180 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



all belonged to a landed proprietor, instead of to the commune ; he 

 would go and lavish the revenue in large capitals or in travelling. 

 What an immense difference this would make to the inhabitants ! To 

 appreciate this, it suffices merely to comjjare the condition of the 

 Highland crofters, the free citizens of one of the richest countries in 

 the world, and whose race has ever been laborious, with that of the 

 population of these villages, hidden away in the Alpine cantons of 

 Switzerland or in the gorges of the Black Forest. If, in the High- 

 land villages of Scotland, rentals had been, as in these happy com- 

 munes of Switzerland and Baden, partly reserved for the inhabitants, 

 and partly employed in objects of general utility, how very different 

 would have been the lot of these poor people ! Had they but been 

 allowed to keep for themselves the sea-weed and the kelp which the 

 sea brings them, how far better off would they have been than they 

 now are, as is admirably proved in Mr. Blackie's interesting book, 

 " The Scottish Highlanders." 



A similar remark may also be applied to politics. What matters 

 it, says Mr. Herbert Spencer, that I myself contribute to make laws 

 if these laws deprive me of my liberty ? He mentions ancient Greece 

 as an example to startle us at the notion of our coming state of slav- 

 ery. He writes : " In ancient Greece the accepted principle was, that 

 the citizen belonged neither to himself nor to his family, but to his 

 city the city being, with the Greek, equivalent to the community. 

 And this doctrine, proper to a state of constant warfare, is one which 

 socialism unawares re-introduces into a state intended to be purely 

 industrial." It is perfectly certain that the regime of ancient Greek 

 cities, which was founded on slavery, cannot be suitable to modern 

 society, which is based on a system of labour. But we must not allow 

 ourselves to forget what Greece was, nor all we owe to that Greek 

 civilization, which, Mr. Herbert Spencer says, the " coming slavery " 

 threatens to re-introduce amongst us. Not only philosophy, literature, 

 and arts flourished as they have never done in any other age, but the 

 political system so stamped characters with individuality that the 

 illustrious men of Greece are types of human greatness, whose deeds 

 and sayings will be engraven on the memory of men so long as the 

 world lasts. If the " coming slavery " gives us such men as Pisistra- 

 tus, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Lycurgus, Sophocles, Thucydides, 

 Epaminondas, Aristides, or Pericles, we shall, I think, have no cause 

 to complain ! But how is it that Greece produced such a bevy of 

 great men ? By her democratic institutions, combined with a marvel- 

 lous system of education, which developed simultaneously the faculties 

 of the mind and the body. 



The German army, in spite of its iron discipline, arrives at results 

 somewhat similar, though in a less degree. A rough peasant joins a 

 regiment ; he is taught to walk properly, to swim, and to shift for 

 himself ; his education is made more complete, and he becomes a man 



