1889 ESSAYS ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 143 



interests, and that they should aU be equally bound by the 

 ethical and legal obligations which are essential to social 

 existence, " the philosophers," as is the fashion of specu- 

 lators, scorned to remain on the safe if humble ground of 

 experience, and preferred to prophesy from the sublime 

 cloudland of the a priori. 



The second of these articles is an examination of 

 Henry George's doctrines as set forth in Progress and 

 Poverty. His relation to the physiocrats is shown in 

 a preliminary analysis of the term " natural rights 

 which have no wrongs," and are antecedent to 

 morality, from which analysis are drawn the results 

 of confounding natural with moral rights. 



Here again is the note of justice to an argument 

 in an unsound shape (p. 369) : "There is no greater 

 mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are 

 worthless because they are badly argued." And a 

 trifling abatement of the universal and exclusive form 

 of Henry George's principle may make it true, while 

 even unamended it may lead to opposite conclusions 

 — to the justification of several ownership in land as 

 well as in any other form of property. 



The third essay of the series, " Capital the Mother 

 of Labour" (Coll. Ess. ix. 147), was an application of 

 biological methods to social problems, designed to 

 show that the extreme claims of labour as against 

 capital are ill-founded. 



In the last article, " Government," he traces the 

 two extreme developments of absolute ethics, as 

 shown in anarchy and regimentation, or unrestrained 



