INTRODUCTION xv 



which characterises English workmen of the better class, 

 would enable me to do something towards the counter- 

 action of the fallacious guidance which is offered to 

 them." And so he shows that to base any political 

 theory on the supposed substitution of a voluntary social 

 contract for an hypothetical state cf nature, whether 

 for the purpose of guaranteeing the freedom of the in- 

 dividual or of maintaining the general welfare by the 

 complete surrender of individual rights to the sovereign 

 state, is to create a false dilemma. Government need 

 not choose between Anarchy and Regimentation, An- 

 archy, which permits no other restraint upon individual 

 freedom than "such ethical and intellectual considera- 

 tions as may be fully recognised by the individual," and 

 Regimentation, which undertakes to "regulate not only 

 production and consumption, but every detail of human 

 life." Both these theories are based upon the assump- 

 tion of a state of nature which never existed and upon 

 the unwarranted derivation of civil from natural rights. 

 "Perhaps it is the prejudice of scientific habit," wrote 

 Huxley, "which leads me to think that it might be as 

 well to proceed from the known to the unknown." 

 Therefore he maintained that the problems of govern- 

 ment cannot be solved in the lump by reference to a 

 priori formulae but by facing the concrete problems as 

 they appear. We can, however, learn from experience in 

 self and family government to steer a middle course be- 

 tween rigid restraint and unlimited freedom. 



IV 



In his essay On the Improvement of the Natural 

 History Sciences Huxley claimed for the study of science 

 not only that it "conferred practical benefits on men," 



