A REJOINDER TO M. BE LAVELEYE. 189 



vitiated by the consequent inequities.* While defending laissez-faire 

 in its original and proper sense, I have pointed out that the policy of 

 universal meddling has for its concomitant that vicious laissez-faire 

 which leaves dishonesty to flourish at the expense of honesty.f In 

 the second place, there are numerous other measures conducive to "the 

 improvement of the condition of the working-classes " which I desire 

 quite as much as M. de Laveleye to see undertaken ; and simply differ 

 from him concerning the agency by which they shall be undertaken. 

 Without wishing to restrain philanthropic action, but quite contrari- 

 wise, I have in various places argued that philanthropy will better 

 achieve its ends by non-governmental means than by governmental 

 means.J M. de Laveleye is much more familiar than I am with the 

 facts showing that, in societies at large, the organized arrangements 

 which carry on production and distribution have been evolved not 

 only without State-help, but very generally in spite of State-hindrance ; 

 and hence I am surprised that he apparently gives no credence to the 

 doctrine that, by private persons acting either individually or in com- 

 bination, there may be better achieved multitudinous ends which it is 

 the fashion to invoke State-agency for. 



Speaking of the domain of individual liberty, M. de Laveleye 

 says 



"To be brief, I agree with Mr. Herbert Spencer that, contrary to Rousseau's 

 doctrine, State power ought to be limited, and that a domain should be reserved 

 to individual liberty which should be always respected ; but the limits of this 

 domain should be fixed, not by tbe people, but by reason and science, keeping in 

 view what is best for the public welfare " (p. 488). 



I am a good deal perplexed at finding the last clause of this sentence 

 apparently addressed to me as though in opposition. " Social Statics " 

 is a work mainly occupied with the endeavour to establish these limits 

 by " reason and science." In the " Data of Ethics," I have sought, in 

 a chapter entitled the " Sociological View," to show how certain lim- 

 its to individual liberty are deducible from the laws of life as carried 

 on under social conditions. And in " The Man versus The State," 

 which M. de Laveleye is more particularly dealing with, one part of 

 the last chapter is devoted to showing, deductively, the derivation of 

 what are called " natural rights " from the vital needs, which each 

 man has to satisfy by activities pursued in presence of other men who 

 have to satisfy like needs ; while another part of the chapter is de- 

 voted to showing, inductively, how recognition of natural rights began, 

 in the earliest social groups, to be initiated by those retaliations which 

 trespasses called forth retaliations ever tending to produce respect 

 for the proper limits of action. If M. de Laveleye does not consider 



* See " Social Statics : ' The Duty of the State.' " Also " Essays," vol. ii. pp. 94-8 ; 

 vol. iii. p. 167. 



j- "Study of Sociology," pp. 351-3, cheap edition. 

 % " Social Statics : ' Poor Laws.' " 



