342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In Ireland confiscation is justified by the appeal to wrongs in- 

 flicted a century ago ; in England the theorems of " absolute 

 political ethics " are in danger of being employed to make this 

 generation of land-owners responsible for the misdeeds of William 

 the Conqueror and his followers. 



I am, sir, your obedient servant, 



T. H. Huxley. 



November 11th. 



SIR L. MALLET'S LETTER. 



To the Editor of " The Times " : 



Sir : Mr. Frederick Greenwood's letter, and the leading article 

 in " The Times " of to-day, on Mr. Herbert Spencer's recent letter 

 upon this subject, leave little more to be said on several aspects 

 of the question, but there are one or two points upon which I 

 should be glad of an opportunity of adding a few remarks. 



The passage in the " Political Institutions " quoted by Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer has been long familiar to the students of his 

 writings, and to some of them, who, like myself, are among his 

 sincere admirers, has always been a subject of surprise and regret. 



The whole extract should be read, but to save your space I 

 confine myself to the concluding sentences, which are enough for 

 my purpose : 



There is reason to suspect that while private possession of things produced by 

 labor will grow even more definite and sacred than at present, the inhabited area, 

 which can not be produced by labor, will eventually be distinguished a3 some- 

 thing which may not be privately possessed. As the individual, primitively 

 owner of himself, partially or wholly loses ownership of himself during the mili- 

 tant regime, but gradually resumes it as the industrial regime develops; so, possi- 

 bly, the communal proprietorship of land, partially or wholly merged in the 

 ownership of dominant men during evolution of the militant type, will be resumed 

 as the industrial type becomes fully evolved. 



The analogy here suggested between the ownership of man by 

 other men, or slavery, and the private ownership of land, with the 

 inference drawn from it, that as the first has been abolished in 

 civilized countries the second may possibly share its fate, has 

 always appeared to me essentially fallacious. 



The principle of private property, so far as the term is appli- 

 cable to human beings, has not in their case been abolished on 

 the contrary, it has been signally vindicated. 



The destruction of slavery asserted the right of every man to 

 property in himself, while prohibiting the ownership of man by 

 other men, both individually and collectively. It was the restitu- 

 tion of a right of property from a wrongful to a rightful owner. 

 In order to render Mr. Spencer's analogy applicable, it seems to 

 me that the right of ownership in one man by another, instead of 

 being abolished altogether, should have been transferred, as it is 



