4IO THE REIGN OF LAW. 



some it suppresses altogether — some it compels to 

 work in new directions. But in all cases the 

 Spirit of Association is in itself a power — a force 

 — a Law in the Realm of Mind. What it can do, 

 and what it cannot do, in affecting the conditions 

 of Society, is a problem not to be solved so easily 

 and so summarily as some dogmatists in politi- 

 cal philosophy would have us to believe. It is 

 a question which, like so many others, is not 

 likely to be solved by abstract reasoning without 

 the help of actual experiment. And this experi- 

 ment is being tried. The instincts of men, truer 

 often than the conclusions of philosophy, have 

 rebelled against the doctrine that they are the 

 sport of circumstance. Yet finding by hard ex- 

 perience that this is often true of the individual 

 Will when standing by itself, they have resolved 

 to try whether it is equally true of the Collective 

 Will, guided by the spirit and strengthened under 

 the discipline of Association. Hence the pheno- 

 mena of Combination as a means of affecting the 

 condition of labour — phenomena so alarming to 

 many minds, and certainly so well deserving of 

 attention. Let us look for a moment at the im- 



