30 MY LIFE Chap. 



with all its horrors and tyrannies, and slaveries and abomi- 

 nations of all kinds, has been an inevitable one accompanying 

 the survival and spread of the strongest, and the consolidation 

 of small tribes into large societies ; and among other things, 

 the lapse of land into private ownership has been, like the 

 lapse of individuals into slavery, at one period of the process 

 altogether indispensable. I do not in the least believe that 

 from the primitive system of communistic ownership to a high 

 and finished system of State ownership, such as we may 

 look for in the future, there could be any transition without 

 passing through such stages as we have seen, and which 

 exist now. 



"Argument aside, however, I should be disinclined to 

 commit myself to any scheme of immediate action, which, as 

 I have indicated to you, I believe, at present, premature. 

 For myself, I feel that I have to consider not only what I 

 may do on special questions, but also how the action I take 

 on special questions may affect my general influence ; and 

 I am disinclined to give more handles against me than are 

 needful. Already, as you will see by the enclosed circular, I 

 am doing in the way of positive action more than may be 

 altogether prudent. 



" Sincerely yours, 



"Herbert Spencer." 



I do not remember, and I do not think that Henry George 

 either stated or implied that the course of civilization " might 

 have been different" from what it has been. His whole work 

 was devoted to showing the injustice and the evils of private 

 property in land, just as Herbert Spencer himself had done 

 in " Social Statics ; " and both works are alike beneficial, inas- 

 much as they demonstrate these facts and serve as incentives 

 and guides for our future attempts to remedy them. If Mr. 

 Spencer had not hastily laid aside the book, owing to this 

 prepossession against it, even he might have been benefited 

 by the thorough examination of the whole subject which 

 Mr. George gave, while he could hardly have failed to 

 admire its admirable and forcible exposition of the problem 



