EDITOR'S TABLE. 



845 



the problem of the unemployed. It is 

 probably true, as hinted by Herbert 

 Spencer in the address delivered by him 

 in this city in the year 1882, that the 

 pace set by the stronger and more com- 

 petent members of the community is 

 faster than the weaker ones can keep 

 up with. " In the country of the blind 

 the one-eyed man is king," and many of 

 the " failures " of a civilized society 

 might be brilliant successes in a society 

 of a more primitive cast. So far as an 

 unrestrained use by the strong of their 

 superior abilities in competition for 

 wealth and all that it represents may 

 be an evil and that it is an evil Mr. 

 Spencer has again suggested in the last 

 volume of his Principles of Sociology 

 we can only hope to check it by pro- 

 moting the growth of higher moral and 

 social sentiments. This will, in any 

 case, take time ; but meantime we 

 should earnestly and sedulously consider 

 in what directions and to what extent 

 we are interfering with the operation of 

 those natural laws the tendency of 

 which is to produce a condition of 

 social equilibrium. We need to open 

 our eyes to the mischief we have done 

 by a crude political philosophy, by 

 unwise legislation, by indiscreet phi- 

 lanthropy, by the application of untried 

 abstract ideas to the regulation of social 

 questions. We need to awaken to a 

 sense of the extreme liability of the hu- 

 man intellect to go astray when it at- 

 tempts constructive work of any kind. 

 That things have gone wrong we have 

 the proof before our eyes, and where is 

 the chief blame to be laid if not on our 

 own short-sighted views and meddle- 

 some policies? 



It happened that just as we had 

 finished the above article the Fort- 

 nightly Review for February was placed 

 in our hands. The first article in the 

 number is one by Herbert Spencer upon 

 the late Prof. Tyndall ; the second is by 

 Goldwin Smith, and bears the title of 

 Oxford Revisited. From the first, which 



will be found entire elsewhere in this 

 number, we extract the following pass- 

 age: "A conversation with him [Tyndall] 

 some years since made it manifest that 

 personal experience had greatly shaken 

 his faith in pubhc administrations, and 

 made him look with more favor on the 

 view of state functions held by me. On 

 the other hand, my faith in free institu- 

 tions, originally strong (though always 

 joined with the belief that the mainte- 

 nance and success of them is a question 

 of national character), has in these later 

 years been greatly decreased by the 

 conviction that the fit character is not 

 possessed by any people, nor is likely to 

 be possessed for ages to come." 



From the second article we take the 

 following: "It may be said without 

 reference to university extension or to 

 any educational movement in particu- 

 lar, and it is to be hoped without in- 

 curring the charge of illiberality or ob- 

 scurantism that people will have present- 

 ly to consider the economical as well as 

 the intellectual effects of pressing on 

 everybody what is called high educa- 

 tion. The good founder of Cornell 

 University once confided to a friend his 

 hope that the day would come when 

 there would be five thousand students 

 in his institution. His friend replied 

 that if that day did come the institution, 

 instead of being a blessing, would be in 

 danger of being a curse, since there 

 would not be a market for anything like 

 such a number of graduates, and the 

 residue would be without suitable work, 

 unhappy, discontented, and probably 

 dangerous to the commonwealth." 



Whether we agree with these senti- 

 ments or not, let us ponder them. Of 

 both writers it may be said that they 

 are men of strong practical instincts. 



WHY BENEFICENCE SHOULD NOT BE 

 ENFORCED. 



IiST a criticism of Mr. Spencer's Prin- 

 ciples of Ethics in the January number 

 of Mind, Prof. S. Alexander asks a ques- 

 tion which, it seems to us, admits of an 



