Reprinted fro^i THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, With a Postscript.
WILLIAMS & NORGATE, 14, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London; AND 7, Broad Street, Oxford.
THE MAN versus THE STATE: THE MAN versus THE STATE CONTAINING "THE NEW TORYISM," "THE COMING SLAYERY," "THE SINS OF LEGISLATORS" AND "THE GREAT POLITICAL SUPERSTITION.'
BY HERBERT SPENCER.
Reprinted from THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, With a Postscript.
seventeenth thousand.
WILLIAMS & NOEaATE, 14, Henrietta Street, Coyent Garden, London; AND 7, Broad Street, Oxford.
LONDON: PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, Printers in Ordinarj/ to His Majesty.
PREFACE.
The Westminster Review for April 1860, contained an article entitled " Parliamentary Reform: the Dangers and the Safe- guards." In that article I ventured to predict some results of political changes then proposed.
Eeduced to its simplest expression, the thesis maintained was that, unless due precautions were taken, increase of freedom in form would be followed by decrease of freedom in fact. Nothing has occurred to alter the belief I then expressed. The drift of legislation since that time has been of the kind antici- pated. Dictatorial measures, rapidly multiplied, have tended continually to narrow the liberties of individuals; and have done this in a double way. Regulations have been made in yearly-growing numbers, restraining the citizen in directions where his actions were previously unchecked, and compelling actions which previously he might perform or not as he liked; and at the same time heavier public burdens, chiefly local, have further restricted his freedom, by lessening that portion of his earnings which he can spend as he pleases, and augmenting the portion taken from him to be spent as public agents please. The causes of these foretold effects, then in operation, con- tinue in operation— are, indeed, likely to be strengthened; and finding that the conclusions drawn respecting these causes and effects have proved true, T have been prompted to set forth and VI PREFACE.
VI PREFACE.
emphasize kindred conclusions respecting the future, and do what little may be done towards awakening attention to threatened evils.
For this purpose were written the four following articles, originally published in the Contemporary Revieiu for February, April, May, June and July of this year. To meet certain criticisms and to remove some of the objections likely to be raised, I have now added a postscript.
Bayswater, July, 1884:.
CONTENTS, I. The New Toryism 1 II. The Coming Slavery 18 III. The Sins of Legislators 44 IV. The Great Political Superstition 78 V. Postscript 108 THE MAN VERSUS THE STATE.
THE NEW TORYISM.
i\rosT cf those "wlio now pass as Liberals, are Tories of a new type.- This is a paradox which I propose to justify. That I may justify it, I must first point out what the two political parties originally w^ere; and I must then ask the reader to bear with me while X remind him of facts he is familiar with, that I may impress on him the intrinsic natures of Toryism and Liberalism properly so called.. Dating back to an earlier period than their names, the two political parties at first stood respectively for two opposed types of social organization, broadly distinguishable as the militant and the industrial — types which are characterized, the one by the regime of status, almost universal in ancient days, and the other by the regime of contract, which has become general in modern days, chiefly among the Western nations, and especially among ourselves and the Americans. If, instead of uring the word " co-operation" in a limited sense, we use it in its widest sense, as signifying the combined activities of citizens under whatever system of regulation; then these two are definable as the system of compulsory co-operation and the system of voluntary co-opera- tion. The typical structure of the one we see in an army formed of conscripts, in which the units in their several grades have to fulfil commands under pain of death, and receive food and clothing and pay, arbitrarily apportioned; while the typical structure of the other we see in a body of producers or distributors, who seve- B 2 THE:\IAN VERSUS THE STATE.
I ally agree to specified payments in return for specified services, and may at will, after due notice, leave the organization if they do not like it.
During social evolution in England, the distinction between these two fundamentnlly-opposed forms of co-operation, made its appearance gradually; but long before the names Tory and Whig came into use, the parties were becoming traceable, and their con- nexions with militancy and industrialism respectively, were vaguely shown. The truth is familiar that, here as elsewhere, it was habitually by town-populations, formed of workers and traders accustomed to co-operate under contract, that resistances were TQade to that coercive rule which characterizes co-operation under status. While, conversely, co-operation under status, arising from, and adjusted to, chronic \varfare, was supported in rural districts, originally peopled by military chiefs and their dependents, where the primitive ideas and traditions survived. Moreover, this contrast in political leanings, shown before Whig and Tory prin- ciples became clearly distinguished, continued to be shown after- wards. At the period of the Revolution, " while the villages and smaller towns were monopolized by Tories, the larger cities, the manufacturing districts, and the ports of commerce, formed the strongholds of the Whigs." And that, spite of exceptions, the like general relation still exists, needs no proving.
Such were the natures of the two parties as indicated by their orio'ins. Observe, now, how their natures were indicated by their early doctrines and deeds. Whiggism began with resistance to Charles II. and his cabal, in their efforts to re-establish unchecked monarchical power. The Whigs " regarded the monarchy as a civil institution, established by the nation for the benefit of all its members;" while with the Tories " the monarch was the delegate of heaven." And these doctrines involved the beliefs, the one that subjection of citizen to ruler was conditional, and the other that it was unconditional. Describing Whig and Tory as conceived at the end of the seventeenth century, some fifty years before be wrote his Dissertation on Fariies, Bolingbroke says: — "The power and majesty of the people, an original contract, the authority and independency of Parliaments, liberty, resistance, exclusion, iibdication, deposition; these v/ere ideas associated, at that time, to the idea of a Whig, and sujjposed by every Whig to be incomnumicable, and inconsistent with the idea of a Tory.
THE NEW TORYISM. 3 THE NEW TORYISM. 3 "Divine, hereditaiy, indefeasible right, lineal succession, passive- obedience, prerogative, non-resistance, slavery, nay, and sometimes popery too, were associated in many minds to the idea of a Tory, and deemed incommunicable and inconsistent, in the same manner, with the idea of a Whig." — Dissertation on Parties^ p. 5.
And if we compare these descriptions, we see that in the one parly there was a desire to resist and decrease the coercive power of the ruler over the subject, and in the other party to maintain or increase his coercive power. This distinction in their aims — a distinction which transcends in meaning and importance all other political distinctions — w^as displayed in their early doings. Whig principles were exemplified in the Habeas Corpus Act, and in the measure by which judges were made independant of the Crown; in defeat of the Non-Resisting Test Bill, which proposed for legislators and officials a compulsory oath that they would in no case resist the king by i^rms; and, later, they were exemplified in the Bill cf Rights, framed to secure subjects against monarchical aggressions. These Acts had the same intrinsic nature. The principle of com- pulsory co-operation throughout social life was weakened by them, and the principle of voluntary co-operation strengthened. That at at a subsequent period the policy of the pai-ty iiad the same general tendency, is well shown by a remark of Mr. Green concerning the period, of Whig power after the death of Anne: — " Before the fifty years of their rule had passed. Englishmen had for- gotten that it was possible to persecute for diff'erences of religion, or to put down the liberty of the press, or to tamper with the administration of justice, or to rule without a Parliament." — Short History^ p. 705.
And now, passing over the war-period which closed the last century and began this, during which that extension of individual freedom previously gained was lost, and the retrograde movement towards the social type proper to militancy was shown by all kinds of coercive measures, from those which took by force the persons and property of citizens for war-purposes to those which suppressed public meetings and sought to gag the press, let us recall the general characters of those changes effected by Whigs or Liberals after the re-establishment of peace permitted revival of the industrial regime and return to its appropriate type of structure. Under growing Whig influence there came repeal of the laws forbidding combina- tions among artisans, as well as of those which interfered with their freedom of travelling. There was the measure by which, under 4 TIIK!\rAN VEHSUS THE STATE.
\v'iii;^ pressure, Dissenters were «illowed to believe as they plonsetJ Aviiiiout safFering certain civil penalties; and there was tbo Whig- mrasure, carried by Tories under compulsion, which enabled Ca- tholics to profess their religion without losing part of their free- dom. The area of liberty was extended by Acts which forbad tha br.ying of negroes and the holding of them in bondage. The East India Company's monopoly was abolished, and trade with the East made open to all. The political serfdom of the unrepresented wns narrowed in area, both by the Reform Bill and the Municipal lljiorm Bill; so that alike generally and locally, the many were less under the coercion of the few. Dissenters, no longer obliged to submit to the ecclesiastical form of marriage, were made free to wed by a purely civil rite. Later came diminution and removal of restraints on the buying of foreign commodities and the employ- ment of foreign vessels and foreign sailors; and later still tho removal of those burdens on the press, which were originally imposed to hinder the diffusion of opinion. And of all theso- changes it is unquestionable that, whether made or not by Liberals themselves, they w^ere made in conformity with principles professed and urged by Liberals.
But why do I enumerate facts so well known to all? Simply because, as intimated at the outset, it seems needful to remind everybody what Liberalism was in the past, that they may perccivo its unlikeness to the so-called Liberalism of the present. It would be inexcusable to name these various measures for the purpose of pointing out the character common to them, were it not that in Oiir daymen have forgotten their common character. They do not remember that, in one or other way, all these truly Liberal changes diminished compulsory co-operation throughout social life and in- creased voluntary co-operation. They have forgotten that, in one direction or other, they diminished the range of governmental authority, and increased the area within which each citizen may act unchecked. They have lost sight of the truth that in past tun?s Liberalism habitually stood for individual freedom versus {State-coercion.
And now comes the inquiry" — How is it that Liberals have lost Bight of this? How is it that Liberalism, getting more and more into power, has grown more and more coercive in its legislation? H.ow is it that, either directly through its own majorities or iu- direclly thvough aid given in such cases to the majorities of its THE NE\Y TORYISM. 5 THE NE\Y TORYISM. 5 op23onents, Liberalism Las to tin increriRiTig; extent adopted tlio policy of dictatino; the actions of citizens, and, by consequence, 'diminishing the range throughout which their actions remain free? How are we to explain this spreading confusion of thought which has led it, in pursuit of what appears to be public good, to invert the method by which in earlier. days it achieved public good?
Unaccountable as at first sight this unconscious change of policy «eems, wo shall find that it has arisen quite naturally. Given tho Tinanalytical thought ordinarily brought to bear on political matters, and, under existing conditions, nothing else was to be expected. To make this clear some parenthetic explanations are needful.
From the lowest to the highest creatures, intelligence progresses "by acts of discrimination; and it continues so to progress amoDg men, from the most ignorant to the most cultured. To class rightly — to pat in the same group things which are of essentially the same natures, and in other groups things of natures ei^sentially different — is the fundamental condition to right guidance of actions. Beginning with rudimentary vision, wdiich gives warning that some large opaque body is passing near (just as closed*ieyes turned to the window, perceiving the shade caused by a hand put before them, tell us of something moving in front), the advance is to developed ■vision, which, by exactly-appreciated combinations of forms, colours, and motions, identifies objects at great distances as prey or enemies, and so makes it possible to improve the adjustments of conduct for securing food or evading death. That progressing jDcrception of differences and consequent greater correctness of classing, constitutes, under one of its chief aspects, the grov/th of intelligence, is equally seen when we pass from the relatively simple physical vision to the relatively complex intellectual vision— tho vision through the agency of which, things previously grouped by certain external resemblances or by certain extrinsic circumstances, come to be more truly grouped in conformity with their intrinsic structures or natures. Undeveloped intellectual vision is just as indisciiminating and erroneous in its classings as undeveloped physical vision. Instance the early arrangement of plants into the groups, trees, shrubs, and herbs: size, the most conspicuous trait, being the ground of distinction; and the assemblages formed being such as united many plants extremely unlike in their natures, and separated others that arc near akin. Or still better, take the R THE MAN VERSUS THE STATK.
popular claFsification which puts together under the same general name, fish aud shell-fish, and under the sub-name, shell-fish, puts together crustaceans and molluscs; nay, -which goes further, and regards as fish the cetacean mammals. Partly because of the like- ness in their modes of life as inhabiting the water, and partly because of some general resemblance in their flavours, creatures that are in their essential natures far moro widely separated than a fish is from a bird, are associated in the same class and in the same sub- class.
Now the general truth thus exemplified, holds throughout those higher ranges of intellectual vision concerned with things not presentable to the senses, and, among others, such things as political institutions and political measures. For when thinking of these, too, the results of inadequate intellectual faculty, or inadequate culture of it, or both, are erroneous classings and con- sequent erroneous conclusions. Indeed, the liability to error is here much greater; since the things with which the intellect is concerned do not admit of examination in the same easy way. You cannot touch or see a political institution: it can be known only by an effort of constructive imagination. Neither can you apprehend by physical perception a political measure: this no less requires a process of mental representation by which its elements are put together in thought, and the essential nature of the com- bination conceived. Here, therefore, still more than in the cases abo^'e named, defective intellectual vision is shown in grouping by external characters, or extrinsic circumstances. How institutions are wrongly classed from this cause, we see in the common notion that the Roman Republic was a popular form of government. Look into the early ideas of the French revolutionists who aimed at an ideal state of freedom, and you find that the political forms and deeds of the Romans were their models; and even now a historian might be named who instances the corruptions of the Roman Republic as showing us what popular government leads to Yet the resemblance bet-ween the institutions of the Romans and free institutions properly so-called, was less than that between a shark and a porpoise — a resemblance of general external form accompanying widely different internal structures. For the Roman Government was that of a small oligarchy within a larger oligarchy: the members of each being unchecked autocrats. A Kociety in which the relatively few men who had political power.
THE NEW TORYISM. 7 and were in a. qunlificd sense free, were so many petty despots, holding not only slaves and dependents but even cliildren in a bondage no less absolute than that in whicli tbey held their cattle, was, by its intrinsic nature, more nearly allied to an ordinary despotism than to a society of citizens politically equal.
Passing now to our special question, w^e may understand the kind of confusion in which Liberalism has lost itself; and the origin of those mistaken classings of political measures which have misled it — classings, as we shall see, by conspicuous external traits instead of by internal natures. For what, in the popular appre- hension and in the apprehension of those w^ho effected them, were the changes made by Liberals in the past? They were abolitions of grievances suffered by the people, or by portions of them: this was the common trait they had which most impressed itself on men's minds. They were mitigations of evils which had directly or indirectly been felt by large classes of citizens, as causes of misery or as hindrances to happiness. And since, in the minds of most, a rectified evil is equivalent to an achieved good, these measures came to be thought of as so many positive benefits; and the welfare of the many came to be conceived "alike by Liberal statesmen and Liberal voters as the aim of Liberalism. Hence the confusion. The gaining of a popular good, being the external conspicuous trait common to Liberal measures in earlier days (then in each case gained by a relaxation of restraints), it has happened that popular good has come to be sought by Liberals, not as an end to be indirectly gained by relaxations of restraints,, but as the end to be directly gained. And seeking to gain it directly, they have used methods intrinsically opposed to those originally used.
And now, having seen how this reversal of policy has arisen (or partial reversal, I should say, for the recent Burials Act and the efforts to remove all remaining religious inequalities, show con- tinuance of the original policy in certain directions), let us proceed to contemplate the extent to which it has been carried during recent times, and the still greater extent to which the future will see it carried if current ideas and feelings continue to pre- dominate.
Before proceeding, it may be well to say that no reflectiors are intended on the motives which prompted one after anothc^ 8 THE MAN VERSUS I HE STATE.
of these varions restraints and dictations. These motives were doubtless in nearly all cases good. It must be admitted that the restrictions jDlaced by an Act of 1870, on the employment of women and children in Turkey-red dyeing works, were, in intention, no less philanthropic than those of Edward VI., which prescribed the mhiimum time for which a journeyman should be retained. Without question, the Seed Supply (Ireland) Act of 1880, which empowered guardians to buy seed for poor tenants, and then to see it properly planted, was moved by a desire for public welfare no less great than that which in 1533 prescribed the number of sheep a tenant might keep, or that of 1597, which commanded that decayed houses of husbandry should be rebuilt. Nobody will dis- pute that the various measures of late years taken for restricting the sale of intoxicating liquors, have been taken as much with a view to public morals as were the measures taken of old for checking the evils of luxury; as, for instance, in the fourteenth century, when diet as well as dress was restricted. Everyone must see that the edicts issued by Henry VIII. to prevent the lower classes from playing dice, cards, bowls, &c., v/ere not more prompted by desire for popular welfare than were the Acts passed of late to check gambling.
Further, I do not intcnrl here to question the wisdom of these modern interferences, which Conservatives and Liberals vie v/ith one another in multiplying, any more than to question the wisdom of those ancient ones which they in many cases resemble. We will not now consider Avhether the plans of late adopted for preserving the lives of sailors, are or are not more judicious than that sweeping Scotch measure which, in the middle of the fifteenth century, pro- hibited captains from leaving harbour during the winter. For the present, it shall remain undebated whether there is a better warrant for giving sanitary officers powers to search certain pre- mises for unfit food, than there was for the law of Edward III., under which innkeepers at seaports were sworn to search their guests to prevent the exportation of money or plate. We will •assume that there is no less sense in that clause of the Canal-boat Act, which forbids an owner to board gratuitously the children of the boatmen, than there was in the Spitalficlds Acts, which, up to 1824<, for the benefit of the artisans, forbade the manufacturers to tix their factories more than ten miles from the Royal Exchange.
We exclude, then, these questions of philanthropic motive and THE NEW TOr.YISM. 9 %Tise judgment, taking both of them for granted; and have hore to concern ourselves solely with the compulsory nature of tho measures which, for good or evil as the case may be, have been put in force during periods of Liberal ascendancy.
To bring the illustrations within compass, let ns commence with 1860, under the second administration of Lord Palmerston. In that 3'ear, the restrictions of the Factories Act were extended to bleaching and dyeing works; authority was given to provide analysts of food and drink, to be paid out of local rates; there v/as an Act providing for inspection of gas-works, as well as for fixing quality of gas and limiting price; there was the act which, in addi- tion to further mine-inspection, made it penal to employ boys under twelve not attending school and unable to read and write. In ISGl occurred an extension of the compulsory provisions of the Factories Act to lace- works; power was given to poor-law guardians, &c., to enforce vaccination; local boards were authorized to fix rates of hire for horses, j)onies, mules, asses, and boats; and certain locally- formed bodies had given to them powers of taxing the locality for rural drainage and irrigation works, and for supplying water to cattle. In 1862, an Act was passed for restricting the employment of women and children in open-air bleaching; and an Act for making illegal a coal-mine with a single shaft, or with shafts sepa- rated by less than a specified space; as well as an Act giving tho Council of Medical Education the exclusive right to publish a Pharmacopoeia, the price of which is to be fixed by the Treasury. In 1863 came the extension of compulsory vaccination to Scotland, and also to Ireland; there came the empowering of certain boards to borrow money repayable from the local rates, to employ and pay those out 01 work; there came the authorizing of town-authorities to take possession of neglected ornamental spaces, and rate the inhabitants for their support; there came the Bakehouses Regula- tion Act, which, besides specifying minimum age of employes occupied between certain hours, prescribed periodical lime- washing, three coats of paint when painted, and cleaning with hot water and soap at least once in six months; and there came also an Act giving a magistrate authority to decide on the wholesomeness or anwholesomeness of food brought before him by an inspector. Of comjDulsory legislation dating from 1864, may be named an exten- liion of the Factories Act to various additional trades, including regulations for cleansing and ventilation, and specifying of ccvtaiu 10 THE MAN VERSUS THE STATE.