1889 ' THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN ' 135 



questioned him concerning private property in land, 

 quoting some early dicta from the " Social Statics " 

 of Mr. Herbert Spencer, which denied the justice 

 of such ownership. Comments and explanations 

 ensued in the Times ; Mr. Spencer declared that he 

 had since partly altered that view, showing that 

 contract has in part superseded force as the ground 

 of ownership ; and that in any case it referred to the 

 idea of absolute ethics, and not to relative or practical 

 politics. 



Huxley entered first into the correspondence to 

 point out present and perilous applications of the 

 absolute in contemporary politics. Touching on a 

 State guarantee of the title to land, he asks if there 

 is any moral right for confiscation ; — In Ireland, he 

 says, confiscation is justified by the appeal to wrongs 

 inflicted a century ago ; in England the theorems of 

 " absolute political ethics " are in danger of being em- 

 ployed to make this generation of land -owners 

 responsible for the misdeeds of William the Con- 

 queror and his followers. (Times, November 12.) 



His remaining share in the discussion consisted of 

 a brief passage of arms with Mr. Spencer on the main 

 question, 1 and a reply to another correspondent,^ 

 Avhich brings forward an argument enlarged upon in 

 one of the essays, viz. that if the land belongs to all 

 men equally, why should one nation claim one portion 

 rather than another ? For several ownership is just as 

 much an infringement of the world's ownership as is 

 ' November 18. ^ November 21. 



