India. The imagination was struck by the pictures which were presented of the cruelty of slave raids and the misery of the Atlantic passage, and the Movement for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was carried through with success, while there was also a new development of missionary enterprise. The aim of the founders of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had been to extend the Christian polity in the world, but the founders of the Church Missionary Society and Baptist Missionary Society were convinced that the dark places of the earth were the habitations of cruelty, and were inspired by a sense of pity for those who were personal sufferers. From the beginning of the century to the close there are signs of public spirit, and active beneficence, which was initiated by individuals, or bodies of individuals, who thus made up for the neglects of the State. III. THE PROSPERITY OF THE COMMUNITY When we consider the keen efforts which were made throughout the eighteenth century to stir up public spirit, and to rouse the sense of pity, and when we note the response which was made to these appeals, it seems extraordinary that so many twentieth-century writers should speak of the eighteenth century as if apathy and neglect were its chief characteristics. There is, however, some little excuse for this exaggeration when we consider material progress within the realm. In the view which was commonly taken of the pioneers in the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the adoption of improved husbandry instead of old methods of tillage was a benefit to the State; it added to the food supply and gave an opportunity for the growth of national wealth and national power. Looked at from the national standpoint it was a gain; and the incidental suffering which occurred in the march of progress did not receive the attention it deserved. Arthur Young was full of admiration of the improving landlords, who incurred great expenses to do away with the obstacles to better husbandry which were imposed by the system of common cultivation in common fields. It was only towards the close of his life that he came to realise that the revolution, which he had described with such enthusiasm, had tended to depress the rural labourer and leave him in a condition of hopeless poverty. He commended the change from the point of view of the material resources of the community, while the other side was not obvious. In a similar way it was felt that the men who had enterprise enough to open up new coalfields in Scotland by sinking their capital in mines, and providing the necessary equipment for carrying on the industry, were contributing to the material prosperity of the nation. They were regarded as public benefactors, and regarded themselves in that light; many of them felt no responsibility for the moral and religious welfare of the new population that had sprung up in connection with their enterprise. The parochial system, at any rate in Scotland, was unable to cope with the difficulties which arose in the congested districts, and there seems to have been an appalling neglect of the most elementary requirements of civilised life among the mining population. The assistant commissioner, who reported on the condition of Scottish mines, felt that he was making a new demand on the obligations of the mining companies and the land-owners, and feared that it might be necessary for the State to bring compulsion to bear upon them in regard to the condition of their dependents. "Let it not be imagined for a moment," he said, "that gentlemen who have shown such "enterprise and skill as is displayed at [Gart"sherry] have not deserved well of their country, “— all I strongly insist upon is that their own "interest, as well as those of the country, require "that a quota of this wealth shall be deemed due, "from the very first creation of a public work, to "be set apart for the religious and secular educa"tion of the population employed." 1 He regarded voluntary effort as inadequate and held that "Parliament must... provide for every member "of the State his birthright by the laws of Eng"land, instruction in the duties, the warnings, "the promises and the consolations of Chris"tianity; such instruction can be adequately and "regularly supplied only by making the cost of it "a necessary incident to all increase of property "which involves an increase of population. The capitalists were so clear that they were fulfilling their duty in promoting the wealth of the community that they felt no responsibility about their dependents. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there had been a contrast between the tradition of the landed interest in recognising public responsibilities, and the attitude of the moneyed interest in failing to acknowledge them. But as the century advanced and capital was invested in the improvement of agriculture and the development of mines, the capitalists' point of view was retained; they were satisfied with themselves for promoting the material progress of society as a whole, at the very time when a sense of pity for individuals and duty towards 1 Parliamentary Papers, Reports, 1842, xvi, 355. individuals was being more generally aroused. It is not true that the country was apathetic, but it is true that those who were devoting their wealth to promoting the material progress of the country were blinded by self-satisfaction, and failed to recognise the obligations they were incurring in regard to human lives. When we once realise that the indifference to the sufferings of the working classes, which characterised the early part of the nineteenth century, was not due to moral obliquity but to intellectual error, it becomes a warning for all time. It helps us to see how mischievous an intellectual error may become, and what danger may arise from mere confusion of thought. The men of that time identified the prosperity of the community with the prosperity of the individuals who composed it. English industry and commerce had grown extraordinarily in spite of the war, and it was not unnatural to assume that individuals must necessarily be prospering too. This assumption seemed to be a mere truism, so that the men of the time felt no call to look behind it, and rendered themselves incapable of attending to or interpreting the misery that was going on under their eyes. They regarded this as a transient phenomenon which would soon be outlived, and might there |