5 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which Mr. Laidler discovers in " Social Statics " and attributes to 

 Mr. Spencer. 



However, these are matters of opinion ; and as Mr. Spencer, 

 leaving the main issue aside, has put me on my defense, I hope I 

 may say a word or two to show how very easy that process is ; 

 for, surely, nothing can be easier than to refuse to be charged with 

 the consequences of opinions one does not hold. Mr. Spencer says 

 that I " admit that all land-holders hold their land subject to the 

 supreme ownership of the State " ; and his remarkable inability to 

 see that we disagree on the land question flows out of this assump- 

 tion. But I admit nothing of the kind. If I declare that, under 

 certain circumstances, the State has a right to shut me up and to 

 make me work on the tread-mill, or to hang me, or to dispose of 

 me and my property in any other way, it does not appear to me 

 that " by implication " I admit that I hold my property, my lib- 

 erty, and my life, " subject to the supreme ownership of the 

 State." Surely the State is not my owner I am not a serf be- 

 cause I admit the right of the State to do these things ! It is 

 absolutely unintelligible to me that on such grounds as those 

 alleged any one should try to force me to the conclusion that " the 

 community, as supreme owner, with a still valid title, may resume 

 possession if it thinks well." 



And this leads me to another point. What historical ground 

 is there for the assumption that the community (in the sense of 

 " the State ") ever had a " valid title " as universal land-owner ? I 

 am not ignorant that there have been and are such things as 

 " village communities " ; and if any one chooses to assert that 

 communal ownership is the primitive form of land-holding, I am 

 willing, for the sake of argument, to admit that such is the case. 

 Let the further assumption that no agencies save force and fraud 

 have broken up the communal organization (astonishing as it is) 

 be accepted. Well, then, I see that a sort of an argument (though 

 I think a very fallacious one) in favor of going back to ownership 

 by village communities might be founded on these data. But 

 what has that to do with State land-ownership, which has not the 

 remotest resemblance to the communal system of antiquity ? 



Mr. Spencer addresses a sort of argumentum ad hominem to 

 me. It is hardly chosen with so much prudence as might have 

 been expected. Mr. Spencer assumes that, in the present state of 

 physiological and medical science, the practitioner would be well 

 advised who should treat his patients by deduction from physio- 

 logical principles ("absolute physiological therapeutics" let us 

 say) rather than by careful induction from the observed phe- 

 nomena of disease and of the effects of medicines. 



Well, all I can reply is, Heaven forbid that I should ever fall 

 into that practitioner's hands ; and if I thought any writings of 



