In a trading community Economy, whether of production or distribution, is largely carried out by actions that are not deliberately planned with an eye to remote effects, but are spontaneous adjustments to immediate needs, with a neglect and (for very many human beings) a necessary neglect of the future consequences. The 'things' that ride mankind are its own immediate needs, and the consequences of not looking (or of being forbidden to look) beyond

these.

In fact, though elementary economics may seem far away from the concrete social problem, it might be argued that without a due appreciation thereof we should hardly understand how the social problem arises, or at least how 'things' come to ride mankind.' Mr. Mackenzie speaks truly of the principle of utilities' as one of the most fruitful conceptions ever introduced into economics (214). But he goes on to declare that the doctrine is not a psychological one, and that it could be applied to plants which have no feeling as well as to human beings who have' (215). A scale of utilities might quite well be drawn out for particular kinds of plants' (ib.). No doubt this would be so if the doctrine simply meant that, in all living creatures which depend on external supplies, there is a point where sufficiency passes into repletion, and where the endeavour after more' (since enough' has been furnished) passes into an avoidance or repulsion of further supplies. This is with other creatures an observed fact; but with ourselves it is something more. In human beings, especially in youthful ones, it is rather the feeling of satiety than the known sufficiency of supplies that stops the striving for more; and one of the difficulties in the human problem is that men are more foolish than any plants and most animals; they refuse to stop when (to the eye of the passionless spectator) they have evidently had enough. The expansiveness of human wants is a familiar fact to Mr. Mackenzie; yet he will not allow that it makes the table of utilities specifically different for plants and animals. Such a table as that of Professor Menger takes account of this quality of human wants; and such a table, too, by no means falls under the general condemnation directed by our author against the whole doctrine, that it leaves out of account the intrinsic importance of our wants (216). Of course the fact that man is a calculating animal should also not be forgotten; in economics it is perhaps the chief one to be remembered.

A dispassionate critic may add that utilitarians do not seem fairly chargeable with tending to favour present desires rather than ultimate ideals' (213). An economist (even when a utilitarian) considers man as a calculating animal, and calculation is surely an anticipation of the future, whether near or remote, and not an abandonment to present desires. And the critic may doubt whether Mr. Mackenzie's revised version of an old motto, 'pectus economicum facit,' should be allowed to bear his interpretation (50), namely, that a man's political economy has too often depended on his personal prejudices. No doubt this has happened

in economics as (by our author's admission) it has sometimes happened in philosophy (4). But the motto would more naturally mean that the true economist, like the true theologian, must be in earnest.

JAMES BONAR

Principles of State Interference. Four Essays on the Political Philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer, J. S. Mill, and T. H. Green. By D. G. RITCHIE, M.A. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1891.

THE three first essays in this volume were published some years ago in Time, and the fourth appeared in the Contemporary Review for June, 1887. The first treats of Mr. Spencer's individualism and his conception of society. The second, entitled the State versus Mr. Herbert Spencer, deals more directly with Mr. Spencer's theory of the functions of government. The third, entitled Individual Liberty and State Interference, is a criticism of the fundamental ideas of Mill's famous book on Liberty. The fourth and last aims at setting in a clearer light the political philosophy of the late Professor Green. In form, therefore, these essays are critical; but in criticising the theories of other writers, the author expounds his own theory. This theory has two aspects, speculative in so far as it deals with the nature of society, practical in so far as it seeks to determine the true scope of government. Since however, the essays are critical in form, it is as criticism that they should first be considered.

As a critic, especially as a negative critic, Mr. Ritchie is excellent. To unusual dialectical power he unites a singularly effective style, clear, forcible, pointed and lively. These merits are conspicuous in his examination of Mr. Spencer's doctrine. Mr. Ritchie shows convincingly enough that Mr. Spencer is not consistent with himself in his various applications of the idea of the social organism. He brings out the inconsistency of comparing the government of a political society with the nervous system of an animal, and then expecting the regulative power to dwindle as the animal develops. He enforces the anomaly of regarding all social phenomena save the action of government as the result of natural evolution. He proves satisfactorily that in some respects The social organism is not like any animal organism whatever.' 'The choice,' he observes, (p. 49) 'does not lie solely between "making" and "growing," and social organisms differ from other organisms in having the remarkable property of making themselves.' And many readers will be disposed to agree with him when he concludes that an appeal to the fact that society is an organism is no argument either for or against government interference in any given case.' One might go further, and say that the doctrine of the social organism is much more likely to be used in the interests of tyranny than of forbearance. A man regards his limbs as mere means to his

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well-being, and to secure his well-being will cut off a leg as readily as a Jacobin would guillotine a class.

Mr. Ritchie is not less successful in impugning certain abstractions which play a great part in Mill's book on Liberty. That none of our actions or feelings can be considered as purely self-regarding; that liberty in the negative sense of mere absence of restraint is a means rather than an end, that the action of the State may often promote the freedom of the individual by counterpoising other forces to which he is subjected, and that the propriety of its action must be judged chiefly with reference to the circumstances of each particular case-all these considerations are urged, not for the first time, but in a fresh and lively manner against the doctrine of government action or rather inaction as expounded by Mill. The positive tests of any contemplated action on the part of the State proposed at the end of this essay would probably be accepted by most reasonable persons, although they would doubtless apply them with very various results. In the fourth and last essay Mr. Ritchie defends the late Professor Green against the charge of philosophical reaction made in Pattison's autobiography. He shows that Green's political philosophy was quite as democratic as Mill's, and that Green's political opinions were consistent with his conception of society.

As regard the positive content of these essays many who at least partially accept the writer's speculative premises, will not be able to agree with his practical tendency. That the individual is not logically prior to society, that society as we know it was not the creation of individuals such as we know, that the relation between the individual and the society is not simply exclusive, that what is given to the one is not taken from the other, that the progress of society in some ways tends to strengthen government, and that a strong government is one of the conditions of liberty, all this may be admitted by many who do not share Mr. Ritchie's confidence in State action as the social panacea. Mr. Ritchie seems to us to forget that the State in the sense of the government is after all an inadequate representative of society. He seems to us to forget what after all is the cardinal fact of concrete politics; that all government has to be carried on by men, and that men, as Burns has observed, are unco' weak, and little to be trusted.' He seems to think that a popular government at all events may hold itself equal to any task. He says that the arguments against government action 'lose their force in proportion as government becomes more and more genuinely the government of the people by the people themselves' (p. 64). Government of the people by the people is a fine phrase, but it may mean no more than government by a chance majority or by the adventurers who manipulate that majority. Certainly our fast-growing experience of popular government does not tend to raise our opinion of its fitness to concentrate all powers and all duties in itself. Any one who considers the facts brought together in the first volume of M. Taine's new work, on the Modern Régime in

France, or the picture of American politics drawn by so able and eloquent an apologist as Mr. Bryce, or such data as are obtainable respecting colonial politics, will find that democratic majorities and democratic statesmen are as fallible as careless, and as easily corrupted as any of the ancient ruling powers. Indeed it is upon the experience of men and affairs,' not upon speculations about the nature of society, that the really strong arguments against giving governments too much power are to be based. It is a wholesome consciousness of human frailty which bids us not put much more trust in majorities of the House of Commons than in kings and nobles. It was a wise instinct which led nations like the Romans and the English, sagacious in practice, although perfunctory in theory, to confine the action of the State within limits which might not have contented the philosophers of Greece or Germany. These modern schemes for securing universal well-being by the action of the State are liable to the same flaw which proved fatal to the medieval scheme for securing universal salvation by the action of the Church. Only one thing was wanting to the medieval Church, and only one thing is wanting to Mr. Ritchie's democratic ideal: a breed of rulers perfect in wisdom and holiness. Whenever such a breed appears in this world, all the schools may burn their books of political philosophy.

In the meantime it is little better than a mockery to say that the most important and valuable right of a minority is the right to turn itself into a majority if it can' (p. 73). Could argument or entreaty have protected the weak against the strong, when misled by apparent interest or social prejudice or mere wanton insolence, there never would have been any oppression at all. For we may be quite sure that even in the darkest ages those who were ill-used, could have given very neat and forcible arguments why such ill-usage was foolish and wrong.

Nor do we quite agree with the inferences drawn by Mr. Ritchie from the political experience of Greece, interesting and valuable as that experience must ever be to civilised man. The Greek State was so much more like a public school or a regiment than a great nation, it was so small, so much under the influence of unquestioned usage and tradition, it was composed of individuals so boyish, although so highly gifted, it was compelled to make such constant efforts for a bare survival, that it necessarily became far more homogeneous than any great civilized State can be at the present day. There, if anywhere, the Government might have been fully trusted. Yet the Greek State was torn by constant feuds bred by the alternate injustice of the few and the many; and when the Greek citizen awoke to an inner life the Greek city died of exhaustion. The Greek State which or most of us conceals all others, the Athens of Pericles, so often quoted to show what blessings the action of the State confers upon individuals, might also be quoted to show the greatness of the benefits derived from even comparative freedom for individual energy.

The Athenian commonwealth at any rate was very different from any modern democracy. It was a mighty ruling corporation enriched by the labour of hundreds of thousands of slaves and the tribute of millions of subjects, a corporation which ensured to its members much unearned wealth, continuous political excitement, unbounded military glory, and a perpetual feast of artistic pleasure. How is a modern democracy to provide all these good things for forty, fifty, or sixty millions of people? Even if the socialist ideal were to be rigorously realized, it would secure to every citizen, not Persian trophies or Panathenæan feasts, but the privilege of spinning four hours a day in a State factory and a Bank holiday about once every month.

F. C. MONTAGUE

Problem of Poverty: An Inquiry into the Industrial Condition of the Poor. By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. Methuen and Co. (University Extension Series).

PURE economic theory has been hitherto more successful in treating the mechanics of wealth than the pathology of poverty. As we descend in the scale to the consideration of the effects on a low-paid industrial class of small changes in quantity or quality of income, or of particular modes of distribution and consumption we need a new method or at least a more powerful calculus. The few assumptions about human motives which do duty in the general theory of competition are insufficient and even misleading data for the determination of such problems as here confront us:--- such problems for example, the building up of the standard of living, the reaction on efficiency of changes in remuneration, or the effect of race characteristics and class loyalty on the features and effects of competition.

Accordingly a great amount of energy has been devoted of late years to the detailed and thorough study of contemporary industrial facts. At present this study is in its infancy. The results so far obtained are scattered up and down in various articles, monographs, reports, and blue books, or works of research as yet incomplete. What part these investigations will have in a future scientific reconstruction it is as yet too soon to say. The ground has only just been broken, and many provisional conclusions at present accepted are likely to be upset by future research. But many are convinced that it must be by this road that we shall attain, if at all, to a scientific view of the economics of poverty.

In the present half developed stage of investigation Mr. Hobson has attempted a bold task in trying to weld together the disjointed fragments of un-completed research into the compact form of a University extension manual. But whether or not the state of the science warrants the incorporation of its results in a teaching textbook, the author has certainly performed the task he has undertaken with great pains and ability.