FALLACIES OF MODERN ECONOMISTS. 241 



would suffice to settle this anti-poverty question could you but 

 hammer this fact into men's minds. I have often wondered how 

 men reconciled the idea of a divine and all-wise Providence with 

 that startling phenomenon — viz., the prolificness of the ignorant 

 and the sterility of the wise. 



There are two pleas which reformers urge in justification of 

 their claims : the one, what they call " natural " justice, founded 

 upon the imaginary " natural rights " theory ; the other, expedi- 

 ency. 



Prof. Huxley, in one of his series of vigorous articles pub- 

 lished in the Nineteenth Century Magazine recently, and to which 

 I refer you, has exposed at length the utter baselessness of the 

 theory of " natural rights."' It was this doctrine that had most 

 significance, and became most famous prior to and during the 

 great French Revolution through the writings and teachings of 

 Rousseau and other French economists. It had been evidently 

 borrowed from the English philosophers by Rousseau, and from 

 the Romans by them. It forms the basis in Progress and Poverty 

 for the justification of Mr. George's remedy for poverty. 



So far as rights go, the rights we prize so dearly are, in fact, 

 artificial rights, not natural — man-made, granted and secured by 

 society. The natural condition is slavery. The civilized, the arti- 

 ficial, is freedom; and the curses that still hang over society, 

 checking progress, are the presence of " natural " feelings and in- 

 stincts with which man is still endowed. The limit of freedom 

 will be approached the further man gets away from his " natural 

 state." 



The question of expediency is a difficult one to determine. All 

 social changes, arbitrarily arranged, work misfortune to some, 

 and these would question the " expediency " of the change with 

 perfect propriety. The " greatest good of the greatest number " 

 is an extremely rough method to determine "expediency," for 

 there would be coercion of the smaller number. 



On what grounds, then, are social problems to be answered ? 

 " Natural rights " being mythical, " expediency " being often in- 

 determinable, is there no ground upon which to decide what is 

 best ? I think so. The attractive force that has drawn so many 

 of us to study these social questions — that, in fact, led the authors 

 of the various schemes enumerated to devise them — is human 

 affection. I believe that the ground, and the only one, upon 

 which permanent results and the best can be built will be an 

 ethical one. 



The remedies prescribed for poverty, by both anarchists and 

 socialists, are based upon the assumption that under certain con- 

 ditions all men will act alike, a fallacy that scarcely needs expos- 

 ing. Under socialism it is supposed that the state administration 



TOL. XLII. 16 



