THE SINS OF LEGISLATORS, 147 



tions ; so that a climate is wholesome to the adapted race which is 

 fatal to other races. No one denies that peoples who belong to the 

 same original stock but have spread into different habitats where they 

 have led different lives have acquired in course of time different apti- 

 tudes and different tendencies. No one denies that under new con- 

 ditions new national characters are even now being molded, as wit- 

 ness the Americans. And if no one denies a process of adaptation 

 everywhere and always going on, it is a manifest implication that 

 adaptive modifications must be set up by every change of social con- 

 ditions. 



To which there comes the undeniable corollary that every law 

 which serves to alter men's modes of action — compelling, or restrain- 

 ing, or aiding, in new ways — so affects them as to cause in course of 

 time an adjusted nature. Beyond any immediate effect wrought, there 

 is the remote effect, wholly ignored by most — a remolding of the aver- 

 age character : a remolding which may be of a desirable or an unde- 

 sirable kind, but which in any case is the most important of the re- 

 sults to be considered. 



Other general truths, which the citizen, and still more the legislator, 

 ought to contemplate until they become wrought into his intellectual 

 fabric, are disclosed when we ask how social activities are produced ; 

 and when we recognize the obvious answer that they are the aggre- 

 gate results of the desires of individuals who are severally seeking 

 satisfactions, and ordinarily pursuing the ways which, with their pre- 

 existing habits and thoughts, seem the easiest — following the lines of 

 least resistance : the truths of political economy being so many se- 

 quences. It needs no proving that social structures and social actions 

 must in some way or other be the outcome of human emotions guided 

 by ideas — either those of ancestors or those of living men. And that 

 the right interpretation of social phenomena is to be found in the co- 

 operation of these factors from generation to generation follows inevi- 

 tably. 



Such an interpretation soon brings us to the inference that, of the 

 aggregate results of men's desires seeking their gratifications, those 

 which have prompted their private activities and their spontaneous 

 co-operations have done much more toward social development than 

 those which have operated through governmental agencies. That 

 abundant crops now grow where once only wild berries could be 

 gathered is due to the pursuit of individual satisfactions through 

 many centuries. The progress from wigwams to good houses has 

 resulted from wishes to increase personal welfare ; and towns have 

 arisen under the like promptings. Beginning with peddlers and with, 

 traffic at meetings on occasions of religious festivals, the trading or- 

 ganization, now so extensive and complex, has been produced entirely 

 by men's efforts to achieve their private ends. Perpetually govern- 

 ments have thwarted and deranged the growth, but have in no 



