FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 729 



criticisms of the mass they regulate. Being thus in fear of pub- 

 lic opinion, they will be sure to act judiciously and fairly ; or when 

 they do not, will be deposed by the popular vote, local or general. 

 Where will be the grievance of being under superiors, when the 

 superiors themselves are under democratic control ? " And in this 

 attractive vision the socialist has full belief. 



Iron and brass are simpler things than flesh and blood, and 

 dead wood than living nerve ; and a machine constructed of the 

 one works in more definite ways than an organism constructed of 

 the other, especially when the machine is worked by the inor- 

 ganic forces of steam or water, while the organism is worked by 

 the forces of living nerve-centers. Manifestly, then, the ways in 

 which the machine will work are much more readily calculable 

 than the ways in which the organism will work. Yet in how 

 few cases does the inventor foresee rightly the actions of his new 

 apparatus! Read the patent-list, and it will be found that not 

 more than one device in fifty turns out to be of any service. 

 Plausible as his scheme seemed to the inventor, one or other hitch 

 prevents the intended operation, and brings out a widely different 

 result from that which he wished. 



What, then, shall we say of these schemes which have to do 

 not with dead matters and forces, but with complex living organ- 

 isms working in ways less readily foreseen, and which involve 

 the co-operation of multitudes of such organisms ? Even the units 

 out of which this re-arranged body politic is to be formed are 

 often incomprehensible. Every one is from time to time sur- 

 prised by others' behavior, and even by the deeds of relatives who 

 are best known to him. Seeing, then, how uncertainly any one 

 can foresee the actions of an individual, how can he with any 

 certainty foresee the operation of a social structure ? He proceeds 

 on the assumption that all concerned will judge rightly and act 

 fairly will think as they ought to think, and act as they ought 

 to act ; and he assumes this regardless of the daily experiences 

 which show him that men do neither the one nor the other, and 

 forgetting that the complaints he makes against the existing sys- 

 tem show his belief to be that men have neither the wisdom nor 

 the rectitude which his plan requires them to have. 



Paper constitutions raise smiles on the faces of those who 

 have observed their results ; and paper social systems similarly 

 affect those who have contemplated the available evidence. How 

 little i<he men who wrought the French revolution and were 

 chiefly concerned in setting up the new governmental apparatus, 

 dreamt that one of the early actions of this apparatus would be 

 to behead them all ! How little the men who drew up the Amer- 

 ican Declaration of Independence and framed the Republic, an- 

 ticipated that after some generations the legislature would lapse 



