264 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion may be burdensome and burtful 

 without being felt to be so ; or, if felt 

 to be so, the feeling may not be suffi- 

 ciently acute to prompt to the action 

 necessary to obtain a change ; or, again, 

 the feeling, though more or less acute, 

 may not be accompanied by a sense of 

 power to make the change. Look at 

 individuals. Does every individual who 

 theoretically possesses the power to alter 

 his mode of life to his own advantage 

 put that power into exercise? Does 

 every individual who is shown a more 

 excellent way at once shake off ancient 

 habit and enter on the better path? 

 We all know the enormous influence 

 which procrastination, inertness, love 

 of ease, and prejudice in favor of what 

 is established exert on individual lives; 

 and even so is it with society. There, 

 is salvation for the individual at given 

 moments, at special conjunctions, at cer- 

 tain partings of the ways ; but, the fa- 

 vorable opportunity missed, the situation 

 becomes more difficult and hopeless with 

 every hour. In social matters the civil- 

 ized world has been going wrong for 

 years past, and is now threatened with 

 a vast increase of the tyrannical legis- 

 lation which it has been inviting. It 

 may not be too late yet, however, to 

 make a stand, and perhaps to reverse 

 the current of change. The object ot 

 A Plea for Liberty is to force reflection 

 on the subject, and, if possible, to dispel 

 the illusion under which so many have 

 fallen that legislation alone, the action 

 of the state, can make a way for us out 

 of our social difficulties. 



Mr. Spencer lays stress on the fact 

 that, in many departments of life, with- 

 out the intervention of government, 

 progress is being made every day toward 

 a better state of things. There is a power 

 of self-adjustment in individuals which, 

 if not artificially checked, makes infalli- 

 bly toward better conditions. Else- 

 where in the volume we are shown the 

 drawbacks that more or less attend all 

 corporate action, but which in a very 

 marked manner attend the action of the 



most comprehensive and potent corpora- 

 tion of all the state ; and thus are fur- 

 nished with an answer to the second 

 question, which a few moments ago we 

 were supposing to be asked: What does 

 it matter who discharges any particular 

 function, so long as it is discharged ? If 

 it can be shown that, within the whole 

 radius of state-directed activity, there is 

 a diminution of the motives that give to 

 labor and effort their highest efficiency, 

 then it matters a great deal whether in- 

 dividuals are acting freely as individuals 

 in full contact with a natural environ- 

 ment or whether they are replaced by a 

 host of state-paid employes, dragging on 

 in a lazy and intermittent fashion a lum- 

 bering governmental machine. Nothing 

 is more capable of demonstration than 

 that government work is, in general, 

 done in a more or less inefficient and 

 perfunctory manner, and always in a 

 wasteful manner. The natural conclu- 

 sion to draw from this fact would be 

 that the functions of government should 

 be curtailed as much as possible, so that 

 we might have as little as possible of 

 such inferior and expensive work. Un- 

 fortunately, this conclusion is drawn by 

 but few. The results of government 

 work are visible and tangible. They 

 are manifest in buildings, harbors, ves- 

 sels, blue-books, and people are imposed 

 upon by the scale of the operations of 

 the state. They do not ask bow much 

 greater or better results the money ex- 

 pended might have yielded ; still less do 

 they ask how much of private enterprise 

 has been paralyzed by an unnecessary 

 extension of the functions of the state. 

 But these questions should be asked, and 

 it is the merest unthrift not to ask them. 

 Of all the printing done by the Govern- 

 ment in this country, for example, how 

 much serves a really useful purpose? 

 How much finds its way to the junk- 

 shop, and thence to the paper-mill ? If 

 accurate answers could be had to these 

 questions, we think that even an indif- 

 ferent public might be aroused. 



One of the best essays in the volume 



