438 FALLACIES. 



practical improvements in public affairs which have 

 been made in our time. Mr. Wakefield's principle, 

 as most people are now aware, is the artificial con- 

 centration of the settlers, by fixing such a price upon 

 unoccupied land as may preserve the most desirable 

 proportion between the quantity of land in culture, 

 and the labouring population. Against this it was 

 argued, that if individuals found it for their advantage 

 to occupy extensive tracts of land, they, being better 

 judges of their own interest than the legislature 

 (which can only proceed on general rules), ought not 

 to be restrained from doing so. But in this argu- 

 ment it was forgotten that the fact of a man's taking 

 a large tract of land is evidence only that it is his 

 interest to take as much as other people, but not 

 that it might not be for his interest to content himself 

 with less, if he could be assured that other people 

 would do so too; an assurance which nothing but a 

 government regulation can give. If all other people 

 took much, and he only a little, he would reap none 

 of the advantages derived from the concentration of 

 the population and the consequent possibility of pro- 

 curing labour for hire, but would have placed himself, 

 without equivalent, in a situation of voluntary infe- 

 riority. The proposition, therefore, that the quantity 

 of land which people will take when left to them- 

 selves is that which it is most for their interest to 

 take, is true only secundum quid: it is only their 

 interest while they have no guarantee for the conduct 

 of one another. But the argument disregards the 

 limitation, and takes the proposition for true sim- 

 pliciter. 



One of the conditions oftenest dropped, when what 

 would otherwise be a true proposition is employed as 

 a premiss for proving others, is the condition of time. 



