March 5, 1886. J 



SCIENCE. 



225 



necessary to resign the claim to industrial law- 

 lessness : the alternative is socialism. 



Arthur T. Hadley. 



• II. 



This is a question in speculative jurisprudence. 

 In old times we never should have thought of 

 debating such a question. It is, however, far 

 from being a silly question in the times on which 

 we have fallen. It brings out, upon the arena of 

 debate, the major premise of a number of projects 

 and doctrines which are now advocated ; and we 

 know that the fallacies lurk most in the assump- 

 tions of the major premise. It is also a significant 

 fact that we are forced to discuss speculative 

 questions where speculation has no business, just 

 when speculation is condemned in its proper do- 

 main, and when the true uses of history are 

 ignored by those who w ant to use history out of 

 its sphere. 



Status and contract, regulation and freedom, 

 combination and competition, are the jurispruden- 

 tial, the constitutional, and the economic facets 

 of the same thing. Each couplet is complete in 

 -itself, and its parts are entirely complementary, as 

 much so as heat and cold. Hence, if we narrow 

 the field of contract, we shall extend that of 

 status. We shall create new rights derived from 

 the new status, either for all citizens or for the 

 classes affected (e.g., the poor, debtors, employees, 

 tenants), to which there will be no corresponding 

 obligations : and we shall correspondingly extend 

 the range of torts. We shall in like manner shift 

 the adjustment of freedom and regulation now 

 existing in our constitutional law, diminishing 

 individual responsibility, and increasing collective 

 responsibility, in the same degree. 



What, then, are the facts upon which we are 

 invited to enter upon such a reconstruction of the 

 whole body of jural relations on which our society 

 is built ? 



For the last three hundred years the best 

 thought and labor of civilized men has been de- 

 voted to the effort to produce civil institutions 

 which would guarantee to each individual the ex- 

 clusive use of all his own powers for the pursuit 

 of his own ends; i.e., happiness, as he understands 

 it, and the equality of all before the law. Such a 

 thing as an economically free man cannot exist, 

 because our life on earth is held in conditions 

 which we can modify only within narrow limits 

 at best. The last hundred years, however, have 

 seen a growth of our power over the harsh condi- 

 tions of life by a development of the arts, w T hich 

 we never tire of glorifying. This development of 

 the arts has made necessary a new and very wide 



organization of mankind for industrial purposes : 

 it has produced a great demand for talent in the 

 way of organizing and executive ability, and it 

 has given enormous importance to capital (plant, 

 tools, and machinery). The new organization is 

 necessarily impersonal, automatic, and mechanical. 

 The effect of liberty, combined with the new 

 development of the arts, has been to surround 

 every man in our society with a great range of 

 new chances, from the chance of becoming a 

 gang-boss to that of becoming a great captain of 

 industry. Formerly a man might rise, it is true, 

 but the chances of doing so were limited to sol- 

 diers, priests, and royal favorites. A century ago, 

 of two weavers, one might be a better workman 

 than the other. He could profit by his superiority 

 only within narrow limits. To-day one might 

 remain an operative, and the other become a 

 great manufacturer. The modern state has, in 

 effect, thrown open the chances of success to all. 

 in the faith that thus the maximum of industrial 

 power would be developed for all, and that the 

 maximum of individual happiness would be at- 

 tained for each. 



In large measure the aim of fifty or a hundred 

 years ago has been realized : but when we aim to 

 go on and realize it still more completely, by a 

 fuller realization of liberty to win, and security to 

 have and hold, we are met by a reaction. We are 

 told that liberty does not produce an ideal society, 

 and that there are yet thousands of poor, unfortu- 

 nate, and unhappy. There are no pure and un- 

 alloyed results of this so much boasted progress. 

 If liberty has opened chances of wide improve- 

 ment and advance for the better and the best, it 

 has opened chances of deterioration for the weak 

 and unfortunate, equally great and as terrible as 

 the others are glorious. If society has offered 

 chances and given security to the captains of 

 industry, it has only created a new order of 

 nobles — plutocrats, in fact ; and the effect of the 

 development of talent has only been to bring con- 

 trol of the industrial organization into the hands 

 of a few- powerful men, who can readily combine 

 to seek selfish ends, and supplant competition by 

 combination. 



Everyone knows that there is some measure of 

 truth in all this. It is by no means strange that 

 it should be exaggerated and enhanced by the 

 partial interpretations and incorrect generaliza- 

 tions which are sure to be made under such 

 circumstances. How could it be expected that 

 the world should go on at the rate of the last cen- 

 tury, and that some should not get dizzy and 

 frightened at the speed ? How could it be expected 

 that all should keep their heads cool, and their 

 judgment sound, so as to interpret correctly all 



