264 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xv 



The second of these articles is an examination of Henry 

 George's doctrines as set forth in Progress and Poverty. 

 His relation to the physiocrats is shown in a preliminary 

 analysis of the term " natural rights which have no wrongs," 

 and are antecedent to morality, from which analysis are 

 drawn the results of confounding natural with moral rights. 



Here again is the note of justice to an argument in an 

 unsound shape (p. 369): "There is no greater mistake 

 than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless be- 

 cause they are badly argued." And a trifling abatement 

 of the universal and exclusive form of Henry George's 

 principle may make it true, while even unamended it may 

 lead to opposite conclusions — to the justification of several 

 ownership in land as well as in any other form of property. 



The third essay of the series, " Capital the Mother of 

 Labour " (Coll. Ess. ix. 147), was an application of biologi- 

 cal methods to social problems, designed to show that the 

 extreme claims of labour as against capital are ill-founded. 



In the last article, " Government," he traces the two 

 extreme developments of absolute ethics, as shown in an- 

 archy and regimentation, or unrestrained individualism and 

 compulsory socialism. The key to the position, of course, 

 lies in the examination of the premises upon which these 

 superstructures are raised, and history shows that — 



So far from the preservation of liberty and property and the 

 securing of equal rights being the chief and most conspicuous 

 object aimed at by the archaic politics of which we know any- 

 thing, it would be a good deal nearer the truth to say that they 

 were federated absolute monarchies, the chief purpose of which 

 was the maintenance of an established church for the worship 

 of the family ancestors. 



These articles stirred up critics of every sort and kind; 

 socialists who denounced him as an individualist, land 

 nationalisers who had not realised the difference between 

 communal and national ownership, or men who denounced 

 him as an arm-chair cynic, careless of the poor and ignorant 

 of the meaning of labour. Mr. Spencer considered the chief 

 attack to be directed against his position; the regimental 

 socialists as against theirs, and 



