i 7 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



i 



You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat : it sticks up 

 a little here toward the left " cockles," as we say. How shall we 

 flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is 

 prominent. "Well, here is a hammer, and I give it a blow as you ad- 

 vise. Harder, you say. Still no effect. Another stroke ? Well, there 

 is one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see 

 the evil is as great as ever. But this is not all. Look at the warp 

 which the plate has got near the opposite edge : where it was flat be- 

 fore it is now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it. Instead 

 of curing the original defect, we have produced a second. Had we 

 asked an artisan practised in " planishing," as it is called, he would 

 have told us no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting 

 down on the projecting part. He would have taught us how to give 

 variously-directed and specially-adjusted blows with a hammer else- 

 where : so attacking the evil not by direct but by indirect . actions. 

 The required process is less simple than you thought. Even a sheet 

 of metal is not to be successfully dealt with after those common-sense 

 methods in which you have so much confidence. What, then, shall 

 we say about a society ? " Do you think I am easier to be played on 

 than a pipe ? " asks Hamlet. Is humanity more readily straightened 

 than an iron plate ? 



Many, I doubt not, failing to recognize the truth that, in proportion 

 as an aggregate is complex, the effects wrought by an incident force 

 become more multitudinous, complicated, and incalculable, and that, 

 therefore, a society is, of all kinds of aggregates, the kind most difficult 

 to affect in an intended way and not in unintended ways many such 

 will ask evidence of the difficulty. Hesponse would perhaps be easier 

 were the evidence less abundant. It is so familiar as seemingly to 

 have lost its significance ; just as perpetually-repeated salutations 

 and prayers have done. The preamble to nearly every act of Par- 

 liament supplies it ; in the report of every commission it is pre- 

 sented in various forms ; and, for any one asking instances, the di- 

 rection might be Hansard passim. Here I will give but a single 

 example which might teach certain rash enthusiasts of our day, were 

 they teachable. I refer to measures for the suppression of drunken- 

 ness. 



Not to dwell on the results of the JVIaine Law, which, as I know 

 from one who lately gave me his personal experience, prevents the ob- 

 tainmcnt of stimulants by travellers in urgent need of them, but does 

 not prevent secret drinking by residents not to dwell, either, upon 

 the rigorous measures taken in Scotland in 1617, "for the restraint of 

 the vile and detestable vice of drunkenness daily increasing," but 

 which evidently did not produce the hoped-for effect I will limit my- 

 self to the case of the Licensing Act, 9 George II., chapter 23, for the 

 arresting the sale of spirituous liquors (chiefly gin) by prohibitory li- 

 censes : 



