SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 705 



the immediate cause for the improvement in quantity and quality of pro- 

 ductions is competition." 



Mr. Spencer regards the development of a sound and convenient medium 

 of exchange as a condition essential to that integration of industries which 

 has everywhere accompanied the differentiation of industrial functions. 

 The idea that each local community must be autonomous and self-support- 

 ing, peculiar to early societies and in harmony with their prevailing mili- 

 tancy, must give way as production increases and the means of distribution 

 are developed. These advances are dependent on an acceptable medium of 

 exchange. " With a good monetary system the resistance to exchange 

 disappears; relative values of things can be measured; current prices can 

 be recognized; and thus arises competition, with all the cheapenings, 

 stimulations, and improvements resulting from it." A debased currency 

 tends to limit exchanges to the community which employs it; witness the 

 innumerable disastrous experiments with irredeemable paper money. " A 

 developed and differentiated currency furthers production and raises the 

 rate of distribution," thus aiding in the integration of society. Mr. Spencer's 

 conclusions confirm the teachings of political economists, and will commend 

 themselves to all who believe in sound and progressive financial methods. 



All these processes of industrial evolution tend to raise man out of the 

 static independence of the savage state into that higher realm of interde- 

 pendence and mutual service which is his noble prerogative as a social 

 being. By them labor is organized and regulated. Its early regulation 

 implies either actual or potential coercion, at first effected by combined re- 

 ligious, governmental, and industrial control. These functions are gradu- 

 ally differentiated as social evolution proceeds. Emancipation from coercion 

 is conditioned upon the higher development of character in the worker. 

 Patriarchal regulation, communal regulation, and slavery were necessary 

 steps in industrial progress, leading to the modern system of free labor 

 under contract. 



The place of the craft-guilds in industrial evolution is treated most sug- 

 gestively. Their universal prevalence, their normal development in a 

 militant society as substitutes for the original family groups, their impor- 

 tant bearing on the evolution of the political franchise, are admirably ex- 

 pounded. It is shown, however, that the "free man" of the industrial 

 guild was free only in a qualified sense. He was subject to many restric- 

 tions imposed both by the guild and by the government of the countiy. 

 The modern trade union, while not a lineal descendant of the craft-guild, is 

 the product of similar social conditions, and is akin to it in nature; militant 

 in its structure and often tyrannical in its oppression of the individvial 

 worker. The fruitlessness of the attempt to benefit the worker by artificial 

 efforts to raise the rate of wages is clearly shown. Natural law is stronger 

 than artificial regulations. "Protected industries do not prosper." Yet 

 Mr. Spencer recognizes the fact that trade organizations are natural to the 

 passing stage of social evolution, and may have beneficial functions under 

 existing conditions. Employers are more ready to raise wages when trade 

 is fiourishing than they would be without the menace of combined labor. 

 They treat the laborer with more respect. They are led to study the con- 

 venience of the men, and look after their health and comfort. The disci- 

 pline of the organization also helps to prepare the men for the higher 

 social and industrial conditions which will probably arise. 



VOL. L. 54 



