THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. -SUPPLEMENT. 



Even from the reproach which my Clerkenwell 

 friend brings against you of being too aristocratic, 

 I derive some comfort. Only I give to the term 

 aristocratic a rather wide extension. An accom- 

 plished American, much known and much es- 

 teemed in this country, the late Mr. Charles Sum- 

 ner, says that what particularly struck him in 

 England was the large class of gentlemen as dis- 

 tinct from the nobility, and the abundance among 

 them of serious knowledge, high accomplishment, 

 and refined taste — taste fastidious perhaps, says 

 Mr. Sumner, to excess, but erring on virtue's side. 

 And he goes on : "I do not know that there is 

 much difference between the manners and social 

 observances of the highest classes of England and 

 those of the corresponding classes of France and 

 Germany; but in the rank immediately below the 

 highest — as among the professions, or military 

 men, or literary men — there you will find that 

 the Englishmen have the advantage. They are 

 better educated and better bred, more careful in 

 their personal habits and in social conventions, 

 more refined." Mr. Sumner's remark is just and 

 important ; this large class of gentlemen in the 

 professions, the services, literature, politics — and 

 a good contingent is now added from business 

 also — this large class, not of the nobility but 

 with the accomplishments and tastes of an upper 

 class, is something peculiar to England. Of this 

 class I may probably assume that my present 

 audience is in large measure composed. It is 

 aristocratic in this sense, that it has the tastes 

 of a cultivated class, a certain high standard of 

 civilization. Well, it is in its effects upon civili- 

 zation that equality interests me. And I speak to 

 an audience with a high standard of civilization. 

 If I say, certain things in certain classes do not 

 come up to a high standard of civilization, I 

 need not prove how and why they do not ; you 

 will feel whether they do or not. If they do 

 not, I need not prove that this is a bad thing, 

 that a high standard of civilization is desirable; 

 you will instinctively feel that it is. Instead of 

 calling this " the most aristocratic and exclusive 

 place out," I conceive of it as a civilized place ; 

 and in speaking about civilization half one's labor 

 is saved when one speaks about it among those 

 who are civilized. 



Politics are forbidden here ; but equality is 

 not a question of English politics. The abstract 

 right to equality may, indeed, be a question of 

 speculative politics. French equality appeals to 

 this abstract natural right as its support. It 

 goes back to a state of Nature where all were 

 equal, and supposes that "the poor consented," 



as Rousseau says, " to the existence of rich peo- 

 ple," reserving always a natural right to return 

 to the state of Nature. It supposes that a child 

 has a natural right to his equal share in his 

 father's goods. The principle of abstract right, 

 says Mr. Lowe, has never been admitted in Eng- 

 land, and is false. I so entirely agree with him, 

 that I run no risk of offending by discussing 

 equality upon the basis of this principle. So far 

 as I can sound human consciousness, I cannot, 

 as I have often said, perceive that man is really 

 conscious of any abstract natural rights at all. 

 The natural right to have work found for one to 

 do, the natural right to have food found for one 

 to eat, rights sometimes so confidently and so in- 

 dignantly asserted, seem to me quite baseless. 

 It cannot be too often repeated — peasants and 

 workmen have no natural rights, not one. Only 

 we ought instantly to add, that kings and nobles 

 have none either. If it is the sound English doc- 

 trine that all rights are created by law and are 

 based on expediency, and are alterable as the 

 public advantage may require, certainly that or- 

 thodox doctrine is mine. Property is created 

 and maintained by law. It would disappear in 

 that state of private war and scramble which 

 legal society supersedes. Legal society creates, 

 for the common good, the right of property, and 

 for the common good that right is by legal socie- 

 ty limitable. That property should exist, and 

 that it should be held with a sense of security 

 and with a power of disposal, may be taken, by 

 us here at any rate, as a settled matter of expe- 

 diency. "With these conditions a good deal of 

 inequality is inevitable. But that the power of 

 disposal should be practically unlimited, that the 

 inequality should be enormous, or that the degree 

 of inequality admitted at one time should be ad- 

 mitted always — this is by no means so certain. 

 The right of bequest was in early times, as Sir 

 Henry Maine and Mr. Mill have pointed out, sel- 

 dom recognized. In later times it has been lim- 

 ited in many countries in the way that we have 

 seen ; even in England itself it is not formally 

 quite unlimited. The question is one of expe- 

 diency. It is assumed, I grant, with great una- 

 nimity among us, that our signal inequality of 

 classes and property is expedient for our civiliza- 

 tion and welfare. But this assumption, of which 

 the distinguished personages who adopt it seem 

 so sure that they think it needless to produce 

 grounds for it, is just what we have to examine. 



Now, there is a sentence of Sir Erskine May, 

 whom I have already quoted, which will bring us 

 straight to the very point that I wish to raise. 



