Economics (continued 2)

Behind and before all these sciences, however, lies the great science of mathematics—the most powerful instrument the mind can employ in the investigation of natural law—and the science of mathematics must be divided into abstract mathematics or the calculus, and concrete mathematics embracing general geometry and rational mechanics. We have thus really six great sciences.

Mathematics. Mathematics may be defined briefly as the indirect measurement of magnitudes and the determination of magnitudes by each other. It is the business of concrete mathematics to discover the equations of phenomena; it is the business of abstract mathematics to educe results from the equations. Thus concrete mathematics discovers by actual experiment the acceleration which takes place per second in a falling body, and abstract mathematics educes results from the equations so discovered, and obtains unknown quantities from known.

Astronomy. Astronomy may be defined as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by heavenly bodies. To discover these laws we can use only our sense of sight and our reasoning power, and reasoning bears a greater proportion to observation here than in any other science. Sight alone would never teach us the figure of the earth or the path of a planet, and only by the measurement of angles and computation of times can we discover astronomical laws. The observation of these invariable laws frees man from servitude to the theological and metaphysical conceptions of the universe.

Physics. Physics may be defined briefly as the study of the laws which regulate the general properties of bodies regarded en masse, their molecules remaining unaltered and usually in a state of aggregation. In the observations of physics all the senses are employed, and mathematical analysis and experiment assist observation. In the phenomena of astronomy human intervention was impossible; in the phenomena of physics man begins to modify natural phenomena.

Physics includes the subdivisions statics, dynamics, thermology, acoustics, optics, and electrology. Physics is still handicapped by metaphysical conceptions of the primary causes of phenomena.

Chemistry. Chemistry may be briefly defined as the study of the laws of the phenomena of composition and decomposition, which result from the molecular and specific mutual action of different substances, natural or artificial. In the observations of chemistry the senses are still more employed, and experiment is of still more utility. Even in chemistry metaphysical conceptions, such as "affinity," linger.

Physiology. Physiology may be defined as the study of the laws of organic dynamics in relation to structure and environment. Placed in a given environment, a definite organism must always act in a definite way, and physiology investigates the reciprocal relations between organism, environment, and function. In physiology observation and experiment are of the greatest value, and apparatus of all kinds is used to assist both observation and experiment. Physiology is most closely connected with chemistry, since all the phenomena of life are associated with compositions and decompositions of a chemical character.

II.—Social Physics

To place social physics on a scientific basis is a task of great difficulty, since social theories are still perverted by theological and metaphysical doctrines. All I can hope to do is to point out general principles which may serve to correct the intellectual anarchy which is the cause of the moral and political anarchy of the present day. I propose to state first how the institution of a science of social physics bears upon the principal needs and grievances of society, so that men worthy of the name of statesmen may realise that such labours are of real utility. So far, positive philosophy has worked timidly and tentatively, and has not been bold and broad and general enough to cope with intellectual anarchy in social questions; but it is necessary now that it play a more dominant part in life, and lead society out of the turmoil in which it has tossed for three centuries.

At present, society is distracted by two conflicting influences, which may be called the theological polity and the metaphysical polity.

The theological polity at one time exercised a beneficent influence on society; but for three centuries past its influence has been essentially retrograde, and has gradually, but radically, decayed. The causes of its decline are various; but the chief present-day antagonist to the theological polity is the scientific spirit, and the scientific spirit can now never be repressed.

The metaphysical polity is progressive, but progressive mainly in a negative way. So far, it has made for progress; but it has made for progress chiefly by removing impediments to progress, by destroying the theological conceptions which retarded the development of human intelligence and human society. Though dangerous and revolutionary, it has been necessary; for much required to be demolished to permit permanent reconstruction.

The metaphysical polity was required to combat the theological; but now it has served its destructive purpose, and tends to become obstructive, for, having destroyed the old, it will not permit the new. Its chief dogma has always been liberty of conscience with the liberty of press and speech which that implies; but liberty of conscience really means little more than absence of intellectual regulation; and even as liberty of conscience is out of the question in astronomy and chemistry, so it is out of the question in social physics. Liberty of conscience and inquiry can only be temporary and transitional, and must be followed by positive decision on the part of those qualified to decide. It cannot be held that every man is competent to form opinions in social and political questions; it cannot be maintained that intellects of weak capacity can judge obscure and complex questions, and that all opinions are equally valuable. All society is based on faith in the opinion of others and in reciprocal confidence. Continual discussion of the foundations of society must render it impossible to lay sure foundations firm, and the disorder produced by free opinions on all points by all people is seen in the fierce and feeble sectarianism of Protestantism. What are the limits of free inquiry we shall see later; meantime, we may note that fine motto of the Catholic Church: "In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; and in all things, charity."

The second dogma of the metaphysical polity is equality, and, like the other dogma, it must be considered the temporary expression of a temporary need. It is indeed a corollary of the dogma of liberty of conscience; for to assume liberty of conscience without equality of intelligence would be to stultify the assumption. Having achieved its purpose, it also became an obstacle in the path of progress. Equality sufficient to permit a man to use his faculties aright is allowed by all; but men cannot be made equal physically, and much less can they be made equal intellectually and morally.

The dogma of liberty of conscience and equality resulted naturally in a third dogma, the sovereignty of the people. This also was provisionally useful, in that it permitted a series of political experiments; but it is in essence revolutionary, condemning the superior to be ruled by the inferior. A fourth dogma, the dogma of national independence, has also been serviceable in separating the nations in preparation for a new union.

The metaphysical polity fails utterly in constructive capacity. During the first French revolution it successfully destroyed the old social system; but its attempts to reorganise society were retrogressive. Instead of Catholicism it proposed polytheism; and in the name of virtue and simplicity it condemned industry and art. Even science was condemned as aristocracy of knowledge. Nor can these blunders be considered accidental; they were inherent in the polity. It is evident that a polity that admits on the one hand the need for a theological foundation, and on the other hand destroys the foundations of theology must end in intellectual anarchy.

Satisfied with neither the theological nor the metaphysical polities, society has wavered between them, and the one tendency has served chiefly to counteract the other. Out of these oscillations a third school of political opinion, which we may call the "stationary school," has arisen.

This school would fix society in a contradictory position between retrogression and progress, such as is seen in the parliamentary monarchy of England. This is a last phase of the metaphysical polity, and is only a kind of placebo.

The result of all this is to produce a most unfortunate position. The theological polity would revert to old, worn-out principles; the metaphysical polity has no definite principles at all; and the stationary school merely offers temporary compromises. Everywhere there is intellectual anarchy, and in Protestant countries the disorder is increased by sectarian discord. So complex are all social questions that few are able to see them steadily, and see them whole, and where individual opinion is unhampered, individual prejudice and individual ignorance must be rampant.

Intellectual anarchy and unsettled convictions, moreover, tend to political corruption. If there are no convictions and no principles to which to appeal, appeal must be made to self-interest or to fear.

A growing tendency to take a shortsighted and material view of political questions is also a disturbing sign of the times. This is due to the fact that when, three centuries ago, spiritual power was abolished, all social questions were given over to men occupied with practical affairs and influenced chiefly by material considerations.

Material views of political questions not only impede progress, but are also dangerous to order, for the view that disorders have a material cause leads to constant interference with institutions and with property. Granted there are abuses in connection both with property and institutions, what is required is not material changes but general moral and intellectual reform.

An inadequate and material view of social physics naturally favours mediocrity, attracts political charlatans, while the most eminent minds devote their attention to science.

The theological and metaphysical philosophies having failed, what remains? Nothing remains but the positive philosophy, which is the only agent able to reorganise society. The positive philosophy will regard social phenomena as it regards other phenomena, and will apply to the renovation of society the same scientific spirit found effective in other departments of human knowledge. It will bring to politics the conception of natural laws, and deal with delicate social questions on impartial scientific principles. It will show that certain wrongs are inevitable, and others curable; and that it is as foolish to try to cure the incurable in social as in biological and chemical matters. A spirit of this kind will encourage reform, and yet obviate vain attempts to redress necessary evils.

It will thus make for intellectual order. It will likewise make for progress and for true liberty by substituting genuine convictions founded on scientific principles for constitutional artifices and the laws of arbitrary wills; it will reconcile the antagonism of class interests by moral and scientific considerations. Revolutionary outbursts there still will be, but they will merely clear the ground for positive reconstruction on a moral and intellectual basis.

Strangely enough, the scientific class are not likely to assist in the positive reconstruction of society. They shrink from the irrational methods of modern polities, and, further, they are so restricted in their narrow horizons that they are unable to grasp the wide generalisations of positive philosophy.

III.—Social Statics

There can be no doubt that society originated in social instincts, and was not merely the result of utilitarian considerations. Indeed, the social state could manifest its ability only when well developed, and in the early ages of humanity the advantages to the individual of association would not be obvious.

What, then, are the human instincts and requirements which give society its fundamental characters? In the first place, it must be noted that in man the intellectual is subordinate to the affective. In most men the intellectual faculties are easily fatigued, and require a strong and constant stimulus to keep them at work. In the majority of cases the stimulus is derived from the needs of organic life; but in more highly endowed individuals the incitement may proceed from higher affective impulses. This subordination of the intellectual to the affective faculties is beneficent in that it gives a permanent end and aim to the intellectual activity.

In the second place it must be noted that the personal affections are stronger than the social affections, and that personal affections give aim and direction to our social actions. This is necessary, for all ideas of public good must be inferred from the ideas of private advantage, and if it were possible to repress our personal affections, our social affections, deprived of necessary inspiration and direction, would become vague and ineffective. In the precept that bids us love our neighbours as ourselves the personal instinct is suggested as the pattern for the social. The only thing to be regretted is that the personal affections are apt to override, instead of stimulating, the social affections.

Increase of intelligence must mean greater capacity for social affection, because of the discipline it imposes on the personal affections; and for the same reason increase of the social instinct is favourable to intelligence. To strengthen this reciprocal action of the intellect and the social affections is the first task of universal morals. And the double opposition between man's moral and material need of intellectual toil and his dislike of it, and again between man's moral and material need of the social affections, and the subjection of these to his personal instincts, discloses the scientific germ of the struggle which we shall have to review, between the conservative and the reforming spirit; the first of which is animated by purely personal instincts, and the other by the spontaneous combination of intellectual activity with the various social instincts.

Society, however, cannot be regarded as composed of individuals. The true social unit is the family; it is essentially on the plan of the family that society is constructed. In a family the social and the personal instincts are blended and reconciled; in a family, too, the principle of subordination and mutual co-operation is exemplified. The domestic is the basis of all social life. The modern tendency, therefore, to attack the institution of the family is an alarming symptom of social disorganisation.

The sociological basis of the family depends on subordination of sexes and of ages.

Marriage at once satisfies, disciplines, and harmonises the strongest and most disorderly instinct of our animal nature; and though it may be attacked by the revolutionary spirit because of its theological implications, yet the institution is based on true principles, and must survive. No doubt marriage has been modified, but to modify is not to overthrow, and its fundamental principle remains intact.

The fundamental principle of the institution of marriage is the natural subordination of the woman—a principle which has reappeared under all forms of marriage. Biology teaches that radical differences, physical and moral, distinguish the sexes, and sociology will prove that the much-advertised equality of sexes is a fiction, and that equality of the sexes would be incompatible with all social existence. Each sex has special functions it must perform in the family, and the necessary subordination of one sex is in no wise injurious, since the happiness of every being depends on the wise development of its proper nature.

Our social system depends on intellectual activity under affective stimulus, and in power of mental labour the woman is incontestably inferior to the man, either because her mental powers are weaker, or because her lively moral and physical sensibility is unfavourable to mental concentration.

Besides the bond of marriage, which holds together society, there is the bond between parents and children. Here again we find the principle of subordination in force, and even as we find wild revolutionaries who challenge the principle of subordination in women, so there are some who would challenge the same principle in the case of children. Fortunately, popular good sense and the primary instincts resist such absurdities.

The spontaneous subordination in the human family is the best model for society. On the other hand, we see obedience and due subordination allied to gratitude, and unassociated with shame; and, on the other hand, we see absolute authority combined with affection and geniality. There are those who would take children from their parents' care, and hand them over to society, and there are those who would prevent the transmission of property from parents to children; but such extravagances need not be examined here.

Coming now to the consideration of society as constructed out of the family units, we see unity of aim associated with diversity of functions. It is a marvellous spectacle to see how in a society the individuals pursuing each their own end yet unconsciously co-operate; and this co-operation is the mainspring of society. In the family, co-operation is much less marked; for the family is founded chiefly on affection, and in affection finds its justification, quite apart from co-operation towards any end. In society the instinct of co-operation preponderates, and the instinct of affection plays only a secondary part. There are exceptional men in whom the affective side of the social instinct is dominant; but such men in most cases give their affection to the race at large simply from lack of domestic sympathy.

The principle of co-operation, spontaneous or concerted, is the basis of society, and the object of society must ever be to find the right place for its individual members in its great co-operative scheme. There is, however, a danger of exaggerated specialism; it concentrates the attention of individuals on small parts of the social machine, and thus narrows their sense of the social community, and produces an indifference to the larger interests of humanity. It is lamentable to find an artisan spending his life making pin-heads, and it is equally lamentable to find a man with mind employing his mind only in the solution of equations.

To guard against such social and intellectual disintegration must be the duty of government. It must foster the feeling of interconnection between individuals; and such a bond of feeling must be intellectual and moral rather than material, and will always imply subordination. The social instinct of man spontaneously produces government, and there is a much stronger instinct of obedience in man than is commonly supposed. Who has not felt it good to resign the responsibility of conduct to wise and trustworthy guidance? Even in revolutionary times the people feel the need of preponderant authority, and political subordination is as inevitable as it is indispensable.

IV.—Social Dynamics

Human progress consists essentially in the evolution of the moral and intellectual qualities proper to man. Most of the occupations of civilisation which deal with material things relieve man from material cares and discomforts, and permit him to use his higher faculties. Death, too, may be considered a promoter of human progress. Youth is essentially progressive, age essentially conservative and opposed to progress, and death it is that prevents old age from too seriously impeding the progress of the world. If life were ten times as long, progress would be greatly retarded. On the other hand, death interferes with continuity of work, and by interrupting a man's work often delays its fruition. It is probable that if life were twice or thrice as long, progress would be more rapid.

Human progress is directed by the reason, and the history of the progress of society is largely the history of the human mind in its progress through its three stages—the theological, metaphysical, and positive. The necessity of these stages can be shown.

At first man knows nothing but himself, and it was inevitable that he should explain things as produced by a being like himself. The theological philosophy gave a basis for observation by its hypotheses that phenomena were products of actions like human acts, and that all bodies had life like human life, and that there was an invisible world with invisible agents. These hypotheses were not only intellectually necessary; they were also morally necessary, for they gave man confidence to act, and hope that he could modify anything unsatisfactory in the universe by appeals to its maker. Not only did the theological philosophy sustain man's courage, and kindle his hope, and increase his sense of power, but it gave an intellectual unanimity of great social and political value; and, producing a special speculative class, made the first effective division between things of matter and things of mind. Except for the theological speculative class, man might have remained merely a superior monkey.

Still, the theological philosophy was obviously only temporary, and could not satisfy the needs of more highly developed intelligence, and it soon came into conflict with positive philosophy. Indeed, at all times there had been glimmerings of positive belief, for at all times the simplest phenomena had been considered subject to natural laws, and all had been compelled to act in everyday affairs on the assumption of the invariability of natural law. The positive philosophy, therefore, was inevitable from the first, and its open antagonism to the theological philosophy was merely a question of time.

Between the theological and positive philosophy naturally and necessarily has intervened the metaphysical, which has substituted entities for a deity. This philosophy has never had the social power or the consistency of the theological philosophy; its entities have been mere abstractions. It has and has had such political power simply because so elusive.

Material progress has gone through similar stages. The primitive tendency of mankind was to a military life. At first the military life afforded man, apart from cannibalism, the easy means of making a living; and in no other school in these days could order have been taught, and in no other way could political consolidation be so quickly effected.

Necessary as the military stage was, it was merely provisional, it must be succeeded by the industrial stage. Meantime, we are in the transitional stage between the two, for we have defensive instead of offensive military organisation, which is becoming more and more subordinate to industrial production.

The military stage corresponded with the theological stage, belonged to the same régime, had common antipathies and sympathies as well as general interests, and could not have worked without the aid of theological convictions to give blind confidence in military superiors. The industrial stage corresponds with the positive stage; it is akin in spirit, in origin, and in destination. The transitional stage, again, corresponds with the metaphysical stage. Only on these three dualisms which I have established can a sound historical philosophy be based.

HENRY GEORGE

Progress and Poverty

Henry George was born at Philadelphia on September 2, 1839. After spending some years at sea, he reached California in 1858, became a printer, and later a journalist and director of the public library in San Francisco. In 1871 he published "Our Land Policy," and this was afterwards developed into "Progress and Poverty: an Inquiry into the Causes of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth," issued in 1879. The book soon acquired a world-wide reputation, not only from the eloquence and beauty of its diction, but from the author's novel theory of land taxation. In 1880 George removed to New York, published a book on the Irish land question, and for some years afterwards undertook a succession of missionary journeys to Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, the result of which was the foundation of the English Land Reform Union, the Scottish Land Restoration League, and the legislative adoption by the different Australasian colonies of his scheme of the taxation of land values. Among other economic works he issued were "Protection or Free Trade," "The Condition of Labour," and "A Perplexed Philosopher." George died on October 29, 1897.

I.—Wages, Capital, and Wealth-Distribution

The past century has been marked by a prodigious increase in wealth-producing power. It was naturally expected that labour-saving inventions would make real poverty a thing of the past. Disappointment, however, after disappointment has followed. Discovery upon discovery, invention after invention, have neither lessened the toil of those who most need respite nor brought plenty to the poor. The association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our time.

I propose to attempt to solve by the methods of political economy the great problem; to seek the law which associates poverty with progress and increases want with advancing wealth.

The inquiry is—why, in spite of increase in productive power, do wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living? The answer of current political economy is that wages are fixed by the ratio between the number of labourers and the amount of capital devoted to the employment of labour, and constantly tend to the lowest amount on which labourers will consent to live and reproduce; because the increase in the number of labourers tends naturally to follow and overtake any increase in capital. This argument is inconsistent with the general fact that wages and interest do not rise inversely, but conjointly. My proposition is that wages, instead of being drawn from capital, are in reality drawn from the product of the labour for which they are paid.

The three agents or factors in production are land, labour and capital, and that part of the produce which goes to the second of these factors is wages. Land embraces all natural materials, forces, and opportunities, and therefore nothing that is freely supplied by nature can be properly classed as capital. Labour includes all human exertion, and hence human powers, whether natural or acquired, can never be properly classed as capital.

We exclude from the category of capital everything which must be included either as land or labour, and therefore capital consists of those things which are neither land nor labour, but which have resulted from the union of these two original factors of production. Nothing can be capital which is not wealth; only such things can be wealth the production of which increases, the destruction of which decreases, the aggregate of wealth. Increase in land values does not represent any increase in the common wealth, for what landowners gain by higher prices the tenants or purchasers will lose.

All wealth is not capital. Capital is only that part of wealth which is devoted to the aid of production. It is wealth in the course of exchange, for production includes not merely the making of things, but the bringing of them to the consumer. Wherever we analyse the facts we find that without production wages would not, and could not, be. As the rendering of labour precedes the payment of wages, and as the rendering of labour in production implies the creation of value, the employer receives value before he pays out value—he but exchanges capital of one form for capital of another form. Hence the payment of wages in production never involves the advance of capital or ever temporarily lessens capital.

Nor is it true that the maintenance of labour is drawn from capital, and that therefore population regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, for that would involve the idea that labour cannot be exerted until the products of labour are saved, thus putting the product before the producer, which is absurd. Capital, therefore, does not limit industry, the only limit to industry being the access to natural material. Capital may limit the form of industry, and the productiveness of industry, by limiting the use of tools and the division of labour. The functions of capital are to assist labour in production with tools, seeds, etc., and with the wealth required to carry on exchanges. All remedies, whether proposed by professors of political economy or working men, which look to the alleviation of poverty either by the increase of capital, or the restriction of the number of labourers, or the efficiency of their work, must be condemned.

The argument that wages are determined by the ratio between capital and labour finds its strongest support in the Malthusian doctrine, and on both is based the theory that past a certain point the application of capital and labour yields a diminishing return. The Malthusian doctrine is that the tendency to increase in the number of labourers must always tend to reduce wages to the minimum on which labourers can reproduce. When this theory is subjected to the test of straightforward analysis, it is utterly untenable. In the first place, the facts marshalled in support of it do not prove it, and the analogies drawn from the animal and vegetable world do not countenance it; and, in the second place, there are facts which conclusively disprove it.

There are on every hand the most striking and conclusive evidences that the production and consumption of wealth have increased with even greater rapidity than the increase of population, and that if any class obtains less than its due share, it is solely because of the greater inequality of distribution. The denser the population, the more minute becomes the subdivision of labour, the greater economies of production and distribution, and hence, the very reverse of the Malthusian doctrine is true.

II.—The Law of Wages

To discover the cause which, as population increases, and the productive arts advance, deepens the poverty of the lowest class, we must find the law which determines what part of the produce is distributed to labour as wages, what part to capital as interest, and what part to landowners as rent.

Rent is the price of monopoly arising from the reduction to individual ownership of natural elements which human exertion can neither produce nor increase. Interest is not properly a payment made for the use of capital. It springs from the power of increase which the reproductive forces of nature and the (in effect) analogous capacity for exchange give to capital. The principle that men will seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion operates to establish an equilibrium between wages and interest.

This relation fixed, it is evident that interest cannot be increased without increasing wages nor wages lowered without depressing interest. The law of interest is that the relation between wages and interest is determined by the average power of increase which attaches to capital from its use in its reproductive modes. The law of wages is that they depend upon the margin of production, or upon the produce which labour can obtain at the highest point of natural productiveness open to it without the payment of rent. This law of wages accords with and explains universal facts, and shows that where land is free, and labour is unassisted by capital, the whole produce will go to labour as wages. Where land is free, and labour is assisted by capital, wages will consist of the whole produce, less that part necessary to induce the storing up of labour as capital. Where land is subject to ownership and rent arises, wages will be fixed by what labour can secure from the highest natural opportunities open to it without the payment of rent. Where natural opportunities are all monopolised, wages must be forced by the competition among labourers to the minimum at which labourers will consent to reproduce. Nothing can be clearer than the proposition that the failure of wages to increase with increasing productive power is due to the increase of rent.

The value of land depending wholly upon the power which its ownership gives of appropriating wealth created by labour, the increase of land values is always at the expense of the value of labour. And, hence, that the increase of productive power does not increase wages is because it does increase the value of land. It is the universal fact that where the value of the land is highest civilisation exhibits the greatest luxury side by side with the most piteous destitution.

The changes which constitute or contribute to material progress are three: increase in population, improvement in the arts of production and exchange, and improvement in knowledge, government, and morals. The effect of increase of population upon the distribution of wealth is to increase rent, and consequently to diminish the proportion of the produce which goes to capital and labour in two ways. First, by lowering the margin of cultivation; and second, and more important, by bringing out in land special capabilities otherwise latent, and by attaching special capabilities to particular land. The effect of inventions and improvements in the productive arts, including division of labour between individuals, is to save labour—that is, to enable the same result to be secured with less labour, or a greater result with the same labour, and hence to the production of wealth.

Without any increase in population, the progress of invention constantly tends to give a larger and larger proportion of the produce to the owners of land, and a smaller proportion to labour and capital; and, therefore, to decrease wages and interest. And, as we can assign no limit to the progress of invention, neither can we assign any limits to the increase of rent short of the whole produce. Another cause of the influence of material progress upon the distribution of wealth is the confident expectation of the future enhancement of land values which arises in all progressive countries from the steady increase of rent. This leads to speculation, or the holding of land for a higher price than it would otherwise bring. It is a force which constantly tends to increase rent in a greater ratio than progress increases production, and tends to reduce wages, not merely relatively but absolutely.

III.—The Common Right to Land

The fact that the speculative advance in land values cuts down the earnings of labour and capital, and checks production, leads irresistibly to the conclusion that this is the main cause of those periodical industrial depressions to which every civilised country seems increasingly liable.

Robbed of all the benefits of the increase of productive power, labour is exposed to certain effects of advancing civilisation which, without the advantages that naturally accompany them, are positive evils, and of themselves tend to reduce the free labourer to the helpless and degraded condition of the slave. As land is necessary to the exertion of labour in the production of wealth, to command the land is to command all the fruits of labour save enough to enable labour to exist. But there is also an active, energetic power—a power that in every country, be its political form what it may, writes laws and moulds thought—the power of a vast and dominant pecuniary interest. The great cause in the inequality of the distribution of wealth is the inequality in the ownership of land. The ownership of land is the great fundamental fact which ultimately determines the social and political, and consequently, the intellectual and moral condition of a people. The tendencies and measures at present relied on or advocated as calculated to relieve poverty and distress among the masses are insufficient. The true remedy is to substitute for individual the common ownership of land.

As man belongs to himself, so his labour when put in concrete form belongs to him. As nature gives only to labour, the exertion of labour in production is the only title to exclusive possession. When non-producers can claim as rent a portion of the wealth created by producers, the right of the producers to the fruits of their labour is to that extent denied.

The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. The right of individual proprietorship of land is the denial of the natural rights of other individuals—it is a wrong which must show itself in the inequitable division of wealth. Again, the ownership of land will always give the ownership of men, to a degree measured by the necessity, real or artificial, for the use of land. And when that necessity is absolute, when starvation is the alternative to the use of land, then does the ownership of men involved in the ownership of land become absolute. Private ownership of land is the nether millstone. Material progress is the upper millstone. Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground. Historically, as ethically, private property in land is robbery. It has everywhere had its birth in war and conquest, and in the selfish use which the cunning have made of superstition and law.

IV.—The Remedy for Social Ills

Private property in land is inconsistent with the best use of land. What is necessary for that is security for improvements. Where land is treated as public property it will be used and improved as soon as there is need for its use and improvement, but, being treated as private property, the individual owner is permitted to prevent others from using, or improving, what he cannot, or will not, use or improve himself. I do not propose to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be needless, the second unjust. It is only necessary to confiscate rent.

The sovereign remedy which will raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify government, and carry civilisation to yet nobler heights, is to appropriate rent by taxation, and to abolish all taxation save that upon land values. The great class of taxes from which revenue may be derived without interference with production are those upon monopolies, temporary or onerous. But all other monopolies are trivial in extent as compared with the monopoly of land. Taxes on the value of land not only do not check production but tend to increase it by destroying speculative rent.

The whole value of land may be taken in taxation, and the only effect will be to stimulate industry, to open new opportunities to capital, and to increase the production of wealth. A tax on land values does not add to prices, and is thus paid directly by the persons on whom it falls. Land is not a thing of human production, and taxes upon rent cannot check supply. On the contrary, by compelling those who hold land on speculation to sell or let for what they can get, a tax on land values tends to increase the competition between owners, and thus to reduce the price of land.

A tax on land values, while the least arbitrary of taxes, possesses in the highest degree the element of certainty. It may be assessed and collected with a definiteness that partakes of the immovable and unconcealable character of the land itself. It is the most just and equal of all taxes, because it falls only on those who receive from society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in proportion to the benefit they receive. The division of land now held on speculation would much increase the number of landowners. A single tax on the value of land would so equalise the distribution of wealth as to raise even the poorest above that abject poverty in which public considerations have no weight, while it would at the same time cut down those overgrown fortunes which raise their possessors above concern in government.

V.—Effects of the Remedy

The effects of the remedy would be to lift the whole enormous weight of taxation from productive industry. It would open new opportunities, for no one would care to hold land unless to use it, and land now withheld from use would everywhere be thrown open to improvement. The selling price of not merely agricultural, but all land, would fall. The bonus that wherever labour is most productive must not be paid before labour can be exerted would disappear. Competition in the labour market would no longer be one-sided. Rent, instead of causing inequality, would promote equality. Labour and capital would receive the whole produce, minus that portion taken by the state in the taxation of land values, which, being applied to public purposes, would be equally distributed in public benefits. The equalisation in the distribution of wealth would react upon production, everywhere preventing waste, everywhere increasing power.

Simplicity in the legislative and executive functions of government would become possible. It would at the same time and in the same degree become possible for it to realise the dream of socialism, not through governmental repression, but because government would become the administration of a great co-operative society, merely the agency by which the common property was administered for the common benefit. Give labour a free field and its full earnings, take for the benefit of the whole community that fund which the growth of the community creates, and want, and the fear of want, would be gone.

If the conclusions at which we have arrived are correct, they will fall under a larger generalisation. However man may have originated, man, as man, no matter how low in the scale of humanity, has never yet been found destitute of the power of improvement. Everywhere and at all times he has made some use of this power. The varying degrees in which the faculty is used cannot be ascribed to differences in original capacity. These are evidently connected with social development. A survey of history shows diversities in improvement, halts, and retrogression; and the law which will explain all these is that men tend to progress just as they come closer together, and by co-operation with each other, increase the mental power that may be devoted to improvement.

But just as conflict is provoked, or association develops inequality of condition and power, this tendency to progression is lessened, checked, and finally reversed. As society develops there arise tendencies which check development. The process of integration, of the specialisation of functions and powers, is accompanied by a constant liability to inequality, and to lodge collective power and wealth in the hands of a few, which tends to produce greater inequality, since aggression grows on what it feeds.

The reform I have proposed accords with all that is politically, socially, or morally desirable. It has the qualities of a true reform, for it will make all other reforms easier.

Behind the problems of social life lies the problem of individual life. Properly understood, the laws which govern the production and distribution of wealth show that the want and injustice of the present social state are not necessary, but that, on the contrary, a social state is possible in which poverty is unknown, and all the better qualities and higher powers of human nature would have opportunity for full development. Further than this, when we see that social development is governed neither by a special providence, nor by a merciless fate, but by law at once unchangeable and beneficent, a flood of light breaks in upon the problem of individual life. If we look merely at individual life we cannot see that the laws of the universe have the slightest relation to good or bad, to right or wrong, to just or unjust. By a fundamental law of our minds we cannot conceive of a means without an end. But unless man himself may rise to, or bring forth something higher, his existence is unintelligible. For it is as certain that the race must die as it is that the individual must die. What, then, is the meaning of life absolutely and inevitably bounded by death? To me it only seems intelligible as the avenue and vestibule to another life.

THOMAS HOBBES

The Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes was born at Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, April 5, 1588, and died at Hardwick Dec. 4, 1679. When comparatively a young man he was secretary to Francis Bacon. He spent many years abroad, met Galileo, and corresponded with Descartes. But he did not begin to produce until in advanced middle age. "Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil," appeared in 1651. His special impulse to the construction of a science of politics came from the Great Rebellion, his detestation of the principles on which it was based, and his dissatisfaction with the theory of "divine right" as a bafis for the absolutism which he counted a necessity. The "Leviathan" is the commonwealth, or state, conceived as an "artificial man," and this gives the title to this famous work. But this essay towards a science of politics was only a fragment of that complete and all-inclusive structure which he contemplated. Although in this sense only a fragment, it has largely influenced all political theorising since his day: and it contains the most definite enunciation of the doctrine of the social contract, which took so different and so revolutionary a shape in the hands of Rousseau.

I.—Of Man

Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the art of man so imitated that he can make an artificial animal. For by art is created that great leviathan called a commonwealth or state, which is but an artificial man; in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion; the magistrates and other officers the joints; reward and punishment the nerves; concord, health; discord, sickness; lastly, the pacts or covenants by which the parts were first set together resemble the "fiat" of God at the Creation.

To describe this artificial man, I will consider: First, the matter and the artificer, both which is man; secondly, how it is made; thirdly, what is a Christian commonwealth; lastly, what is the kingdom of darkness.

And first, of man. The thoughts of man are, singly, every one a representation of some quality or accident of a body without us, called an object. There is no conception in the mind which has not first been begotten upon the organs of sense. The cause of sense is the eternal object which presseth upon the proper organ; not that, as hath been taught in the schools, the thing, "sendeth forth a visible or audible species."

Imagination is the continuity of an image after the object is removed. When we would express that the image is decaying, we call it memory; in sleep, we call it dreams. A train of thought is the succession in the mind of images which have succeeded each other in experience.

Of all inventions the most notable is that of speech, names, the register of thoughts; which are notes for remembrance, or signs, for transference. Truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations. Words are wise men's counters, but the money of fools.

Reasoning is the reckoning, the addition and subtraction of the sequences of words, the sum being the conclusion. Which conclusions may be absurd, because men do not start—except in geometry—from the definitions of the words. Reason, therefore, implies speech.

In animals there are two sorts of motions—vital and voluntary. The beginnings of motion within man are called "endeavour." Appetite is a motion towards; aversion a motion fromwards. Some are born in us, some are products of experience. The object of a man's appetite he calls "good"; of his aversion, "evil"; whether in promise (beautiful and ugly), in effect (pleasant, painful), or as means (useful, hurtful). Pleasures and pains arise from an object present, of the senses; or in expectation, of the mind. Thus "pity" is the imagining of a like calamity befalling oneself.

"Deliberation" is the sum of the successive appetites or aversions which are concluded by the doing or not doing of the particular thing. "Will" is the last appetite in deliberating. So, in the inquiry of the truth, opinions correspond to appetites, and the final judgment, the last opinion, to the will.

There are two kinds of knowledge; of "fact," and of "the consequence of one affirmation to another." The former is nothing else but sense and memory, and is absolute; the latter is called science, and is conditional. The register of the first is called history, natural or civil; that of the second is contained in books of philosophy, in corresponding groups—natural philosophy, and civil philosophy, or politics. Natural philosophy breaks up into a number of groups, including mental and moral science.

Power is present means, whencesoever derived, to attain some future apparent good. Value is the price that will be given for the use of a man's power. To honour a man is to acknowledge his power; to dishonour him is to depreciate it. The public worth of a man is the value set on him by the commonwealth.

By manners, I mean those qualities of mankind which are concerned with their living together in peace and unity. Desire of power tends to produce strife; other desires, as for ease, or for knowledge, incline men to obey a common power. To receive benefits, or to do injuries, greater than can be repaid or expiated, tends to make us hate the benefactor or the injured party.

II.—Of Contract and Sovereignty

Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body and mind that are born in them, that one man cannot in respect of these claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend. From this equality ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. Therefore, if two men desire the same thing which they cannot both enjoy they become enemies, and seek each the destruction of the other, each mistrusting the other. So men invade each other, first for gain, second for safety, and third for reputation.

Hence, while men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a state of war, every man against every man. In this state, notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place. Probably there never was actually such a universal condition; but we see it now among savage races and in the mutual relations of sovereigns. In this state of war, reason suggesteth articles of peace upon which men may agree; which articles are otherwise called the laws of nature.

The "right of nature" is the right of self-preservation. "Liberty" is the absence of impediments to the exercise of power. A "law of nature" is a precept of reason forbidding a man to do what is destructive of his own life. In the state of nature every man has a "right" to everything. Thus security comes only of the first fundamental law: "To seek peace and follow it," and "by all means we can to defend ourselves."

The second law follows: "To lay down the right to everything, claiming only so much against others as we concede to others against ourselves." This right being renounced or transferred, injustice is the revocation of that act. But since the object of a voluntary act is good to oneself, such renunciation is not valid if not good for oneself; hence a man cannot renounce the right of self-preservation.

The transferring of right, if not mutual, is free gift; if mutual, it is contract. When this is not simultaneous there is a covenant or pact. The covenant can become void only through some new fact arising after it was made. A covenant not to defend oneself against force by force is void per se.

The third law is: "That men perform their covenants made," without which covenants are vain, and the state of war continues. The definition of injustice is "the not-performance of a covenant." No covenant is valid until there exists some power that can enforce the performance of it by penalties; that is, until there is a commonwealth. What is done to a man conformable to his own will signified to the doer is no injury to him.

The fourth law is that of "gratitude"; that a man receiving a free gift endeavour that the giver may not suffer thereby. A fifth is "complaisance"—that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest. Others are pardon on repentance, and non-vindictiveness of punishment; and the common enjoyment—or, failing that, distribution by lot—of what cannot be equally divided. Observance of these laws is virtue.

Persons are either natural and actual, or fictitious and artificial, i.e., representing someone else, or even something else: as a church, a hospital, a bridge. When the representative has authority from the represented, we call the former the "actor," and the latter the "author." One person may artificially represent a multitude.

Now, men being in the state of nature may agree together; but there is no security, unless there be a power to enforce the covenant. Such a power can be created only if they agree together to confer all their own power on one man or one assembly; so that all the acts of such person or assembly have authority as from each one of them, and each one of them submits his individual will to that of such person or assembly. The multitude so united in one person is a commonwealth. This is the generation of that leviathan or mortal god to which, under the Immortal God, we owe our peace and defence.

He that carrieth this person is called "sovereign," and everyone beside is his "subject." This sovereign power may be attained either by natural force, "acquisition," or by voluntary transference, "institution." And first of a commonwealth by institution.

They that have instituted a commonwealth by covenant cannot make a new covenant contrary thereto without permission of the sovereign, since this is a breaking of their covenant with each other. On his part there is no covenant, so that breach of covenant by him cannot be pleaded as warranting abrogation of the covenant made. The sovereign cannot do the subjects injustice because, since he has their authority, what he does to them is done by their own will; so also they cannot punish him.

Since the sovereign was instituted for peace and defence, he controls the means to war and peace, and judges of opinions as conducing to peace or endangering it. He prescribes the rules of property, since in the state of nature there is no property; he has the right of judicature; of making war and peace with other commonwealths; of choosing all counsellors in peace and war; of rewarding and punishing, according to the law he has made, and of bestowing honour. Nay, if he grants away any of these powers the grant is null.

The sovereignty may be in one man, or in a limited assembly, or in an assembly of all—monarchy, aristocracy, democracy; these three forms only, though when they are misliked they are called other names. In any case, the power of the sovereign is absolute, whether a monarch or an assembly. He is the representative of the commonwealth, not deputies who may be chosen to tender petitions.

The three forms differ not in the power of the sovereign, but in their advantageousness. In monarchy, the private interest of the sovereign must coincide with that of the commonwealth as a whole; much more so than in aristocracy or democracy. An assembly cannot receive counsel secretly; a monarchy has the benefit of a single will instead of conflicting wills. There is no government by a mixture of the types, e.g., an elective "king" is not sovereign, but a minister; and within his province a Roman pro-consul was an absolute monarch. Men submit themselves to an instituted sovereign, for fear of each other; to an acquired sovereignty, for fear of the sovereign. Acquired sovereignty or dominion is either by generation (paternal) or by conquest. A family, however, does not amount to a commonwealth, unless it be so great that it may not be subdued but by war. Acquired sovereignty is absolute, for the same reasons as instituted sovereignty.

III.—The Natural Commonwealth

Liberty is absence of impediments to motion. It is consistent with fear, also with necessity; for a voluntary act is yet necessary as having a cause which is a link in a chain of causes up to the First Cause, which is God. But men have created artificial impediments or bonds called laws. The liberty of the subject lies only in such things as the sovereign has pretermitted, for he hath power to regulate all, even life and death, at his own will. The liberty praised in Rome and Athens was the liberty of the commonwealth as against other commonwealths.

The subject has liberty to disobey the sovereign's command if it contravene the law that the right of self-preservation cannot be abrogated, unless it be to endanger himself for the preservation of the commonwealth, as with soldiers. The subjects' obligation of obedience lasts so long as the sovereign's power of defending them, that being the purpose of his being made sovereign. By systems I mean numbers of men joined in one interest. These are political, constituted by law; and private, permitted or forbidden by law. All, except a commonwealth, are subordinate to the commonwealth, and have not the character of sovereignty. The rights of governing bodies are only those expressly conceded by law, either generally or to them specifically. Systems in the commonwealth correspond to muscles in the natural body.

The nourishment of the commonwealth is its commodities or products, the distribution of which must be lit the will of the sovereign, whether of land or of commodities, exchanged internally or trafficked abroad. The procreation, or children, of a commonwealth are its "plantations," or "colonies," which may either be commonwealths themselves, as children emancipated, or remain parts of the commonwealth.

By civil laws I mean those laws that men are bound to obey as members of any commonwealth. The sovereign is the sole legislator, and is not subject to the laws which he can repeal at pleasure. The civil laws are the laws of nature expressed as commands of the commonwealth, or the will of the sovereign so expressed; whatever is not the law of nature must be expressly made known and published. Both the law of nature and written law require interpretation, which is by sentence of the judge constituted by sovereign authority.

An intention of breaking the law is a sin; issuing in a breach of the law it is crime. Violation of the laws of nature is always and everywhere sin; it is crime only when a violation of the laws of a commonwealth. Unavoidable ignorance of a law is a complete excuse for breaking it, but ignorance due to lack of diligence is not unavoidable. Terror of present death, or the order of the sovereign, are a complete excuse. And many circumstances may serve as extenuation.

A punishment is an evil inflicted by public authority on him that hath done or omitted that which is said to be by the same authority a transgression of the law, to the end that the will of men may thereby be the better disposed to obedience. Now, this right of punishment is not transferred by the subjects to the sovereign since they cannot surrender their right of self-defence against violence. But as all before had the natural right of hurting others, that right is left by the covenant to the sovereign alone, strengthened by the resignation thereof by the rest.

Punishments inflicted by man are "corporal," or "pecuniary," or "ignominy," or "imprisonment," or "exile," or mixed of these. Corporal are capital, with or without torment, and less than capital. Pecuniary includes deprivation not only of money, but also of lands or other salable goods; but such deprivation, if it is by way of compensation to the person injured, is not really punishment. Imprisonment, when it is only for the custody of a person accused, is not punishment. Exile is not so much a punishment as a command or permission to escape punishment, except when accompanied by deprivation of goods.

Infirmities of a commonwealth arise—from the first institution, when the sovereign has not assumed sufficient power; from such doctrines as that each man privately is the judge of good or evil actions, or sins if he obey the commonwealth against his "conscience"; that the sovereign is subject to the civil laws; that private property excludes sovereign rights; that sovereign power may be divided, which is the worst of all; and from other causes, as of money grudged for wars, monopolies, over-potent subjects or corporations, insatiable desire of dominion. But when a country is conquered, that is the dissolution of the commonwealth.

Of the sovereign's duties the first is to surrender none of his powers, and the second to see that they be known, to which end, and the understanding of it, the people must be rightly instructed. Further, that he administer justice equally to all people, and impose equal taxes, and make good laws (I say good, not just, since no law can be unjust), and choose good counsellors.

Subjects owe simple obedience to the sovereign in all things whatsoever, except what is contrary to the laws of God. Therefore, it remains here to speak of the kingdom of God, Whose subjects are they that believe in Him. God declareth His laws either by natural reason, or by revelation, or by the voice of prophets. He is necessarily sovereign, for the one reason that He is omnipotent.

IV.—Of a Christian Commonwealth and the Kingdom of Darkness

Of God speaking by the voice of a prophet are two signs: that the prophet worketh miracles, and that he teacheth no other religion than that established. These two must go together. And since miracles have ceased, it is clear that God no longer speaks by prophets. But He hath revealed Himself in Scripture—that is, in those books which are in the canon ordained. But whether their authority be derived from the civil sovereignty or is of a universal church to which all sovereigns are subordinate is another question. It may be seen, however, from Scripture that the kingdom of God therein spoken of is a civil kingdom, for the restoration whereof we pray daily, which is that kingdom of God by Christ which was interrupted by the revolt of the Israelites and the election of Saul.

A church is a term used in many senses, but in one only can it be treated as a person having power to will, command, or do any action whatever. And according to this sense I define a church to be "a company of men professing Christian religion, united in the person of one sovereign, at whose command they ought to assemble, and without whose authority they ought not to assemble." It follows that a church that is assembled in any commonwealth that hath forbidden them to assemble is an unlawful assembly. There are Christians in the dominions of several princes and states; but every one of them is subject to that commonwealth of which he is himself a member, and consequently cannot be subject to the commands of any other person. There is therefore no such universal church as all are bound to obey.

The original covenant with Abraham gave him the sole right, which is the inheritance of every sovereign, to punish any subject who should pretend to a private vision for the countenancing of any doctrine which Abraham should forbid. This covenant established that kingdom of God which was interrupted by the secular kingdom of Saul. The coming of Christ was to restore that kingdom by a new covenant; which kingdom was to be in another world after the Resurrection. The power ecclesiastical was left by Him to the apostles, but this is manifestly not a coercive power on earth, as Christ's own power on earth was not.

Christ, therefore, by His coming did not withdraw any of the power from civil sovereigns, and if they do commit the government of their subjects in matter of religion to the Pope, he holdeth that charge not as being above the civil sovereign, but by his authority. But as for disagreement between the laws of God and the civil laws of the sovereign, the laws of God, which must in no wise be disobeyed, are those which are necessary to salvation; and these are summed up in the will to obey the law of God and the belief that Jesus is the Christ. But the private man may not set up to judge whether the ordinance of the sovereign be against the law of God, or whether the doctrine which he imposeth consist with the belief that Jesus is the Christ.

But in the Scripture there is mention also of another power, the kingdom of Satan, "the prince of the powers of the air," which is a "confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavours by dark and erroneous doctrines to extinguish in them the light both of nature and of the Gospel, and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to come." And such darkness is wrought first by abusing the light of the Scriptures so that we know them not; secondly by introducing the demonology of the heathen poets; thirdly, by mixing with the Scripture divers relics of the religion and much of the vain and erroneous philosophy of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle; and, fourthly, by mingling with these false or uncertain traditions and feigned or uncertain history.

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

The Prince

Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was born at Florence, in Italy, May 3, 1469, and died June 22, 1527. At any early age he took an active part in Florentine politics, and was employed on numerous diplomatic missions. A keen student of the politics of his time, he was also an ardent patriot. The exigencies of party warfare drove him into temporary retirement, during which he produced a number of brilliant plays and historical studies; but the most notable of his achievements is "The Prince." "The Prince" may be regarded as the first modern work treating of politics as a science. The one question to which the author devotes himself is: How a prince may establish and maintain the strongest possible government. Moral principles, therefore, must yield entirely to the dictates of pure expediency. It follows that the ruler who acts on the doctrines laid down will pay no respect to right and wrong as such. Hence the book has been mercilessly condemned. It was written probably about 1514, and not published till 1532.

I.—Of Princedoms Won by Merit

All states and governments are either republics or princedoms. Princedoms are either hereditary or new. Hereditary states are maintained with far less difficulty than new states, but in new princedoms difficulties abound.

And first if the princedom be joined on to ancient dominions of the prince, so as to form a mixed princedom, rebellion is a danger; for men are always ready to change masters. When a state rebels and is again got under it will not afterwards be lost so easily; for the prince will use the rebellion as a pretext to make himself more secure.

Such new states when they are of the same province and tongue as the ancient dominions of the prince are easily retained. It is enough to have rooted out the line of the reigning prince. But where the language and usages differ the difficulty is multiplied. One expedient is for the prince himself to dwell in the new state, as the Turk has done in Greece. Another is to send colonies into one or two places which may become keys to the province; for the cost of troops is far greater. In such provinces, moreover, the prince should always make himself the protector of his weaker neighbours, without adding to their strength; but should humble the great, and never suffer a formidable stranger to acquire influence, as was the rule with the Romans. Whereas King Louis of France has in Italy done the direct opposite in every single respect. In especial we may draw from the French king's actions the general axiom, which never or rarely errs, that "he who is the cause of another's greatness is himself undone."

Now, all princedoms are governed in one or two ways: either by a sole prince served by ministers, or by a prince with barons who hold their rank not by favour but by right of descent. The Turk is an example of the first, the French king of the second. A state of the first kind is difficult to win, but when won is easily held, since the prince's family may be easily rooted out; but in such a state as France you may gain an entry, but to hold your ground afterwards is difficult, since you cannot root out the barons.

Hence we need not wonder at the ease wherewith Alexander was able to lay a firm hold on Asia, albeit he died before he had well entered on possession; since the dominion of Darius was of the same character as that of the Turk.

When the newly acquired state has hitherto lived under its own laws and in freedom there are three ways of holding it. The first is to destroy it; the second to reside in it; the third to leave it under its own laws, choosing for its governors from the inhabitants such as will be friendly to you. But the safest course is either to destroy it or to go and live in it.

Where the prince himself is new, either merit or good fortune is implied, and if we consider the most excellent examples, such as Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and the like, we shall see that they owed to fortune nothing beyond the opportunity which they seized. Those who, like these, come to the princedom by virtuous paths acquire with difficulty, but keep with ease. Their difficulties arise because they are of necessity innovators. If, then, they have force of their own to employ they seldom fail. Hence it comes that all armed prophets have been victorious and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed; as was the case with Savonarola.

II.—Of Princedoms Won Otherwise than by Merit

Those who rise to princedom by mere good fortune have much trouble to maintain themselves; some lack both the knowledge and the power to do so. Yet even if such a one be of great parts, he may lose what he has won, like Cesare Borgia.

It was impossible for the duke to aggrandise himself unless the states of Italy were thrown into confusion so that he might safely make himself master of some part of them. This was made easy for him as concerned Romagna by the conduct of the French and Venetians. The next step was to weaken the factions of the Orsini and the Colonnesi. Having scattered the Colonnesi, the Orsini were so won over as to be drawn in their simplicity into his hands at Sinigaglia. Having thus disposed of the leaders, he set about ingratiating himself with the population of Romagna and Urbino. He first set over the country a stern ruler to restore order. This end being accomplished, that stern but unpopular ruler was beheaded.

Next, as a new pope might be dangerous, he set himself to exterminate the kindred of those lords whom he had despoiled of their possessions, to win over the Roman nobility, and to secure a majority among the cardinals. But before the duke had completely consolidated his power his father, Pope Alexander VI., died. Even so, the skill with which he had laid the foundations of his power must have resulted in success had he not himself been almost at death's door at that critical moment. The one mistake he made was in the choice of the new pope, Julius II., and this error was the cause of his ultimate downfall.

A man may rise, however, to a princedom by paths of wickedness and crime; that is, not precisely by either merit or fortune. We may take as example first Agathocles the Sicilian. To slaughter fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be devoid of honour, pity, and religion cannot be counted as merit. But the achievements of Agathocles can certainly not be ascribed to fortune. We cannot, therefore, attribute either to fortune or to merit what he accomplished without either. For a modern instance we may consider Oliverotto of Fermo, who seized upon that town by a piece of monstrous treachery and merciless butchery; yet he established himself so firmly and so formidably that he could not have been unseated had he not let himself be over-reached by Cesare Borgia.

Our lesson from these examples is that on seizing a state the usurper should make haste to inflict what injuries he must at one stroke, and afterwards win men over by benefits.

Next is the case of those who are made princes by the favour of their countrymen, which they owe to what may be termed a fortunate astuteness. If he be established by the favour of the people, to secure them against the oppression of the nobles his position is stronger than if he owe it to the nobles; but in either case it is the people whom he must conciliate, and this I affirm in spite of the old saw, "He who builds on the people builds on mire."

A prince who cannot get together an army fit to take the field against any assailant should keep his city strongly fortified, taking no heed of the country outside, for then he will not be readily attacked, and if he be it will be difficult to maintain a siege longer than it may be resisted.

Merit, or good fortune, are needed to acquire ecclesiastical princedoms, but not to maintain them, for they are upheld by the authority of religion. It is due to the policy of the Popes Alexander VI. and Julius II. that the temporal power of the pope has become so great; and from his holiness Pope Leo we may hope that as his predecessors made the papacy great with arms he will render it still greater and more venerable by his benignity and other countless virtues.

III.—Of Maintaining a Princedom

A prince must defend his state with either his own subjects or mercenaries, or auxiliaries. Mercenaries are utterly untrustworthy; if their captain be not an able man the prince will probably be ruined, whereas if he be an able man he will be seeking a goal of his own. This has been perpetually exemplified among the cities and states of Italy which have sought to maintain themselves by taking foreigners into their pay.

But he who would deprive himself of every chance of success should have recourse to auxiliaries; that is, to the troops of a foreign potentate. For these are far more dangerous than mercenary arms, bringing ruin with them ready made. The better such troops are the more dangerous they are. From Hiero of Syracuse to Cesare Borgia, princes have become powerful in proportion as they could dispense with such aid and place their dependence upon national troops.

A prince, then, who would be powerful should have no care or thought but for war, lest he lose his dominions If he be ignorant of military affairs he can neither be respected by the soldiers nor trust them. Therefore, he must both practise and study this art. For the practise, the chase in many respects provides an excellent training both in knowledge of the country and in vigour of the body. As to study, a prince should read histories, note the actions of great men, and examine the causes of their victories and defeats; seeking to imitate those who have been renowned.

Anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything must be ruined among so many who are not good. It is essential therefore for a prince to have learnt how to be other than good, and to use, or not to use, his goodness as necessity requires.

It may be a good thing to be reputed liberal, but liberality without the reputation of it is hurtful. Display necessitates the imposition of taxes, whereby the prince becomes hateful; whereas through parsimony his revenue will be sufficient. Hence we have seen no princes accomplish great results save those who have been accounted miserly.

Every prince should desire to be accounted merciful, not cruel; but a new prince cannot escape a name for cruelty, for he who quells disorder by a few signal examples will, in the end, be the more merciful.

Men are less careful how they offend him who makes himself loved than him who makes himself feared; yet should a prince inspire fear in such a fashion that, if he do not win love, he may escape hate; remembering that men will sooner forget the slaying of their father than the loss of their patrimony.

Princes who set little store by their word, but have known how to overreach men by their cunning, have accomplished great things, and in the end got the better of those who trusted to honest dealing. The prince must be a lion, but he must also know how to play the fox. He who wishes to deceive will never fail to find willing dupes. The prince, in short, ought not to quit good courses if he can help it, but should know how to follow evil courses if he must.

A prince must avoid being despised as well as being hated; therefore courage, wisdom, and strength must be apparent in all his actions. Against such a one conspiracy is difficult. That prince is wise who devolves on others those matters that entail responsibility, and may therefore make him odious either to the nobles or to the commons, but reserves to himself the matters that relate to grace and favour.

What I have said is not contradicted by the history of the Roman emperors; for they had to choose between satisfying the soldiers and satisfying the people. It was imperative that at any cost they should maintain control of the soldiery, which scarce any of them could do without injustice to the people. If we examine their histories in detail we shall find that they fully bear out the principles I have laid down.

But in our time the standing armies of princes have not the same power as the armies of the Roman empire, and except under the Turk and the Soldan it is more needful to satisfy the people than the soldiery.

IV.—Of Artifices

A new prince will never disarm his subjects, but will rather arm them, at least in part. For thus they become his partisans, whereas without them he must depend on mercenaries.

But a prince who adds a new state to his old possessions should disarm its inhabitants, relying on the soldiers of his own ancient dominions. Some have fostered feuds among their new subjects in order to keep them weak, but such a policy rarely proves useful in the end. The prince who acquires a new state will gain more strength by winning over and trusting those who were at first opposed to him than by relying on those who were at first his friends. The prince who is more afraid of his subjects than of strangers ought to build fortresses, while he who is more afraid of strangers than of his subjects should leave them alone. On the whole, the best fortress you can have is in not being hated by your subjects.

Nothing makes a prince so well thought of as to undertake great enterprises and give striking proofs of his capacity. Ferdinand of Aragon, in our own time, has become the foremost king in Christendom. If you consider his achievements, you will find them all great and some extraordinary. First he made war on Grenada, and this was the foundation of his power. Under the cloak of religion, with what may be called pious cruelty, he cleared his kingdom of the Moors; under the same pretext he made war on Africa, invaded Italy, and finally attacked France; while his subjects, occupied with these great actions, had neither time nor opportunity to oppose them.

The prince whose ministers are at once capable and faithful may always be accounted wise, since he must be one who can discern the merits and demerits of his servant. For which discernment this unfailing rule may be laid down: When you see a minister thinking more of himself than of you, and in all his actions seeking his own ends, that man can never be a minister you can trust. To retain a good minister the prince will bind him to himself by benefits. Above all, he will avoid being deceived by flatterers, and while he consults his counsellors should reflect and judge for himself. A prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised by others.

The Italian princes who in our own times have lost their dominions have either been deficient in respect of arms, or have had the people against them, or have not known how to secure themselves against the nobles. As to the influence of fortune, it may be the case that she is the mistress of one half of our actions, but leaves the control of the other half to ourselves. That prince will prosper most whose mode of acting best adapts itself to the character of the times; so that at one time a cautious temperament, and at another an impetuous temperament, will be the more successful.

Now, at this time the whole land of Italy is without a head, without order, beaten, spoiled, torn in pieces, overrun, and abandoned to destruction in every shape. She prays God to send someone to rescue her from these barbarous cruelties; she is eager to follow anyone who could undertake the part of a deliverer; nor does this seem too hard a task for you, the Magnificent Lorenzo of the illustrious house of Medici. The cause is just; we have before us unexampled proofs of Divine favour. Everything has concurred to promote your greatness. What remains to be done must be done by you, for God will not do everything Himself.

T.R. MALTHUS

On the Principle of Population

Thomas Robert Malthus was born near Dorking, Surrey, England, Feb. 17, 1766, and after passing through the University of Cambridge was ordained, and travelled on the Continent. His great work, "An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society," was first published Anonymously in 1798, and five years later it appeared, under the title of "An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View of its Past and Present Effect on Human Happiness, with an Enquiry into our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions," under the author's name. Malthus is one of the most persistently misrepresented of great thinkers, his central doctrine being nothing less moral than that young men should postpone marriage until they have the means of supporting a family. It is of the first interest in the history of thought that the reading of this great essay of Malthus should have independently suggested, first to Charles Darwin, and later to Alfred Russel Wallace, the idea of natural selection as a necessary consequence of that struggle for life so splendidly demonstrated by Malthus in the case of mankind. It is to be wondered that Malthus, having provided himself with the key to the great problem of organic evolution, should have left its use to others. One explanation is, doubtless, that his survey was not comparative, covering the whole range of life, but was practically confined to one living form. Malthus died on December 23, 1834.

I.—General Survey of the Checks to Population

Since population is capable of doubling itself at least once in every twenty-five years, and since the supply of food can increase in only arithmetical ratio, it follows that increase of population must always be checked by lack of food. But, except in cases of famine, this check is never operative, and the chief checks to increase of population are moral restraint, vice, and misery.

In spite of these checks, which are always more or less in operation, there is a constant tendency for the population to increase beyond the means of subsistence. Such increase is followed by lowered wages, dearer food, and thus a lowered marriage-rate and birth-rate; and the lowered wages, in turn, induce more agricultural enterprise, and thus means of subsistence become more abundant again.

More abundant and cheaper food, in turn, promotes marriage, and increases the population, until again there is a shortage of food; and this oscillation, though irregular, will always be found, and there will always be a tendency for the population to oscillate around the food limit.

Even among savages, where the degradation of women, infanticide, vice, famine, war, and disease are active instruments of decimation, it will be found that the average population, generally speaking, presses hard against the limits of the average food.

Among modern pastoral nations the principal checks which keep the population down to the level of the means of subsistence are: restraint from inability to obtain a wife, vicious habits with respect to women, epidemics, war, famine, and the diseases arising from extreme poverty.

In modern Europe we find similar preventive and positive checks, in varying proportions, to undue increase of population. In England and Scotland the preventive check to population prevails in a considerable degree.

A man of liberal education, with an income only just sufficient to enable him to associate in the rank of gentlemen, must feel absolutely certain that if he marry and have a family he shall be obliged to give up all his former connections. The woman whom a man of education would naturally choose is one brought up in similar refined surroundings. Can a man easily consent to place the object of his affections on a lower social plane?

Such considerations certainly prevent many of the better classes from early marriage; and those who marry in the face of such considerations too frequently justify the forebodings of the prudent.

The sons of tradesmen and farmers are exhorted not to marry till they have a sufficient sure income to support a family, and often accordingly postpone marriage till they are far advanced in life. The labourer who earns eighteenpence or two shillings a day, as a single man, will hesitate to divide that pittance among four or five, seeing the risks such poverty involves. The servants who live in the families of the rich have yet stronger inducements to forego matrimony. They live in comparative comfort and luxury, which as married men they could not enjoy.

The prolific power of nature is very far from being called fully into action in Great Britain. And yet, when we contemplate the insufficiency of the price of labour to maintain a large family, and the amount of mortality which arises directly and indirectly from poverty, and add to this the crowds of children prematurely cut off in large towns, we shall be compelled to acknowledge that, if the number born annually were not greatly thinned by this premature mortality, the funds for the maintenance of labour must increase with much greater rapidity than they have ever hitherto done in order to find work and food for the additional numbers that would then grow up to manhood.

Those, therefore, who live single, or marry late, do not by such conduct contribute in any degree to diminish the actual population, but merely to diminish the proportion of premature mortality, which would otherwise be excessive; and consequently, from this point of view, do not seem to deserve any very severe reprobation or punishment.

It has been usual to consider a great proportion of births as the surest sign of a vigorous and flourishing state. But this is erroneous. Only after great mortality, or under very especial social conditions, is a large proportion of births a favourable symptom. In the average state of a well-peopled territory there cannot be a worse sign than a large proportion of births, nor a better sign than a small proportion. A small proportion of births is a decided proof of a very small mortality, since the supply always equals the demand for population. In despotic, miserable, or naturally unhealthy countries, the proportion of births to the whole population will generally be found very great.

In Scotland emigration is a potent cause of depopulation, but any thinning out from this cause is quickly neutralised by an increased proportion of births.

In Ireland the details of population fluctuations are little known; but the cheapness of potatoes, and the ignorance and depressed, indifferent state of the people, have encouraged marriage to such a degree that the population is pushed much beyond the resources of the country, and the consequence, naturally, is that the lower classes of the people are in the most impoverished and miserable state. The checks to the population are, of course, chiefly of the positive kind, and arise from the diseases caused by squalid poverty. To these positive checks have of late years been added the vice and misery of civil war, and of martial law.

II.—Population and the Subsistence Level

That the checks which have been mentioned are the immediate causes of the slow increase of population, and that these checks result principally from an insufficiency of subsistence will be evident from the comparative rapid increase which has invariably taken place whenever, by some sudden enlargement in the means of subsistence, these checks have been in any considerable degree removed. Plenty of rich land to be had for little or nothing is so powerful a cause of population as generally to overcome all obstacles. The abundance of cheap and profitable land obtained by the colonists in English North America resulted in a rapid increase of population almost without parallel in history. Such an increase does not occur in Britain, and the reason to be assigned is want of food. Want of food is certainly the most efficient of the three immediate checks to population. Population soon increases after war and disease and convulsions of nature, because the food supply is more than adequate for the diminished numbers; but where food is deficient no increase of population can occur.

Since the world began the causes of population and depopulation have been probably as constant as any of the laws of nature with which we are acquainted.

The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same that it may always be considered in algebraic language as a given quantity. The great law of necessity, which prevents population from increasing in any country beyond the food which it can either produce or acquire, is a law so obvious and evident to our understandings that we cannot doubt it. The different modes which nature takes to repress a redundant population do not, indeed, appear to us so certain and regular; but though we cannot always predict the mode, we may with certainty predict the fact. If the proportion of the births to the deaths for a few years indicates an increase of numbers much beyond the proportional increased or acquired food of the country, we may be perfectly certain that, unless an emigration takes place, the deaths will shortly exceed the births, and that the increase which has been observed for a few years cannot be the real average increase of the population of the country. If there were no other depopulating causes, and if the preventive check did not operate very strongly, every country would, without doubt, be subject to periodical plagues and famines.

The only true criterion of a real and permanent increase in the population of any country is the increase of the means of subsistence, and even this criterion is subject to some slight variations.

Other circumstances being the same, it may be affirmed that countries are populous according to the quantity of human food which they produce or can acquire; and happy according to the liberality with which this food is divided, or the quantity which a day's labour will purchase. This happiness does not depend either upon their being thinly or fully inhabited, upon their poverty or their riches, their youth or age, but on the proportion which the population and the food bear to each other.

In modern Europe the positive checks to population prevail less, and the preventive checks more, than in past times, and in the more uncivilised parts of the world, since wars, plagues, acute diseases, and famines have become less frequent.

With regard to the preventive checks to population, though it must be acknowledged that the preventive check of moral restraint does not, at present, largely prevail, yet it is becoming more prevalent, and if we consider only the general term, which implies principally a delay of marriage from prudential considerations, it may be considered as the most potent of the checks which in modern Europe keep down the population to the level of the means of subsistence.

III.—Remedies other than Moral Restraint for Evils of Over-population

All systems of equality which have been proposed are bound to fail, because the motive to the preventive check of moral restraint is destroyed by equality and community of goods. As all would be equal and in similar circumstances, there would be no reason why one person should think himself obliged to practise the duty of restraint more than another. And how could a man be compelled to such restraint? The operation of this natural check of moral restraint depends exclusively upon the existence of the laws of property and succession; and in a state of equality and community of property could only be replaced by some artificial regulation of a very different stamp, and a much more unnatural character.

No scheme of equality, then, can overcome the population difficulty; emigration is only a palliative, and poor-law relief only a nostrum which eventually aggravates the evils of over-population.

The poor laws of England tend to depress the general condition of the poor in two ways. Their first obnoxious tendency is to increase population without increasing the food for its support. A poor man may marry with little or no prospect of being able to support a family without parish assistance. The poor laws may be said, therefore, to create the poor which they maintain, and as the provisions must be distributed to the greater numbers in smaller proportions, the labours of those who are not supported by parish assistance will purchase a smaller quantity of provisions than before, and consequently more of them will require assistance. Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses by the least worthy members of the community diminishes the food of the more worthy members, who are thus driven to obtain relief.

Fortunately for England a spirit of independence still remains among the peasantry. The poor laws, though calculated to eradicate this spirit, have only partially succeeded. Hard as it may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be deemed disgraceful. Such a stigma seems necessary to promote the general happiness of mankind. If men be induced to marry from the mere prospect of parish provision, they are not only unjustly tempted to bring unhappiness and dependence upon themselves and their children, but they are tempted unwittingly to injure all in the same class as themselves. Further, the poor laws discourage frugality, and diminish the power and the will of the common people to save, and they live from hand to mouth without thought of the future. A man who might not be deterred from going to the ale-house by the knowledge that his death and sickness must throw his wife and family upon the parish, might fear to waste his earnings if the only provisions for his family were casual charity.

The mass of unhappiness among common people must be diminished when one of the strongest checks to idleness and dissipation is thus removed; and when institutions which render dependent poverty so lessen the disgrace which should be attached to it. I feel persuaded that if the poor-laws had never existed in this country, though there might have been a few more instances of very severe distress, the aggregate mass of happiness among the common people would have been much greater than it is at present.