TRANSACTIOXS OF SECTION F. 955 



interest of the stronger, he hints that the antithesis can hardly be used with 

 confidence at all. 



But a broad distinction is not unlawful or useless because there are border 

 cases that elude it. The vegetable world may be broadly distinguished from the 

 animal or from the inanimate, although there are equivocal creatures on the border 

 lines. So here in the industrial world we can make broad distinctions and pre- 

 serve them with a little care till we come to the border. If we interpret economic 

 strength to mean independence, we find that in most contracts the strength is 

 ascertainably greater on one side or the other ; and it might be argued that con- 

 tracts are healthiest in proportion as the parties are nearest to equal independence. 

 It is desirable thsit they should be independent, not indeed of all authority, but of 

 the power of one another, so that neither shall be master, though the one may be 

 leader and the other may agree to follow. A large number of men, perhaps the 

 majority in civilised countries, are without this independence. It belongs, indeed, 

 not only to those of large possessions, but to all of great talents sure of their 

 market. It belongs, in a less degree, to ordinary skilled labour. But it does not 

 belong to the man possessed of an unmarketable talent and no second-rate powers 

 that are marketable. It belongs hardly at all to the day labourer, especially if he 

 has given hostages to fortune ; his dependence is such as practically to fix his 

 fate in the world. ' A porter or day labourer,' says Adam Smith, ' must continue 

 poor for ever.' * His dependence perpetuates itself. 



Some modern economists have been so impressed with this overpowering 

 influence on the poor of their poverty that they have been tempted to make it the 

 chief factor of all historj'. Where there is no land to be had for the asking, they 

 say, or where there is no common ownership of the means of production, there is 

 necessarily weakness or dependence on the side of the employed. The causes of 

 this dependence are the causes that have made civilised nations what they are, 

 with all their institutions, political and social ; economic causes are the supreme 

 controlling, and even originating, causes of history. 



If this were so, political economy, which began, like all other studies, by being 

 nobody in the world and after much toil was recognised indeed but only as ' slight, 

 unmeri table, meet to be sent on errands,' rather as a phase of wisdom than as a 

 branch of science, would end by being the only authority of any consequence. 

 This position, very trying to its natural modesty, is one which it should not be 

 flattered into hastily accepting. We must not carry into science the methods of 

 social revolt and say with the disinherited, ' Since you grant me nothing, I shall 

 claim everything.' 



It is no question whether economic conditions are one cause, but whether they 

 are the only real cause. That they are one cause is so evident that the earliest 

 theorists have paid regard to them. They have been ignored only in countries 

 where Nature has made livelihood easy, and man can with an easy mind take no 

 thought for the morrow, or for food, raiment, and dwelling. Elsewhere the struggle 

 for existence has never passed without notice. Wherever there is a marked dis- 

 tinction between rich and poor, the economic factor in human life is sure to acquire 

 great importance ; and thoughtful men who are preoccupied with the discomforts 

 of the poor are ready to count the economic factor the most important, the leaven 

 that leavens the whole lump. This preoccupation is at the bottom of nearly all 

 Utopias, even the Greek of Phaleas and Plato. Once arrange the production and 

 distribution of wealth, and all other blessings will be added unto you ; that is the 

 tone of them all. Sir Thomas More, whom we might call the Archon Eponymus 

 of modern socialists, would as a devout Christian have disclaimed such materialism ; 

 but in his own Utopia the chief peculiarities are the economic. The exaggeration 

 is one into which we easily slip if we gaze only on the truth that circumstances and 

 aurroundings greatly influence human life ; we become astonished that kings and 

 governments have so often neglected this truth, as if it were the only truth that 

 they have neglected. It was in this way that Robert Owen was led to over- 

 strain the facts ; and socialists as a body have taken no special pains to avoid 



' Lectureg, p. 223. 



