EDITOR'S TABLE. 



sss 



the method of Nature, and deferring to 

 natural laws, quite overlook the mean- 

 ing of these supreme facts, and seem 

 unaware of the new dispensation upon 

 which the world has entered. He makes 

 " The open charge that the modern sci- 

 entific philosophers fail to recognize the 

 true value of ihQ psychic factor'''' \ and 

 again he says, "The laissez-faire doc- 

 trine fails to recognize that, in the devel- 

 opment of mind, a virtually neio power 

 was introduced into the world." 



Mr. Ward must not be here taken 

 too literally, for certainly the laissez- 

 faire people have some appreciation of 

 mind as a factor in social progress. He 

 can only mean that they have a very im- 

 perfect conception of it, because their 

 do-nothing method does not imply the 

 need of it. It is desirable, however, 

 that we have first of all a correct idea of 

 what this policy is. And here we must 

 protest against some of Mr. Ward's 

 extreme assertions. He declares that 

 " the laissezfaire doctrine is a gospel 

 of inaction " ; and that, to be consistent, 

 "its advocates must condemn all inter- 

 ference with physical laws and natural 

 forces." He says they hold that " all 

 schemes of social reform are unscien- 

 tific " ; that " they condemn all at- 

 tempts to protect the weak, whether by 

 private or public methods " ; and that 

 "in government every attempt to im- 

 prove the condition of the state is con- 

 demned and denounced." These are un- 

 warrantable exaggerations. The repre- 

 sentatives of laissez faire have as much 

 at heart the good of society, and work 

 as hard to secure it, as any other class. It 

 is not true that they hold to the method 

 of Nature in social life in any such sense 

 as absolves men from active effort in the 

 direction of social improvement. Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer is probably, as Mr. 

 "Ward himself recognizes, the leading 

 living representative of the laissez-faire 

 school, and he repeatedly, explicitly, 

 and consistently in his earlier as in his 

 later works, enforces the obligation of 

 protecting the weak by sympathetic and 



discriminating aid, and he ever main- 

 tains tliat there is no more commend- 

 able or admirable social service than to 

 help the weak and poor to help them- 

 selves. Moreover, his works through- 

 out, from first to last, make imperative 

 demands for radical and comprehensive 

 scientific reforms in the policy of gov- 

 ernment with respect to the adminis- 

 tration of social affairs. This is the 

 common and distinctive ground of the 

 laissezfaire school ; and the question 

 here is simply, What value does this 

 give to "mind as a social factor " ? 



The believers in laissez faire, or in 

 leaving things social more to them- 

 selves, hold that there is a natural or- 

 der in the social state which has not 

 been superseded or antiquated by the 

 coming of man upon the stage, and that 

 there are natural laws of human society, 

 the understanding of which is the first 

 condition of all real social advance- 

 ment. They maintain that blind and 

 ignorant intermeddling with these laws 

 has been and is still productive of far 

 more evil than good, and that therefore 

 the first grand task of social science is 

 their full and systematic elucidation 

 while it becomes the highest duty of 

 education to disseminate knowledge of 

 the laws thus gained. But the disen- 

 tangling of social phenomena and the 

 clear working out of their underlying 

 principles are certainly among the high- 

 est efforts of the human mind. As yet 

 we have only partial glimpses of these 

 laws, insuflScient for full guidance — but 

 little more than sufficient to attest their 

 existence. The most profound and fruit- 

 ful intellectual work for generations to 

 come is to be done here. Can it be 

 said that those who contribute to the 

 solution of these formidable social prob- 

 lems — so fundamental to practical suc- 

 cess in social undertakings — are open 

 to the charge of disparaging the func- 

 tion of "mind as a social factor " ? On 

 the contrary, is it not they who most 

 eminently honor it ? Mr. Ward not only 

 admits that there are social laws which 



