469-71 ; simile of 
 Hodgson, II, 231-3 ; gracefulness, II, 
 381, 385 ; muscular excitement, U, 
 400, 403 ; origin of music, H, 428. 
 
 Don, the title, III, 14. 
 
 Downes, Dr., on light and protoplasm, 
 I, 465-6. 
 
 Drama : cause of laughter, II, 461 ; re- 
 presentative government, HI, 301. 
 
 Draper, honesty and bankruptcy, HI, 
 129-31. 
 
 Drawing, comparative psychology, I, 
 366. 
 
 Dreams, belief in spirits, I, 310-3. 
 
 Dress; and political opinion. III, 1-5, 
 30 ; custom and reform, HI, 30-6. 
 36-7 ; and extravagance, IH, 3G-7 ; 
 and enjoyment, HI, 40-6. 
 
 Drunkenness, and temperance, HI, 446. 
 
 Duck, weight of bones, I, 417-8. 
 
 Duty : Kant and pursuit of happiness, 
 III, 207-9; and inclination, HI, 
 200-13. 
 
 Dyeing, morals of trade. III, 125. 
 
 Dymond, J., Principles of Morality, 
 I, 346. 
 
 Dynamics, Comte's classification, H, 19. 
 
 Ear, embryological development, I, 454. 
 
 Earth : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 11-4, 35 ; rotatory movement, I, 135, 
 136 ; number of satellites, I, 139 ; 
 density and heat, I, 144-8, 148-52 ; 
 size, 1, 145 ; paleontology and motion, 
 I, 221-4 ; laws of motion, H, 272, 283- 
 8 ; (see also Geology.) 
 
 Ease, and grace, II, 382. 
 
 East Indies, effects of upheaval, 1, 49-6'2. 
 
 Echoes, behef in spirits, I, 310-3. 
 
 Eclipse, prediction of, H, 48. 
 
 Ectoderm : development, I, 284 ; social 
 and individual analogy, I, 298-9 ; dif- 
 ferentiation, lU, 405. 
 
 Education: comparative psychology, I, 
 
EFFECT — EVOLUTION. 
 
 499 
 
 370 ; development of science, II, 72 ; 
 Comte's views, II, 133 ; and conserva- 
 tism, III, 43 ; old and new, III, 277 ; 
 representative government, III, 301 ; 
 parliamentary reform, III, 375-9 ; and 
 government, III, 435-6; development, 
 III, 446,459-60; American, III, 475-6. 
 
 Effect : proportionality to cause, II, 
 300-1, 302-5, 305-7, 310-11, 318-20; 
 relation to cause. III, 487-92. 
 
 Egg, evolution of mind, I, 377. 
 
 Egyptians : language and painting, I, 
 25-6; sculpture, I, 26-7. 29, 30; 
 music, I, 32. 
 
 Electricity : multiplication of effects, I, 
 59 ; genesis of galvanic, II, 61 ; Whe- 
 well on progress of theory, II, 62 ; 
 abstract- concrete science, II, 88 ; mode 
 of molecular motion, II, 126 ; what is ? 
 168-72, 186-7 ; also thermo-, II, 172-6 ; 
 statical and molecular motion, II, 
 180-3, 186-7 ; induction, II, 183 ; vol- 
 taic and molecular motion, II, 183-4, 
 186-7. 
 
 Elements, complexity of, I, 155-9, 162, 
 371-4. 
 
 Ell, the measure, II, 44. 
 
 Ellipse, relation to circle, I, 5. 
 
 Embryo: relation to adult, I, 6; early 
 changes in, I, 445 ; development, I, 
 451-8. 
 
 Embryology : increase in heterogeneity, 
 
 I, 17-9 ; multiplication of effects, I, 
 48 ; organic correlation, I, 97 ; im- 
 portance of, II, 8-9 ; von Baer's 
 formula, II, 137-8. 
 
 Emerson, B. W. : Lectures on the Times^ 
 
 II, 354 ; use and ornament, II, 370 ; 
 on conservatism, III, 35. 
 
 Emotion : Bain's definition, I, 258-60 ; 
 defined, I, 262 ; of beauty, I, 335-6 ; 
 relation to idea, I, 336 ; expression in 
 children, I, 339-50 ; and intellect, 
 I, 353, II, 465 ; sexual sentiment, I, 
 363-4 ; sociality, freedom, approbation, 
 and acquisitiveness, I, 366-7 ; poetry 
 and effect on language, II, 357-61 ; 
 demonstration of, II, 401-3 ; nervous 
 and muscular system, II, 453-8 ; phy- 
 siology of laughter, II, 458-64 ; waste, 
 repair, and language, II, 361-7 ; and 
 health, III, 481. 
 
 Empiricism : reasoning of, II, 201-5 ; 
 test of truth, II, 214-7. 
 
 Endoderm : development, I, 284 ; dif- 
 ferentiation, III, 405. 
 
 63 
 
 EndymioD, the myth, I, 326, 327. 
 
 Energy, consfrvation and persistence of 
 force, II, 295. 
 
 Engel, Carl, on ancient music, II, 414. 
 
 Engineers : and railways. III, 68-72, 
 83, 88, 108 ; society. III, 362-3, 365 ; 
 English and French, III, 427-8. 
 
 Engines, dissimilarity of similar, I, 99. 
 
 England: government in, I, 302-5 ; en- 
 terprise in, III, 278-80 ; representative 
 government in, III, 305-9, 318-9 ; 
 militancy and industrialism, III, 
 416 ; political liberty. III, 445. 
 
 English language : words, II, 336-8 ; 
 Latin and Greek words, II, 367-9. 
 
 Entomology, insect transformations, 
 II, 163. 
 
 Epiblast, development, I, 452-3. 
 
 Epilepsy: belief in spirits, I, 311-2; in 
 guinea pigs, I, 415-6. 
 
 Equality: relations of likeness, I, 35-7, 
 40 ; quantitative prevision, II, 41-9 ; 
 and barter, II, 46 ; and mechanics, 
 II, 50 ; and law, II, 52 ; and astro- 
 nomy, II, 53 ; hydrostatics, II, 67 ; 
 optics, II, 57 ; acoustics, II, 67 ; 
 dynamics, II, 58. 
 
 Equity {see Justice ) 
 
 Esquire, the title. III, 13, 28, 32. 
 
 Ethics : use and disuse, I, 463-5 ; of 
 lower races, II, 192-5 ; Quarterly 
 Hevie^o criticisms, II, 259-65 ; abso- 
 lute politics, III, 217-28 ; {see also 
 Kant, Morality, Morals, Prison Ethics.) 
 
 Euclid : test of necessity, II, 198 ; 
 axioms, II, 282-3. 
 
 Evidence, valuation of, II, 161-7. 
 
 Evolution : and special creation, I, 1-7 ; 
 of solar system, I, 128-31 ; law of 
 elements, I, 156 ; Hugh Miller on, I, 
 219; geological record, I, 226-32, 
 232-40 ; emotional, I, 250-7 ; of mind, 
 I, 263, 376-8 ; of animal worship, I, 
 329 ; comparative psychology of man, 
 I, 352 ; mental and bodily mass, 
 353-4 ; rate of mental, I, 355 ; mental 
 variability, I, 356-7 ; impulsiveness, 
 I, 357-9 ; Martineau on, I, 371-88 ; 
 complexity of elements, I, 371-4 ; of 
 life frem not life, I, 374-5 ; plants and 
 animals indistinguishable, I, 375-6 ; 
 the word, I, 380 ; and originating 
 mind, I, 381-6 ; materialism, I, 386- 
 8; and catastrophism in geology, I, 
 389-90; Dr. Darwin and Lamarck, I, 
 390-1, 397 ; and reproductive system, 
 
500 
 
 ESCHANGE — FRANCHISE. 
 
 I, 409, 412, 422-5 ; summary on use 
 and disuse, I, 421-5 ; effect of con- 
 ditions, I, 427-35 ; of life, I, 458-60, 
 4G0-2; Huxley on, I, 462-3; terres- 
 trial, II, 94-9 ; von Baer's formula, 
 
 II, 137-8 ; outline of synthetic philo- 
 sophy, II, 140-2; advance in com- 
 plexity of science, II, 150-7 ; Quarterly 
 Iteviewer on, II, 261-5; Prof. Tait 
 on, II, 274-5 ; relation of thoughts to 
 things, II, 320; Prof. Green on, II, 
 323 ; limitation of traits, II, 438 ; of 
 musical scales, II, 440-1 ; of dancing, 
 
 II, 441 ; of music, II, 448-9 ; Kant 
 and. III, 197-9, 206-7 ; and Kantian 
 assumptions, III, 203-6, 206-7; offi- 
 cialism, III, 255 ; individual and 
 social, III, 263-5 ; railways. III, 266 ; 
 language. III, 402-3 ; universal. III, 
 458 ; industrialism, III, 459 ; educa- 
 tion, III, 459-60 ; prospective, III, 
 491-2. 
 
 Exchange: origin, I, 54, II, 46; State 
 tamperiugs with money, III, 326-35, 
 335-47. 
 
 Exchequer bills, and Bank of England, 
 
 III, 331. 
 
 Excitement, poetry and effect on lan- 
 guage, II, 357-61. 
 
 Excluded middle, law of, II, 191-2. 
 
 Expediency : doctrine of. III, 95-6 ; 
 relative and absolute ethics, III, 
 152-7, 188, 333 ; and penal code, III, 
 159-63, 188. 
 
 Experience hypothesis : origin of know- 
 ledge, II, 122-5 ; reasoning of empi- 
 ricism, II, 201-5 ; consciousness of 
 object, II, 211-4; a^nd a priori truths, 
 
 II, 287-8. 
 
 Extravagance : and fashion, III, 36-7 ; 
 
 representative government, 111,290-1; 
 
 good for trade. III, 293. 
 Eyes : position in development, I, 71-2, 
 
 454 ; brighter from good news, II, 402. 
 
 Factors of organic evolution, I, 389- 
 
 478. 
 Faculties, exhausted by exercise, II, 
 
 361-7. 
 Fainting, belief in spirits, I, 311-2. 
 Farming, by owner and bailiff. III, 246. 
 Fashion : origin, III, 28 ; extravagance 
 
 of, III, 3G-7 ; social intercourse and 
 
 pleasure. III, 36-46 ; need of change, 
 
 III, 46-51 ; prospect. III, 51. 
 Father, the title, III, 12, 13, 21. 
 
 Faye, M. ; solar constitution, I, 182 ; 
 solar spots, I, 183-4, 188-9. 
 
 Feathers, structure and function, I, 392. 
 
 Features, and personal beauty, II, 
 387-99. 
 
 Feelings: definition, I, 262-4; evolu- 
 tion, I, 263-4 ; indications of, II, 400- 
 3 ; loudness of voice, II, 404-5 ; also 
 timbre, II, 405, 411 ; and pitch, II, 
 406, 411; and intervals, II, 406-9, 
 411; variability of pitch, II, 409, 
 411 ; emphasis and time in music, II, 
 412-3 ; relation of music to sympathy, 
 
 II, 424-6 ; nervous and muscular 
 system, II, 453-8. 
 
 Feet, obeisance of uncovering, III, 17. 
 
 Fetichism, political. III, 393-400. 
 
 Figures of speech, II, 350-5. 
 
 Fiji : ethics in. III, 193 ; life in, m, 
 217-8, 221. 
 
 Fingers : heredity and number, I, 413-4, 
 475 ; and memory, II, 465. 
 
 Fire, indirect effects. III, 242. 
 
 First Principles : Martineau on, II, 
 250-8 ; data of philosophy, II, 286. 
 
 Fish : evolution and heterogeneity, I, 
 15-7 ; temperature, I, 75, 76 ; self- 
 mobility, I, 76 ; paleontological 
 remains, I, 227, 235, 240; eating of, 
 
 III, 47 ; anomahes, III, 401. 
 Flint implements, discovery, I, 413. 
 Flocculi, appearance of nebulfe, 1, 118-25. 
 Food: absorption and deductive biology, 
 
 I, 77-81; for the dead, I, 311-2; 
 nutrition. III, 408; and government, 
 III, 423-4. 
 
 Foot, the measure, II, 44. 
 
 Force : cognition of its persistence, II, 
 269, 275 ; Tait on central forces, II, 
 290-3 ; persistence and conservation 
 of energy, II, 295 ; relation to 
 motion, II, 310-4. 
 
 Forgery, III, 134. 
 
 Forms of thought, consciousness of 
 object, II, 211-4. 
 
 Fossils [see Paleontology.) 
 
 Fouillee, Alfred, on Comte's philosophy, 
 
 II, 143-4. 
 
 Fowls, use and disuse, I, 418. 
 France : English and French sheep, II, 
 396, 398 ; agriculture and officialism, 
 
 III, 207-8 ; representative govern- 
 ment, III, 318-9, 320 ; paper currency, 
 III, 345 ; liberty in. III, 381 ; banks 
 m, III, 426; engineering, III, 427-8. 
 
 Franchise [see Parliamentary Beform.) 
 
FREEDOM — GREENWICH HOSPlTALj, 
 
 501 
 
 Freedom: manners and customs, III, 
 
 30-6, 36-7, 46-51; to bondage. III, 
 
 445-70 ; loss of American, III, 473-4, 
 
 477, 478-9. 
 Free trade : effects on industry, I, 22-3 ; 
 
 and officialism, III, 208-70 ; and 
 
 banking, III, 356. 
 Friendly societies, and individualism, 
 
 III, 433-4. 
 Frog, reflex action, II, 308. 
 Fugue, origin, I, 33. 
 Function : relation to growth, I, 63-4 ; 
 
 and to integration of parts, I, 73 ; and 
 
 to structure, I, 249. 
 
 Galactic circle, nebular distribution, 
 I, 112. 
 
 Galton, F., English Men of Science, 1, 360. 
 
 Ganglia (see Nervous System.) 
 
 Gas: heat and liquifaction, I, 164-7; 
 English enterprise, III, 278. 
 
 Gastrula stage, of embryos, I, 452, 457. 
 
 General : Comte's use of word, II, 20 ; 
 definition, II, 79. 
 
 Generalization : universal tendency, I, 
 192 ; absent in children, I, 354 ; 
 comparative psychology, I, 365-6. 
 
 Generosity, comparative psychology, I, 
 368. 
 
 Genius : literary style, II, 365-7 ; non- 
 recognition, III, 299-300. 
 
 Geology : special creation and evolution, 
 I, 6-7 ; increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 11-4, 14-7, 35 ; life and multiplication 
 of effects, I, 39-46, 49-53 ; illogical, 
 
 I, 192-240; evolution of, I, 192-8; 
 Wernerian, I, 194-7 ; Hattonian, I, 
 195-7; age of systems, I, 198-205; 
 and paleontological evidence, I, 
 205-12 ; past and present changes, I, 
 212-8 ; Hugh Miller's doctrines, I, 
 218-20; breaks in record, I, 220-6, 
 226-32, 232-40; original object of 
 Geological Society, I, 241; catastro- 
 phism and evolution, I, 389-90 ; 
 genesis, II, 60 ; concrete science, II, 
 89-92 ; terrestrial evolution, II, 95-9 ; 
 deals with aggregates, II, 100 ; Eng- 
 lish map, II, 257 ; (see also Earth.) 
 
 Geometry: Comte's classification, II, 
 16-21 ; origin, II, 40, 151 ; genesis, II, 
 48-50, 59 ; genesis of trigonometry, 
 
 II, 55-6 ; interdependence of science 
 and art, II, 69 ; and abstract science, 
 II, 79-80; classification of sciences, 
 U, 84; the name, U, 113, 115; 
 
 evolution, II, 155; test of necessity, 
 
 II, 198-200. 
 
 Gerard, E., Hungarian music, II, 
 450-1. 
 
 Gesticulation, and language, II, 335. 
 
 Ghost : the word misleading, I, 311 ; 
 outline of theory, III, 8. 
 
 Giraffe, correlation of parts, I, 402-5. 
 
 Gluck. C. W. von, Handel on, II, 448. 
 
 Gnomon, use, II, 53-4. 
 
 God : belief in personal, II, 223 ; primi- 
 tive ideas. III, 6-11, 12, 23. 
 
 Gold: diggingfor, andevolution,III, 2G4 ; 
 efilux of, III, 341-3 ; [see also Money.) 
 
 Good, meaning of word. III, 202. 
 
 Gothic, allied to vegetative style, II, 
 376, 377, 378. 
 
 Gould, J., on colour of birds, I, 433. 
 
 Gout, and heredity, II, 395. 
 
 Government : differentiation of, I, 21 ; 
 ideal society, II, 131-2 ; evolution 
 and divergence of, III, 22, 24-30, 50 ; 
 criminal code, III, 157 ; what is 
 representative government good for ? 
 
 III, 283-325; belief in English, III, 
 284 ; flaws, &c.. Ill, 284-91 ; selection 
 of representatives. III, 291-300 ; in- 
 dividualism and the state, III, 416-37, 
 442-4 ; and food supply, III, 423-4 ; 
 banks, III, 425-6 ; engineering, III, 
 427-8; water supply, III, 429; art 
 and literature, III, 430-1; and 
 churches, III, 434 ; charity, III, 434 ; 
 education. III, 435-6 ; railways, III, 
 437 ; post-office, III, 440-2 ; (see also 
 Over-legislation.) 
 
 Gracefulness, II, 381-6. 
 
 Grand, the word great, II, 368. 
 
 Granite : metamorphism, I, 229 ; at 
 Philffi, I, 437. 
 
 Gravitation : Newton and law of, II, 
 26-7 ; discovery of laws, II, 148. 
 
 Great, and the word grand, II, 3G7-9. 
 
 Great Western Railway: versus Rush- 
 out, III, 9 ; and South Western, III, 
 97-8: and North Western, III, 107. 
 
 Greece : sculpture, I, 27, 30 ; dancing, 
 
 I, 31 ; poetry, I, 31 ; music, I, 33 ; 
 architecture, II, 376, 377, 378; per- 
 sonal beauty, II, 391-3 ; early poems, 
 
 II, 414-8. 
 
 Greek language : Latin and English 
 words, II, 367-9 ; sociology and know- 
 ledge of, III, 377. 
 Green, Prof. T. H., criticism, 322-32, 
 Greenwich Hospital, funds, III, 308. 
 
502 
 
 GREYHOUNDS — HOBBES. 
 
 Greyhounds, use and disuse in, I, 
 
 469-71. 
 Grief, voice of, II, 405. 
 Grocers, morals of trade, III, 121-3. 
 
 rotz. A., on science and religion, II, 
 
 225. 
 Growth: relation to activity, I, 63-4; 
 
 various forms, I, 65-7 ; social, I, 265- 
 
 9, 306. 
 Guinea pigs, epilepsy in, I, 415-0. 
 Guizot, M, : social aggregation, I, 282 ; 
 
 and specialization, I, 287 ; political 
 
 machinery, III, 276, 399. 
 Gulliver, L., an imaginary, on English 
 
 institutions. III, 305-9. 
 Gurney, E., on origin of music, II, 437- 
 
 43. 
 
 Habit {see Heredity.) 
 
 Hair : and political opinion. III, 1-5 ; 
 
 obeisance of offering, III, 21 ; colour 
 
 of American, III, 482. 
 Hallo I intonation of, II, 407. 
 Hamburg, currency. III, 339. 
 Hamilton, Sir W. : on space, II, 191-2 ; 
 
 the word belief, II, 222-3 ; Grotz on, 
 
 II, 225 ; necessity of causation, II, 
 320 ; (see also Mill.) 
 
 Hampstead Heath, II, 370. 
 
 Hand : the measure, II, 44 ; ribbing of 
 
 skin, I, 448 ; rubbing together of 
 
 hands, II, 402. 
 Handel, G. F.. on Gliict, II, 448. 
 Happiness, Kant and pursuit of, HI, 
 
 207-9 ; {see also Kant.) 
 Harmony, origin of music, II, 448. 
 Harp, strings in ancient, II, 415. 
 Harris, Mr., on Norfolk Island convicts, 
 
 III, 176. 
 
 Hastings, railway service, II, 97. 
 
 Hat, obeisance of removal, III, 20, 27, 
 
 47. 
 Hayward, E. B., criticism, II, 307-14. 
 Head : obeisance of uncovering, III, 20 ; 
 
 putting dust on, III, 21. 
 Health : and criminality, III, 167 ; 
 
 failure of boards of. III, 241, 248, 290 ; 
 
 representative government, III, 301, 
 
 304 ; body and nerve functions. III, 
 
 419-22, 443 ; and feeling. Ill, 481 ; in 
 
 America, III, 482, 483-4. 
 Heart : integration, I, 67 ; disease, I, 
 
 410-11; effect of emotion, II, 454, 
 
 455, 464 ; and nervous system, III, 
 
 420-1. 
 Heat ; multiplication of effects, I, 37, 
 
 38, 39, 47, 59 ; terrestrial effects of 
 diminishing, I, 40-6 ; cause of hetero- 
 geneity, I, 82 ; nebular change, 1, 118 ; 
 liquefaction of gases, 1, 164-7 ; terres- 
 trial motion and paleontological evi- 
 dence, I, 221-4; rock metamorphism, 
 I, 229-30, 232 ; action on bodies, 
 I, 436 ; genesis of science, II, 62, 63 ; 
 abstract concrete science, II, 88 ; what 
 is thermo-electricity? II, 172-6 ; effect 
 on compound molecules, II, 178-80, 
 186 ; insensible motion, II, 266-8, 
 276. 
 Hegel, G. W. F. : " to philosophize on 
 Nature," II, 10, 11 ; classification of 
 sciences, II, 12-5. 
 Heraldry, and maimers and fashion, 
 
 HI, 26, 27-8. 
 Heredity : the general law, I, 64, 103, 
 104 ; organic development, I, 90-2 ; 
 moral sentiments, I, 338 ; effect of 
 sex, X, 362; size of jaw, I, 397-400, 
 422; musical faculty, I, 406-7; nat- 
 ural selection, I, 408-12; functional 
 modifications, I, 415-7 ; Darwin's 
 belief in their inheritance, I, 417-21, 
 422 ; summary on use and disuse, I, 
 421-5 ; also their bearing on ethics, 
 psychology, and sociology, I, 463-5 ; 
 Duke of Argyll's criticism, I, 467-78; 
 personal beauty, II, 387-99 ; official- 
 ism, III, 255. 
 Hero-worship, III, 317. 
 Herr, the title, HI, 14. 
 Hersciiel, Sir J. : Magellanic clouds, I, 
 116-7 ; form of nebula, I, 122, 124 ; 
 variation of terrestrial temperature, 
 I, 222, 223 ; complexity of elements, 
 I, 372; cause and effect, II, 306, 319. 
 Herschel, Sir W. : on nebulous matter, 
 I, 110 ; stellar magnitude and distance, 
 I, 115 ; stellar genesis, I, 129 ; solar 
 surface, I, 185, 187. 
 Heterogeneity : increase in, displayed by 
 astronomy, I, 10-11, 35 ; geology, I, 
 11-14, 35 ; meteorology, I, 13-4, 35; 
 biology, I, 14-7, 35 ; man, I, 17-9, 
 35 ; society, I, 19-23, 35 ; ceremony, 
 I, 20-1 ; religion, I, 20-3 ; language, I, 
 23-6; writing, I, 24-6 ; the arts, I, 24- 
 30 ; poetry, music and drama, I, 30- 
 2; literature and science, I, 34-5; 
 development, I, 67 ; (see also Multi- 
 plication of Effects.) 
 History, measure of time, II, 45-9. 
 Hobbes, T., commonwealth of, I, 270-2. 
 
HODGSON — IRON. 
 
 603 
 
 Hodgson, S. H. : criticism of, II, 225-34 ; 
 reply to Prof. Green, II, 321-2, 329. 
 
 Homogeneous : instability of the ; I, 81- 
 4. 459-60 ; orderly heterogeneity, I, 
 84-93. 
 
 Honesty : in trade and bankruptcy, III, 
 129-31, 138 ; of lower races, III, 194 ; 
 state tampevings with money. III, 
 326-35, 335-47 ; and social grade, III, 
 359 ; and officialism, III, 397- 
 
 Hornbills, head excrescences of, I, 392. 
 
 Horns, evolution of, I, 395. 
 
 Horse, the phrase black, II, 340. 
 
 Hoskins, G. A., on Valencia prison, III, 
 177-8. 
 
 Huguenots, Smiles on the, I, 360. 
 
 Humboldt, A. von, distribution of nebula, 
 I, 113,114, 115. 
 
 Hume, t>. : subject and object, 11, 329 ; 
 law codification. III, 258. 
 
 Hungary, music in, II, 449. 
 
 Hutton, James, geological theory, 1, 195, 
 197. 
 
 Hutton, Richard H., ** a questionable 
 parentage for morals," I, 331-50. 
 
 Huxley, T. H. ; evolution and biological 
 heterogeneity, I, 17 ; organic corre- 
 lation, I, 96-101 ; behef in double 
 personality, I, 310 ; on " Origin of 
 Species," I, 389-90; on evolution I, 
 452-3 ; a creed fatal to science, I, 
 463 ; specialized administration. III, 
 404-5 ; endoderm and ectoderm, III, 
 405 ; function of parliament. III, 417 ; 
 and altruism. III, 433 ; administrative 
 nihilism. III, 438, 442-4, 
 
 Hybrids, origin of worship, I, 320-2,329. 
 
 HydrUy the, naval maladministration, 
 III, 234. 
 
 Hydrogen, liquefaction, I, 160. 
 
 Hydrostatics, genesis, II, 57, 59. 
 
 Hifdrozoa ; analogy to social organism, 
 I, 280-3 ; development, I, 284 ; circu- 
 lation, I, 291 ; nervous system, IH, 
 422. 
 
 Hyperbola, relation to circle, I, 6, 
 
 Hyperion^ verse from, II, 344. 
 
 Hypoblast, embryo development, I, 452- 
 3, 455. 
 
 Hypothesis, effect on observation, II, 
 162-7. 
 
 Ice, temperature as illustrating proposi- 
 tions, n, 205-8. 
 
 Idealism : reasoning of, H, 201 ; Sidg- 
 wick's criticism, II, 242-50. 
 
 Ideas : relation to emotions, I, 336-S ; 
 comparative psychology, I, 366-6 ; 
 actual and pseud-, I, 383. 
 
 Idols, worship of, HI, 393. 
 
 Imitativeness, comparative psychology, 
 I, 364. 
 
 Impatience, indications of, II, 402. 
 
 Impulsiveness, comparative psychology, 
 I, 357-9. 
 
 Inclination, and duty. III, 210-1. 
 
 Inconceivability, Mill on, II, 193-200. 
 
 Incongruities, Bain on, II, 463. 
 
 Incuriosity, comparative psychology, I, 
 364-5. 
 
 Indeed I intonation of, II, 408. 
 
 India : prisons of, III, 189-91 ; ethics in, 
 III, 193-5 ; failure of government, III, 
 249. 
 
 Individual, and the State, III, 416-37, 
 442-4. 
 
 Induction : qualitative and quantitative 
 science, II, 7 ; electrical, II, 183. 
 
 Industrialism : and social organism, III, 
 412-6 ; development of, HI, 459 ; and 
 unionism. III, 465 ; in America, III, 
 487-92. 
 
 Industry : multiplication of effects, I, 
 53-8 ; effects of railways, I, 57 ; boun- 
 daries ignored by, I, 289. 
 
 Infant : relation to ovum, I, 6 ; resem- 
 blance to uncivilized, I, 18. 
 
 Infusoria, cell membrane, I, 441. 
 
 Insanity : and heredity, I, 416, II, 396 ; 
 Pentonville Prison, III, 162 ; and life, 
 III, 164; and bodily functions, III, 
 419-20. 
 
 Insects : temperature, I, 75 ; self -mo- 
 bility, I, 76 ; mimicry, I, 396 ; colours 
 of, I, 433 ; metamorphosis. III, 410. 
 
 Intaglio, increase of heterogeneity, I, 
 26. 
 
 Integration : longitudinal and tranverse, 
 I, 67-73 ; relation to function, I, 73 ; 
 sociological, I, 102-7. 
 
 Intellect, eifect of emotion, II, 465. 
 
 Intelligence : relation to sexual senti- 
 ment, I, 363-4; and authority. III, 
 311. 
 
 Intonation, origin in churches, II, 416. 
 
 Invagination, Balfcur on, I, 452. 
 
 Involution, and evolution, I, 380. 
 
 Ireland: prison discipline, III, 174; and 
 bad legislation, III, 275 ; currency in, 
 III, 337, 344-5 ; bank of. III, 348. 
 
 Irish elk, correlation of parts, I, 402. 
 
 Iron: analogy from cutting, I, 97-8; 
 
504 
 
 ISOMERISM — LAW. 
 
 industry and locality, I, 104 ; com- 
 plexity of, I, 373. 
 
 Isomerism : co;nplexity of elements, I, 
 155 ; evolution of life, I, 374-5. 
 
 Italy, language, 11, 423. 
 
 Jam, association of ideas, I, 337. 
 
 Jaw : personal beauty, II, 389-90, 391 ; 
 size, I, 397-400, 473 ; size of teeth, I, 
 401 ; drooping from excitement, II, 464. 
 
 Joint-stock companies : history, III, 52, 
 108 ; failure of Act, III, 241 ; import- 
 ance of, III, 257 ; maladministration, 
 III, 286; banking, III, 347-54; regu- 
 lative system, III, 463. 
 
 Jupiter : rotatory movement, I, 135, 
 136 ; motion of satellites, I, 137, 141-2 ; 
 number of satellites, I, 139-40; density 
 and heat, I, 144-8, 148-52 ; size, 1, 145 ; 
 luminosity, I, 150 ; orbit, I, 169. 
 
 Juries, bribery of, III, 396 
 
 Justice : re-representative sentiment, I, 
 263 ; development of symjiathy, I, 
 347-50; comparative psychology, I, 
 368 ; and equity, II, 52 ; and prison 
 ethics. III, 165, 167, 180, 181 ; poli- 
 tical ethics. III, 225, 223 ; faulty ad- 
 ministration, III, 232, 235; over-legis- 
 lation, III, 272 ; and representative 
 government, III, 317-23, 324, 380 ; 
 duty of state, III, 334 ; and oflicialism, 
 III, 395-400 ; needful to society, III, 
 469. 
 
 Kames, Lord, arrangement of sentences, 
 
 II, 343. 
 
 Kant, I. : forms of thought, II, 77 ; space 
 and time, II, 226-7, 229-32, III, 197-9 ; 
 form and matter, II, 230-1, 232 ; and 
 experientialism, II, 234-5 ; Max Miiller 
 on Spencer and, II, 235-8; Spencer's 
 disagreement from, II, 23S ; ethics, 
 
 III, 192-216; on lower races. III, 
 192-5 ; examples of unaided percep- 
 tion, III, 195-7 ; reasoning of, III, 199- 
 203 ; space, III, 203, 207 ; on good 
 will, III, 201-3, 207; and evolution, 
 111,203-6, 207; Carus on ethics, III, 
 206-7 ; pursuit of happiness, III, 
 207-9 ; duty and inclination, III, 209- 
 13 ; ethical principles, III, 213-6. 
 
 Kent, W. S., on infusoria^ I, 440. 
 Kepler, J : laws of, I, 36 ; belief in 
 
 planetary spirits, I, 108 ; solar theory, 
 
 I, 193. 
 Kid, laughter caused by, II, 461 2. 
 
 Kirchhoff, solar spots, I, 187. 
 
 Kissing, obeisance of. III, 18. 
 
 Kneeling, obeisance of, III, 19. 
 
 Knight, the title, III, 15, 28. 
 
 Knowledge : common and scientific, 
 II, 1-8, 29 ; dependent on experience, 
 11,122; relativity, II, 122, 220-1 ; and 
 word belief, II, 188-91 ; Quarterly Re- 
 viewer on, II, 2G0 ; and reasoning. III, 
 199, 201; and political ethics, III, 225. 
 
 Laeoub: division of, I, 19-23, 283-91; 
 right to, III, 466. 
 
 Lady, the title, III, 14. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, quoted, II, 351. 
 
 Laing, Mr., on railway construction. III, 
 105-6. 
 
 Lamarck, J. B. P. A. de M., organic evo- 
 lution, I, 390-1, 397. 
 
 Lancashire : cotton industry, I, 266 ; 
 effect of railway competition, III, 97, 
 106. 
 
 Landowners, railway policy, III, 63-7. 
 
 Landscape, appreciation of, I, 335-6. 
 
 Language : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 23-6, ll, 366-7 ; belief in spirits, I, 
 311-2 ; poverty of Australian, I, 315 ; 
 jirecedence of concrete nouns, I, 323 ; 
 comparative psychology, I, 365-6 ; 
 classification, 11, 31-3, 34, 40 ; Saxon 
 words, II, 336-8 ; under excitement, and 
 poetry, II, 357-61 ; emotional waste 
 and repair, II, 361-7 ; Latin, Greek, 
 and old English, II, 367-9 ; duality 
 and development, II, 421-3; sociology 
 and knowledge. III, 302 ; of subordina- 
 tion, III, 312; evolution, III, 402-3. 
 
 Lankester, Prof. E. Eay, on heredity, I, 
 476. 
 
 Laplace, P. S. Marquis de : genesis and 
 structure of solar system, 1, 128-9, 130, 
 131 ; planetary axial movements, I, 
 132-6 ; lunar axial motion, I, 141 ; 
 motion of satellites, I, 142 ; plane- 
 toids, I, 168, 174, 178. 
 
 Latham, E. G., on grammar, II, 333. 
 
 Latin, Greek and English words, II, 
 367-9. 
 
 Laugel, M., on First Principles, II, 118. 
 
 Laughter, physiology of, II, 452-66. 
 
 Law : multiplication of effects, I, 37 ; 
 genesis of science, II, 51 ; belief in 
 natural, II, 123; conditions affecting 
 discovery, II, 145-8, 148-50 ; evolution 
 of sciences, II, 150-7 ; prospective, 
 II, 157-9; universality of , U, 159-60 ; 
 
LAWYEES — MACLENNAN. 
 
 505 
 
 religion and manners, III, 4, 23 ; and 
 morality, III, 10-11, 23, 50 ; for pri- 
 mitive man, III, 24 ; officialism and 
 reform, III, 252, 258-9; and over- 
 legislation, III, 272 ; legal' verbiage, 
 III, 273; cost, III, 308; representa- 
 tive government, III, 317-23; know- 
 ledge of, and parliamentary reform, 
 III, 375-9 ; (see also Over-legislation.) 
 
 Lawyers : and railways, III, 67-72, 83, 
 88, 108 ; in parliament, III, 298, 303, 
 304. 
 
 Leather, morals of trade. III, 123. 
 
 Leaves, cells in, I, 446. 
 
 Legislation, and social growth, I, 265-9; 
 {see also Over-legislation). 
 
 Length, morals of trade, III, 118-9. 
 
 Lepchas, ethics, III, 193, 194. 
 
 Liability {see Banks and Joint- Stock 
 Companies). 
 
 Liberalism, behaviour of party. III, 464; 
 
 Liberty : French idea of, II, 343 ; traits 
 of reform, III, 30-6 ; social use, III, 
 40-51 ; degree of, for people. III, 381 ; 
 in America, III, 473-4, 477, 473-9. 
 
 Libraries, free, III, 870. 
 
 Licensing law, failure, HI, 244. 
 
 Liebig, J. von, analogy from blood cor- 
 puscles, I, 293-4. 
 
 Life : evolution from not-life, I, 374-5 ; 
 plants and animals indistinguishable, 
 I, 375-6 ; evolution of mind, I, 376-8 ; 
 survival and degree of, I, 405-8, 421 ; 
 evolution and action of medium, I, 
 458-60, 460-2 ; primitive ideas of, III, 
 6-11 ; maintenance and prison ethics, 
 III, 163-71 ; failure of assurance act, 
 III, 241-2 ; sociology and knowledge 
 of, III, 304 ; and pleasure. III, 315 ; 
 and sociology. III, 325 ; increase in 
 longevity. III, 447 ; Mill and Spencer 
 on, III, 485. 
 
 Life Drama, quoted, II, 351, 353. 
 
 Light: multiplication of effects, I, 37, 
 38, 39, 59 ; action on bodies, I, 436 ; 
 and on protoplasm, I, 465-6; genesis 
 of science, II, 61 ; polarization, II, 
 63 ; effect on molecules, II, 178 ; per- 
 ception of white, III, 196 ; {see also 
 Optics). 
 
 Likeness : of classification, II, 29-31, 
 34 ; of language, II, 31-3, 34; of rea- 
 soning, II, 33-4 ; of art, II, 34 ; rela- 
 tion to equality, II, 35-7. 
 
 Lindsay, \V, S., Admiralty certificate, 
 III, 239. 
 
 Literature : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 34-5 ; multiplication of effects, I, 57 ; 
 use and beauty, II, 371 ; contrast in, 
 II, 373-4 ; popularity of authors, III, 
 299-300; and sociology, III, 376-7; 
 English and continental, III, 430-1. 
 
 Littrd, E., on Comte's classification, II, 
 74-6, 81-3. . 
 
 Liver: development, I, 106; use and 
 disuse, I, 419. 
 
 Liverpool, and Manchester railway. III, 
 63, 266. 
 
 Liverworts, cells in, I, 446. 
 
 Locke, J. : and experientialism, II, 234- 
 5 ; and evolution, II, 237. 
 
 Locomotive engine : effects of, I, 56-8 ; 
 balance weight, II, 383. 
 
 Logic : Hegel's classification, II, 12-5 ; 
 implies equality, II, 40 ; abstract 
 science, II, 77, 81-5 ; terrestrial evo- 
 lution, II, 99 ; Bain on relation to 
 psychology, 11, 105-0 ; Sidgwick's 
 criticism, II, 241 ; Tristram Shandy 
 on, II, 333. 
 
 London : and Birmingham railway. III, 
 63 ; New Piiver to. III, 257 ; represen- 
 tative government, III, 289 ; water 
 supply. III, 429. 
 
 Lord, the title. III, 12-5, 21. 
 
 Love : Darwin and origin of music, II, 
 420-37; also Gurney, II, 437-43. 
 
 Loyalty, and social state, III, 312. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John : derivation of tribal 
 names, I, 314 ; Origin of Civilization., 
 
 I, 331 ; conscience of lower races. III, 
 192-3 ; banker's clearing house. III, 
 425-6. 
 
 Lungs : development, I, 67, 106 ; use 
 and disuse, I, 419 ; relation to voice, 
 
 II, 404-5. 
 
 Lyell, Sir C. : age of rocks, I, 204 ; 
 paleontological evidence, I, 205, 208- 
 12; geological hiatus, I, 220-1; uni- 
 formitarianism and geological record, 
 
 I, 227, 229. 
 
 Lyre, increase in heterogeneity, I, 32, 
 
 II, 415. 
 
 Machine, and organism. III, 456-8. 
 Machinery, disliked by labourers. III, 
 
 362, 376. 
 Macaulay, Lord, on Post-office, III, 441. 
 Mackintosh, Sir J., on constitutions, I, 
 
 265, 269. 
 MacLennan, J. F., plant and animal 
 
 worship 308-9, 320. 
 
506 
 
 MACONOCHIE — MILL. 
 
 Maconochie, Captain, *'mark" prison 
 
 system, III, 175-7. 
 Madam, the title, II, 14, 26. 
 Magellanic clouds. Sir J. Herschel on, 
 
 I, 116-7. 
 
 Magnetism, abstract concrete science, 
 
 II, 88. 
 
 Magnificent, and the word grand, II, 
 
 367-9. 
 Magnitudes, relation of thought, 11, 
 
 252-3. 
 Maize, transformation of, I, 434. 
 Majority, right of, III, 89, 94. 
 MammaJia : evolution and heterogeneity, 
 
 I, 15-7 ; increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 17-9; temperature, I, 75, 76; self- 
 mobility, I, 76 ; organic coiTelation, I, 
 97; paleontological remains, 1, 227, 238, 
 240 ; imitation of evolution, II, 438. 
 
 Mammary glands, evolution, I, 395. 
 
 Man : increase in heterogeneity, I, 17-9, 
 35 ; multiplication of effects, I, 52-3 ; 
 traits of primitive. III, 24. 
 
 Manchester, electors in. III, 385. 
 
 Manners : and fashion. III. 1-51 ; evo- 
 lution of ceremonies. III, 11-6, 23, 
 50 ; origin. III, 28 ; Swift on. III, 44. 
 
 Mansel, Dean H. L. : criticism, II, 221- 
 5; Grotz on, II, 225. 
 
 Marchantia, cells in, I, 446. 
 
 Mariana, quoted, II, 356. 
 
 il/a?7?iion, quoted, II, 343. 
 
 Mars : rotatory motion, I, 135, 136 ; 
 number of satellites, I, 139-40; and 
 motion, I, 142 ; density and heat, I, 
 144-8, 148-52. 
 
 Mars^ipialia, mtegr2iiion, I, 69-70. 
 
 Martincau, Eev. J. : on evolution, I, 
 371-88 ; criticism, II, 250-8. 
 
 Master, the title, III, 15, 16. 
 
 Materialism, and evolution, I. 386-8. 
 
 Mathematics : things learnt, II, 1 ; Oken 
 on, II, 10-11 ; Comte's classification, 
 
 II, 16-21 ; implies equality, II, 40 ; 
 genesis, II, 48-50 ; abstract science, 
 
 II, 77, 84-5 ; terrestrial evolation, II, 
 99 ; deals Nvith relations, II, 102, 
 103 ; Bain on nature of, II, 105-6 ; 
 origin, II, 151 ; evolution, II, 156 ; 
 ultimate truths, 11, 283 ; exact science, 
 
 III, 199-200 ; and political ethics. III, 
 225; mental development. III, 255; 
 and sociology. III, 303, 305. 
 
 Matter : discovery of laws, II, 148 ; in- 
 scrutable, II, 247 ; Martineau's criti- 
 cism, II, 257 ; properties, II, 277, 315-6. 
 
 Mayer, J., as physicist, II, 269, 314. 
 
 Measurement : origin of weight, II, 43- 
 5; of time, II, 45-6. 
 
 Mechanics : Comte's classification, II, 
 19 ; genesis, II, 50, 56, 59 ; abstract 
 concrete science, II, 85-8, 101 ; terres- 
 trial evolution, II, 97 ; Bain on science 
 classification, II, 112 ; science classi- 
 fication, II, 117 ; origin, II, 151 ; evolu- 
 tion, II, 155, 156 ; real and ideal, III, 
 222-3. 
 
 Mechanics' Institutes, representative 
 government, III, 286. 
 
 Medicine, association of ideas, I, 337. 
 
 Medusa, vascular system, I, 79. 
 
 Megijeraj naval maladministration. III, 
 234. 
 
 Melbourne, the, and Admiralty certifi- 
 cate, III, 239. 
 
 Memory : and test of truth, II, 215 ; 
 and emotion, II, 465. 
 
 MendelejefE, D., complexity of elements, 
 
 I, 155. 
 Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, F., character, 
 
 II, 417. 
 
 Mercantile Marine Act, failure of. III, 
 260, 276, 295. 
 
 Mercury : rotatory movement, 1, 135, 136 ; 
 number of satellites, 1, 139 ; density, I, 
 144 ; density and heat, 1, 144-8, 148-52. 
 
 Mesoblast, embryo development, I, 453, 
 455. 
 
 Metallurgy, genesis, 11, 51. 
 
 Metamorphic rocks, age, I, 198. 
 
 Metamorphosis, universal. III, 458-60. 
 
 Metaphor, and simile, II, 352-4. 
 
 Metaphysics : Comte on, II, 123 ; rea- 
 soning of, II, 201-5 ; relation to phy- 
 sics, II, 268. 
 
 Metaphyta, origin, I, 444. 
 
 Metazoa : origin, I, 444 ; embryo deve- 
 lopment, I, 451-8. 
 
 Meteorology: increase in heterogeneity 
 of climates, I, 13-4, 35 ; effect of 
 American subsidence, I, 43 ; concrete 
 science, II, 92. 
 
 Meteors : constitution of comets, I, 127 ; 
 origin, I, 174-7. 
 
 Metonymy, effectiveness, II, 350. 
 
 Mettray, reformatory. III, 173. 
 
 Militancy : political ethics. III, 227-8 ; 
 and industrialism. III, 416 ; in Amer- 
 ica, III, 484. 
 
 Milky way, distribution of nebulas, I, 
 112. 
 
 Mill, J. S. : letter on morals to, I, 333 ; 
 
MILLER MUSIC. 
 
 607 
 
 classification of science, II, 114; on 
 Comte's philosophy, 11, 143 ; on 
 Hamilton and word belief, II, 188-91 ; 
 noumenal existence, II, 191-2 ; incon- 
 ceivable and unbelievable, II, 193-200 ; 
 test of necessity, II, 196 ; general agree- 
 ment with, II, 217 ; on the State and 
 banks. III, 348, 357 ; on life, III, 485. 
 
 Miller, Hugh: life and doctrines, 1,218- 
 20 ; terrestrial Hfe, I, 220. 
 
 Mimicry : of savages, I, 3G4 ; evolution, 
 
 I, 396. 
 
 Mineralogy, and classification, II, 64, 92, 
 
 108. 
 Mind {see Psychology.) 
 Missionaries, development, III, 458-9. 
 Mivart, Prof. St. George, genesis of 
 
 species, I, 332. 
 Mole, pelvis in, I, 97. 
 Molecules, mutual action and electricity, 
 
 II, 178-84, 184-7. 
 
 Molesworth, Sir W., on buildings acts, 
 
 III, 240. 
 
 Mollnsca : great age of, I, 217 ; circula- 
 tion, I, 296. 
 
 Mollnscoida, social analogy, I, 281. 
 
 MonacliiKe, cell membrane, I, 440. 
 
 Monarchy, and representative govern- 
 ment, III, 309-10, 310-7, 317-23. 
 
 Money : analogy to blood corpuscles, I, 
 293-4; trading with bad, III, 141; 
 state tamperings with. III, 326-57 ; 
 and joint-stock banks, III, 347-54 ; 
 and free trade. III, 355-7 ; anomaly 
 of interest, III, 401. 
 
 Monkeys, origin of music, II, 432. 
 
 Monotremata , integration, I, 69-70. 
 
 Monsieur, the title, III, 14, 15. 
 
 Montesinos, Captain, prison discipline, 
 III, 177-8. 
 
 Month, measure of time, II. 45-9. 
 
 Moon : axial motion, I, 141 ; heat and 
 contraction, I, 149 ; as name, I, 317, 
 327. 
 
 Moquin-Tandon, A., plant leaves, I, 
 433. 
 
 Morality : Quarterly Review criticism, 
 II, 259-65 ; and law. III, 10-11, 23, 
 60 ; and awe of authority, III, 311 ; 
 average social, III, 359. 360. 
 
 Morals ; and moral sentiments, I, 331- 
 50; parentage of, I, 331-4, 334-50; 
 the science of right conduct, I, 333 ; 
 relation to expediency, 1, 333 ; pros- 
 pect, III, 30, 51 ; average of, and 
 trade, III, 137-40. 
 
 Moray, Sir R., on Barnacle geese, II, 
 162. 
 
 Mosses, cell membrane, 1, 439. 
 
 Motion : of animals and plants, I, 75, 
 76 ; discovery of laws, II, 148 ; im- 
 pUes thing moving, II, 205-6, 207 ; 
 inscrutable, II, 247 ; insensible forms, 
 II, 266, 276; Tait on laws of, II, 271- 
 5; Spencer 'on laws of, II, 297-320; 
 axioms and laws of, II, 298-301. 315- 
 20 ; relation to force, II, 310-4 ; and 
 gracefulness, II, 331-6. 
 
 Mouat, Dr. F. J., on prisons, III, 189- 
 91. 
 
 Moulton, J. F., British Quarterly Rev ieiv^ 
 II, 307. 
 
 Mountains : age and altitude, I, 13 ; 
 formation, I, 40 ; as name, I, 318. 
 
 Mozart, J. C. W. T. : heredity, I, 406 ; 
 character, II, 417 ; Addio of, II, 447. 
 
 Mucous membrane, effect of surround- 
 ings, I, 449, 450. 
 
 Miiller, P. Max ; misinterpretation of 
 names, I, 315, 327 ; on abstract 
 nouns, I, 323, 324 ; criticism, II, 
 235-8. 
 
 Multiplication, various forms, I, 65-7. 
 
 Multiplication of e0ects : general, I, 
 35-8 ; astronomy, I, 38-9 ; geology, I, 
 39-46 ; biology, I, 46-53 ; sociology, I, 
 53-8 ; science, literature and art, I, 
 59. 
 
 Munich, prison. III, 171-3 
 
 Murchison, Sir R. ; Silurian system, I, 
 199, 231 ; paleontological evidence, I, 
 206 ; azoic rocks, I, 228. 
 
 Murder, social co-operation. III, 217-20, 
 224. 
 
 Muscle : waste and repair, I, 362; evolu- 
 tion, I, 396 ; size of jaws, I, 398-400, 
 422 ; origin of music, II, 403-4 ; 
 nervous system and action of, II, 
 453-8 ; laughter and action of, II, 
 458-64. 
 
 Music : origin, I, 30-1 ; increase in 
 heterogeneity, 31-4 ; comparative psy- 
 chology, I, 366 ; development of 
 faculty, I, 406-7 ; Kantian ideas of 
 space, II, 227 ; contrast in, II, 373 ; 
 origin and function, II, 400-51 ; 
 originally vocal, II, 403-4 ; feelings 
 and loudness of voice, II, 404, 410 ; 
 and timbre, II, 405, 411 ; pitch, II, 
 406, 411 ; intervals, II, 406-9, 411 ; 
 variability of pitch, II, 409, 411 ; 
 tremolo, staccato, and slur, II, 412 ; 
 
508 
 
 MTDDBLTON — OOLITE. 
 
 time in, II, 412-3 ; slow divergence 
 from speech, II, 414-8 ; indirect evi- 
 dence of theory, II, 418-20 ; function, 
 II, 420-4 ; relation to sympathy, II, 
 424-6 ; Darwin on origin, II, 426-37 ; 
 of lowest tribes, II, 433-7 ; Gurney on 
 origin, II, 437-43 ; evolution of scales, 
 II, 440-1 ; sensational effects, II, 
 443-4 ; perceptional, II, 445-7 ; emo- 
 tional, II, 447 ; harmony, II, 448 ; 
 counterpoint, II, 448 ; and evolution, 
 II, 448-1! ; Hungarian, II, 449-51 ; 
 and social intercourse. III, 41, 42 ; 
 sensation of sound, III, 197 ; indirect 
 effects, III, 245 ; free. III, 370. 
 
 Mvddelton, Sir Hugh, New Eiver, III, 
 2 ".7, 429. 
 
 Mythology, primitive, III, 6-11. 
 
 Myths, origin of animal worship, I, 
 322-8. 
 
 Nah.s, heredity and negro blood, II, 
 396. 
 
 Names : origin of animal worship, I, 
 311-7, 317-20, 328 ; of hybrids, I, 
 320-2 ; misinterpretation of nick- 
 names, I, 325-8, 328-30 ; classification, 
 II, 31-3, 34, 40 ; and evolution of cere- 
 monies, III, 11-6, 23. 
 
 Napoleon I., and his marshals, III, 309. 
 
 Natural selection ; essay on progress, 
 I, 53 ; the phrase, I, 428-30 ; {see also 
 Survival of the fittest). 
 
 Navy : maladministration, III, 233-4, 
 247, 248, 249, 251, 252, 399; officers 
 in parhament, III, 297, 304. 
 
 Naylor, Rev. B., on Norfolk Island 
 convicts, III, 176. 
 
 Nebulje: appearance, I, 118-25; Sir J. 
 Hf-rschel on regular and irregular, I, 
 122 ; origin, direction and constitution 
 of comets, I, 125-8, 153 ; origin, I, 
 153. 
 
 Nebular hypothesis : increase in hetero- 
 geneity, 1,10-11; discoveries of Her- 
 schel and Rosse, I, 110-2 ; and 
 ultimate mystery, I, 154 ; evolution 
 of heat and condensation, I, 159-63 ; 
 essay on, I, 108-84 ; distance and 
 distribution, I, 112-8. 
 
 Necessity, Mill on test of, II, 196-200. 
 
 Negro, heredity and nails, II, 396. 
 
 Neptune : axial motion, I, 133-6 ; 
 density, I, 144; heat, I, 144-8, 148-52. 
 
 Nervous system: of savage and civil- 
 ized, I, 18 ; integration, I, 68-71 ; 
 
 analogous to government, I, 299-307 ; 
 development from epidermis, I, 454 ; 
 Sidgwick's criticism, II, 2.38; mus- 
 cular action, II, 453-8; differentia, 
 tion, III, 406 ; sympathetic, IH, 408- 
 9 ; and society, III, 418 ; positive and 
 negative regulation, 111,419, 443. 
 
 New Eiver Company, origin. III, 429. 
 
 New York, government. III, 289,291. 
 
 New Zealanders, belief in another world, 
 n, 223. 
 
 Newcomb, Prof- S. : nebular hypothesis, 
 
 I, 121 ; planetoids, I, 167-8. 
 Newspapers, evolution. III, 431. 
 Newton, Sir I. : expansion of air, I, 
 
 118 ; solar theory, I, 193 ; gravity, II, 
 26-7, 291-3 ; genesis of science, II, 
 59-60 ; problem of three bodies, II, 
 112; laws of motion, II, 271, 274, 
 277-88, 297-320. 
 
 Nitrogen : compounds, I, 157 ; mole- 
 cules, I, 158. 
 
 Nod, as obeisance. III, 18. 
 
 Nomenclature, genesis of science, II, 63- 
 5,72. 
 
 Norfolk Island, prison, III, 175-7. 
 
 North British Puevieiv, on Social Statics., 
 
 II, 134. 
 
 Nose, personal beauty, II, 391. 
 Nottingham, Enclosure act. III, 240. 
 Nubecula, Sir J. Herschel on, I, 116-7. 
 Number and classification, II, 37. 
 Nummulites, Lyell on, I, 208. 
 Nutrition : individual and social, I, 289- 
 90; process. III, 408; social, IH, 413. 
 
 Oak, acorn and music, II, 442. 
 Obeisance : forms of, III, 17-22, HI, 25. 
 Obermair, M., on prisons. III, 171. 
 Object : consciousness of, II, 211-4; 
 
 relation to subject, II, 323-32. 
 Observation and hypothesis, II, 160-7. 
 Officialism : failure. III, 394, 395 ; Lord 
 
 Palmerston on. III, 395 ; [see also 
 
 Over-legislation). 
 Offspring, and parents' qualities, II, 395, 
 
 398. 
 Oken, L., classification of sciences, II, 
 
 9-12. 
 Olbers, H. W. M., hypothesis, I, 167, 
 
 171, 173. 
 Old Red Sandstone [see Devonian 
 
 System.) 
 Omnibus, and olTicialism, IH, 2£0, 
 Oohte, age of, I, 202-5. 
 
OPIUM — PHILOSOPUT. 
 
 509 
 
 opium, dissimilar effects, 1, 100. 
 
 Optics : multiplication of effects, I, 59 ; 
 genesis, II, 57, 59, 61 ; interdependence 
 of sciences, II, 66 ; abstract concrete 
 science, II, 85-8 ; Bain on classifica- 
 tion of sciences, II, 107. 
 
 Orange, planet analogy, I, 133-4. 
 
 Orders, signature of, III, 120. 
 
 Organic matter : chemistry, I, 83-4 ; 
 evolution, I, 458-60. 
 
 Organisms : differentiation. III, 405 ; 
 social and individual. III, 411-6 ; and 
 machinery, III, 456-8. 
 
 Organs, rudimentary, III, 204. 
 
 Origin of Species : Huxley on, I, 389-90; 
 effect "of, I, 393-4. 
 
 Originality, literary style, II, 365-7. 
 
 Ossian, quoted, II, 355. 
 
 Osteology, correlation, I, 96-101. 
 
 Over-legislation : essay on, III, 229-82 
 individual uncertainty, III, 229-31 
 examples of failure in legislation. III 
 231-45 ; probability of success, III, 
 245-6 ; slowness of, III, 246-7 
 stupidity, III, 247-9 ; nnadaptive 
 III, 249 ; corruptness, III, 250-2 : 
 fixity, III, 252 ; officialism and trade 
 contrasted. III, 253-9 ; is there a 
 sphere for officialism ? Ill, 259-68 ; 
 free trade. III, 268-70; negative evils, 
 III, 270-6 ; enervation of. III, 276-80 ; 
 faith in governments, III, 280-2 ; 
 dangers. III, 368-70 ; and collective 
 wisdom, III, 391-2. 
 
 Ovum, relation to infant, I, 6. 
 
 Owen, Prof. Sir R. : evolution and 
 paleontology, I, 16 ; organic correla- 
 tion, I, 96-101. 
 
 Oxygen : deductive biology, I, 77-81 ; 
 liquefaction, I, 160 ; action on proto- 
 plasm, I, 465-6. 
 
 Pacific Ocean, upheaval and geological 
 record, I, 232-40. 
 
 Pain : expression in children, I, 339-50; 
 indications of, II, 401-3, 404 ; loud- 
 ness of voice, II, 404-5. 
 
 Painting : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 24-30 ; multiplication of effects, I, 59. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, III, 395. 
 
 Palaeozoic, the title, I, 15. 
 
 Paleontology : increase in heterogeneity, 
 I, 14-7 ; life and multiplication of 
 effects, I, 49-53 ; organic correlation, 
 I, 96-101; age of strata, I, 205-12; 
 past and present geological changes, 
 
 I, 212-8; gaps in record, I, 220-1, 
 226-32 ; effect of climate on evidence, 
 I, 221-4 ; and of terrestrial change, I, 
 224-6 ; effect of upheaval, I, 232-40. 
 
 Panama Canal, III, 267- 
 
 Pantheism, rejected by H. Spencer, II, 
 221, 
 
 Paper tax, III, 243 ; [see also Money.) 
 
 Parents and offspring, II, 395-6, 398. 
 
 Parabola, relation to circle, I, 5. 
 
 Paradise Lost, quoted, II, 346. 
 
 Parasites, natural selection, I, 379-80. 
 
 Parkhurst, criminals at, III, 258. 
 
 Parliament : analogy to brain, I, 302-5 ; 
 raihvaj'^s and members of, III, 65-7, 
 74-7, S3, 86 ; and parliamentary agents, 
 III, 67-71, 108 ; right of majority, III, 
 94 ; belief in acts. III, 109, 306-7 ; 
 20,000 statutes. III, 232 ; officialism 
 and acts of, III, 258-9 ; badly drawn 
 acts, III, 273 ; selection of members, 
 III, 291; members of, III, 295-9; 
 ineligible members, III, 296 ; bank 
 act, III, 338, 339, 340 ; private bills, 
 III, 359 ; Thames water supply, III, 
 387-92 ; function. III, 417 ; [see also 
 Over-legislation.) 
 
 Parliamentary reform : essay on. III, 
 358-86 ; apprehended dangers. III, 
 360-8. 368-70 ; direct and indirect 
 taxation, III, 370-5 ; value of re- 
 presentative government, III, 380 ; 
 Reform Bill, III, 380-6. 
 
 Passengers Act, failure. III, 241. 
 
 Passion, social analogy, I, 269-71. 
 
 Patent-office, accounts, III, 398. 
 
 Patents : failure, III, 456 ; American, 
 III, 473. 
 
 Patterns, piracy, III, 126 
 
 Pedigree, importance, I, 108 ; (see also 
 Heredity.) 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert : on legislation, HI, 280- 
 1 ; Bank Act, III, 338, 339, 340, 357. 
 
 Penal code {see Prison ethics.) 
 
 Pentonville, treatment at, III, 161-2. 
 
 Perception : relation to science, II, 1-8 ; 
 presentative-representative, I, 261. 
 
 Perseverance, of savages, I, 375. 
 
 Personal beauty, essay, II, 387-99. 
 
 Perthes, B. de, flint implements, I, 413. 
 
 Peru, social organization. III, 470. 
 
 Pestalozzi, H. L,, school name. III, 2. 
 
 Phanerogams, pollen, I, 439. 
 
 Philae, granite at, I, 437. 
 
 Philosophy, relation to religion, I, 60-2 ; 
 (see also Comte.) 
 
510 
 
 PHOSPHORUS — PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 
 
 Phosphorus, allotropic, I, 373. 
 
 Physics : Comte's classification, II, 21- 
 3 ; genesis, II, 57, 59, 00, 61 ; in- 
 terdependence of sciences, II, 67 ; 
 abstract -concrete science, II, 85-8 ; 
 deals with properties, II, 101, 103 ; 
 relation to chemistry, II, 109-11 ; 
 evolution, II, 152, 156 ; British 
 Quarterly Eeviewer on, II, 267-301 ; 
 relation to metaphysics, II, 268 ; 
 axioms, II, 270. 277-88, 297; their 
 origin, II, 298-301, 313-4, 315-20. 
 
 Physiology: transcendental, I, 03-107; 
 deduclive, I, 76-81 ; organic correla- 
 tion, I, 96-101 ; individual and social 
 organism, I, 101-7 ; concrete science, 
 II, 92 ; development, II, 423. 
 
 Picnic, interest in, II, 374. 
 
 Pictures, subjects of historical, II, 373 ; 
 {see also Painting.) 
 
 Pigeons : beak and tongue, I, 401; here- 
 dity and variation, I, 414-5 ; use and 
 disuse, I, 418; origin of music, II, 428. 
 
 Pigs, use and disuse, 1, 419. 
 
 Pins, stellar analogy, I, 161, 
 
 Pitcher plant, evolution, I, 394. 
 
 Pity, comparative psychology, I, 368. 
 
 Placards, derivation, I, 28. 
 
 Planetoids : origin, I, 1G7-80 ; number, 
 I, 168, 171, 179 ; distances. 1, 169, 172, 
 179; orbits, I, 169-70, 173-4, 179; 
 disti-ibution, I, 171 ; magnitudes, I, 
 172; periods, I, 177 ; velocity, I, 180. 
 
 Planets : increase in heterogenrity, I, 
 11 ; origin, I, 39, 153 ; direction, I, 
 127, 129, 153; planes of, and solar 
 equator, I, 131-2 ; axial movements, 
 I, 132-6, 153 ; arrangement and num- 
 ber of satelhtes, I, 137, 139-41; 
 density and heat, I, 144-8, 148-52 ; 
 structure, I, 163-7, 182 ; origin of 
 minor, I, 167-80 ; origin of meteors, 
 I, 174-7 ; {see also Astronomy.) 
 
 Plants : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 14-7, 35 ; structure, I, 73, 76, 391-2 ; 
 form, I, 73, 76 ; chemical composition, 
 I, 74, 76 ; specific gravity, I, 74, 76 ; 
 temperature, I, 74, 76 ; self-mobility, 
 I, 75, 76 ; evolution and homogeneity 
 1,83-4; heat and distribution, 1,223-4; 
 also terrestrial change, I, 224-6 ; and 
 animals, I, 375-6; evolution and sensi- 
 tive, I, 377 ; cambium, I, 449-50. 
 
 Plateau, J. A. F., fluid rotation, I, 131. 
 
 Plato, Eepubhc, 269-72. 
 
 Pleasure ; expression in ohildreia, I, 
 
 339-50 ; indications of, II, 401-3, 404 ; 
 loudness of voice, II, 404-5 ; bodi y 
 effect, II, 454-8 ; destroyed by form- 
 ality, III, 36-46 ; and life. III, 315 ; 
 social and individual organism, III, 
 411; American life. III, 489-90. 
 
 Plough, Hindoo worship of, II, 354. 
 
 Plumber, action of pump, I, 425. 
 
 Poetry : origin and differentiation, I, 
 30-2; and prose, II, 357-61 ; develop- 
 ment of epic and lyric, II, 416 ; and 
 government. III, 430-1. 
 
 Pointers, use and disuse, I, 470-1. 
 
 Police, officialism, III, 396-7. 
 
 Polyzoa : form, I, 73 ; composition, I, 
 74 ; not sea-weeds, I, 248 ; analogy to 
 social organism, I, 281. 
 
 Political economy: and railways. III, 
 101-3; flow of capital. Ill, 264; repre- 
 sentative government, III, 303; eillux 
 of gold. III, 341-3. 
 
 Politics: use and disuse, 1,463-5; and cos- 
 tume, III, 1-5, 30 ; definition. III, 226. 
 
 Poor law, action of. III, 244. 
 
 Porcupine, evolution of quills, I, 394-5, 
 
 Positivism {see Comte.) 
 
 Pope, A., literary style, II, 365. 
 
 Post-otfice : and officialism, III, 252 ; 
 and government, III, 440-2. 
 
 Potato, complexity, III, 196. 
 
 Poverty, effect of, III, 143-9. 
 
 Predicate, arrangement of sentences, 
 
 II, 342-4. 
 
 Preference stock, effect. III, 86-8, 108. 
 
 Prevision : and science, II, 1-8 ; origin 
 of quantitative, II, 41-9. 
 
 Printing : increase of heterogeneity, I, 
 26 ; analogy from press, I, 98 ; II, 33; 
 printer's union rules, III, 364-5 ; 
 anomaly. III, 401. 
 
 Prison Ethics : essay on, III, 152-91 ; 
 relative and absolute ethics, III, 152-7, 
 188 ; treatment of criminals, III, 
 157-63 ; laws of life. III, 163-71 ; self- 
 maintenance, III, 168-71 ; foreign 
 prisons and reformatories, III, 172-8; 
 evils of excessive punishment. III, 
 178-80 ; improved system of discipline, 
 
 III, 180-7, 189-91 ; and social state, 
 III, 187-9 ; Indian prisons, III, 189-91. 
 
 Procter, R.A., nebular distance, I, 118. 
 
 Profit, defined, I, 290. 
 
 Progress : its law and cause, I, 8-62, 81, 
 
 III, 323 ; current conception, I, 8-9 ; 
 
 increase in heterogeneity, I, 9-10. 
 Pronietheus Uiibound,lf 353. 
 
PEOMISSOEY — KEFLEZ ACTION. 
 
 511 
 
 Promissory notes^ State tamperings 
 with money, III, 326-35, 335-47, 356. 
 
 Property : emotion of possession, I, 253, 
 2(33, 367, 11, 421 ; and parliamentary 
 reform, III, 358-60, 367-8. 
 
 Propositions : the thinkable, I, 383 ; 
 ultimate test, II, 14 ; states of con- 
 sciousness, II, 205-8; testing of reason- 
 ing, II, 208-11; arrangement of 
 sentences, II, 344. 
 
 Prose : and poetry, II, 357-61 ; contrast 
 in, II, 374. 
 
 Protection, and officialism, III, 268-70. 
 
 Protophyta : composition, I, 74 ; self- 
 mobility, I, 75 ; instability of homo- 
 geneous, I, 80 ; social analogy, I, 277 ; 
 cell membrane, I, 439. 
 
 Protoplasm, action of light, I, 465-6. 
 
 Protozoa : differentiation from environ- 
 ment, I, 73 ; self-mobility, I, 75 ; in- 
 stability of homogeneous, I, 86 ; social 
 analogy, I, 277-83 ; cell membrane, I, 
 440 ; development, I, 452. 
 
 Prondhon, P. J., policy, III, 417. 
 
 Proxies, railway, III, 76, 78. 
 
 Psychology : relation of science to reli- 
 gion, I, 61-2 ; The Emotions and The 
 Will, I, 241-64 ; organization provi- 
 sional, I, 241-5 ; classification of emo- 
 tions, I, 245-57 ; evolution of emotions, 
 I, 250-7 ; Bain's definition of emotion 
 and volition, I, 258-60 ; also feeling 
 and sensation, I, 260 ; classification 
 of mind, I, 260-4 ; comparative, of 
 man in outline, I, 351, 353 ; mental 
 and bodily mass, I, 353-4 ; mental 
 complexity, I, 354-5 ; rate of develop- 
 ment, I, 355 ; relative plasticity, I, 
 355-6; variability, I, 356-7; impul- 
 siveness, I, 357-9 ; effect of race inter- 
 mixture, I, 350-60 ; effect of sex, I, 
 361-4; imitativeness, I, 364; curio- 
 sity, 1, 364-5; peculiar aptitudes, I, 
 366 ; sociality, freedom, approbation, 
 and acquisitiveness, I, 306-7 ; altru- 
 istic sentiments, I, 367-9 ; evolution 
 of mind, I, 376-8, 381-6; use and 
 disuse, I, 463-5 ; Hegel's classifica- 
 tion, II, 12-5 ; concrete science, II, 
 92, 100 ; terrestrial evolution, II, 96 ; 
 Bain on logic, II, 105-6 ; origin of 
 knowledge, II, 122-5; Comte on, II, 
 131; Sidgwick on Principles, 11, 238- 
 50. 
 
 Publishers, local integration, I, 103. 
 
 Pump, action of, I, 425-6. 
 
 Punishment (see Prison Ethics.) 
 Pyramids, architectural types, II, 379. 
 
 QuAKEBB : intonation, II, 416 ; noncon- 
 formity, III, 2. 
 Quarterly Review, criticism, II, 259-65. 
 
 Eabbits, use and disuse, I, 418. 
 
 Railways : effects, I, 56-8 ; distributing 
 systems, I, 296-8 ; morals and policy, 
 III, 52-112 ; directors. III, 52-63, 69 ; 
 extensions, III, 56-9, 71-2, 82-8, 91, 
 94, 96, 101-7, 107-8 ; dividends. III, 57, 
 98-9, 105-6; book-keeping, III, 59; 
 and land-owners. III, 63-7 ; and mem- 
 bers of parliament, III, 65-7, 74-7, 
 83; and lawyers, III, 67-72, 83, 88, 
 108 ; and engineers, III, 68-72, 83, 88, 
 108 ; contractors, III, 72-4, 83; boards, 
 77-8; shares, 80-2, 108; effect of 
 competing lines. III, 97-8, 107; 
 safety, III, 99-100 ; cause and re- 
 medy of corruptions, III, 88-96 ; 
 secondary organizations, III, 92-3 ; 
 and political economy, III, 101-3 ; 
 capital, III, 108; proprietary contract, 
 III, 108-112; and coaching, III, 110-2, 
 255 ; relative and absolute ethics, III, 
 155-7; state inspection, III, 239-40; 
 individualism, III, 249 ; evolution, III, 
 256, 266 ; diff'usion of literature, 111, 
 262; winding up act, III, 273 ; legisla- 
 ture and accidents. III, 275 ; English 
 enterprise. III, 279 ; maladministra- 
 tion, III, 285-6 ; representative govern- 
 ment, III, 296, 302, 304 ; inspection, 
 III, 399 ; anomaly. III, 401 ; English 
 and French, III, 428 ; and govern- 
 ment, HI, 437 ; in America, III, 478. 
 
 Eainbow, beliefs about, II, 154. 
 
 Ramsgate, harbour, III, 248. 
 
 Realism, Sidgwick's criticism, II, 242-50. 
 
 Reason : social analogy, I, 269-71 ; 
 limited sphere, II, 221; judgment of 
 common sense, II, 243-4. 
 
 Reasoning: recognition of likeness, II, 
 33-4, 37. 40 ; of Kant, III, 199-203 ; of 
 metaphysicians, II, 201-5, 208-11; a 
 testing of conclusions, II, 208-11 ; 
 [see also Logic.) 
 
 Recitative : ancient and modern, II, 415- 
 8 ; Gurney on, II, 439. 
 
 Reflection, belief in spirits, I, 310-3. 
 
 Reflex action : and emotion, I, 258 ; 
 impulsiveness, I, 358 ; indication of 
 feelings, II, 403 ; examples, HI, 453. 
 
512 
 
 EEFOKM — SCOTLAND. 
 
 Eeform : and costume, III, 1-5 ; and 
 custom, III, 31. 
 
 Beform bill: representative government, 
 III, 294 ; fear of. III, 358 ; of Lord 
 Eussell, III, 380-6. 
 
 Eeformation, change by, III, 49. 
 
 Regulative system, social. III, 458-64. 
 
 Eelaiive, Martineau on the, II, 250-8. 
 
 Keligion : increase of heterogeneity, I, 
 20-3 ; relation to early art, I, 27 ; and 
 to science, I, GO-2 ; rudimentary form 
 of all, I, 309 ; object of sentiment, II, 
 132 ; and science, Caird on, II, 219- 
 21 ; Mansel's criticism, II, 221-5 ; 
 Grotz on, II, 225 ; manners and law, 
 III, 4, 23; primitive ideas, III, 6-11; 
 and state, III, 11 ; for primitive man, 
 III, 24 ; representative government, 
 III, 301 ; and government. III, 434. 
 
 Kepair, and waste, II, 362-7. 
 
 liepresentative government: Icnowledge 
 of representatives, III, 300-9 ; and 
 despotism, III, 309-10 ; and mon- 
 archy, III, 310-7 ; superiority, III, 
 317-23, 323-5 ; value of. III, 3S0. 
 
 Eeproductive system, and organic evolu- 
 tion, I, 409, 412, 422-5. 
 
 Reptiles : evolution and heterogeneity, 
 I, 15-7 ; paleontological remains, I, 
 227, 237, 240. 
 
 Republicanism, American, III, 474-5, 
 478-9. 
 
 Respiration, effect of emotion, II, 459. 
 
 Reviewing, morals of trade, III, 139. 
 
 Rhythm, in speech, II, 440. 
 
 Ribbon, morals of trade, III, 127. 
 
 Right {see Ethics.) 
 
 Roads, distributing system, I, 296-8. 
 
 Robbery : social co-operation, III, 217- 
 20 ; of Messrs. Walker, III, 439. 
 
 Roberts, I., photographs of, I, 180. 
 
 Robinson, F., Icarian colony, III, 457. 
 
 Rocking stone, origin, I, 437. 
 
 Rocks, age of, I, 198-205. 
 
 Hodentia, transverse integration, I, 69. 
 
 Romilly, Sir S., on judicial system, III, 
 272. 
 
 Rooks, cawing of, I, 337, 338. 
 
 Roots, imbedded and exposed, I, 447. 
 
 Rosse, Lord, nebular hypothesis, I, 110- 
 1. 
 
 Rossini, G. A., heredity, I, 406. 
 
 Royal Institution, III, 436. 
 
 Royal Society, pubhshed barnacle goose 
 myth, II, 162. 
 
 Ruskin, J., effects of art, I, 59. 
 
 Russell, Lord John : on minorities, III, 
 295 ; reform bill. III, 380-6. 
 
 Russia: age of rocks in, 1,200-1,206; 
 paper currency, III, 345. 
 
 Sachs, J., on cell membranes, I, 438-9. 
 
 Safety, in railways. III, 99-100. 
 
 Satellites : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 11 ; origin, I, 39 ; arrangement and 
 number, I, 137-8 ; distribution, I, 
 138 ; number and forces, I, 139-40 ; 
 motion, I, 141-3, 153-4. 
 
 Saturn : origin of rings, I, 39 ; rotatory 
 movement, I, 135, 136 ; motion of 
 satellites, I, 137 ; their distance, I, 
 138 ; their number, I, 139-40 ; rotation 
 of rings, I, 142 ; location, I, 143 ; 
 density and heat, I, 144-8, 148-52. 
 
 Saxon words, II, 336-8. 
 
 Scales, unstable equilibrium of, I, 82. 
 
 Scepticism, reasoning of, II, 201. 
 
 Schleiden, M. J., cell doctrine, I, 443. 
 
 School, Price's, III, 256. 
 
 Schopenhauer, A., ethics. III, 212, 
 
 Schwann, T., cell doctrine, I, 443. 
 
 Science : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 34-5 ; multiplication of effects, I, 50 ; 
 relation to religion, I, 60-2 ; establish- 
 ment of causation, I, 109 ; creed fatal 
 to, I, 463 ; and common knowledge, 
 II, 1-8, 29, 71 ; Oken's classification, 
 11,9-12; Hegel's, II, 12-5; Comte's, 
 II, 15-29 ; progress analytic and 
 synthetic, II, 24-7 ; linear arrange- 
 ment, II, 27-9 ; interdependent with 
 arts, II, 67-71, 94-9 ; summary of 
 genesis, II, 71-3 ; interdependence 
 of, II, 94-9 ; Comte and Positivism, 
 II, 118-22, 128, 139 ; origin and 
 evolution, II, 150-7; "practical," II, 
 151 ; Caird on religion and science, 
 II, 219-21 ; exact, III, 199-200. 
 
 Sciences, Classification of the : Littr^on 
 Comte's, II, 74-6 ; characteristics of 
 a true, II, 76 ; abstract concrete, 11, 
 77-8, 85-88, 92-4 ; concrete, II, 77-81, 
 88-92, 92-4 ; divisions of abstract, 11, 
 81-5, 92-4 ; needs three dimensions, 
 II, 92-4 ; concrete deals with aggre- 
 gates, II, 99-103; abstract-concrete, 
 with properties, II, 101-3 ; abstract 
 with relations, II, 102-3; Bain, II, 
 105-17 ; Mill, II, 114; Comte, II, 130. 
 
 Scotch, dialect, II, 424. 
 
 Scotland : age of rocks, I, 198-205 ; bank 
 success, 111, 348. 
 
SCOTT — SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 513 
 
 Scott, Sir W., anecdote of, II, 466. 
 
 Scrofula, heredity, II, 395. 
 
 Sculpture, heterogeneity of, I, 24-30. 
 
 Sea, action on ; geological formations, I, 
 212, 213; upheaved land, I, 232-40; 
 shores, I, 431-2, 444. 
 
 Selene, the myth, I, 326. 
 
 Senior wrangler, criticism of, II, 302-5, 
 305-7. 
 
 Sensations : defined, I, 260, 262 ; evolu- 
 tion, I, 264 ; demonstration of, II, 
 401-3 ; pleasure of music, II, 444-5 ; 
 [see also Psychology.) 
 
 Sense, disablement of organs, III, 116-7. 
 
 Sentences, arrangement of, II, 341-50. 
 
 Settlement, failure of law of, III, 244. 
 
 Sewers commission. III, 238, 248. 
 
 Sex : mental development, I, 355 ; com- 
 parative psychology, I, 361-4. 
 
 Shadows : belief in spirits, I, 310-5 ; 
 colour, II, 165-6. 
 
 Shares : railway. III, 80-2, 108 ; directors 
 and holders of. III, 82-8 ; preference, 
 III, 86 ; depressed by rail extension, 
 III, 94, 98-9, 106 ; morals of banking, 
 III, 131-7 ; relative and absolute 
 ethics. III, 155-7. 
 
 Shakespeare, W., I, 317, III, 283. 
 
 Shears, analogy from iron, I, 97-8. 
 
 Sheep, English and French, II, 396, 398. 
 
 Shell, use and beauty, II, 370. 
 
 Ships : naval maladministration. III, 
 233-4, 247, 248, 251, 252, 258, 259 ; 
 private administration. III, 234, 238 ; 
 and Admiralty certificate. III, 239, 
 241 ; tonnage law, III, 244 ; officialism, 
 III, 253 ; mercantile marine acts. III, 
 260; screw propeller. III, 261; re- 
 presentative government, III, 301. 
 
 Shoes, removing. III, 17. 
 
 Shooting stars, origin, I, 174-7. 
 
 Shopkeepers, lying and believing, III, 
 118. 
 
 Sidgwick, H., criticism, II, 238-50. 
 
 Sight : and exercise, II, 362, 363 ; and 
 state of faculties, II, 364. 
 
 Signature, of orders, III, 120. 
 
 Signor, the title, III, 14, 21. 
 
 Signs, force of gesticulative, II, 335. 
 
 Silk, trade morals, III, 120, 124-7. 
 
 Silurian system : age, I, 198-205 ; pale- 
 ontological evidence, I, 206-7 ; thick- 
 ness, I, 231. 
 
 Simile : use and position, II, 350-2 ; and 
 metaphor, XI, 354. 
 
 Singing, II, 410-4 ; {see also Music.) 
 
 Sir, the title, III, 14, 15, 16, 21, 26. 
 
 Sirius, distance from sun, I, 113, 114. 
 
 Skating, grace in, II, 385. 
 
 Skin, action of medicine, I, 448, 450. 
 
 Skull, personal beauty, II, 389-90, 391. 
 
 Slave trade, former opinion. III, 141. 
 
 Small-pox, effects, I, 47. 
 
 Smell, sense of: and eye position, I, 72; 
 in dogs. I, 470 ; exercise, 11, 362. 
 
 Smith, Adam : theory of morals, I, 346 ; 
 importance, III, 316 ; no n- university 
 training, III, 377-8. 
 
 Smoke bill, of London, III, 250. 
 
 Sneeze, and laughter, II, 460. 
 
 Snow, officialism, II, 249-50. 
 
 Soap : adulterant, III, 125 ; tax, III, 243. 
 
 Social organism : the, I, 265-307 ; 
 analogy to individual, I, 269-72, 272- 
 3, 277, 291-8, 306-7, III, 411-6 ; differ- 
 ence, I, 273-7 ; analogy to lower animal 
 forms, I, 277-83 ; division of labour, 
 I, 283-91. 
 
 Social Statics : origin of morals, I, 332- 
 
 3 ; of sympathy, I, 347 ; Comte and 
 title of, II, 134-7 ; thesis of, II, 262. 
 
 Socialism: compulsory co-operation, III, 
 454-6 ; and regulative system, III, 
 460-4 ; eSect, HI, 467 ; evils. III. 467- 
 70. 
 
 Sociality, and psychology, I, 366-7, 368. 
 
 Society : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 19-23, 35; a growth, I, 265-9, 306; 
 the ideal, II, 131-2 ; self-conscious, 
 III, 141 ; influence of wealth. III, 143- 
 9 ; political ethics and the individual, 
 III, 226-8 ; evolution, III, 263-5 ; 
 increasing complexity. III, 323-5 ; 
 a\'erage morality. III, 359 ; and in- 
 dividual organism, III, 411-6 ; regula- 
 tive system, III, 463 ; {see also Prison 
 Ethics, Sociology.) 
 
 Sociology : multiplication of effects, I, 
 53-60 ; homogeneity unstable, I, 83 ; 
 individual and social organism, 1, 101- 
 7 ; psychical traits and social state, 
 I, 354, 355 ; conservatism, I, 356 ; 
 mental variability, I, 356-7 ; impul- 
 siveness, I, 357-9 ; effect of mixing 
 races, I, 359-60 ; and of sexes, I, 361- 
 
 4 ; curiosity, I, 361-5 ; imitativeness, I, 
 364 ; peculiar aptitudes, I, 366 ; 
 sociality, freedom, approbation, and 
 acquisitiveness, I, 366-7 ; altruistic 
 sentiments, 367-9 ; use and disuse, I, 
 463-5 ; genesis, 11, 57 ; concrete 
 science, 11, 92 ; terrestrial evolution, 
 
514 
 
 SOLAR — SYMBOLIZATION. 
 
 II, 96 ; deals with aggregates, 11, 100, 
 103; awordof Comte's.II, 133; univer- 
 sality of law, II, 159 ; representative 
 government, III, 302 ; life, III, 325 ; 
 education, III, 375-9 ; cause and 
 effect. III, 487-92. 
 
 Solar system : heterogeneity, I, 10-11 ; 
 origin, 1, 108-10 ; Laplace on, 1, 128-9 ; 
 evolution, I, 128-31. 
 
 Solicitor, and trader. III, 139, 
 
 Sound : multiplication of effects, I, 37 ; 
 Kantian ideas of space, II, 227; as 
 illustrating crude and transfigured 
 realism, II, 245-6; velocity, II, 267; 
 sensation, III, 197. 
 
 Space : concept of, I, 247 ; Hutton on 
 intuitions of, I, 339 ; classification of 
 science, II, 77, 81-5; Bain on nature 
 of mathematics, II, 105-6 ; Hamilton 
 II, 191-2 ; Hodgson. II, 226-34 ; Kant, 
 II, 226-7, 229-32, 236-8 ; Martineau, 
 II, 257 ; consciousness, II, 308 ; Kant 
 and evolution, III, 197-9, 203, 207. 
 
 Spain: contracts in, III, 218; repre- 
 sentative government. III, 317-9. 
 
 Spalding, D., experiments of, II, 226. 
 
 Sparta, social type. III, 415. 
 
 Special creation; lack of facts, I, 1; 
 and evolution, I, 1-7 ; conception of, 
 I, 265. 
 
 Specialized administration. III, 401-44. 
 
 Species: number of, 1, 1 ; evolution and 
 creation, 1, 1-7 ; effect of upheavals, I, 
 49-52; of climate, I, 221-4; of terres- 
 trial change, I, 224-6 ; fertility of 
 varieties, II, 397-8. 
 
 Specific gravity : of animals and plants, 
 
 I, 74, 76 ; of planets, I, 144-8, 154 ; 
 solar system, I, 163. 
 
 Spectrum analysis, complexity of ele- 
 ments, I, 372-4. 
 
 Speech, figm-es of, 11, 350-5 ; (see also 
 Language.) 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, propositions held by, 
 
 II, 125-32. 
 
 Spencer, Eev. Thomas, III, 361. 
 Spheroid, ring formation, I, 133-4. 
 Spine, and evolution. III, 205. 
 Spirit, the word misleading, I, 311. 
 Spirits, belief in, I, 311-2, 344. 
 Sponges : form of, I, 73 ; instability of 
 
 homogeneous, I, 87. 
 Staccato, in singing, II, 412. 
 Staffordshire, potteries, I, 266. 
 (Stage coach. III, 110-2, 255. 
 ^tars : distribution of nebulae, I, 112-8 ; 
 
 magnitude and distance, I, 115-8 ; 
 Sir W. Herschel on genesis, I, 129 ; 
 distance apart, I, 161 ; star as name, 
 
 I, 317, 326 ; Kant's awe of univeres, 
 III, 192, 195 ; {see also Astronomy.) 
 
 State, the : duty of. III, 236 ; and reli- 
 gion, III, 11, 23, 50; [see also Over- 
 legislation.) 
 
 Statics, Comle's classification, II, 19. 
 
 Steam power, effects, I, 56-8. 
 
 Stephenson, R., on railways. III, 105-6. 
 
 Stereoscope, analogy from, II, 265. 
 
 Stick, equilibrium of, I, 82. 
 
 Stocking trade, and officialism. III, 202. 
 
 Stonehenge, use and beauty, II, 371-2. 
 
 Strikes, III, 362-4, 365. 383. 
 
 Strings, in musical instruments, II, 415. 
 
 Structure : animal and vegetal, I, 73-7 ; 
 relation to function, I, 249. 
 
 Style : philosophy of, II, 333-69 ; for- 
 cibleness of Saxon, II, 336-7 ; and 
 brevity, II, 337-8 ; specific expression, 
 
 II, 338-9 ; sequence of words, II, 339- 
 41 ; arrangement of sentences, II, 
 341-7 ; direct and indirect, II, 347- 
 50 ; figures of speech, 11, 350-5. 
 
 Subject : consciousness of, II, 211-4 ; 
 relation to object, II, 323-32 ; anange- 
 ment of sentences, II, 342-4. 
 
 Substantive and adjective, II, 340-1. 
 
 Sugar, morals of trade. III, 121-3, 125. 
 
 Suicide, belief in another world, II, 223. 
 
 Sun: origin, 1,39; distance from Sirius, 
 I, 113, 114 ; density and heat, I, 144- 
 8, 148-52 ; content of, I, 151 ; atmo- 
 sphere, I, 151; temperature, I, 151; 
 constitution, I, 153, 182-91 ; duration 
 of heat, I, 161 ; willow-leaves and 
 rice grains, I, 186, 188 ; faculfe I, 
 186-7; Faye's sun-spot theory, 1, 183-4, 
 188-9; cyclonic theory, I, 187-91; as 
 name, I, 317, 326, 327, 328. 
 
 Survival of the fittest : Martineau on 
 evolution, I, 379-81 ; a factor only of 
 evolution, I, 397-400, 400-5, 405-8, 
 421-5; and heredity, I, 408-12, 412-5; 
 the phrase, I, 429-30 ; and effect of 
 medium, 1, 444-5 ; and nervous system, 
 I, 457-8 ; early action of, I. 460-2 ; Hux- 
 ley on, I, 462-3; Duke of Argyll's criti- 
 cism, I, 467-78 ; three factors, I, 472. 
 
 Swift, J., on manners. III, 44. 
 
 Swiss, architecture, II, 379. 
 
 Syllables, style and length, II, 337-8. 
 
 Syllogism, Hodgson on, II, 231. 
 
 Symbolization, infrequent, I, 322. 
 
SYMMETRY — UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 515 
 
 Symmetry, in buildings and animals, 
 
 II, 376-7. 
 Sympathy : altruism, 1, 346 ; comparative 
 
 psychology, 1, 368-9 ; and gracefulness, 
 
 II, 386 ; music, II, 424-6 ; morals of 
 
 trade, III, 142-3. 
 Syncrypta, life in, I, 443. 
 Synecdoche, effective, II, 350. 
 Synthesis, chemical, I, 374. 
 Synthetic philosophy, outline, II, 140-2. 
 
 TawjOR, morals of trade, III, 117. 
 
 Tait, P. G. : on natural pliilosophy, II, 
 269, 315-20 ; axioms, II, 270, 298-301. 
 315-20; laws of motion, II, 271-5, 
 277-88, 299-320; ultimate scientific 
 ideas, II, 289 ; central forces, II, 290- 
 93 ; on synthetic philosophy, II, 294-6. 
 
 Talent, relation to desire, I, 54. 
 
 Tamberlik, E., ut de poitrine, II, 442. 
 
 Tanner, Prof. E., use and disuse, I, 419. 
 
 Tape, morals of trade, III, 118, 119. 
 
 Taste, exhausted by exercise, II, 362, 
 
 Taxes, and parliament, III, 371-5. 
 
 Teeth : organic correlation, I, 96-101 ; 
 size of jaw, I, 401. 
 
 Telegrams, officialism, III, 396-7. 
 
 Telegraphs : analogous to nerves, 1, 306 ; 
 private enterprise. III, 234. 
 
 Telephone, in America, III, 472, 
 
 Temperance society, III, 446. 
 
 Temperature : of solar system, I, 11 ; 
 animal and vegetal, I, 74, 76 ; vegetal 
 density, I, 144-8, 148-52; solar. I, 
 151 ; chemical unions, I, 159 ; dura- 
 tion of solar, I, 161-3 ; evolution of, 
 and nebular hypothesis, I, 159-63, 
 
 Ten hours bill, in, 362, 365. 
 
 Tenby, sea shore, I, 432. 
 
 Tennyson, Lord, quoted, II, 356 ; III, 
 314. 
 
 Thalassicollat instability of homogene- 
 ous, I, 87. 
 
 Thames : sewers commission, III, 238 ; 
 water supply, III, 387-92. 
 
 Theft, punishment. III, 233. 
 
 Thermo-electricity, what is ? II, 172-6. 
 
 Thermology, genesis, II, 61. 
 
 Thomson, Sir W., terrestrial density, 
 I, 149. 
 
 Thomson, Sir W., and Prof. Tait, on 
 physical axioms, III, 220-1. 
 
 Thorns, protection and growth of, I, 
 391. 
 
 Ticket of leave, system, III, 244. 
 
 Time ; measures of, II, 45-9 ; classifica- 
 
 tion of science, II, 77, 81-5 ; S. H. Hodg- 
 son on. II, 226-34 ; Kant, II, 226-7, 229- 
 32,236-8, 111,197-9,207; Martineau's 
 criticism, II, 257 ; terrestrial motion, 
 
 II. 272 ; Emerson on, II, 354. 
 Titles: evolution of, III, 11-6, 23, 27-8. 
 Todleben, Gen. F. E. von, III, 309-10. 
 Totemism, I, 309-17. 
 
 To^vn councils ; representative govern- 
 ment, III, 288 ; parliamentary reform, 
 
 III, 369-70, 371, 372. 
 
 Town hall, building of, III, 372. 
 
 Trade : localization, I, 22 ; morals of, 
 III, 113-51, 448-9 ; adulteration. III, 
 113, 121-3 ; bribery, III, 114-8 ; short 
 weight, III, 118-9 ; circulars, III, 
 123-4 ; silk manufacture. III, 124-7 ; 
 candle makmg, III, 128 ; elastic 
 webbing, III, 129 ; bankruptcy. III, 
 129-31 ; morals of banking. III, 131-7 ; 
 average morality. III, 137-40 ; and 
 sympathy. III, 142-3 ; homage to 
 wealth. III, 143-9, 149-51 ; ethics of 
 free trade, III, 154 ; (see also Industry.) 
 
 Trade unions : parliamentary reform, 
 III, 362-8, 384 ; tyranny of. III, 382, 
 383 ; selfishness. III, 465-7, 469. 
 
 Tramps, and poor law. III, 244. 
 
 Transcendental Physiology {see Physio- 
 logy-) 
 
 Tremolo, in singing, II, 412. 
 
 Triangle, space perception, II, 309. 
 
 Trigonometry, evolution, II, 55, 155. 
 
 Truth, denial of, II, 259-65. 
 
 Tyndali, J., on heat, II, 173 ; of light, 
 II, 178. 
 
 Tzigane, music, II, 450-1. 
 
 Ulcer, effects on skin, I, 448-9. 
 Unbelievable, Mill on word, II, 193-200. 
 United States {see America.) 
 University, training, III, 377-8. 
 Unknowable, The : knowledge of, II, 
 
 220 ; Hodgson on, II, 234 ; Martineau 
 
 on, II, 250-8. 
 Unstable equilibrium, of homogeneity, 
 
 I, 81-4. 
 Uranus: axial motion, I, 133-6; motion 
 
 of satellites, 1, 137 ; their distance, I, 
 
 138; their number, 1, 139-40 ; density 
 
 and heat, I, 144-8, 148-52. 
 Uroglena, life in, I, 443. 
 Use, and beauty, II, 370-4 ; {see also 
 
 Heredity.) 
 Utilitarianism, and Mr. Spencer's 
 
 views, I, 334, 338, 347-50. 
 
516 
 
 VALENCIA ZYGOMATIC AKCHKS. 
 
 Valencia, prison discipline, III, 177-8. 
 
 Variability, mental, I, 356-7. 
 
 Variation, natural selection and heredity, 
 I, 408-12, 421. 
 
 Varieties : effect of union, I, 359 ; fer- 
 tility, II, 397-8. 
 
 Vascular system : deductive biology, I, 
 78-81 ; development, I, 285-6 ; and 
 evolution, III, 204. 
 
 Vaucheria, cell membrane, I, 439. 
 
 Veddahs, invocation of, I, 311-2. 
 
 Venus: motion, I, 135, 136; satellites, 
 I, 139-41 ; density and heat, I, 144-8, 
 148-52. 
 
 Vertebras, evolution, I, 395, III, 205. 
 
 Vertehrata : evolution andheterogeneity, 
 I, 15-7, 17-9; integration, I, 68-71, 
 position of eyes, I, 71-2 ; self -mobility, 
 I, 76 ; germ and iustability of homo- 
 geneous, I, 88 ; cervical vertebrae, II, 
 83 ; origin of music, 11, 432 ; con- 
 trolling system. III, 407. 
 
 Vestiges of Creation, andevolntion, J, 390. 
 
 Vienna, English enterprise in, III, 278. 
 
 Voice : feelings and loudness, II, 404, 
 410; timbre, II, 405, 411; pitch, II, 
 406, 411 ; intervals, II, 406-9, 411 ; 
 variability, II, 409, 411 ; ordinary and 
 singing, II, 410-4. 
 
 Volition, Bain's definition, I, 258-9. 
 
 Volvox : instability of homogeneous, I, 
 87 ; life in, I, 443 ; development, I, 
 456. 
 
 Wales, age of rocks, I, 198-205, 207-8. 
 Walker, Messrs., robbery at. III, 439. 
 Walking : effect of blister, I, 404 ; grace 
 
 in, II, 382. 
 Waste, and repair, II, 362-7. 
 Water ; compound, I, 372 ; govemmeut 
 
 carts and officialism. III, 249 ; and 
 
 supply. III, 387-92, 429. 
 Wealth, homage to, III, 143-9, 149-51. 
 Weapons, division of labour, I, 54. 
 Weber, K. M. von, heredity, I, 406. 
 Weight, measures of, II, 43-5, 
 Werner, A. G. : geological theory, I, 
 
 194-7 ; influence of, I, 201. 
 Whales, not fish, I, 247. 
 Whately, Abp. : metaphor and simile, II, 
 
 352 ; political economy. III, 423-4. 
 Wheweli, W., History of Indxtctive 
 
 Sciences,!!, 23; electrical theory, II, 62. 
 Whirlwind, sun-spot analogy, I, 190-1. 
 White, perception of, III, 196. 
 Will, the : social analogy, I, 269-71 ; 
 
 Kant on, III, 201-3 ; {see also Psycho- 
 logy-) 
 Wills, registrars of. III, 251. 
 Wisdom, the collective, III, 387-92, 
 Wolf, as name, I, 312-3, 315, 316, 321. 
 Wollaston, W. H., insect colours, I, 433. 
 Women : comparative psychology and 
 
 sex, I, 361-4 ; size of jaw, I, 398 ; 
 
 treatment of. III, 445-6, 
 Wool, industry and locality, I, 104. 
 Words {see Language.) 
 Workpeople, residences, III, 447. 
 Writing : increase in heterogeneity, I, 
 
 24-0 ; derived from picture language, 
 
 II, 33. 
 
 Yorkshire, woollen industry, I, 266. 
 Yours faithfully, etc.. Ill, 16, 26. 
 
 Zoology : genesis, II, 57 ; classification, 
 II, 64 ; discovery of laws, II, 149-50. 
 Zoophytes, evolution of mind, I, 377. 
 Zulus, ethics, III, 193. 
 Zygomatic aarches, and beauty, II, 390-2. 
 
THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER, 
 
 FIRST PRINCIPLES. 
 
 1 vol. $2.00. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Part I. — The Unknottable. 
 
 1. Keligion and Science, 
 
 2. Ultimate Religious Ideas, 
 
 3. Ultimate Scientific Ideas. 
 
 4. The Relativity of all Knowl- 
 
 edge. 
 
 5. The Reconciliation. 
 
 Part II. — The Knowable. 
 
 1. Philosophy defined. 
 
 2. The Data of Philosophy, 
 
 3. Space, Time, Matter, Motion, 
 
 and Force. 
 
 4. The Indestructibility of Matter. 
 
 5. The Continuity of Motion. 
 
 6. The Persistence of Force 
 
 '7. The Persistence of Relations 
 among Forces. 
 
 8. The Transformation and Equiv- 
 
 alence of Forces. 
 
 9. The Direction of Motion. 
 
 10. The Rhythm of Motion. 
 
 11. Recapitulation, Criticism, and 
 
 Recommencement. 
 
 12. Evolution and Dissolution. 
 
 24. Summary 
 
 (con- 
 (con- 
 (con- 
 
 13. Simple and Compound Evolu- 
 
 tion. 
 
 14. The Law of Evolution. 
 
 15. The Law of Evolution 
 
 tinned). 
 
 16. The Law of Evolution 
 
 tinned). 
 lY. The Law of Evolution 
 eluded), 
 
 1 8. The Interpretation of Evolution. 
 
 19. The Instability of the Homoge- 
 
 neous. 
 
 20. The Multiplication of Effects. 
 
 21. Segregation. 
 
 22. Equilibration. 
 25. Dissolution. 
 
 and Conclusion. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY. 
 
 2 vols. $4,00. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 Part I. — The Data of Biologt. 
 
 1, Organic Matter. 
 
 2, The Action of Forces on Or- 
 
 ganic Matter. 
 
 3, The Reactions of Organic Mat- 
 
 ter on Forces. 
 
 7. The Scope of Biology. 
 
 4. Proximate Definition of Life. 
 
 5. The Correspondence between 
 
 Life and its Circumstances. 
 
 6. The Degree of Life varies as the 
 Degree of Correspondence. 
 
spencer's STOTHEnO PHILOSOPHf. 
 
 Part II. — The Inductions of BioLOO'f. 
 
 1. Growth. 
 
 2. Development, 
 
 3. Function. 
 
 4. Waste and Repair. 
 6. Adaptation. 
 
 6. Individuality. 
 
 7. Genesis. 
 
 8. Heredity. 
 
 9. Variation. 
 
 10. Genesis, Heredity, and Varia^ 
 
 tion. 
 
 11. Classification. 
 12. Distnbution. 
 
 Part HI. — The Evolution of Life. 
 
 1. Preliminary. 
 
 2. General Aspects of the Special- 
 
 Creation Hypothesis. 
 
 3. General Aspects of the Evolu- 
 
 tion Hypothesis. 
 
 4. The Arguments from Classifica- 
 
 tion. 
 
 5. The Arguments from Embryol- 
 
 ogy- 
 
 6. The Arguments from Morphol- 
 
 ogy- 
 
 7. The Arguments from Distribu- 
 
 tion. 
 
 8. How is Organic Evolution 
 
 caused ? 
 
 9. External Factors. 
 10. Internal Factors. 
 31. Direct Equilibration. 
 
 12. Indirect Equilibration. 
 
 13. The Cooperation of the Factora. 
 
 14. The Convergence of the Evi- 
 
 dences. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. 11. 
 Part IV. — Morpholoqical Development. 
 
 1. The Problems of Morphology. 
 
 2. The Morphological Composition 
 
 of Plants. 
 
 3. The Morphological Composition 
 
 of Plants (continued). 
 
 4. The Morphological Composition 
 
 of Animals. 
 6. The Morphological Composition 
 of Animals (continued). 
 
 6. Morphological Differentiation in 
 
 Plants. 
 
 7. The General Shapes of Plants. 
 
 8. The Shapes of Branches. 
 
 9. The Shapes of Leaves. 
 
 10. The Shapes of Flowers. 
 
 11. The Shapes of Vegetal Cells. 
 
 12. Changes of Shape otherwise 
 
 caused. 
 
 1 3. Morphological Differentiation in 
 
 Animals. 
 
 14. The General Shapes of Animals, 
 16. The Shapes of Vertebrate Skele- 
 tons. 
 
 16. The Shapes of Animal Cells. 
 
 17. Summary of Morphological De- 
 
 velopment. 
 
 Part V. — Physiological Development. 
 
 1. The Problems of Physiology. 
 
 2. Differentiations among the Out- 
 
 er and Inner Tissues of Plants. 
 
 3. Differentiations among the Out- 
 
 er Tissues of Plants. 
 
 4. Differentiations among the In- 
 
 ner Tissues of Plants. 
 6. Physioloi^ical Integration in 
 Plants. 
 
 6. Differentiations between the 
 
 Outer and Inner Tissues of 
 Animals. 
 
 7. Differentiations among the Out- 
 
 er Tissues of Animals. 
 
 8. Differentiations among the In- 
 
 ner Tissues of Animals. 
 
 9. Physiological Integration in Ani- 
 
 mals. 
 
 10. Summary of Physiological Development. 
 
spencek's stnthetio philosophy. 3 
 
 Part VI. — Laws op Multiplication. 
 
 1. The Factors. 8, Anta<;onism between Expendi- 
 
 2. A priori Principle. ture and Genesis. 
 
 3. Obve:sj a p-iiori Principle. 9. Coincidence between High Nu- 
 
 4. Difficulties of Inductive Verifi- trition and Genesis. 
 
 cation. 10. Specialties of these Rela. 
 
 5. Antagonism between Growth tions. 
 
 and Asexual Genesis. 11. Interpretation and Qualitica- 
 
 6. Antagonism between Growth tion. 
 
 and Sexual Genesis. 12. Multiplication of the Human 
 
 7. Antagonism between Develop- Race. 
 
 ment and Genesis, Asexual 13. Human Evolution in the Fu- 
 and Sexual, ture. 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 A Criticism on Professor Owen's The- On Circulation and the Formation 
 ory of the Vertebrate Skeleton. of Wood in Plants. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 2 vols. $4.00. 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. 1. 
 Paet I. — The Data of Psychology. 
 
 1. The Nervous System. 4. The Conditions essential to Ner- 
 
 2. The Structure of the Nervous vous Action. 
 
 System. 5. Nervous Stimulation and Ner- 
 
 3. The Functions of the Nervous vous Discharge. 
 
 System. 6. ^stho-Physiology, 
 
 Past II. — The Inductions of Psychologt. 
 
 1. The Substance of Mind. 6, The Revivability of Relations 
 
 2. The Composition of Mind. between Feelings. 
 
 3. The Relativity of Feelings. 7. The Associability of Feelings. 
 
 4. The Relativity of Relations be- 8. The Associability of Relations 
 
 tween Feelings. between Feelings. 
 
 6. The Revivability of Feelings. 9. Pleasures and Pains. 
 
 Part III.^General Synthesis. 
 
 1. Life and Mind as Correspon- 6. The Correspondence as increas- 
 
 dence. ing in Specialty. 
 
 2. The Correspondence as Direct 7. The Correspondence as iccreas- 
 
 and Homogeneous. ing in Generality. 
 
 3. The Correspondence as Direct 8. The Correspondence as increas- 
 
 but Heterogeneous. ing in Complexity. 
 
 4. The Correspondence as extend- 9. The Coordination of Correspon- 
 
 ing in Space. dcnces. 
 
 5. The Correspondence as extend- 10. The Integration of Correspon- 
 
 ing in Time. deuces. 
 
 11. The Correspondences in their Totality. 
 
spenoek's synthetic philosophy. 
 
 Part IV. — Special Synthesis. 
 
 1. The Nature of Intelligence. 
 
 2. The Law of Intelligence. 
 
 3. The Growth of Intelligence. 
 
 4. Reflex Action. 
 
 5. Instinct. 
 
 6. Memory. 
 
 7. Keasoa. 
 
 8. The Feelings. 
 
 9. The \Vill. 
 Part V. — Physical Synthesis. 
 
 1. 
 
 A Further Interpretation need- 
 ed. 
 
 2. The Genesis of Nerves. 
 
 3. The Genesis of Simple Nervous 
 
 Systems. 
 
 4. The Genesis of Compound Ner- 
 
 vous Systems. 
 B. The Genesis of Doubly Com- 
 pound Nervous Systems. 
 
 9, 
 
 10. 
 Appendix. 
 
 6. Functions as related to these 
 
 Structures, 
 v. Physical Laws as thus inter- 
 preted. 
 8. Evidence from Normal Varia- 
 tions. 
 Evidence from Abnormal Va- 
 riations. 
 Eesults. 
 
 On the Action of Anaesthetics and Narcotics, 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 Paht VI. — Special Analysis. 
 
 10. 
 11. 
 
 12. 
 
 Limitation of the Subject. 13. 
 
 Compound Quantitative Reason- 
 ing. 
 
 Compound Quantitative Reason- 14. 
 ing (continued). 15. 
 
 Imperfect and Simple Quantita- 16. 
 tive Reasoning. 17. 
 
 Quantitative Reasoning in gen- 
 eral. 18. 
 
 Perfect Qualitative Reasoning. 19. 
 
 Imperfect Qualitative Reason- 
 ing. 20. 
 
 Reasoning in general. 
 
 Classification, Naming, and Rec- 21. 
 ognition. 
 
 The Perception of Special Ob- 22. 
 jects. 
 
 The Perception of Body as pre- 23. 
 senting Dynamical, Statico- 
 Dynaraical, and Statical Attri- 24. 
 butes. 
 
 The Perception of Body as pre- 25. 
 senting Statico-Dynamical and 26. 
 Statical Attributes. 27, 
 
 The Perception of Body as 
 presenting Statical Attri- 
 butes. 
 
 The Perception of Space. 
 
 The Perception of Time. 
 
 The Perception of Motion. 
 
 The Perception of Resist- 
 ance. 
 
 Perception in general. 
 
 The Relations of Similarity and 
 Dissimilarity. 
 
 The Relations of Cointension 
 and Xon-Co intension. 
 
 The Relations of Coextension 
 and Non-Coextension. 
 
 The Relations of Coexistence 
 and Non-Coexistence. 
 
 The Relations of Connature and 
 Non-Connature. 
 
 The Relations of Likeness and 
 Unlikencss. 
 
 The Relation of Sequence. 
 
 Consciousness in general. 
 
 Results. 
 
SPENCER'S SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Pakt VII. — General Analysis. 
 
 5. 
 6. 
 
 8. 
 
 9. 
 
 10. 
 
 The Final Question. 
 
 The Assumption of Metaphysi- 
 cians. 
 
 The Words of Mntaphysicians. 
 
 The Reasonings of Metaphysi- 
 cians, [ism. 
 
 Negative Justification of Real- 
 
 The Argument from Priority. 
 
 The Argument from Simplicity. 
 
 The Argument from Distinct- 
 
 A Criterion wanted. [ness. 
 
 Propositions qualitatively dia- 
 tinpruished. 
 
 11. The Universal Postulate. 
 
 12. The Test of Relative Validity. 
 
 13. Its Corollaries. 
 
 14. Positive Justification of Real- 
 
 ism. 
 
 15. The Dynamics of Consciousness. 
 IG. Paitial Dilferentiation of Sub- 
 ject and Object. 
 
 lY. Completed Differentiation of 
 Subject and Object. 
 
 18. Developed Conception of the 
 
 Object. 
 
 19. Transfigured Realism. 
 
 Paut VIII. — Corollaries. 
 
 Special Psychology. 6. Sociality and Sympathy. 
 
 Classification. 6. Egoistic Sentiments. 
 
 Development of Conceptions. 7. Ego-Altruistic Sentiments, 
 
 Language of the Emotions. 8. Altruistic Sentiments, 
 
 9. JEsthetic Sentiments. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 Vol. I. $2.00. 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Part I. — ^The Data of Sociology. 
 
 1. Super-Organic Evolution. 
 
 2. The Factors of Social Phenom- 
 
 ena. 
 S. Original External Factors. 
 
 4. Original Internal Factors. 
 
 5. The Primitive Man — Physical. 
 
 6. The Primitive Man — Emotional. 
 
 7. The Primitive Man — Intellect- 
 
 ual. 
 
 8. Primitive Ideas. 
 
 9. The Ideas of the Animate and 
 
 the Inanimate. 
 
 10. The Ideas of Sleep and Dreams. 
 
 11. The Ideas of Swoon, Apoplexy, 
 
 Catalepsy, Ecstasy, and other 
 Forms of Insensibility. 
 
 12. The Ideas of Death and Resur- 
 
 rection. 
 
 13. The Ideas of Souls, Ghosts, 
 
 Spirits, Demons. 
 
 14. The Ideas of Another Life. 
 
 15. The Ideas of Another World. 
 
 16. The Ideas of Supernatural 
 Agents. 
 
 Supernatural Agents as causing 
 Epilepsy and Convulsive Ac- 
 tions, Delirium and Insanity. 
 Disease and Death. 
 
 Inspiration, Divination, Exor- 
 cism, and Sorcery. 
 
 Sacred Places, Temples, and 
 Altars ; Sacrifice, Fasting, and 
 Propitiation ; Praise, Prayer. 
 
 20. Ancestor- Worship in general. 
 
 21. Idol- Worship and Fetich- Wor- 
 
 ship. 
 
 22. Animal-Worship. 
 
 23. PI ant- Worship. 
 
 24. Nature- Worship. 
 
 25. Deities. 
 
 26. The Primitive Theory of Things. 
 
 27. The Scope of Sociology. 
 
 17. 
 
 18, 
 
 19. 
 
spencer's synthetic philosophy. 
 
 Part II. — The Inductions of Sociology. 
 
 1. What is a Society? 
 
 2. A Society is aa Organism. 
 
 3. Social Growth. 
 
 4. Social Structures. 
 
 5. Social Functions. 
 
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 8. The Distributing System. 
 
 9. The Eegulating System. 
 
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 11. Social Metamorphoses. 
 
 12. Qualifications and Summary, 
 
 Part III. — The Domestic Relations. 
 
 1. The Maintenance of Species. 
 
 2. The Diverse Interests of the 
 
 Species, of the Parents, and 
 of the Offspring. 
 
 3. Primitive Relations of the Sexes. 
 
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 pect. 
 
 Vol. II. 
 Part IV. — Ceeemoni/VL Institutions. 
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 81.26. 
 
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 Vol. 
 
 1. Forms of Address. 
 
 8. Titles. 
 
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 11. Fashion. 
 
 12. Ceremonial Retrospect and 
 
 Prospect. 
 
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 Preliminary. 
 
 Political Organization in gen- 
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 Political Integration. 
 
 Political Differentiation. 
 
 Political Forms and Forces. 
 
 Political Heads — Chiefs, Kings, 
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 Compound Political Heads. 
 
 Consultative Bodies. 
 
 Representative Bodies. 
 
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 14. Laws. 
 16. Property. 
 
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 18. The Industrial Type of Society. 
 
 19. Political Retrospect and Pros- 
 
 pect. 
 
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