XXVI] 



HERBERT SPENCER 



29 



in our favour, which could hardly have been effected without 

 the work of a society, and we have long since satisfied most 

 thinking men that the special difficulty as to the valuation 

 of the owners* improvements is a purely imaginary one, since 

 it is continually done. But the remarkable thing is, that only 

 ten years later, in his volume on " Justice," the writer of this 

 letter should have so far changed his opinions as to arrive 

 ultimately at the conclusion thus stated : " A fuller considera- 

 tion of the matter has led me to the conclusion that individual 

 ownership, subject to State suzerainty, should be maintained." 

 Those who care to understand what were the supposed facts 

 leading to this most impotent conclusion, will find them 

 stated and exposed in vol. ii., chap, xviii. of my " Studies." ^ 

 They were first given in an address to the Land Nationaliza- 

 tion Society in 1892. 



A few months later he wrote me again on the land 

 question, in reply to my recommendation of Henry George's 

 book " Progress and Poverty," and this letter, as exhibiting 

 his ideas on human progress generally, and also his somewhat 

 hasty judgments on particular writers, seems well worthy of 

 preservation, and I therefore give it verbatim. 



"38, Queen's Gardens, Bayswater, July 6, i88r. 



" Dear Mr. Wallace, 



" I have already seen the work you name — * Pro- 

 gress and Poverty ; ' having had a copy, or rather two copies, 

 sent me. I gathered, from what little I glanced at, that I 

 should fundamentally disagree with the writer, and have not 

 read more. 



" I demur entirely to the supposition, which is implied in 

 the book, that, by any possible social arrangements whatever, 

 the distress which humanity has had to suffer in the course of 

 civilization could have been prevented. The whole process, 



* H. Spencer's treatment of the land question in this work is criticized 

 and controverted in great detail by Henry George in *' A Perplexed Philosopher," 

 published in 1893. Neither H. Spencer nor any of his disciples have refuted 

 these destructive criticisms. 



