Autobiography
or not--involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast
majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by
universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the
portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a
democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less
democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be
so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the
selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate
improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly
under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with
the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which
most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward
to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the
industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will
be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the
division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great
a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert
on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer
either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert
themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be
exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to.
The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the
greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the
raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the
benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that
we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these
objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how
distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to
render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an
equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated
herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority
of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour
and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social
purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But
the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor
is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of
the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as
readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow
degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive
generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But
the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature.
Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the
generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind
is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on
things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity,
as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred
from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is
capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions
as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which
forms the general character of the existing state of society, is _so_
deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions
tends to foster it; and modern institutions in some respects more than
ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do
anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent
in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity. These
considerations did not make us overlook the folly of premature attempts
to dispense with the inducements of private interest in social affairs,
while no substitute for them has been or can be provided: but we
regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as being (in
a phrase I once heard from Austin) "merely provisional," and we welcomed
with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by
select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), which, whether
they succeeded or failed, could not but operate as a most useful
education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity
of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making
them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of
doing so.
In the _Principles of Political Economy_, these opinions were
promulgated, less clearly and fully in the first edition, rather more so
in the second, and quite unequivocally in the third. The difference
arose partly from the change of times, the first edition having been
written and sent to press before the French Revolution of 1848, after
which the public mind became more open to the reception of novelties in
opinion, and doctrines appeared moderate which would have been thought
very startling a short time before. In the first edition the
difficulties of Socialism were stated so strongly, that the tone was on
the whole that of opposition to it. In the year or two which followed,
much time was given to the study of the best Socialistic writers on the
Continent, and to meditation and discussion on the whole range of topics
involved in the controversy: and the result was that most of what had
been written on the subject in the first edition was cancelled, and
replaced by arguments and reflections which represent a more advanced
opinion.
The _Political Economy_ was far more rapidly executed than the _Logic_,
or indeed than anything of importance which I had previously written. It
was commenced in the autumn of 1845, and was ready for the press before
the end of 1847. In this period of little more than two years there was
an interval of six months during which the work was laid aside, while I
was writing articles in the _Morning Chronicle_ (which unexpectedly
entered warmly into my purpose) urging the formation of peasant
properties on the waste lands of Ireland. This was during the period of
the Famine, the winter of 1846-47, when the stern necessities of the
time seemed to afford a chance of gaining attention for what appeared to
me the only mode of combining relief to immediate destitution with
permanent improvement of the social and economical condition of the
Irish people. But the idea was new and strange; there was no English
precedent for such a proceeding: and the profound ignorance of English
politicians and the English public concerning all social phenomena not
generally met with in England (however common elsewhere), made my
endeavours an entire failure. Instead of a great operation on the waste
lands, and the conversion of cottiers into proprietors, Parliament
passed a Poor Law for maintaining them as paupers: and if the nation has
not since found itself in inextricable difficulties from the joint
operation of the old evils and the quack remedy it is indebted for its
deliverance to that most unexpected and surprising fact, the
depopulation of ireland, commenced by famine, and continued by
emigration.
The rapid success of the _Political Economy_ showed that the public
wanted, and were prepared for such a book. Published early in 1848, an
edition of a thousand copies was sold in less than a year. Another
similar edition was published in the spring of 1849; and a third, of
1250 copies, early in 1852. It was, from the first, continually cited
and referred to as an authority, because it was not a book merely of
abstract science, but also of application, and treated Political Economy
not as a thing by itself, but as a fragment of a greater whole; a branch
of Social Philosophy, so interlinked with all the other branches, that
its conclusions, even in its own peculiar province, are only true
conditionally, subject to interference and counteraction from causes not
directly within its scope: while to the character of a practical guide
it has no pretension, apart from other classes of considerations.
Political Economy, in truth, has never pretended to give advice to
mankind with no lights but its own; though people who knew nothing but
political economy (and therefore knew that ill) have taken upon
themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights as they had.
But the numerous sentimental enemies of political economy, and its still
more numerous interested enemies in sentimental guise, have been very
successful in gaining belief for this among other unmerited imputations
against it, and the _Principles_ having, in spite of the freedom of many
of its opinions, become for the present the most popular treatise on the
subject, has helped to disarm the enemies of so important a study. The
amount of its worth as an exposition of the science, and the value of
the different applications which it suggests, others of course must
judge.
For a considerable time after this, I published no work of magnitude;
though I still occasionally wrote in periodicals, and my correspondence
(much of it with persons quite unknown to me), on subjects of public
interest, swelled to a considerable bulk. During these years I wrote or
commenced various Essays, for eventual publication, on some of the
fundamental questions of human and social life, with regard to several
of which I have already much exceeded the severity of the Horatian
precept. I continued to watch with keen interest the progress of public
events. But it was not, on the whole, very encouraging to me. The
European reaction after 1848, and the success of an unprincipled usurper
in December, 1851, put an end, as it seemed, to all present hope for
freedom or social improvement in France and the Continent. In England, I
had seen and continued to see many of the opinions of my youth obtain
general recognition, and many of the reforms in institutions, for which
I had through life contended, either effected or in course of being so.
But these changes had been attended with much less benefit to human
well-being than I should formerly have anticipated, because they had
produced very little improvement in that which all real amelioration in
the lot of mankind depends on, their intellectual and moral state: and
it might even be questioned if the various causes of deterioration which
had been at work in the meanwhile, had not more than counterbalanced the
tendencies to improvement. I had learnt from experience that many false
opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering
the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result. The English
public, for example, are quite as raw and undiscerning on subjects of
political economy since the nation has been converted to free-trade, as
they were before; and are still further from having acquired better
habits of thought and feeling, or being in any way better fortified
against error, on subjects of a more elevated character. For, though
they have thrown off certain errors, the general discipline of their
minds, intellectually and morally, is not altered. I am now convinced,
that no great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a
great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes
of thought. The old opinions in religion, morals, and politics, are so
much discredited in the more intellectual minds as to have lost the
greater part of their efficacy for good, while they have still life
enough in them to be a powerful obstacle to the growing up of any better
opinions on those subjects. When the philosophic minds of the world can
no longer believe its religion, or can only believe it with