The unity of law; as exhibited in the relations of physical, social, mental and moral science

Front matter

^ttbnt ®. Eaubc (JolUrtion

1340 ileraonal (Hift

of tlje

Chap. I A Science Based tjpon Assumptions

II. — Or Science and its Methods III — Oe Man, the Subject of Social Science IV. — Or THE Physical and Social Laws Y — Of the Sooietary Organization VI. — Op Matter and Mind VII. — Oe Matter and Mind, continued VIII. — Op Matter and Mind, continued IX. — Op Matter and Mind, continued X. — Op Mind and Morals XI. — Op Mind and Morals, continued

XII. — Op Civilization

XIII. — Op Scientipic Relations .

XIV. — Depinitions

PAGE 1 n

Appendix

A. — The Law of Distribution .

. 379

B. — Occupation of the Earth

. 382

C. — Statistical Facts ....

. 392

D.— The Opium Trade

. 395

E. — Effects of an Exclusive Agriculture .

P.— The Proletariat

. 406

PEEPACE.

Desiring fully to understand and properly to appreciate the men around us, we study their antecedents, thereby in some measure qualifying ourselves for predicting their probable future. So, too, is it with nations. That we may understand the direction in which they are moving, whether toward civilization, wealth, and power, or toward barbarism, poverty, and weakness, it is needed that we compare their present with their past, and satisfy ourselves as to whether tbeir course of action bus tended in the direction of developing the qualities which constitute the real man, the being made in the image of his Creator, fitted for becoming master of nature and an example worthy to be followed by those around him ; or those alone which he holds in common with the beasts of the field, and which fit him for place among men whose rule of conduct exhibits itself in the robber chieftain's motto, " that they may take who have the power, and those may keep who can." That it is proposed now to do ; but preparatory thereto, the author asks the reader's attention to a brief exhibit of the very gradual steps by which, and almost insensibly, he has been led to arrive at the idea of an unity OF LAW, necessary complement as it is of that great idea so recently developed, but already so universally accepted,

that of UNITY OF FORCE.

So far as regards Societary Science — the link connecting physical with mental science — the first step ever made in that direction consisted in furnishing a theory of

( Vii )

yfii PREFACE.

value so simple that, in the words of one of the highest authorities in economical science, "there could arise no case in which a man should determine to make an exchange in which it would not be found to apply." Here, as every where, simplicity and breadth marched hand in hand together; the law embracing every commodity or thing m reference to which the idea of value could be predicated, and thus contributing largely toward demonstration of the universality of natural laws ; the value of land having been ascribed by all previous economists to causes widely different from those which gave value to its products*

Till then, amid the many suggestions as to the " nature, measure, and causes of value," there had been none, to quote again from the same high authority, that had not proved itself "liable to perpetual exceptions." The law then furnished was that of the labor saved; the limit of

* " Carey, and after him Bastiat, ha-ve introduced a formula dpotteriori, that I believe destined to be universally adopted; and it is greatly to be regretted that the latter should have limited himself to occasional indications of it, instead of giving to it the importance so justly given by the former. In estimating the equilibrium between the cost to one's self and the utility to others, a thousand circumstances may intervene ; and it is desirable to know if there be not among men a law, a principle of universal application. Supply and demand, rarity, abundance, etc., are all insufScient, and liable to perpetual exceptions. Carey has remarked, and with great sagacity, that this law is the labor saved, the cost of reproduction — an idea that is, as I think, most felicitous. It appears to me that there cannot arise a case in which a man shall determine to make an exchange, in which this law will not be found to apply. I will not regard it as equivalent, unless I see that it will come to me at less cost of labor than would be necessary for its reproduction. I regard this formula as most felicitous ; because while on one side it retains the idea of cost which is constantly referred to in the mind ; on the other it avoids the absurdity to which we are led by the theory which pretends to see everywhere a value equivalent to the cost of production ; and, finally, it shows more perfectly the essential justice that governs us in our exchanges." — Ferraka: Biblioteca delV Economista, vol. xii. p. 117. ~

PREFACE. ix

value being found in the cost of reproduction* Subsequently adopted by an eminent French economist,t it has been made known to tens of thousands who had never seen, or even heard of, the work in which it first appeared.

Consequent upon this, was the discovery of a general law of distribution, embracing all the products of laborwhether that ^plied to cultivation or conversion — to change of place or change of form. According to the theories then most generally received, the profit of one was always attended with loss to another — rents rising, as labor became less productive, and profits advancing, as wages retrograded; a doctrine said to come as natural consequence of a great law instituted by the Deity for man's government ; but which, if true, tended to the production of universal discord.^

Directly the reverse of this, however, was the law that was then announced, and now is reproduced ;§ proving, as it did, that both capitalist and laborer profited by every measure tending to render labor more productive, while losing by every one that tended to render it less so — and thus establishing a perfect harmony of interests.

Likewise adopted by M. Bastiat, and characterized by him as "the great, admirable, consoling, necessary, and

* Cabey. Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. Philad., 1837.

■}• Bastiat. Harmonies Economiques, Paris, 1850.

J " Low wages, as a consequence of competition for the sale of labor, reduce the prices of the things to. the production of which that labor is applied ; and it is the consumers of those products, the whole society, that reap the profit. If, then, as a consequence of low wages, the latter find themselves obliged to contribute to the support of the poor workman, they are indemnified therefor by the reduced prices at which they obtain his products." — J. B. Sat; TraitS d^ Economic Politique, t. ii., p. 292.

It is here supposed that society profits by a state of things that impoverishes the workman, and sends him to the hospital. The real and permanent interests of the employer and his workmen being one and the same, such a state of things can not exist.

g See Appendix A. Seo also pp. 66, 67.

X PEEFACE.

inflexible law of capital,"* it constituted a second step in the direction of proving that in each department of the social relations there was perfect unity; and, that the whole were as much subjected to law, absolute and inflexible, as were those of inorganic matter.

Thoroughly convinced of the truth of the laws then presented for consideration, the author felt not less certain that the really fundamental principle remained yet to be discovered; and, that until it could be brought to light many societary phenomena must continue unexplained. In what direction, however, to seek it, he could not tell. He had already satisfied himself that the theory presented for consideration by Mr. Eicardo, not being universally true, had no claim to be so considered; but, it was not until ten years later he was led to remark the fact, that it was universally false. The real law, as he then was led to see, was directly the reverse of that which had been propounded; the work of cultivation having, and that invariably, been commenced on the poorer soils, and having passed to those more rich as wealth had grown and population had increased. Here was the great fundamental truth of which he before- had thought; the one, too, that was needed for perfect demonstration of the truth of those he previously had exhibited. Here, too, was further proof of the universality of natural laws — the course of man, in reference to the earth at large, being thus shown to have been the same that we see it now to be in reference to all the instruments into which he fashions parts of the great machine itself. Always commencing with the poorest axes, he proceeds onward to those of steel ; always commencing with the poorer soils, he proceeds onward toward those capable of yielding larger returns to labor; increase of numbers being thus

* Harmonies Eoonomiques, Paris, 1850.

PREFACE. XI

proved to be essential to increase in the supply of food. Here was a unity of law leading to perfect harmony of all real and permanent human interests, and directly opposed to the discords taught by Mr. Malthus.*

This great law was first announced nearly a quarter of a century since.f While engaged in its demonstration, the author found himself constantly impelled to the use of physical facts in illustration of social phenomena, and hence was led to remark the close affinity of physical and social laws. Eeflecting upon this, he soon was brought to expression of the belief, that closer examination would

* Adam Smith having assumed that the work of cultivation commenced always with the richest soils, Mr. Malthus adopted the idea as basis for a law of population requiring that large numbers of men, women, and children should "regularly die of want." Mr. Ricardo next perfected th9 system, furnishing a theory of rent by means of which he sought to establish that precisely as it became necessary to cultivate the poorer soils, and as labor became less and less productive, the landlord's share of the products increased, leaving steadily less and less for the unfortunate laborer ; the tendency toward absolute enslavement of the latter becoming necessarily greater with each successive hour. From that time forward, all the distress, all the pauperism, of England, was treated as natural result of a necessity for cultivating the "inferior soils." So far' indeed was this idea carried out, that it was not unfrequently suggested that the remedy for existing difficulties would be found in throwing out of cultivation all such soils.

The time arriving, however, when the theory was shown to be wholly without foundation, it came then to be discovered, that this fundamental question — as important in furnishing a standpoint in Social Science as had been that of Copernicus in the astronomical one — was wholly unimportant* and might be left entirely uBconsidered ; the essence of the Ricardo- Malthusian doctrine being, however, still retained in that assumption which constitutes the basis of the existing system, to wit: that the return to agricultural labor, when population and wealth increase, is a constantly diminishing one (see post pp. 17, 18) ; than which no assertion could by any possibility have less of even the appearance of support from facts. That the reader may judge for himself of this, as well as of the accuracy of the views now presented, the history of the earth's occupation is here reproduced in appendix B.

t The Past, the Present, and the Future, Philad., 1848.

xii PREFACE.

M

lead to development of the great fact, that there existed but a single system of laws ; those instituted for the government of inorganic matter proving to be the same by which that matter was governed when it took the form of man, or of communities of men.

In the work then published, the discoveries of modem science proving the indestructibility of matter were, for the first time, rendered available to social science — the difference between agriculture and all other of the pursuits of man having been there exhibited in the fact, that the farmer was always employed in mahing a machine whose powers increased from year to year; whereas, the shipmaster, and the wagoner, were always using machines whose powers as regularly diminished. The whole business.of the former, as there was shown, consisted in making and im proving soils ; his powers for improvement growing with the growth of wealth and population. To fully develop the law of the perpetuity of matter, in its bearing upon the law of population, was, however, reserved for the author's friend, Mr. E. Peshine Smith, an important passage from one of whose works will be found at page 150 of the present volume.*

Further reflection having confirmed him in the belief that the laws thus far exhibited were but parts of a perfectly harmonious system instituted for the government of matter in all its forms, whether those of coal or iron, fish or birds, clay, corn, oxen, or men; that the Creator of the Universe had not been obliged to institute different laws for government of the same matter; that the physical and social laws must, therefore, be in harmony with each other ; and, that the idea of unity of law must be as clearly susceptible of proof as was that of unity of force; he availed himself in a further work,+ of the familiar pheno-

* See also Manual of Political Economy, New York, 1858. t Principles of Social Science, 8 vols. Philad., 1867-59.

PREFACE. ' XUl

mena of heat, motion, and their effective forces in the physical world, for illustration of corresponding facts and forces in the societary one; the result having been that of showing that, with societies as with individual men, physical and mental development, health, and life, had always grown with growth in the rapidity of circulation and declined as .the circulation had been arrested or destroyed.

Since then, there have been many and important scientific discoveries, chief among which are those by means of which it has been definitively established that —

" Power or energy, like matter, can neither be created nor destroyed : though ever changing in form, its total quantity in the universe remains constant and unalterable. Every manifestation offeree must have come from a preexisting equivalent force, and must give^ rise to a subsequent and equal amount of some other force. When, therefore, a force or effect appears, we are not at liberty to assume that it was self-originated, or came from nothing ; when it disappears we are forbidden to conclude that it is annihilated : we must search and find whence it came and whither it has gone ; that is, what produced it and what effect it has itself produced. These relations among the modes of energy are currently known by the phrases Correlation and Conservation of Force." *

The law thus exhibited might, as we are assured —

" Well have been proclaimed the highest law of all science — the most far-reaching principle that adventuring reason has discovered in the universe. Its stupendous reach spans all orders of existence. Not only does it govern the movements of the heavenly bodies, but it presides over the genesis of the constellations ; not only does it control those radiant floods of power which fill the eternal spaces, bathing, warming, illumining and vivifying our planet, but it rules the actions and relations of men, and regulates the march of terrestrial affairs. Nor is its dominion limited to physical phenomena ; it prevails equally in the world of mind, controlling all tha faculties and processes of thought and feeling. The star-suns of the remoter galaxies dart their radiations across the universe ; and although the

* Youmans. Correlation and Conservation oj Forces, p. xiii.

Xiv PEEFACE.

distances are so profound that hundreds of centuries may have been required to traverse them, the impulses of force enter the eye, and impressing an atomic change upon the nerve, give origin to the sense of sight. Star and nerve-tissue are parts of the same system— stellar and nervous forces are correlated. Nay more ; sensation awakens thought and kindles emotion, so that this wondrous dynamic chain binds into living unity the realms of matter and mind through measureless amplitudes of space and time."*

Spanning, as we are here assured it does, "all orders of existence" the paramount law thus exhibited must, of course, embrace within its field of operation that force which enters- into man's composition, and by so doing gradually fits him for that elevated position for which, from the first, he had been intended. That it is so embraced, will become obvious to the reader after consideration of the following facts: —

From the days of Caesar to the present time, a period of almost 2000 years, there has been but slight, if indeed any, increase in the numbers of mankind.! Nevertheless, the quantity of human force has so much increased, that single individuals now accomplish service that before had required hundreds; and, that even the weaker sex has so far grown in power as to be largely aiding in maintaining throughout the world an interchange of ideas which but half a century since could not have been maintained by the united efforts of all mankind. Whence, now, has come the wonderful force that we see to be thus exerted? For answer to this question we have the certainty that, as " force can be neither created nor destroyed ;" as " every manifestation of force must come from a pre-existing equivalent force ;" human force, whether physical, mental, or moral, results necessarily from conversion to human use of forces that have existed from all time ; and, that there is, in this respect, no difference between man and

*Ibid. p. xU. ■]■ See note to page 407.

PREFACE, XV

the trees wliicli adorn our parks; the cotton-plant which furnishes the material of our clothing ; or the shrub from which we derive our fruits.

Throughout the inorganic world the variety in the manifestations of force is but very small indeed, great as is its power in whatsoever shape it comes to be presented. When, however it enters into organized forms it finds them each and all to have been so constructed as to give occasion to that almost infinite variety in the modes of manifestation which exhibits itself in both the vegetable and animal world, from the bramble to the oak, and from the ascidian to the horse, the dog, and the almost-speaking elephant.

Thus far, differences have been generic or specific only; individuals of a species being little more than a reproduction each of every other. Man, however, now coming on the stage of life, we find individual differences almost as numerous as are those of the human countenance ; there being scarcely any two members of the human family precisely alike in their capacities for absorbing and converting the force that everywhere awaits demand. In one, the power of absorption is of a character tending to fit him for practice of the law, while around are others whose organs fit them for becoming farmers, merchants, physicians, chemists, traders, and so on throughout the thousand other pursuits of life. It is in variety there is unity, and the more that each and every of these men is enabled to absorb and convert the force supplied, the greater is the tendency toward that association in whose absence the being known as MAN can have no existence whatsoever.

Looking now to the early man, as he is being exhibited to us by geologists, we see him to have been almost wholly powerless in face of the wonderful forces in whose presence he had been placed. Tracing him thence onward, we find him gradually obtaining power for their direction, until at length he is enabled to compel light and heat,

Xvi PREFACE.

Steam and electricity, to perform labors that would have required the united eflforts of hundreds, if not even thousands, of millions of unassisted men. At each and every stage of progress the force thus converted to his use becomes part and parcel of himself; his various faculties absorbing their several portions, and the man of power coming gradually on the stage prepared to direct the already acquired force to further development of the yet latent powers of the earth, and further conversion thereof to his own use and service.* As numbers increase, men are more and more enabled to combine together, and at each such stage their faculties become more and more strengthened for absorption of further aliment ; the process here being precisely the same with that observed as consequent upon steady exercise of the physical powers with which the human animal has been endowed.

* A dozen hours from the delivery of a presidential message its contents have been made known throughout the civilized world. Whence had come the force by whose means this wonderful work had been accomplished ? From the types, the paper, the poles, or the wires, that had been employed ? Certainly not, all these having been perfectly quiescent. — The forces of the pistol, the engine, and the telegraph, are in the men who control and direct them, and not in the machines by which the work is done. — A horse's force is said to be the equivalent of that of nine average men. The man who subjugates him adds that force to his own, doing now ten times his original work. — The force of the banker's millions, of the essayist's pen, and of the astronomer's telescope, is in those who direct them, and not in the instruments directed. — That of the orator, or actor, who moves multitudes to action, or to tears, differs only in its modes of manifestation from that of the engineer who explodes the charge, and sends other multitudes to their last account. — Aided by his sling, David felled Goliath to the ground. Altogether unaided, Samson levelled the pillars of the temple. — One man levels his opponent with a blow of his fist. Another does the same by aid of a club. A third accomplishes the same object by means of a well-contrived trap. The force thus used is always the same ; and so it is in those larger operations which involve the use of the monster cannon, the ocean steamer, or the fast-flying locomotive. — The soldier's knapsack doubles his carrying power. Is the new force in him, or in the machine?

PREFACE. XVH

Side by side witli the forces thus converted travels always the first of the great laws above referred to, providing, as it does, that growth of force shall be accompanied by changes in the distribution of labor's products; present mental and moral force claiming a constantly increased proportion as compared with that appropriated to the merely material force resulting from accumulations of the past; labor thus tending to an equality with capital, and man becoming from hour to hour more free. In the whole range of law there is nothing more beautiful than this; nothing furnishing more thorough proof that that High Intelligence to which man stands indebted for the wonderful mechanism of each and every part of his physical form, had not failed to provide for the societary body laws fully fitted to prepare him for becoming master of nature, master of himself, and prompt to unite with his fellow-men in all measures tending to thorough development of the highest faculties with which he and they had been endowed.

Looking around, however, we see that throughout by very far the largest portion of the earth there exists little but poverty and wretchedness amiong the millions, selfishness, extravagance, and waste among those by whom their movements are directed ; the rich becoming richer, and the poor poorer, from year to year. As a consequence of this, the world at large presents for observation little beyond a constant series of wars, rebellions, and revolutions, with terrific waste of mental and physical force ; of property and of life. Seeking now to understand the cause of a state of things so sad and so destructive, the inquirer looks naturally for information to the works of leaders of opinion in that country which claims to follow in the footsteps of Adam Smith; there to find, however little beyond the assertions, that their science is limited to the consideration of material wealth alone, to the entire 2 xviii PREFACE.

exclusion of mind and morals, skill and taste ; tbat buying and selling constitute the chief end and aim of life ; that "to enable capital to obtain proper remuneration, labor must be kept down ;"* that carrying goods back and

* Huskisson. — For present confirmation of the idea that was' then presented, the reader may take the following passages from two of the most respected of British journals, and one of the most eminent of British authors.

" The English land system, as it exists at present, necessitates over the greater part of England the misery of the peasant. Just as the events of the period which is comprised within the outbreak of the Continental war and the abolition of the corn laws, were based on the starvation of the people, BO if the present mode of letting and hiring land is to remain in force, it is necessary that the agricultural laborer should be underpaid, underfed, miserably housed, and so immovable as to secure to the tenant farmer a constant supply of cheap labor." — British Quarterly Review, July, 1872; Article: " Agricultural Labor' s Strike."

" From these classes we hear already a. protest against emigration. Keep our people at home, they say, we shall want them when trade revives. There may be no work for them at present. Their wives and little ones may be starving with cold and hunger. They may be roaming the streets in vagrancy, crowding the casual wards, or besieging the doors of the poor-houses ; but still keep them,— all will be well by and by. Meantime let the poor-rate rise ; let the small householder in Whitechapel, himself struggling manfully for independence on the verge of beggary, pay six shillings in the pound to feed his neighbor who has sunk below the line. The tide will turn ; labor will soon be in demand again. Our profits will come back to us, and the Whitechapel householder may console himself with the certainty that his six shillings will sink again to three." — Froude. Short Studies on Great Subjects, London, 1872, p. 164.

"The kindly feeling, as they call it, in the counties— that is, the half contemptuous pity on one side and reverential deference on the other

which has for centuries marked the semi-feudal relations of village labor

has already died away, and the farmers are determined that the men ehall know what ' contract' is like. They will not take the Bishop of Gloucester's advice, and duck the lecturers, because the laborers being ten to one, and being told by a bishop that physical violence is a proper weapon to employ, might duck the farmers. . . . They will endeavor this winter to put the unions down, and we shall have all over the country villages in which ten or fifteen farmers, angry, unreasonable, and well fed, will stand face to face with a hundred or a hundred and fifty laborers, angry, unrea- Bonable, and without food. The unionists will be looked out in heaps, and

PREFACE. XIX

forth is beneficial because it makes demand for ships ; and that, to the end of increasing such demand, it is right and proper to employ the physical force at their command to prevent elsewhere the growth of that domestic commerce so highly valued by the great founder of their science; that commerce by means of which alone can man be enabled to convert to his use the great forces so infinitely abounding, and waiting but his demand to grant the aid of which he stands so much in need.

Need we now wonder that a system so thoroughly materialistic should have given rise to a school from which we learn, that " survival of the fittest," and crushing out of those less " fitted," constitute the bases of all natural arrangements for promoting advance in civilization ; and, that it is in clear defiance of nature's laws to interfere in any manner, whether by vaccination, by succoring of

wlien they apply to the parish 'will be told by the guardians that, as they can have work at will, by 'merely' giving up the union, they must take the work. . . . The man has been, so to speak, morally whipped for six months. He has found no friend anywhere, except in a press he can neither read nor understand. . The duke has deprived him of his allotment; the bishop has recommended that his instructor should be ducked; the squire has threatened him with dismissal in winter ; the magistrate has fined him for quitting work, which is just, and scolded him for listening to lectures, which is tyranny; the mayor at Evesham has prohibited him from meeting on the green — and the lawyer — witness a recent case near Chelmsford—has told him that any one who advises and helps him to emigrate is a hopeless rascal. He has been denied the most ordinary privileges of freemen— the right of listening to lectures he approves, the right of emigrating from county to county, the right of combining to improve his condition; and this by men who, as he sees, listen to every lecture on their own side, who emigrate whenever they please, to the ends of the earth, and who form open and strict combinations to keep him in his place." — Spectator, August 24, 1872.