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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 161 



the confused and perplexing phenomena of such a 

 period of transition and confusion ? We are on 

 trial, really, as to whether we can appreciate and 

 deserve our inheritance of institutions, rights, 

 powers, and opportunities. The great test prob- 

 lem of our time is whether we can now, after 

 overthrowing all the old privileges, hold steadily 

 the balance of truth and justice, so as not to create 

 new privileged classes in the new rulers of society. 

 The impatience and derision with which the most 

 sober appeals, and the most justifiable demands to 

 know what is meant and whither we are being 

 led, are met, is not re-assuring. The phrase- 

 makers and the sentimentalists seem to have the 

 control for the moment. 



It is true that men have attached hopes of easy 

 and universal happiness to progress which were 

 doomed to disappointment. It is true that the 

 new development brings new tasks and new diffi- 

 culties. All development will do so to the end of 

 time. It is true that the great plutocrats and 

 captains of industry have now great power, and 

 that, like all others who have ever held power, 

 they may abuse it. It does follow, truly, that ap- 

 propriate developments of our institutions will be 

 called for to meet the new difficulties. The 

 proper solution of all such cases must be found as 

 they arise one by one. It is a vicious and mis- 

 chievous procedure to anticipate them, to speculate 

 about them, and to lay down broad principles in 

 advance by which to solve them. It is as vicious 

 in political science as casuistry is in morals. 



There are three very common assertions in re- 

 gard to the effects of modern improvements which 

 I hold to be incorrect in fact. 



1. It is often asserted that progress has made 

 the poor poorer, and that it has crushed down 

 those who are worst off to a position worse than 

 that which they formerly occupied. This is an 

 historical assertion, and is quite different from the 

 other assertion with which it is often connected, 

 that our least well-to-do classes are not ideally 

 well off. The advance-guard of our society is far 

 ahead of any grade of physical well-being which 

 men have ever before enjoyed, and the distance 

 between our advance-guard and our rear-guard 

 is far greater than ever before ; but the rear- 

 guard is far ahead of any position which the rear- 

 guard ever occupied before. From this statement 

 the victims of industrial folly or vice must be ex- 

 cluded. At no time has any large mass of men 

 enjoyed such command of the conditions of ma- 

 terial welfare as is now enjoyed by the mass of 

 men in the great civilized states. This is the 

 only proper measure of social achievements, not 

 any ideal. If anyone thinks that this could be 

 gained without any alloy of incidental trouble and 



difficulty, he must have little experience in the 

 observation of human affairs. 



2. It is sometimes asserted that the chief result 

 of progress is to offer more chances for gambling 

 speculation. On the contrary, the result of the 

 improvements in production and transportation 

 has been to reduce the irrational element in trade 

 <and industry to rationality. There are no specula- 

 tors in the United States to-day who are any bolder 

 than Bingham and the two Morrises, and the mer- 

 chants of the commercial war period, and the land 

 speculators of old times. It is erroneously asserted 

 that the great gains in wages of superintendence 

 come from speculation. If that were true, they 

 would, like all gambling gains on pure luck, ulti- 

 mately average zero. The great gains of the su- 

 perintendent, which are popularly called specula- 

 tive, come from reducing the irrational element of 

 luck to rationality, by investigation of facts, saga- 

 city in judging the market, and calculation of 

 probable results. 



3. It is asserted that progress has given the cap- 

 tains of industry control of the labor market. 

 Taking good and bad times together, it is im- 

 possible to say who has the control of the labor 

 market, employer or employee, because neither 

 of them has it. Each needs the other. As the 

 times change, the need of one for the other may 

 become greater, and one or the other becomes 

 stronger in the market accordingly. 



Having thus cleared the ground and got the 

 case before us, let us attempt a more specific reply 

 to the question proposed. 



1. The great use of history is to verify and rec- 

 tify our deductions by a continual reference of 

 them to facts of observation; but a further use of 

 history and sociology is to train the judgment to 

 an instinct or sagacity for the estimate of the con- 

 ditions under which, and the limits within which, 

 we can take measures for an end which we judge 

 expedient. This instinct or sagacity can be ex- 

 pressed in certain maxims, but the maxims are in- 

 elastic, and fail to carry the very element which 

 is most important. The finest example of this is 

 the maxim laissez-faire. For purposes of instruc- 

 tion, and for those who are not in the way of 

 forming the instinct described by independent 

 study, the maxim is of the greatest value. In any 

 case, and for anybody, the lessons of history take 

 form in general habits of thought, points of view, 

 and prejudices. Now, if I read history aright, it 

 warns us against all such rash and empirical inter- 

 ferences with rights, interests, and institutions, as 

 are proposed under our question. The cases, if 

 let alone develop their own corrective forces, or 

 what we thought a great danger proves to owe 

 all its terror to our short-sighted misjudgment. 



