ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 609 



be judged from the fact that " a small mud tower is erected in each 

 field, where the possessor and his retainers guard his produce." 

 If turbulent states of society such as early histories tell of, do not 

 show us so vividly how the habit of appropriating one another's 

 goods interferes with social prosperity and individual comfort, 

 yet they do not leave us in doubt respecting these results. It is 

 an inference which few will be hardy enough to dispute, that in 

 proportion as the time of each man, instead of being occupied in 

 further production, is occupied in guarding that which he has 

 produced against marauders, the total production must be di- 

 minished and the sustentation of each and all less satisfactorily 

 achieved. And it is a manifest corollary that if each pushes be- 

 yond a certain limit the practice of trying to satisfy his needs by 

 robbing his neighbor, the society must dissolve : solitary life will 

 prove preferable. 



A deceased friend of mine, narrating incidents in his life, told 

 me that as a young man he sought to establish himself in Spain 

 as a commission agent ; and that, failing by expostulation or other 

 means to obtain payment from one who had ordered goods through 

 him, he, as a last resource, went to the man's house and presented 

 himself before him pistol in hand a proceeding which had the 

 desired effect : the account was settled. Suppose now that every- 

 where contracts had thus to be enforced by more or less strenuous 

 measures. Suppose that a coal-mine proprietor in Derbyshire, 

 having sent a train-load to a London coal-merchant, had com- 

 monly to send a posse of colliers up to town, to stop the man's 

 wagons and take out the horses until payment had been made. 

 Suppose the farm laborer or the artisan was constantly in doubt 

 whether, at the end of the week, the wages agreed upon would be 

 forthcoming, or whether he would get only half, or whether he 

 would have to wait six months. Suppose that daily in every shop 

 there occurred scuffles between shopman and customer, the one to 

 get the money without giving the goods, and the other to get the 

 goods without paying the money. What in such case would hap- 

 pen to the society ? What would become of its producing and 

 distributing businesses ? Is it a rash inference that industrial 

 co-operation (of the voluntary kind at least) would cease ? 



" Why these absurd questions ? " asks the impatient reader. 

 " Surely every one knows that murder, assault, robbery, fraud, 

 breach of contract, etc., are at variance with social welfare and 

 must be punished when committed." My replies are several. In 

 the first place, I am quite content to have the questions called ab- 

 surd ; because this implies a consciousness that the answers are so 

 self-evident that it is absurd to assume the possibility of any other 

 answers. My second reply is that I am not desirous of pressing 

 the question whether we know these things, but of pressing the 



VOL. XXXVI. 39 



