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 1934 
 
 HISTORICAL PEOGEESS 
 
 IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 J. SHIELD SICHOLSON. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 HX246 .N62 1894 
 
 Historical 
 
 olin 
 
 irogress and ideal socialism; 
 3 1924 030 343 424 
 
HX 
 
1^ 
 
 HISTORICAL PEOGRESS 
 
 IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
BY THE. SAME AUTHOR 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 Vol. I. 15s. 
 
 A TREATISE ON MONEY 
 
 AND 
 
 ESSAYS ON MONETARY PROBLEMS 
 7s. 6d. 
 
HISTOEICAL PEOGKESS 
 
 AND 
 
 IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 AK EVENING DISCOUESE 
 
 DELIVEEED TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT OXFORD 
 IN THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, 13th AUGUST 1894 
 
 BY 
 
 J. SHIELD NICHOLSON, M.A., D.Sc. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE "UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
 
 LONDON 
 ADAM AND CHAELES BLACK 
 
 1894 
 
 . : I I 
 
 I ! jUAIvY 
 n 
 
HISTOEICAL PROGEESS 
 
 AND 
 
 IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 Introduction ' and ApoLoaY 
 
 A DIFFICULT task has been assigned to me, 
 and I must try to lighten the burden with 
 a preliminary explanation and apology. 
 
 The present, I believe, is the first occasion 
 on which the section of .Economics and 
 Statistics has been called upon for one of 
 the evening discourses. The choice is 
 peculiarly appropriate to the place of meet- 
 ing ; for in this ancient University the in- 
 
2 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 fluence of Aristotle, the father of Economics, 
 is still a living force ; and it is so for this 
 reason mainly or only, — because he showed 
 the way to apply scientific methods to the 
 creature he called the political animal by 
 nature, and he studied the civil societies of 
 mankind with the same fearlessness of pure 
 intellect that he gave to the beasts of the 
 field or the stars of heaven. And that is 
 the essence of all science, fearlessness of 
 intellect. With the history of science before 
 us we may convert the old proposition, that 
 courage depends on knowledge, into the 
 new proposition, that knowledge depends 
 on courage. There was a time when it 
 needed courage to dissect a dead body or to 
 describe the motion of the earth. In our 
 own time it is in the social sciences that 
 there is most need to emphasise this fear- 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 lessness of knowledge. It seems a bold 
 thing to nm counter to the newest popular 
 opinion on the social and economic questions 
 of the day, and reckless audacity to assert 
 that an old opinion is the better. 
 
 Xot only is the choice of an economic 
 subject appropriate to the place of meeting 
 but also to tbe time. For science, if 
 science may be spoken of as a personality, 
 has begun to weary of measuring only dead 
 matter and the lower stages of life, and 
 longs to turn again to the fields of her 
 youth and watch the growth and decay of 
 the endless varieties of the mental activity 
 of mankind. 
 
 But although time and place seem to 
 justify the choice of an economic subject, a 
 doubt may well arise if it can be made 
 stifficiently popular for the purpose. And 
 
4 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 the consciousness of this doubt makes a 
 difficult task more difficult. There is no 
 aid to be obtained from slides or specimens, 
 from flames or explosions : nothing but 
 words, and these not even technical. Worst 
 of all, from the point of view of popularity, 
 my theme will seem to lack novelty and 
 my argument to be unfashionable ; for my 
 endeavour will be to treat what niay be 
 termed the popular myths of the future in 
 the same way as historians have treated the 
 popular legends of the past. And it is a 
 remarkable fact that the age which has 
 witnessed, with equanimity and even with 
 pleasure, the reversal of the process of the 
 deification of the heroes, and the total 
 destruction of the golden age of a state of 
 nature, cannot bear to have the same cold 
 reasoning applied to the future. To assert 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 that Moses and the prophets were imagi- 
 nary or at best imaginative poets, that is 
 both scientific and fashionable; but to deny 
 that Karl Marx and his followers are true 
 prophets, that is both unscientific and un- 
 fashionable. 
 
 The Great Wave of Altruism 
 
 Without further apology I proceed to 
 my task. My object is to test the ideal by 
 the real, the possible future by the actual 
 past. At once, however, the objection will 
 be raised that at the end of the nineteenth 
 century human nature and social arrange- 
 ments are so difi"erent that the experience 
 of the past is only curious by contrast. 
 This alleged change in mankind, — or I 
 should say highly civilised mankind, or 
 
6 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 more precisely British mankind, — is de- 
 scribed in the current nineteenth-century 
 Latin as a change from egoism to altruism. 
 " Nothing " says our latest philosophical 
 celebrity^ "can be more out of place than 
 comparisons which are instituted between 
 society one hundred years ago and at the 
 present time. We have little in common 
 with the past. It may be searched in vain 
 for any clue to the solution of the problems 
 which confront us in the future. Social 
 forces, new, strange, and altogether im- 
 measurable, have been released among us." 
 And if we inquire more particularly we 
 learn that "the close of this century is 
 marked by an extraordinary development 
 of the humanitarian feelings," and that " the 
 altruistic feelings have attained a develop- 
 
 1 Mr. Kidd's Social Evolution. 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 ment previously unexampled in the history 
 of the race." Other writers speak of the 
 great wave of altruism, which, like a wave 
 of heat, has warmed equally and impartially 
 the masses and the classes — the just and 
 the unjust. 
 
 The latest translation of the word al- 
 truism is, I believe, " the struggle for the 
 life of others," ^ but perhaps the best and 
 simplest is "brotherly kindness." I would 
 invite you to notice some of the evidence as 
 to the growth of this feeling that has 
 strangely escaped attention. What is the 
 greatest evil from which Europe is suffering 
 — an evil that has been steadily increasing 
 during the present generation? It is un- 
 questionably the vast armaments, and the 
 compulsory conscription of millions of men. 
 
 * Professor Drummond's Asceiit of Man. 
 
8 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 If altruism means brotherly love, it can 
 hardly also mean militarism. Europe stands 
 in yearly expectation of the greatest war 
 that ever occurred. Does that look as if 
 the next century would begin with a new 
 form of altruistic human nature ? 
 
 Take our own country : we are forced by 
 this extraordinary development of humani- 
 tarianism — this competition in brotherly 
 kindness — to increase our navy to an un- 
 precedented extent, and when welcome to 
 find the means it is with the greatest difii- 
 culty that the most altruistic government 
 of the century can persuade the most al- 
 truistic people of the world to pay a fraction 
 of a farthing more for a glass of beer, or 
 submit to an equivalent displacement of 
 water. 
 
 Next to the vast preparations for war, 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 perhaps the most characteristic feature of 
 our generation is to be found in the dissen- 
 sions between labour and capital, as shown 
 in our own great coal strike last year, and 
 the still greater railway strike in America 
 last month. 
 
 The real altruism that will stand the 
 monetary test as distinct from the formal 
 expression of distinguished consideration 
 seems to consist, in this as in other ages, 
 not so much in a struggle for the life of 
 others as in a struggle for the property of 
 others. 
 
 So much then for the height and the 
 depth of the great altruistic wave. It 
 reminds me of the waves encountered by 
 the pious yEneas in the middle of the Medi- 
 terranean, which were so high that they 
 besprinkled the stars, and so deep that the 
 
lo HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 afFrighted mariners saw the floor of the 
 ocean — 
 
 " These ride on waves sublime : those see the ground 
 Low in the boiling deeps and dark profound." 
 
 But these were waves of the poetical ima- 
 gination, and of such sort is the great 
 wave of altruism. 
 
 It would be easy to accumulate evidence 
 both from the past and the present to 
 show that neither intellectually nor morally 
 has human nature, in the present genera- 
 tion or the present century, changed to 
 such an extent that we cannot use the 
 interpretation of the past for the anticipa- 
 tion of the future. We must, of course, 
 allow for changes in circumstances ; but if 
 we find that certain great forces in the past 
 have made for the progress, and other forces 
 for the decay, of nations, we may be toler- 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 ably certain, in. the near future, of this 
 result at least, namely, that the same causes 
 will not produce the opposite effects. 
 
 Let me now state, in the simplest form, 
 my leading contention. I shall try to show 
 that the ideal of socialism is to give the 
 fullest play to those forces which in the 
 past have caused the decay or ruin of 
 nations, and to check those forces which 
 have been the life and soul of progress. 
 
 The Reality of Economic Progress. 
 
 But my opponents will say : Your ideas 
 of progress are not ours, and your thoughts 
 are not our thoughts : what you call decay 
 we call growth, and what you call progress 
 we call retrogression. To some extent this 
 objection is valid, but so far as it is valid I 
 
12 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 shall evade it. For I shall only take those 
 elements in progress about which there can 
 be no dispute. The progress we are con- 
 cerned with is economic or industrial pro- 
 gress. There is no need for any nicety of 
 definition. Look at the broadest aspects.. 
 If man conquers nature there is progress ; if 
 nature conquers man there is death. We 
 are often told to admire the effects of 
 natural selection, and to wonder at the 
 survival of the fittest in the numberless 
 species and varieties of plant and animal 
 life. Leave out man, and what do we find ? 
 Countless centuries, millions of years, of 
 natural selection have covered the most 
 life-abounding portions of the earth with 
 tangled jungles and impenetrable forests. 
 And with what creatures are they peopled ? 
 Is it only the fittest that survive ? The 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 13 
 
 truth is, that we find packed and crowded 
 together at the same time, in the same 
 place, every variety of life, from the invis- 
 ible germs that make the pestilence, up 
 through every gradation of parasite and 
 devourer and devoured, to the creature that 
 comes nearest to a caricature of man. 
 
 Now consider the economic progress of 
 mankind in a comparatively short historical 
 period, say, some seventy generations of 
 man. Let biology and geology make for 
 you a picture of England before the Eoman 
 invasion with its swamps and wastes and 
 forests, and with that picture in your mind 
 pass through the length and breadth of the 
 land to-day. Stagnant fens have been 
 drained, crooked rivers made straight, 
 forests uprooted, and wastes cultivated ; 
 plants and animals are those of man's 
 
14 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 choice, and if here and there there remains 
 a portion of the old order undisturbed — a 
 few miles of heath or woodland — it is solely 
 for his caprice or delectation. The very 
 surface of the land presents a different 
 aspect, with its villages and cities knit 
 together by broken stone and welded iron, 
 and if you look more narrowly you will find 
 that the actual necessaries of existence are 
 drawn by man's hand from the ends of the 
 earth. 
 
 With such a contrast before you it is im- 
 possible to question the reality of economic 
 progress; but take for a background the 
 fertile plains of Asia and Africa, and see 
 how gardens have been turned into wilder- 
 nesses, and great cities into quarries. 
 Nature has reconquered its domain : and 
 why? Because for the economic forces 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 15 
 
 that make for progress man has substituted 
 or admitted those that make for destruc- 
 tion ; the surrender has been due, not to 
 an overpowering outburst of the violence 
 of nature, but to the betrayal of man by 
 man. 
 
 Let me now, with the light of these 
 illustrations thrown upon it, repeat my 
 main contention. I shall try to show that 
 socialism looks for its achievement to a 
 reversal of the processes of industrial evolu- 
 tion : it seeks to repress the forces that 
 have made for development, and to give 
 full scope to those that have led to degener- 
 ation. 
 
 Economics and BiOLOGy 
 
 I have used the favourite terminology of 
 the day in stating the contrast between 
 
i6 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 real progress and ideal socialism, not be- 
 cause I suppose it will really make the 
 subject more clear or seem more scientific, 
 but for the very opposite reason — namely, 
 to point out the danger of applying the 
 conceptions that are appropriate to one 
 science to a science that is essentially 
 different. 
 
 We have been told recently that political 
 economy must be reconstructed in the light 
 of the Darwinian theory. That theory has 
 revolutionised the sciences that deal with 
 animal life, political economy deals with 
 man, man is an animal — and the conclusion 
 is obvious — political economy must be re- 
 volutionised. 
 
 Now, I venture to say, so far from this 
 being the case, the Darwinian theory, even 
 as a guiding hypothesis, is altogether 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 17 
 
 inadequate and inappropriate in tracing the 
 industrial or economic progress of mankind ; 
 not only is it not sufficient, but it is mis- 
 leading. 
 
 I have already called attention to the, 
 contrast between the progress of mankind 
 in a few centuries, and that of other forms 
 of life in a period that can only be reckoned 
 by geological ages. The difference is so 
 startling that we may naturally expect to 
 discover different principles at work in the 
 two cases, or at the least to find that in 
 the case of man new forces have come into 
 play. If then we are forced, to believe that 
 the progress of animal and plant life — if 
 that can be called progress which results in 
 the fantastic anarchy of an impenetrable 
 forest — must be ascribed to the struggle for 
 existence, to perpetual war, to reckless dis- 
 
1 8 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 regard of life, and a consequent survival of 
 tlie fittest, — if tMs is tte principle of pre- 
 historic animal progress we ought to expect 
 something different in the progress of 
 civilised mankind. And strange as it may 
 seem to those who have supposed that the 
 Darwinian theory can be applied without 
 modification or addition to the political 
 animal as to others, the moving principle 
 of industrial progress is not to be found in 
 an unceasing and bitter struggle of this 
 kind. Do not be deceived by words : 
 translate, when you transfer them to man, 
 the principles of biological development 
 into plain English. The mere change of 
 language will almost suffice to show the 
 nature of the difference. Will any one 
 maintain that we are to look for the real 
 causes of economic progress to robbery and 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 19 
 
 pillage, to murder and slaughter, or to the 
 perpetual warfare of man with man, family 
 with family, tribe with tribe, and nation 
 with nation ? On the contrary, is it not 
 manifest that industrial progress — the 
 foundation of all civilisation — has advanced 
 in proportion to the suppression of these 
 animal instincts and the substitution for 
 them of propensities and practices peculiar 
 to man ? 
 
 Nor can competition be properly de- 
 scribed as the economic form of this 
 struggle — because it rests upon security 
 and works by bargaining and contract. 
 The analogy with the struggle for existence 
 is to be found much more in combinations 
 than in competition, as, for example, in 
 Trade Unions that exclude the weaker 
 workers, and are essentially fighting organ- 
 
 ic 
 
20 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 isations. The essence of competition, as 
 illustrated in a highly organised market, 
 is that the price will be so adjusted that 
 at that prince the supply will be carried off. 
 If wages be considered as the price of 
 labour, one principal object of Trade Unions 
 is to prevent competition from lowering the 
 price ; but this prevention means exclusion, 
 and exclusion means to the excluded a 
 struggle for existence. 
 
 It is, however, in the principle of here- 
 dity and the effects of variation that we 
 observe the most startling differences. The 
 offspring of man, like that of other animals, 
 is no doubt influenced or even determined 
 by heredity, but this hereditary influence 
 affects individuals only. And industrial 
 progress has consisted to a very small 
 extent in the improvement of the natural 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 
 
 qualities of the individual types of workers 
 — taking the word in its broadest sense, 
 and including the highest as well as the 
 lowest — the workers with brain as well as 
 the workers with hand. The medieval man, 
 as man — the world was recently told from 
 this very place by a very fine judge of 
 mankind^ — was perhaps superior to his 
 modern descendant. And yet it is precisely 
 because man makes use of the accumulated 
 wisdom of his ancestors, and generation by 
 generation adds to it, that industrial pro- 
 gress is possible. But this wisdom and the 
 additions to it are not passed from parent 
 to child in the texture of the brain or the 
 form of the hand. Once an idea has been 
 set in speech it is free to all who have ears 
 to hear, and once an invention has been 
 
 ' Mr. Gladstone's Bomaws Lecture. 
 
22 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 shaped in matter it is free to all who have 
 eyes to see. 
 
 And thus a variation in the direction of 
 progress, instead of having to trust to the 
 remote chance of transmission by individual 
 inheritance, passes at once into the inherit- 
 ance of mankind ; a new idea is not, as 
 with some slight improvement in animal 
 mechanism, transmitted as a potential 
 capability only to the children of the in- 
 ventor, but at once vibrates through space 
 and time, and wherever it finds an under- 
 standing quickens it in unison. 
 
 That is the reason why the progress of 
 mankind is immeasurably more rapid than 
 that of the animal world and advances with 
 an increasing rate of acceleration. And 
 thus we arrive at the astounding result that, 
 within a limited period, there may be in- 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 23 
 
 dustrial progress to an indefinite extent, 
 whilst the individuals who take part in it, 
 or effect that progress, remain in mind and 
 body practically stationary. 
 
 Consider the difference in a concrete 
 case. A century of natural selection — 
 three generations of the race of savage man 
 — would not increase to a degree that could 
 be measured the acuteness of his sight to 
 discern danger or his power of voice or 
 speech to warn his fellows. A century of 
 prehistoric time, judged by its effects, is as 
 momentary as in the distance it appears to 
 our imagination. But in this present 
 century — in three generations — civilised 
 man has learned to see, or must I say 
 perceive? the metals in a planet and the 
 germs in a disease ; and, as if time and 
 space were not, to hold counsel with his 
 
24 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 fellows on the other side of the 
 world. 
 
 It is surely unscientific to search for the 
 explanation of this progress that is peculiar to 
 man, in which the improvement of the indivi- 
 dual counts for so little, in the principles of 
 the progress of animals, in which the improve- 
 ment of the individual counts for everything. 
 
 There is a sense or rather there are many 
 senses in which we may speak of industrial 
 evolution, but we cannot discover the 
 processes of that evolution by drawing 
 superficial analogies from plants and animals. 
 It sounds very well to say that the State is 
 an organism, and therefore must obey the 
 laws of organic growth ; but so far from 
 this being the latest product of modern 
 science, it is merely a simile which has been 
 used from the most ancient times, and has 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 25 
 
 given rise to more fallacies — possibly owing 
 to its frequency — than any other analogy. 
 True science, as you all know in your own 
 special departments, cannot dispense with 
 special evidence. Can you deduce the 
 development of a frog or of a black beetle 
 from the general laws of organic growth ? 
 On the contrary, do they not demand the 
 work of hundreds of observers ; and do you 
 imagine that the societies of mankind can 
 be explained by this easy appeal to first 
 principles ? Science would degenerate into 
 mere rhetoric if once it were thought that 
 special evidence was not needed for different 
 departments. If you are sufiiciently vague 
 you can make this easy method of analogy 
 prove anything. If you want to prove that 
 the capitalist is an evil, compare him to the 
 boa-constrictor that swallows the labouring 
 
26 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 OX ; and if you want to prove him a blessing, 
 call him the sheep that is shorn by the 
 labouring man. One simile is as good as 
 another for its purpose, and both are better 
 than an appeal to the first principles of 
 organic growth, and the latest theories of 
 Weismann on the games of chance played 
 with one another by hypothetical germs. 
 
 In the industrial world, as in other 
 departments of nature, animate and in- 
 animate, we must proceed step by step, and 
 fact by fact, and not by the easy method of 
 anticipation by analogy and desire. We 
 need, it is true, as in every other science, 
 guiding hypotheses; but the results obtained 
 must be constantly verified by an appeal to 
 facts. If the appeal is confirmed, the 
 hypothesis becomes a law or a generalisation 
 in the same way as in any other science. 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 27 
 
 I proceed to consider some of the general- 
 isations made by economists in this way on 
 the industrial progress of mankind, and to 
 contrast them with the proposals of the 
 socialists. 
 
 Socialism and Taxation 
 
 In order to emphasise the difference 
 between the appeal to actual historical pro- 
 gress and to the vague analogies derived from 
 evolution in general, I will begin with one 
 of the causes of the decay and even of the 
 destruction of nations in which the facts are 
 unquestionable and are yet peculiar to man. 
 
 The cause I mean is simply excessive 
 taxation. The mere word is enough to 
 show that we have taken the plunge from 
 the general into the particular. If taxes 
 
28 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 are not facts, then there are not, and there 
 never have been, any facts within the ken 
 of man. No subject is better adapted for 
 scientific research ; materials may be drawn 
 from every time and place ; if in the 
 language of logicians to be taxed is not of 
 the essence of civilised man, at any rate it 
 is an inseparable accident. 
 
 I would cordially recommend the evolu- 
 tionist in search of new fields and prepared 
 to work at them, to trace the, origin, 
 development, multiplication, and decay of 
 taxes. He could, if he chose, introduce all 
 his favourite biological expressions, and he 
 would find the old taxes quite as interesting 
 as fossils, and the study of new ones more 
 interesting than vivisection. 
 
 By taxation, broadly speaking, we mean 
 the share taken by the Government of the 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 29 
 
 wealth of the nation. It is most important 
 to look beneath the surface, and not to be 
 deceived by words. A favourite device of 
 all governments is to call taxes by some 
 less offensive name. The Government of 
 the great French Revolution decided that 
 taxes or imposts {impdts), as they were 
 called, were only exacted by tyrants, and 
 they proposed therefore to call the payments 
 made by free citizens contributions. Our 
 own kings called taxes benevolences — a still 
 prettier word. But names make no differ- 
 ence to things ; and whether the burdens 
 of the State take the form of land revenues, 
 or compulsory military service, or forced 
 labour, or tithes of produce, or fifteenths of 
 property, or all or any of them at once, 
 whenever these burdens get beyond a 
 certain amount it means nothing less than 
 
30 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 the ruin of the nation. The examples are 
 so numerous that it seems useless to cite 
 any. By excessive taxation Eome ruined 
 her provinces and shattered her empire ; 
 France accumulated the miseries that broke 
 into the great Eevolution ; Turkey laid 
 waste the most fertile regions of the earth. 
 At this moment Italy is smouldering with 
 discontent, and even the vigorous colonies 
 of Australia feel their progress checked 
 through the immoderate expenditure of the 
 State. It is true that the evils of excessive 
 taxation are to some extent mitigated if 
 the proceeds are spent for the apparent 
 good of the people — for education, secular 
 and religious, for the relief of the poor, 
 for the employment of the unemployed, 
 or for national defence. But although the 
 evil may be mitigated, all history shows 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 31 
 
 that, for whatever purpose taxes are im- 
 posed, there is a limit beyond which there 
 is a rapid fall through decay to destruction. 
 So much for the reality of one of the 
 great causes of the degradation of nations. 
 Now consider the contrast offered by ideal 
 socialism. Stripped of all disguise, the 
 very object of socialism is to impose taxes , 
 beyond the limit ever yet attempted by 
 the rapacity and audacity of governments. 
 Instead of a land tax, the State is to seize 
 the land itself; instead of paltry death 
 duties on capital, it is to take the capital 
 itself; and from the incomes that pay 
 income tax, instead of taking a miserable 
 eightpence, it is to take twenty shillings 
 in the pound. 
 
 Perhaps it may seem strange — I sincerely 
 hope it may, for familiarity is the bane of 
 
32 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 critical insight — it may seem strange to 
 speak of socialism in ter^s of taxation. 
 
 It seems so simple, so pleasant, so nice, 
 to think of the State owning all the land 
 and capital and distributing the proceeds 
 according to heeds or deserts, and it looks 
 as if we had got rid of taxation altogether. 
 In reality on this system — expressed in 
 terms of taxes — every one might be said 
 to pay away all his earnings as poor rates, 
 and receive an allowance of out-door relief 
 
 But whatever might be the final result, 
 there is no doubt about the period of 
 transition from the present system to the 
 ideal. If in the meantime socialism is to 
 be regarded as a tendency — as a guide to 
 political action — it can only operate through 
 increasing as rapidly and as much as pos- 
 sible the taxes on land and capital, and 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 33 
 
 the higher forms of professional income. 
 No better device could be imagined for 
 checking industrial progress, as is proved 
 by the history of every country. It would 
 be to introduce a creeping paralysis ; and, 
 when the time was considered ripe for 
 taking over the land and capital, the land 
 would be a wilderness, and the capital old 
 iron. 
 
 Surely there never was a better instance 
 of the disregard of the teaching of history, 
 and never a better illustration of the extra- 
 ordinary flexibility of language and its 
 wonderful power in disguising thoughts, 
 than that people should be found to set 
 up as an ideal, excessive, all-absorbing 
 taxation, and describe it in glowing terms 
 as the latest and "greatest mode of phil- 
 anthropy. 
 
34 historical progress and 
 
 Socialism and Exchange 
 
 I have already insisted at some lengtli 
 that we must expect to find the roots of 
 industrial development in the propensities 
 and practices peculiar to man. 
 
 Amongst these propensities is one which 
 Adam Smith calls " the propensity to truck, 
 barter, and exchange one thing for another." 
 " It is," he goes on to say, " common to all 
 men, and to be found in no other race of 
 animals, which seem to know neither this 
 nor any other species of contracts." And 
 then, by way of illustration, he observes 
 that " nobody ever saw a dog make a fair 
 and deliberate exchange of one bone for 
 another with another dog." As thus stated, 
 the diflference between man and other races 
 of animals may seem a mere curiosity, but 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 35 
 
 it is a curiosity that on examination proves 
 to be one of the principal factors in in- 
 dustrial progress. To trace its develop- 
 ment would be to trace the history of 
 civilisation. It is part, and a principal 
 part, of the great movement from status 
 to contract. By a series of struggles 
 against custom, superstition, and authority 
 of endless varieties, and by numberless 
 trials of tentative processes, exchange in 
 the most advanced communities has come 
 to be the fundamental principle in the pro- 
 duction and in the distribution of wealth. 
 The expenditure of a workman's wages is 
 the last of an infinite series of complex 
 bargains and exchanges, which provide him 
 with the necessaries and comforts of life. 
 It would be impossible to estimate the 
 number of exchanges involved in the 
 
36 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 daily production of a great industrial 
 nation. 
 
 And similarly as regards the distribution 
 of wealth, the principle of exchange of 
 services has gradually overpowered or sup- 
 pressed other principles. The share of an 
 animal in the feast of nature is as much as 
 it can grab, the share of a man in the 
 annual produce of society is as much as he 
 can bargain for. 
 
 The only difficulty in realising the mag- 
 nitude of this peculiarly human propensity 
 is its familiarity, and to dispel that familiar- 
 ity we must appeal to history, and to history 
 written in such detail as alone can recall 
 the life of the past. 
 
 Again I would invite the evolutionist to 
 study the actual developments of markets, 
 of foreign trade, and of the substitution of 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 37 
 
 money rents for rents in labour and in 
 produce, and of money wages for various 
 kinds of serfdom. 
 
 Merely by way of example let me illus- 
 trate tbe enormous development of the 
 principle of exchange by two statements. 
 About the time of the Norman Conquest 
 one of the principal imports — so great as to 
 be a considerable part of the whole — was 
 the bones and other relics of saints. That 
 gives you some idea of the progress of foreign 
 trade. At the same time the chief and 
 almost the only industry of importance was 
 agriculture, and the mass ,of the people were 
 in serfdom or some other form of bondage. 
 That gives you some idea of the progress 
 in the exchange of services. 
 
 But it is useless to attempt to illustrate 
 so vast a subject, and it ought to be need- 
 
38 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 less. So fundamental is exchange that the 
 political economy which deals mainly with 
 modern societies is forced to make exchange 
 the leading principle throughout, and 
 historically one of the best marks of the 
 stage of development of a nation is the 
 degree of the organisation of its exchange, 
 applying the term in its widest sense to 
 labour of all kinds as well as to com- 
 modities. 
 
 Industrial progress has been marked by 
 a constant contraction of the sphere of im- 
 perative law or equally imperative custom, 
 and by a constant contraction of the sphere 
 of freedom of contract, and especially 
 freedom of exchange. 
 
 And yet, here again, ideal socialism not 
 merely underrates or ignores, but seeks to 
 repress and destroy this vital principle. 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 39 
 
 The very essence of socialism is the abolition 
 of exchange. So far is this idea pushed, 
 and so complete is this abolition to be made, 
 that the use of any form of money is to 
 be abandoned, and production and distribu- 
 tion alike are to be determined, not by 
 contract, by bargain, by exchange, but by 
 authority. 
 
 Socialism and Liberty 
 
 The substitution of authority for freedom 
 of contract deserves a closer examination 
 with respect to labour, taking the term in 
 its widest sense, for expressed in other 
 words it involves the whole question of 
 personal liberty. Industrial liberty is only 
 part of that larger liberty which through 
 centuries has been the motive power of 
 
 u 
 
40 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 human progress, and in this island to a 
 greater extent than in any other portion 
 of the earth. Industrial liberty has ad- 
 vanced side by side with the destruction of 
 political inequality, of religious intolerance, 
 and of all kinds of antiquated laws and 
 customs founded on privilege and prejudice. 
 There is no great deed in our history in 
 which the love of liberty did not bear a 
 prominent part, and there is not one of our 
 great poets who has not sung the praises 
 of liberty. Liberty is the only justification, 
 universally recognised by moralists and 
 historians, of war, and the justification ex- 
 tends even to civil war ; and it is through 
 the wars and the civil wars of our fore- 
 fathers that we are enabled to look upon 
 liberty as the natural and inalienable in- 
 heritance of the race. 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 41 
 
 Now consider the attitude of socialism 
 to liberty. Under the ideal of state 
 socialism every one is to be compelled to 
 labour, just as, under the present system, 
 with few exceptions, every one capable of 
 it does labour ; the difference is that neither 
 the task nor the wages will be a matter of ^ 
 choice or stipulation. But this is neither 
 more nor less than a system of forced 
 labour, and the best way to realise the 
 nature of such a system is to call it by its 
 proper name, and that is slavery. Slavery, 
 like taxation, is not an attractive word, and 
 to us is only suggestive of negroes and 
 sugar-plantations, and perhaps it may be 
 thought, as the socialists will be of a different 
 colour, and have different occupations, they 
 cannot properly be called slaves. Let us 
 suppose then — for the absence of liberty 
 
42 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 is certainly slavery of some kind — ^that the 
 correct analogue of ideal socialism is not 
 negro slavery, but one of those milder forms 
 that prevailed in some of the nations of 
 antiquity. In Greece and Eome not only 
 was practically all industry carried on by 
 slaves, but many slaves received the highest 
 education in art, philosophy, and literature. 
 Not only were they more valuable in con- 
 sequence, but they often obtained the 
 friendship of their masters. It is possible 
 that, on the whole, domestic slavery yielded 
 a very fair amount of happiness; it is certain 
 that slaves often attained the highest moral 
 dignity. Eecall the instance given by the 
 Koman historian of the slave who, when 
 soldiers came to kill his master, boldly re- 
 plied, " I am the man," and was slain forth- 
 with. There you have a kind of altruism 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 43 
 
 which was well immortalised as a " noble 
 lie." 
 
 But do you think that any strength of 
 imagination, or any persuasiveness of words, 
 could induce a people who had felt the 
 benefits and the manliness of liberty again 
 to submit to slavery in any shape or form ? 
 Do you think it would reconcile them if 
 their masters were to be a central assembly 
 elected by themselves, with committees and 
 sub-committees ad infinitum until we reach 
 the state-bailifis, overseers, and managers 
 chosen, we will suppose, by competitive 
 examination ? 
 
 The opposition between real progress 
 and ideal socialism on this question of 
 liberty cannot be shown by one example, or 
 even by many. It is an opposition that is 
 marked throughout. Slavery, large as it 
 
44 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 looms before us, is but one example. 
 Liberty is as essential to the reason as to 
 the spirit of mankind. Every revolution 
 in science, every radical invention in 
 mechanical appliances, has, in the past, 
 been opposed by some form of authority, 
 if it be only that most deceptive but most 
 oppressive of all — public opinion. 
 
 The progress of this century, whether in 
 science or in industry, could never have 
 been achieved but for the obstinate persist- 
 ence of individuals against received and 
 popular opinions. The introduction of rail- 
 ways and of machinery generally was 
 assailed as fiercely as later on the Darwinian 
 theory. Under the new socialistic regime 
 how would the man be regarded by the 
 authorities — for you cannot have the 
 singular without the plural — who showed 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 45 
 
 that the labour of skilled workers might be 
 dispensed with by some radical invention ? 
 Are these labourers alone to benefit ? And 
 if not, how is the fair share of the relief to 
 be distributed throughout the nation ? The 
 truth is, that authority must work by 
 routine, and if you upset the routine you 
 upset the authority. 
 
 I must ask your indulgence for this 
 extremely brief and inadequate treatment 
 of a vital part of the question, but in every 
 argument we must be allowed to take some- 
 thing for granted, and pass over lightly 
 what is generally admitted. And in the 
 middle of England, on the eve of the 
 twentieth century, it is hardly necessary to 
 do more than recall the incalculable benefits 
 of freedom, with which the greatest names 
 in our history and literature are associated. 
 
46 historical progress and 
 
 Socialism and Security 
 
 There is perhaps only one other contrast 
 between the real and the ideal which can 
 fitly claim attention after those already 
 noticed. If we were to try to express in 
 one word the opposing principle in man- 
 kind to the struggle for existence in 
 animals, the word best adapted is security — 
 security for life person and property for 
 one's self, and corresponding respect for the 
 persons and wealth of others. Shake 
 security, introduce the discord of the 
 natural savage state, and industrial pro- 
 gress ceases ; shatter security, and industry 
 itself vanishes. 
 
 It is not necessary, for the purpose in 
 hand, even to indicate how the absolute 
 necessity of security to industrial progress 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 47 
 
 has been shown through the whole course 
 of history, because it is contended that here 
 at least the ideal corresponds with or even 
 transcends the real. Are we not told that 
 the very object of socialism is to put an 
 end to co'inpetition and every other survival 
 in man of the struggle for existence, and 
 thus, if security is the opposite of this 
 struggle, to increase security ? The objec- 
 tion is plausible, but there are two con- 
 clusive answers. Let us grant that, once 
 established, socialism, like other forms of 
 government, would enforce security of some 
 kind. But the vital question is, Of what 
 kind? 
 
 There is a species of security that is 
 afforded even by despotism ; most republics 
 have at times been obliged to choose a 
 dictator. Custom also, which in unde- 
 
48 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 veloped countries is more generarand more 
 powerful than law, affords a species of 
 security that renders it possible to attain a 
 certain standard of industrial prosperity. 
 But the security that distinguishes the 
 nations that have taken the lead in indus- 
 trial progress is not the security of despot- 
 ism or of custom; it is not the security of en- 
 forced obedience, but the security of liberty;, 
 
 It is, however, too large an assumption 
 to suppose that socialism is established. 
 We must consider the effects on security in 
 the period of transition from the present to 
 the, future system. 
 
 Now, for all its fair name, the road to 
 socialism lies through anarchy. It is easy 
 to speak of the state taking possession of 
 all the land and capital of a country. The 
 land of a country — even a country like 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 49 
 
 this — is held directly and indirectly by a 
 large number of people ; besides the nominal 
 owners there are all sorts of interests. 
 What is true of land is still more true of 
 capital. Does any one suppose that the 
 present owners will submit, without a 
 struggle, to surrender their wealth to an 
 assembly, constituted in any way you 
 choose, simply because it calls itself the 
 State ? Thirty years ago the most advanced 
 country in the world was plunged in civil 
 war, simply because some of its component 
 states would not surrender the ownership 
 of their living capital. And only a few 
 days ago the United States seemed to be 
 threatened with a still worse civil war, 
 because labour had taken only the first step 
 towards the seizure or management of one 
 form of dead capital. 
 
50 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 In socialism, as in other things, it is true 
 that extremes meet, and the extreme that 
 socialism meets is anarchy. 
 
 Other Points op Contrast 
 
 The great principles I have brought 
 under your notice are more than sufficient 
 to show that socialism is not only undesir- 
 able but impossible. It would, however, 
 be easy to extend the points of contrast 
 between the real and its ideal counterpart. 
 
 The same reasoning which was applied 
 to personal liberty might mutatis mutandis 
 be applied to private property. The insti- 
 tution of private property, as it at present 
 exists in the most civilised communities, is 
 a remarkable instance of the substitution of 
 individual for common ownership. It would 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 51 
 
 be absurd to attempt to compress a whole 
 literature into a few sentences, and I shall 
 only notice one broad feature of this mode 
 of industrial progress. This disintegration 
 of the tribal, the village, or the family com- 
 munion of property was not due to the 
 deliberate action of skilful and far-seeing 
 legislators. The process began whilst law 
 in its modern sense was in its infancy and 
 utterly incapable of such an effort. It was 
 coincident with the gradual assertion of 
 the rights, the powers, and the interests of 
 the individual. Legislation, when it be- 
 came really effective, either recognised and 
 assisted the movement, or else the laws 
 were evaded until they were reformed. In 
 England agrarian serfdom and cultivation 
 in common were broken down in the middle 
 ages by natural economic forces. In Ger- 
 
52 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 many the separation of the noble land and 
 the peasant land only took place in the 
 present century, but the action of Govern- 
 ment was forced by circumstances. I must 
 not, however, be led aside into details, 
 though the details are of such magnitude 
 as to form the basis of the social history of 
 nations. For the present purpose it is 
 sufficient to notice that the substitution of 
 collective for individual ownership is not 
 simply to introduce one set of laws in place 
 of another, but to run counter to the whole 
 course of industrial progress in which legis- 
 lation has been only one and not the most 
 important factor. 
 
 Again, with reference to the limitation 
 of governmental interferences, we might 
 prove by a multitude of examples that, not 
 of choice but of necessity, governments 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 53 
 
 have been forced to abandon, to contract 
 large spheres of their former control partly 
 because their energies were unequal to the 
 task of keeping pace with the progress of 
 mankind, and partly because the burden of 
 their necessary functions had increased. 
 And even at the present day the most 
 advanced nations, in spite of the contrac- 
 tion of the sphere of imperative law and 
 the devolution of governmental powers, 
 cannot overtake the legislation that on all 
 sides is admitted to be necessary. 
 
 And yet socialism proposes to throw on 
 Governments — on representative Govern- 
 ments, which cannot do the work they 
 ought to do — work, such as the regulation 
 of wages and employment, which the history 
 of civilisation shows they cannot do. 
 
 If these and other points of contrast 
 
54 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 have been omitted, it is simply because the 
 wealth of material is so great that it was 
 necessary to make a choice. Socialism 
 avowedly wishes to make an end of the 
 present system, and as the present system 
 is unquestionably the outcome of the 
 growth of centuries, it is inevitable that on 
 nearly all points of importance the ideal of 
 the future should be opposed to the real of 
 the past. 
 
 I have confined myself to a general 
 treatment of the question because any real 
 danger that there is in socialism lies, not in 
 definite proposals — for they are constantly 
 shifting and changing — but in the pro- 
 pagandism of principles opposed to all 
 history amongst those who know no history 
 whatever. 
 
 Nothing is more easy and more attract- 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 55 
 
 ive than gradually to increase the expendi- 
 ture of the State on public schemes of all 
 sorts, and nothing is more difficult and 
 more distasteful than to retrace the steps. 
 Nothing is more natural than that a ma- 
 jority should seek to coerce a minority, 
 and to call in the aid of Government. The 
 trade unions at present are rapidly ad- 
 vancing in the direction of asking for, and 
 possibly acquiring, those monopolistic powers 
 which destroyed the guilds. But if they 
 attain these powers, before they are content 
 to part with them trade unions may no 
 longer be necessary, because there is no 
 trade. And especially as regards security, 
 destruction is easy and reconstruction most 
 difficult. Only consider what happens in 
 a commercial crisis when a single great 
 firm cannot meet its liabilities. Look at 
 
56 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 the liquidations that are still going on in 
 consequence of the Baring crisis. Nothing 
 is more sensitive than credit in all its forms 
 and branches. The whole system is the 
 result of centuries of growth, of slow, tenta- 
 tive processes, of experiments and failures. 
 
 There is not in the animal world any- 
 thing more wonderful than the development 
 of the present credit organisation of the 
 commercial world. And to destroy this 
 system would have the same effect as 
 taking the nerves out of a living man. 
 
 Socialism and all the Virtues 
 
 The question, however, may be asked. 
 If ideal socialism resolves itself into all- 
 absorbing taxation and practical slavery, 
 and if the road to its achievement lies 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 57 
 
 through anarchy, how do you account for 
 the large following it has obtained ? The 
 answer, I conceive, is that the largeness of 
 the following depends mainly upon the 
 largeness in the interpretation of the word. 
 Socialism claims for itself not only all the 
 land and all the capital, but all the aspira- 
 tions and all the virtues in the State. Every 
 man with a spark of enthusiasm or philan- 
 thropy, if not a pure socialist, is a mixed 
 socialist, or at any rate he is credited with 
 socialist leanings. Does a man believe in 
 Christian charity? He is a Christian 
 socialist. In the religion of humanity? 
 An agnostic socialist. In the democracy? 
 A social democrat. Then you have the 
 utilitarian socialists, with their greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number ; the 
 labour socialists who want a living wage; 
 
S8 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 the revolutionary Socialists who long for the 
 death of the present system, embracing the 
 anarchist who is ready to bring it about 
 quickly by violence, and the Fabian who 
 patiently waits for suicide or death by 
 natural causes ; and, to summarise more 
 rapidly, any one who approves of poor 
 relief, or protection of children, or State 
 education, or factory acts, in short, any one 
 who looks to Government to do anything 
 for the public good is set down as a 
 socialist, or as one with leanings. In the 
 enumeration of the socialist census the 
 landlords and capitalists are, of course, left 
 out as being prejudiced; and when the 
 numbers are complete there remain on the 
 other side a few malefactors, and the pro- 
 fessors of orthodox political economy. 
 
 But in all seriousness, it is time to 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 59 
 
 protest against the preposterous notion 
 that every reform in the interests of the 
 masses or of the nation is an example of the 
 socialistic tendencies of the age. The tend- 
 encies of this, as of every other age, are 
 partly for good and partly for evil, and in 
 both respects their roots stretch far into 
 the past and into widely distant regions — 
 the forests of Germany, the hills of Rome, 
 and the acres of Palestine. The question 
 the socialist ought to dare to answer is this : 
 Does socialism mean reform, or does it 
 mean revolution ? It cannot mean both. 
 Do you .propose in the style of a Eobes- 
 pierre to confiscate the land itself, or in 
 the style of a John Bright to reform the 
 land laws ? You cannot at the same time 
 wear on the same head the red cap of 
 anarchy and the broad brim of the Quaker, 
 
6o HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 though you may indeed change your head- 
 gear according to your company. 
 
 It is time to protest also against the, 
 equally false idea that the political economy 
 of Adam Smith and his successors consists 
 of one maxim for the Government — "Do 
 nothing," and of another for the governed — 
 " Be selfish." No economist ever said, " Be 
 selfish," — ^least of all Adam Smith. This 
 same Adam Smith wrote a great work on 
 moral philosophy called The, Theory of 
 Moral Sentiments. And what do you 
 suppose is the ethical standard, the test 
 of good conduct, set up by this supposed 
 teacher of pure selfishness ? It is this — 
 in his own words : " Those passions of 
 human nature are to be approved of when 
 the heart of every impartial spectator 
 entirely sympathises with them, when every 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 6i 
 
 indifferent bystander entirely enters into 
 and goes along with them." In a word, 
 the kernel of this elaborate system of 
 morality is not selfishness, but sympathy. 
 A strange contrast this to the moral senti- 
 ments of those leaders of the working 
 classes who tell them they must make the 
 public feel their power, must make the 
 public suffer — the public, for the most part, 
 being the wives and children of other 
 workers. 
 
 Equally false is the " do nothing " maxim 
 ascribed to political economists as the sole 
 guide for governments. Because the social- 
 ists wish the State to do everything, they 
 suppose or assert that we wish the State 
 to do nothing. But it is certainly not 
 those who find the great forces of industrial 
 progress in security, liberty, and freedom of 
 
62 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 contract who propose to break the con- 
 tinuity of social life by burning the statute 
 book and destroying' the constitutional 
 powers of the various branches of adminis- 
 tration. Nor do we suppose— if I may 
 speak in their names — that the old laws 
 and the old powers are sufficient for every 
 emergency. Security and liberty are con- 
 stantly being threatened by new forms of 
 disorder, and new forms of crime demand 
 new penalties. 
 
 And further, the growth of knowledge 
 and of industry opens up new possibilities 
 for the beneficial action of the State and 
 the municipalities, and even imposes on 
 them new duties. 
 
ideal socialism 63 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 But herein lies the difference. When 
 the whole course of history shows that the 
 recognised functions of the State are more 
 than sufficient for the limited capacities of 
 governments, we protest against the as- 
 sumption of burdens which long ago they 
 have been forced to throw aside — the 
 direction of capital, the management of 
 land, and the regulation of wages. 
 
 Let me again invite your attention to 
 the permanence of the individual type, 
 taking the average of a nation, relatively to 
 the tremendous changes that take place in 
 a comparatively short period, measured by 
 historical and not geological time, in in- 
 dustrial organisation and productive power. 
 The feelings and passions are renewed with 
 
64 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 every generation ; even the intellectual 
 capacities remain as limited as the physical 
 powers ; in other words, it is only knowledge 
 that is accumulated, and not reason that 
 is sharpened. 
 
 It follows, then, that any scheme of 
 government, any proposal for revolution 
 which really assumes that the human nature 
 of the governed and that the capacities of 
 the governors have suddenly changed in- 
 definitely, is pre-doomed to failure. 
 
 And that is the vital mistake of socialism; 
 for it is only possible on the assumption 
 that the masses of the people suddenly 
 become hy nature infinitely more dis- 
 interested, and those placed in authority 
 infinitely more wise and prudent. 
 
 The root of socialism is to be found in 
 a false scientific method, and unless the 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 65 
 
 method be exposed and the root destroyed, 
 it is useless to cut off the leaves and 
 branches ; they will spring up again in a 
 day under the heat of imagination and 
 enthusiasm. The falseness of the method 
 lies in the neglect of the actual industrial 
 development of mankind. It is true that 
 the socialists refer to history, but it is that 
 kind of history which consists in the search 
 for illustrations of preconceived opinions 
 and ideas. It is precisely analogous to the 
 history which supported the theory of a 
 social compact. The philosophers of the 
 eighteenth century professed to explain the 
 nature of political societies by asserting 
 that on an early day, in a far-off place, the 
 people had made a general agreement with 
 one another ; in the interests of peace and 
 prosperity they had contracted themselves 
 
66 HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND 
 
 out of certain natural, rights and agreed to 
 submit to Government. The only history- 
 brought forward in support of this theory 
 was a species of natural history; it seemed 
 natural that men should have made such a 
 contract, and therefore they did make it. 
 But as soon as history, founded on actual 
 facts, was applied to this theory it became 
 so nebulous and confused that the difficulty 
 was to put it in a form that would admit of 
 disproof; even to comprehend it was like 
 grasping a mist with the hands. 
 
 The socialism of the nineteenth century 
 has taken the place of the social contract of 
 the eighteenth, with this difference, that it 
 seeks to foretell the future instead of ex- 
 plaining the past. The socialists suppose 
 that at some indefinite time the people will 
 again meet in a national assembly and tear 
 
IDEAL SOCIALISM 67 
 
 up the old contract, and frame a new one 
 according to the principles of natural justice. 
 The attempt may be made, as it was a 
 hundred years ago, but that it will succeed 
 is against the teaching of history. The 
 social contract of the future is as nebulous 
 and unreal as the social contract of the past. 
 Not that the ideal must be altogether limited 
 by the real, for that would be to destroy all 
 progress ; but you cannot place a great gulf 
 between the past and the future, for that 
 would be to destroy the present, and you 
 cannot build up an ideal that will endure 
 except on the foundations of the real. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed iy R. & R. Clark, Edinlmrgh. 
 
WOEKS ON ECONOMICS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 ADAM & CHAKLES BLACK 
 
PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 BY 
 
 J. Shield Nicholson, M.A., D.Sc. 
 Professor of Political Economy in the University of Edi/iihurgh. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I.— PEODUCTION 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Utility 23 
 
 II. Production . ■ . . 32 
 
 III. Consumption ... 48 
 
 IV. Nature 66 
 
 V. Labour 72 
 
 VI. Capital 87 
 
 VII. Division of Laljonr 104 
 
 VIII. Production on a Large and Production on a Small Scale . 122 
 
 IX. Large and Small Farming . . . . . . 138 
 
 X. The Law of Diminishing Eeturn and the Law of In- 
 creasing Return 151 
 
 XI. The Principle of Population . . . . 175 
 
 XII. The Growth of Material Capital 197 
 
 BOOK II.— DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 L The Distribution of Wealth . . . . 219 
 II. The Institution of Private Property . . . .235 
 
 III. Bequest and Inheritance 249 
 
 IV. Property in Land and Compensation for Expropriation . 256 
 V. Competition and Custom 268 
 
 VI. Custom and Village Communities ... . 272 
 
 VIL Feudalism 290 
 
 VIII. Modem Ownership of Land and Industrial Freedom . 307 
 
 IX. Contracts for the Hire of Land 314 
 
 X. Wages and Theories of Wages .'.... 324 
 
 XI. Relative Wages 348 
 
 XIL The Effects of Law and Custom on Wages . . .357 
 
 XIIL Profits .... 388 
 
 XIV. Economic Bent 402 
 
 XV. Economic History and Economic Utopias . . . 424 
 
 Index . . . . . 435 
 
PBESS NOTICES 
 
 OF 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 Vol. I. 
 
 "We have, however, found much acute and trenchant criticism 
 of Mill's and other doctrines, a great deal of valuable information, 
 and full consideration of the claims of economic history." — Specbker. 
 
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 will be helpful to students, and interesting to the general reader." 
 — Westminster Gazette. 
 
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 is destined to attain a wide circulation, and to exercise consider- 
 able influence, and that it will occupy a place in contemporary 
 economic literature as deservedly high as it promises to be emin- 
 ently useful." — The Economic Journal. 
 
 " It is undoubtedly an important contribution to the systematic 
 study of Political Economy, alike in its historical and in its more 
 speculative aspects." — The Times. 
 
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 on all fundamental questions." — Literary World. 
 
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 general reader, who wishes to find a clear and judicious guide in 
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 gives more emphasis to what is really important in the science, 
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 to reach the directness and systematic fulness of the other (Pro- 
 fessor Marshall), he avoids his fault of using a mass of technical 
 phraseology and almost pedantic detail. The consequence is he is 
 more readable than either. " — Scotsmam. 
 
A TREATISE ON MONEY 
 
 AND 
 
 ESSAYS ON MONETARY PROBLEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 J. Shield Nicholson, M.A., D.Sc. 
 
 Professor ofPoUticcd Economy in tTie University of Edvriburgh. 
 Author of ' PriTWiples of Political Economy. ' 
 
 Eevlsea and Enlarged Edition. Crown 8vo. Price 7s. 6d. 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAET I.— A TREATISE ON MONEY 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Difficulties in tlie Study and Practical Importance of tlie Subject . 3 
 
 II. Functions of Money ...... 14 
 
 III. Material Money and Requisites of Good Coinage . . 34 
 
 IV. Gresliain's Law and Token Coins . . . . 43 
 V. The Quantity of Money and General Prices ... 54 
 
 VI. Effects of Credit or " Representative Money " on Prices . . 72 
 
 VII. Influence on tlie General Level of Prices in auy one Country of 
 
 tlie General Level of Prices in other Countries . . .85 
 
 VIII. Eifects on General Prices of the use of both Gold and Silver as 
 
 Standard Money . .... 92 
 
 PART II.— ESSAYS ON PRESENT MONETARY PROBLEMS. 
 
 I. John Law of Lauriston : and the Greatest Speculative Mania on 
 
 Record . . .... 109 
 
 II. One-pound Notes for England ..... 152 
 
 III. The Effects of Great Discoveries of the Precious Metals . 165 
 
 IV. Bi-metallism both Advantageous and Practicable . . . 190 
 V. The Morality of Bi-metallism ...... 220 
 
 VI. Stability of the Fixed Ratio between Gold and Silver under Inter- 
 national Bi-metallism . . . . . . 247 
 
 VII. The Measurement of Variations in the Value of the Monetary 
 
 Standard .... ... 256 
 
 VIII. Causes of Movements in General Prices . . . 286 
 
 IX. Mr. Giffen's Attack on Bi-metallists . . . . .324 
 
 X. Mr. Alfred de Rothschild's Proposal to the Monetary Conferences 342 
 
 XI. The Missing Link between Gold and Silver . . . ,. 348 
 
 XII. The Living Capital of the United Kingdom . . 354 
 
 XIII. Capital and Labour : their Relative Strength . . 874 
 
 XIV. The Indian Currency Experiment . . 394 
 
PRESS NOTICES 
 
 OF 
 
 A TREATISE ON MONEY 
 
 AND 
 
 ESSAYS ON MONETARY PROBLEMS 
 
 "It is superfluous to say that throughout Professor Nicholson 
 writes with a mastery of facts and of style. He is never diffuse, 
 and never pedantic ; his conclusions, right or wrong, are made 
 availahle to all, and the grounds on which they are based are put 
 within the grasp of the least instructed reader." — Economic Beview. 
 
 "Never perhaps have the essential principles of currency been 
 set forth in a shape so free from technical detail, and yet without 
 any sacrifice of scientific precision." — Mconomic Jourrial, 
 
 "Well worthy of the attention of all students in this line of 
 investigation. " — Scotsman. 
 
 "Nowhere that we remember can the lay mind find so succinct 
 and capable a statement of the main facts of monetary science," — 
 Freeman's Journal, 
 
 " The subjects are well handled, and the book is calculated to 
 be of great service to the student of political economy." — Manchester 
 Examiner. 
 
 "For such a volume there can be nothing but praise." — 
 Nottingham, Guardian. 
 
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 currency finds itself at present, the guidance of a clear-headed man 
 is of great value, and this is certainly found in the present writer." 
 — North British Economist. 
 
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 extended scope ; in the first place, because it breaks grpund practi- 
 cally unoccupied by any similar work ; in the second, on account 
 of its clear and straightforward treatment of the questions brought 
 under review." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
A HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN KELLS INGRAM, LL.D. 
 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Olotli. Price 6s. 
 
 " He has succeeded in compressing into a relatively small space tlie 
 results of wide reading, and succeeded in tlie far more unusual feat 
 of doing so in a particularly interesting manner. , . . Modern 
 economical literature has been enriched and its prospects appreciably 
 advanced by the publication of this scholarly work." — Athencemn. 
 
 "Professor Ingram writes in a bright and polished style, which, 
 when the nature of the subject is considered, renders his book a 
 singularly easy and pleasant one to read. " — Dublin Express. 
 
 "Dr. Ingram has made a most valuable contribution to the 
 literature of science by the publication of ' A History, of Political 
 Economy.' " — Liverpool Post. 
 
 " It is a real pleasure to read Dr. Ingram's pages. He is a man 
 who has made a vast accumulation of knowledge, but is not an 
 author who is driven by literary acquisitions into the parched and 
 arid plains of pedantry. Knowledge with him has drawn into life 
 that mysterious energy of intellect which elevates man to higher 
 conceptions. and loftier platforms of thought. Sensuous phenomena 
 may suggest, but cannot constitute these. It is, as we may call it, 
 this luciferous power of mental application which sustains men 
 like Adam Smith in their flights from earthly to celestial eminences. 
 Smith lived befere his day, and therefore incurred the customary 
 penalty of obloquy. It is the dust which the great man's chariot 
 uprears as it sweeps forward on the path of progress. Wisdom is 
 justified of her children, and the vindication of such men arrives 
 sooner or later. Society marches majestically onwards towards the 
 progress designed by its Divine Founder. There is fi-om age to 
 age an ever-growing accumulation of ideas. Each generation avails 
 itself of the approximations towards truth achieved by its pre- 
 decessors, and as long as the human mind is framed as it is we may 
 reckon on the perpetuity of a movement which increases in in- 
 tensity as civilisation advances. It must always be accounted as 
 one of the functions of genius to render correct the'orising the 
 efficient cause of improved practice. " — Irish Times. 
 
A HISTORY OF SOCIALISM 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS KIEKUP 
 
 In Grown Svo. 300 pages. Price 6s. 
 
 "So fair, so learned, and so well written, that we have nothing 
 but praise for its author." — Athenceum. 
 
 "Ho better book for the purpose has come under our notice than 
 Mr. Kirkup's new work, ' A History of Socialism. ' " — The World. 
 
 "This bold and luminous outline displays an uncommon grasp 
 of the underlying principles of a movement which is rapidly be- 
 ginning to play a great part in modern society." — Standard. 
 
 "A very valuable and useful epitome." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " It is a work of true value and present importance. " — Evening 
 News and Post. 
 
 "Well written, clear, tolerant, intelligible to all cultivated 
 people. " — Daily Chroniele. 
 
 "Should be on the shelves of every public library and every 
 working-men's club. " — Fall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "The tone of this able and opportune volume is at once sym- 
 pathetic, independent, and fearless."- — Leeds Mercury. 
 
 "Well worthy to remain the standard text-book on Socialism." 
 — British Weekly. 
 
 ' ' Marked by great candour and much independence of thought, 
 as well as by a wide knowledge of his subject." — Newcastle Leader. 
 
 "Practically indispensable to any one who wishes to acquire 
 an adequate grasp of the leading phases of historic socialism." — 
 Freeman's Journal. 
 
 "Sound, original work." — Aberdeen Free Press. 
 
 "Nothing could be more timely than Mr. Kirkup's very able 
 and lucid though concise 'History of Socialism.'" — Literary World. 
 
 ' ' Apropos of Socialism, I do not know where you will find a 
 more brilliant account or a more lucid criticism of this on-coming 
 movement than in Mr. Thomas Kirkup's 'History of Socialism.'" 
 —Truth. 
 
THE 
 
 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. 
 
 A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. 
 
 NINTH EDITION. 
 
 Contains articles by the following Economists : — 
 
 W, S. Jevons. 
 
 Thomas Kiekup, 
 
 J. Shield Nicholson. 
 
 T. B. Speagce. 
 
 Eight Hon. Leonaed H, Couetney. 
 
 Mrs. Fawcbtt. 
 
 Heney Sidgwick. 
 
 eobeet somees. 
 
 J. E. Thoeold Eogees. 
 
 E. "W. Beabeook. 
 J, K. Ingeam. 
 
 F, A. Walkek. 
 C. F. Bastable. 
 Prince Kegpotkine. 
 
 In 24 Volumes and Index. 
 
 Each volume is to he had in four parts, price Is. Qd. each. 
 
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