338 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is not imaginable but many other poor men also who habitually 

 hang on the authority of great men like himself. 



It was when Mr. Morley was so delicately heckled at New- 

 castle that a member of the Labor party deputation asked him 

 what he thought about the nationalization of the land. Mr. 

 Morley demurred. Mr. Laidler said the Labor party had its own 

 plan. " They remembered that Mr. Herbert Spencer had said that 

 the land had been taken by force and fraud ; that gentleman had 

 also said that to right one wrong it takes another." " Why," re- 

 plies Mr. Morley, " has he said this ? " " We all know he has/' 

 rejoins Mr. Laidler. "But you are aware that he has recalled 

 some of the things he has laid down ? " " Yes," rejoins Mr. 

 Laidler ; " but if he has stated truth and recalled it the truth will 

 prevail." There we are. This little bit of conversation is pre- 

 cious beyond many pages of "absolute political ethics," judged 

 by the standard of usefulness ; and it will be useful to nobody so 

 much as to writers like Mr. Herbert Spencer. 



For what has he to say to it all ? He says that the opinions 

 quoted by Mr. Laidler were set forth forty years ago in a work 

 " intended to be a system of absolute political ethics ; or that 

 which ought to be, as distinguished from relative political ethics, 

 or that which is at present the nearest practical approach to it." 

 These opinions were accompanied by others which forbid the 

 interpretation sometimes put upon them. But yet, on reflection, 

 they satisfied Mr. Spencer so little, he thought them so little 

 guarded or corrected by those other opinions of his, that for the 

 last fifteen years he has not allowed the book that contained them 

 to appear in any language. " Though I still adhere to its general 

 principles, I dissent from some of the deductions" those, per- 

 haps, which Mr. Laidler regards as truth once uttered and never 

 to be recalled. Besides, what Mr. Spencer said on this subject 

 " was said in the belief that the questions raised were not likely 

 to come to the front in our time or for many generations " ; and 

 it did include the statement that, if the community took the land, 

 the necessary business of compensation would be a complicated 

 one. " To justly estimate and liquidate the claims " of our pres- 

 ent land-owners " is one of the most intricate problems society one 

 day will have to solve." Since " Social Statics " was published, 

 however, Mr. Spencer has come to revised conclusions; and these 

 he now sets forth in " The Times." Permit me to quote a few 

 sentences from this statement : 



Though industrialism has thus far tended to individualize possession of land, 

 while individualizing all other possessions, it may be doubted whether the final 

 stage is at present reached. Ownership established by force does not stand on the 

 same footing as ownership established by contract; and though multiplied sales 

 and purchases treating the two ownerships in the same way have tacitly assimi- 



