416 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



so often lead ? For almost every great step in the 

 advance of civilisation plunges at first through 

 some passage which seems dangerous or at least 

 obscure. The happiest achievements of Contri- 

 vance have their own aspects of apparent danger, 

 and their own real incidents of temporary evil. 

 Every new machine displaces and disorganises pre- 

 existing forms of labour, and we have seen that 

 even in its ultimate effects the advance of Me- 

 chanical Invention developed new dangers to the 

 Working Classes — dangers only to be avoided by 

 measures which were not taken, and by precau- 

 tions which were not adopted. 



It would be well if, from the past convicted 

 errors, both of Legislation and of Combination, 

 we could extract some conclusions of general 

 principle capable of helping us in the difficulties 

 of our own time. In looking at the root of those 

 errors, it would seem that in order to avoid them 

 two things are necessary — first, unshaken faith in 

 great Natural Laws ; and secondly, a faith not less 

 assured in the free agency of Man to secure by 

 appropriate means the working of those laws for 

 good. Thus, the love of gain is an instinct im- 



