apparent between England and the United States. In England the old a priori Individualism is universally abandoned. No Professor ever founds any argument, whether in defence of the rights of property or otherwise, upon the inherent right of the individual to his own physical freedom and to the possession of such raw material as he has made his own by expending personal effort upon. "The first step must be to rid our minds of the idea that there are any such things in social matters as abstract rights (The State in Relation to Labor," ch. 1, p. 6, by the late W. Stanley Jevons, Professor of Political Economy at University College, London). The whole case on both sides is now made to turn exclusively on the balance of social advantage, and practically no Individualist axiomata media are allowed to be taken for granted. The older Individualist arguments are to be found now only in the

Liberty and Property Defence League," which has no philosophic importance, or in the writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Auberon Herbert. It would be safe to say that the political influence of these latter gentlemen is absolutely imperceptible.

1An almost exclusively Conservative organization of landlords and capitalists formed to resist the prevailing democratic "attacks" upon the "rights of property."

2It must not be overlooked, moreover, that Mr. Herbert Spencer bases the whole of his ideal Individualism upon what he considers the indispensable basis of complete Land Nationalization. (See Social Statics, passim). The editor of the Personal Rights Journal, the only distinctively Individualist organ, agrees in this view. Such "Individualists" as these find themselves in constant opposition to the defenders of "private property as property.

6. SOCIALISM IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.

In no department of thought has the change been more apparent during the present generation than in the accepted tenets and general tone of Political Economy. For the first two generations of its history the Smith-Ricardo economics made, on the whole, for Individualism. The prevailing reaction against the monarchic and oligarchic bureaucracies led the earlier economists of this century to lean strongly towards Laissez Faire, and this tendency was accentuated by their essentially atomistic conception of society, and the shallow optimism which they had caught from Rousseau. The industrial revolution, which was all the time proceeding, had however the incidental effect of rendering obselete most of their practical deductions, almost before they were formulated, and the obviously destructive effects of complete individual freedom of user of the means of production, compelled the statesman and the "practical man" to disregard the economist's mistaken warnings. Beginning in 1802, Factory Act after Factory Act was passed in the teeth of stubborn economic resistance, and the legislation of England for the last generation has been one long record of limitations on private property for the public good.1

Meanwhile a new conception of the State had arisen. From Comte, Darwin and Spencer the idea of the social Organism was gradually filtering into men's minds, and unconsciously altering all their political theories and ideals. It has gradually

1See Mr. Herbert Spencer's animated but isolated protest, Man vs. The State.

become recognized that a Perfect City was something different from any number of good citizens, something to be tried by other tests and weighed in other balances. The lesson of Evolution, at first thought to be the apotheosis of anarchic individual competition, is now recognized to be quite the contrary. We have to learn, Professor Huxley tells us,' to substitute consciously adapted coördination for internecine competition, if the Organism which will prove to be the Fittest to Survive," is to be also the best. Even the Political Economists are learning this lesson, and the fundamental idea of a Social Organism paramount over and prior to the individual of each generation, is penetrating to their minds and appearing in their lectures, though it has not even yet affected to any great extent their more elaborate treatises.

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The progress towards Socialism has, however, been strikingly apparent even in economic literature. The publication of J. S. Mills' "Political Economy," in 1848, conveniently marks the boundary between the old and the new economics. Every edition of Mills' book became more and more socialistic in tone, until his death revealed to the world in the Autobiography" (p. 231-2) his emphatic and explicit repudiation of mere political democracy in favor of complete Socialism. Since then the progress has been rapid. By the definite rejection of the Wages Fund Theory, the development and extension of the Ricardian Law of Rent, and the gradual modification

1 Nineteenth Century, February, 1888. See also Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics, already referred to.

2See numerous suggestions on this point throughout Mr. Sidgwick's Principles of Political Economy, and the article by the present writer, The Rate of Interest and the Laws of Distribution," (Quarterly Journal of Economics January, 1888.)

and subordination of "Malthusianism," the scientific differences between the "orthodox" economists and the economic Socialists has now become mainly one of terminology and relative stress, with the result that one competent economist,' not himself a Socialist, publishes regretfully to the world that all the younger men are now Socialists, with many of the Professors.

Professor Henry Sidgwick (Professor of Moral Philosophy, Cambridge), the most cautious of men, even publishes an article with a view to correct the world's mistaken impression that Political Economy is opposed to Socialism, and shows that, on the contrary, the socialist proposals are a plain and obvious deduction from accepted economic principles.

This convergence has been facilitated by the fact that English Socialists are by no means blind worshippers of Karl Marx.) While recognizing his valuable services to economic history, and as stirrer of men's minds, a large number of English socialist economists reject his special contributions to pure economics. His theory of value meets with little support in English economic circles, where that of Jevons is becoming increasingly dominant. Although the leaders of the two largest socialist organizations have been strongly influenced by Marx, the rank and file of the socialist party do not found. their socialism on any special economic theories, but upon the patent results of individual ownership, as shown in the large payments for rent and interest.

1Rev. F. W. Aveling, M. A., Principal of the Independent College, Taunton, in leaflet of August, 1888, Down with the Socialists. 2" Economic Socialism" in Contemporary Review, November, 1886.

The great bulk of the unconscious Socialism of the English voter and statesman has been based merely upon empirical observation, and has certainly not been affected by any notion of "surplus value.") The economic influence most potent among the Socialist Radicals is still that of John Stuart Mill,

Recent economic publications betray the dominant collectivist influence even where this is not intended. What is perhaps the most popular handbook of "orthodox" Political Economy, published by one of the universities, is written by an ardent Communist, and another recent manual, for the use of schools," is the production of a college professor of economics, who is an energetic public advocate of complete Land Nationalization.

It was computed in December, 1887, that out of a total of fourteen courses of lectures on economics being delivered under the auspices of various public bodies in London, eight, and possibly more, were being given by professed Socialists. I have been told that one of the "University Extension" societies lately found some difficulty in obtaining young economist lecturers sufficiently free from what some of its older members thought the socialistic taint. If it were not for the friendly services of such persons as Mr. Auberon Herbert (who serve the purpose of the stakes at the side of the glacier by which we note its motion), it would indeed be difficult to measure a progress which is so general.

When the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica needed for their ninth edition an article setting forth the development and position of political economy, it was to a Socialistic Positivist that they addressed themselves, and the article took the form of a lengthy