THE STATE VERSUS THE MAN. i 7 i 



the effort to succour outcasts and the needy poor occupies so large a 

 portion of the time and means of the well-to-do and of the public 

 exchequer ; there is nowhere else to be found a poor-law which grants 

 assistance to even able-bodied men ; nowhere else would it ever have 

 been even suggested to attack free contract, and consequently the very 

 first principles of proprietorship, as the Irish Land Bill has done ; and 

 nowhere else would a Minister have dared to draw up a programme 

 of reforms such as those announced by Mr. Chamberlain at the Liberal 

 Reform Club at Ipswich (Jan. 14, 1885). On the Continent all this 

 would be looked upon as rank socialism. If, then, as a country be- 

 comes more civilized and enlightened it shows more inclination to 

 return to what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls militant organization, and 

 to violate the Darwinian law applied to human society, may we not 

 be led to conclude that this so-called retrogression is really progress ? 

 This conclusion would very easily explain what Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 designates as the "wheeling round" of the Liberal party with which 

 he so eloquently reproaches them. 



Why did the Liberals formerly do their utmost to restrict State 

 power? Because this power was then exercised in the interests of 

 the upper classes and to the detriment of the lower. To mention 

 but one example : When, in former times, it was desired to fix a 

 scale of prices and wages, it was with a view to preventing their being 

 raised, while, to-day, there is a clamour for a lessening of hours of 

 labour with increased remuneration. Why do Liberals now wish to 

 add to the power and authority of the State ? To be able to amelio- 

 rate the intellectual, moral, and material condition of a greater number 

 of citizens. There is no inconsistency in their programme ; the ob- 

 ject in view, which is the great aim of all civilization, has been always 

 the same to assure to each individual liberty and well-being in pro- 

 portion to his merit and activity ! 



I think that the great fundamental error of Mr. Herbert Spencer's 

 system, which is so generally accepted at the present day, consists in 

 the belief that if State power were but sufficiently reduced to narrow 

 it to the circle traced by orthodox economists, the Darwinian law and 

 the survival of the fittest would naturally follow without difficulty. 

 Mr. Spencer has simply borrowed from old-fashioned political economy, 

 without submitting to the fire of his inexorable criticism, the super- 

 ficial and false notion that, if the laissez-faire and free contract regime 

 were proclaimed, the so-called natural laws would govern the social 

 order. He forgets that all individual activity is accomplished under 

 the empire of laws, which enact as to ownership, hereditary succes- 

 sion, mutual obligations, trade and industry, political institutions and 

 administrations, besides a multitude of laws referring to material 

 interests, banking organizations, money, credit, colonies, army, navy, 

 railways, etc. 



For natural laws, and especially the law of the survival of the fittest, 



