162 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



of the i8th century became a lie and a social 

 wrong in the 19th. 



This transformation was wrought by the 

 development of machinery. It was impossible 

 for every individual worker to own a large 

 machine, and so some men became toolless 

 wage laborers employed by the owners of ma- 

 chinery. This is the beginning of the present 

 labor problem and here arises the struggle in 

 the world of ideas between the philosophy of 

 Individualism and that of Socialism. 



Let us examine the vital change which had 

 taken place even before we reach the middle 

 of the last century. Now, one man uses the 

 tools, but another owns them and appropri- 

 ates the result. And this is the economic 

 foundation of the class war between the ex- 

 ploited wage worker and the exploiting capi- 

 talist. 



But the individualist theories proper to the 

 i8th century, and its mode of wealth produc- 

 tion, passed over into the 19th where their 

 economic justification had ceased. As the for- 

 tunate individual owners of machinery found 

 themselves growing rich at a great rate apart 

 from their own individual efforts, they became 

 enthusiastic supporters of "Individualism" and 

 eventually founded the "Manchester'' school 

 of politics, which had Herbert Spencer as its 



