The unseen foundations of society; an examination of the fallacies and failures of economic science due to neglected elements

Front matter

UNSEEN FOUNDATIONS

SOCIETY

Mi-

Preface

If a book does not make its own scope and purpose plain in the course of some six hundred pages, its author need not try to make them plainer in a preface. There is, however, even in the exact sciences, an element known as " the personal equation," which has always to be taken into account ; and this it is the business of every writer — even at the risk of some apparent egotism — to supply to those who read him. He can best do so by giving some indication of the direction from which he comes, and of the avenues of approach along which he has been led in dealing with his subject. Our reasoning may be the purest logic, and our opinions may be the plainest truth, and yet it may al\Yays be relevant to explain how we have come to hold them. I may say, therefore, at once that the views on economic science which are set forth in this volume, have been derived almost entirely from the observation of facts in the business transactions of life, and from an habitual tendency to compare these with the theoretical teaching of speculative writers. Only very slowly, and with great surprise, were my eyes opened to wide and unexplained discrepancies. I have been hardly at all influenced vi PREFACE.

by political party ties. Although not only born of a Whig family, but representing the one particular family in connection with whose proceedings the very name of Whig is said to have originated in Scotland, I, nevertheless, began life with an aversion, almost an antipathy, to the Whig party. This was due to a very early familiarity with the life and speeches of the younger Pitt, whom I regarded, and do still regard, as, on the whole, by far the noblest figure in our political history. Few things have given me greater pleasure in recent years than the spirited and truthful vindication of that great man — all too short as it is — which we owe to Lord Rosebery. The passionate opposition with which the Whigs encountered every proposal of Mr. Pitt, whether in the direction of Free Trade with Ireland, or of more intimate commercial relations with France, or in the direction of national defence against a tremendous danger to England and to the world, I regarded, and do still regard as having been factious and unpatriotic. In my own time, the position of the Whigs for some years before their fall in 1841, was hardly one of increasing credit. The splendid services they had rendered under Earl Grey, and Lord John Russell, had been half forgotten in the rise of new demands. The circumstances under which — at the last moment — they joined in the movement against the Corn Laws, — -too obviously playing it as a card in a critical general election, — did not tend to remove my dislike of those who represented, in name at least, the party and the policy of Fox. The speeches of his nobler rival were, however, an excellent introduction to the questions then coming up in the new political horizon.

PREFACE. vii

The influence which had been exercised on the mind of Mr. Pitt by the writings of Adam Smith, is well-known. The famous speech in February 1785, on his proposals for Free Trade with Ireland — badly as that speech has been reported — is full of sentences inspired by the spirit and the doctrines of the illustrious Scotch Economist. There was, however, a wide margin in his case between the intellectual perception of great general principles, and the possibilities which were open to him in the direction of their full practical application. He was forced by the almost universal state of public sentiment in England, to make large concessions to the policy of Protection, and in some passages his language is emphatic in disclaiming any abandonment of that policy as regarded the competition of foreign countries, or as regarded the special favour which was then always held to be due to our own colonies. The imperative necessities of a long and arduous war displaced altogether from politics, for many years, any question of applying the doctrines of Adam Smith to a reform of our fiscal or commercial system ; and when peace came at last, it came with circumstances of alarm from falling values which gave a new and firmer hold than ever to the antagonistic doctrines of Protection. Even men who, like Earl Grey, opposed the stringent Corn Law of 1815, became reconciled to its operation, and were long blind to its economic effects. Moreover, when the principles of Free Trade began to be advocated again, they were advocated by Ricardo on the avowed ground that cheap food would result in cheap wages, and that by this process alone could the manufacturing and trading classes viii PREFACE.

make a profit. The question of Free ^rade jn corn was never for a moment entertained by the Cabinet of Lord Grey, and one of my earliest recollections is the once-famous saying of his successor, Lord Melbourne, that anyone who contemplated . sufch a measure would be the " maddest man in England." This was the phase of thought which held the field when my own interest in political affairs began — some fifty-three years ago — and it was the phase of thought which continued to prevail until Cobden began to teach a sounder doctrine. Even his language did not always redeem the controversy from the impression which had long been firmly established by the doctrine of Ricardo, that the contest in favour of free imports of corn was a contest in the interests of manufacturing capitalists alone, to the damage or ruin of agriculture at home, and with no ultimate benefit even to the factory worker. In a most candid passage of a speech quoted by his distinguished biographer, Mr. Morley,* Cobden confessed that most of his party had "entered upon this struggle with the belief that we had some distinct class-interest in the question." On the other hand, Mr. Morley tells us, and I believe with perfect truth, that the question which Cobden and his friends kept, constantly asking was — How wages could be kept up, with a population increasing at the rate of a thousand a day ? This was an entirely new departure from the line taken by Ricardo, whose very different question always was — How can wages be kept down to rates compatible with profits ? But this new' departure did not come out clearly at first, and even to the last it was constantly

* Morley's ' Life of Cobden,' vol. i., p. 141.

PREFACE. ix

obscured by language and accusations against the agricultural classes, which were certainly unjust, considering the long hold which Protectionism had, and still has,, upon all classes in their turn.

My own education on the subject began with the circumstances which brought about the memorable conversion of Sir Robert Peel. I was a constant and attentive listener, under the gallery of the House of Commons, to the great debates which preceded and followed his attainment of power in 184 1. I could not but observe the very careful and guarded terms in which he handled the abstract doctrine of Protectionism— the large admissions he made, and the direction which his opinions were evidently taking in the line of retreat, with the inevitable result of complete abandonment. When the crash of the potato famine came, I had personal and painful experience of the economic lessons to be learnt from all its causes, and from all its results. I had to deal with a large population on some parts of my own property, many of whom were in danger of starvation. It was only by heavy outlays both on emigration and on agricultural works, that the danger was removed and a happier condition of things was at last established. I became a convinced Free Trader. But it was in Free Trade in all its completeness that I alone believed. Free Trade in the products of the soil could not be met except by Free Trade also in land itself, and by conducting agriculture and land-owning as a business, on the same conditions on which other businesses are conducted when open to competition. The doctrine of Burke, often praised by Cobden, and since epitomised by Mr. Morley, seemed to me the only sound

X PREFACE.

doctrine — namely this, that tit is a "futile and mischievous system to deal with agriculture as if it were different from any other branch of commerce."* It seemed evident to me that the battle of open competition with the foreigner in our own markets, could not be fought unless the skill, capital, and enterprise •of our own people had access equally free to the employment of all these resources upon farms adequately equipped for them, and thrown open to the choice of the fittest men on such terms as they might freely offer. Thrift in personal expenditure, — ^large outlays on the permanent improvements of land, — perfect freedom of contract in the selection of men who were most capable of turning those equipments to good account, — the abandonment of antiquated customs, — the introduction of new minds and new skill, — the adoption of new methods — these, and these alone, were obviously the only possible conditions of success. In some places small agricultural holdings which were dangerously subdivided were enlarged as opportunities arose. Elsewhere, substantial farms had to be provided at great cost, with new houses, fences, and drains. Acting on these principles, in the course of years, gradually but surely, I have had the satisfaction of seeing some large populations, and some wide areas of country assume altogether a new face.

In public life, with much of what my late relative and colleague- Lord Granville called " a cross-bench mind," I joined that group of statesmen who inherited the traditions of Sir Robert Peel, of which group Mr. Gladstone and myself are now the only survivors. With them I remained till we were absorbed in the

* Morley's ' Life of Cobden,' vol. i., p. 167.

PREFACE. xi

Coalition Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen in 1853. Our first and special bond of union with the Whigs was resistance to any attempted return to the system of Protection. In that Cabinet I followed with hearty sympathy the brilliant prosecution of that work of Tariff-reform by Mr. Gladstone, on which he had already worked more than ten years before in the great Administration of Sir Robert Peel. But I was not then, and have never been, in anything like complete sympathy with what was called the " Manchester School." Not a few of them seemed to me to be tainted with the narrow and erroneous teaching of Ricardo, and their language too often implied the curious delusion that Protectionism was the special and the evil •device of landowners. They seemed wholly forgetful of the fact that the trading and manufacturing classes had been the earliest, and for centuries continued to be the most vehement, supporters of Protection and monopolies. Again, the language of the school on war, and their complete oblivion of the great part it has played in the progress of mankind, always struck me as unnatural, and especially as unhistorical. Above all, the coldness, to say the least, with which they regarded the contest that ended in the passing of the Factory Acts, convinced me that their views of Political Economy moved within a comparatively contracted circuit of ideas. From any sympathy with this attitude of mind, I was all the more easily saved by another influence. From her earliest childhood, my wife* had known Lord Ashley, afterwards Lord Shaftesbury, and had loved his work. Her uncle, best known as Lord Morpeth,

* Elizabeth Sutherland, eldest daughter of George Granville, second Duke of Sutherland, and of Harriet Howard, his wife.

xii PREFACE.

afterwards Lord Carlisle, had at one time been almost selected as the parliamentary champion of the Ten Hours Bill. Through her I enjoyed tlic intimate friendship of Lord Shaftesbury for forty-five years, until his death. I regard his career as the noblest I have ever personally known. Political contention has its own engrossing interests ; and political ambition has its own — sometimes its more than adequate — rewards. He had political ambition. He had the connections, the position, and the powers which opened before him every opportunity of indulging it. He knew and felt its temptations. But he sacrificed it all ; and he sacrificed it absolutely. His whole life was devoted, with untiring sacrifice of self, to the relief of suffering in all its forms among the industrial poor. The descriptions he often gave me of the physical condition of the Factory children when his work began, made upon my mind a deep impression. It was in writing* on the principles involved in the legislation which he did more than any other man to secure, that I first began to study closely and systematically the larger natural laws which are the only foundation for any true economic science.

■ Prepared, therefore, as I was to rebel against much that had been taught in the name of Political Economy, I was not prepared, I confess, for the complete breakdown of its authority which has followed in more recent years. I had accepted much of it, just as we all passively accept a great deal from recognised authorities, without any close analysis or testing thought. That process, when at last applied, soon revealed, indeed, not a few great fallacies : but it did not suggest, or * 'Reign of Law' (J. Murray), chap, vii., " Liiw in Polities."

PREFACE. xiu

seem to justify, any violent revolution. Yet now I am not surprised by what has happened. In reading the old orthodox economists, with however little critical resistance, I had always been more or less conscious of a want — ^almost on every page — ^which, even to myself, I could hardly specify or define. They seemed to me like men always sounding in abysmal waters — always busy in recording depths — ^but wholly unconscious that their lead had never touched the bottom. I felt constantly as if, — down below the short limit of their line, — there were deep currents running, of which they took no note whatever. " We start, for soul is wanting there," was a line of Byron which kept constantly repeating itself in my ear. Many superficial facts were admirably observed, and a tremendous superstructure was often built upon them. Far more fundamental facts, strictly relevant and cognate, were left, because less gross and palpable, in obscurity and neglect Ideas were involved or assumed without being ever defined, or even consciously expressed. Continually, the whole region of human nature, and of the human will, was left out of the account, or if taken into account, the shallowest motives were selected, and the most permanent and potent were forgotten. Conclusions were reached which contradicted glaringly the actual experience of life, because they were founded on abstract conceptions and propositions, which were badly abstracted, and largely composed of hollow phrases or ambiguous words. The whole system of the school of Mill and Ricardo, seemed to be an artificial world, with only a few points of contact with the world of nature and of life.

Yet in spite of this feeling, the labour of analysis on xiv PREFACE,

a vast and difficult subject for a long time repelled me.

Recently, however, the discredit cast upon a science on which so much depends, and in which such large progress had been really made, has induced me to join the number of those younger writers who — some on one point, some on another — have rebelled against an authority which had been too long and too uncritically admitted. It is indeed high time. So utterly has the teaching of Political Economy broken down as a controlling, or even as a guiding, power, that its very elements, and not a few of its most certain truths, seem to have lost their hold. There are numbers of educated men, who are now more than half prepared to go back to the grossest delusions of the Dark Ages. The very idea of Natural Law as a prevailing power in human nature, and in all successful legislation, has almost disappeared in popular discussions. This is a serious condition of things. It must be wrong, and it must be dangerous. Various causes have doubtless contributed to the result — such as that impatience of any control over the human will to which we are all continually tempted — a temptation specially powerful over the multitude. But one great cause has undoubtedly been the bad teaching of economic science. Much of that teaching has raised against the science a natural, if not a just, opprobrium. Economic science, as it is too often represented, fails, on the one hand, to know its own greatness, and claims, on the other hand, to use forms of demonstration which are inapplicable to the subject — not because its truths are uncertain, but because they have an authority of another and a higher kind. The very name of

PREFACE. XV

Political Economy has thus become in many minds a byeword and a reproach. Such a reaction is in all ways excessive and irrational. In these pages I have attempted to aid the many writers who are now endeavouring to rebuild a structure which has been sorelyshattered. And for this purpose I have selected such fundamental elements of truth as appear to me to have been most neglected, or at least have been most inadequately handled. I may add that no part of the present volume has been before published, except a portion of the fifteenth chapter, which appeared in the ' Nineteenth Century ' some years ago, and which the editor has kindly allowed me to use in its appropriate connection here.

There is only one other prefatory observation which I wish to make. I should be indeed sorry if the structure of the following argument should give rise to an erroneous impression of a more prevailing antagonism against other writers, whether of the older or of the younger school, than really attaches to my opinions. Yet such an erroneous impression may very naturally arise from the fact that the plan of the whole book tends of necessity to the selection of points of difference, and to silence on a thousand points of cordial agreement. Elements which have been neglected are its special subject. Comparatively little or no notice, therefore, is taken of elements which have not been neglected, but, on the contrary, have been adequately handled. I can sincerely say that there is hardly a single book of any note on Political Economy in which I have not found some point, or many points, well thought out, and often admirably illustrated. A reconstructive work is unxvi PREFACE.

questionably going on, — a rebuilding of the old waste places. But it is a work much beset by some new difficulties, arising out of new temptations, to some of which I have ventured to call attention in the concluding pages of the last chapter.

Argyll.

Inverary, Dec. dth, 1892.

( xvii )

CHAPTER I.— The Revolt

Condemnatory Language Quoted — Vain Excuses made — Reaction Excessive — Abstractedness not in Fault — Fallacy of Mathematical Methods — Economic Laws Intuitive — The Axioms of Jevons — Contrast with True Axioms — Economic Significance of Language — Dangers of Technical Language' — Examples of Technical Phrases — Alleged Ambiguity of Language — The Weapon of Analysis — True Analj'sis Defined — Adam Smith on Gross Sophistry^ — Caieless Thinking . ...

CHAPTER 11.— A Definition.

Adam Smith's Definitions — The word " Wealth " — ^A Definition given — The Idea of Possession — Biblical Definition — The word " Thing " — AppUcations Specified — Position of Money — Significance of word " Appreciate "' — Nature of Value — Interdependence of Alen — Exchangeability and Use — The Governing Element in ^''aIue — Functions of Demand — Ethical Limitation . 34

CHAPTER 111.— The Power of Definitions.

"Vastness of Economic Science — Bad Definitions of Wealth — A Confused Formula — Analysis of the Formula — Narrow Meaning of Labour — Capital represents Labour — An Amended Formula — Inconsistencies Exposed — Productive and Unproductive — Fawcett's Doctrine — Distribution Itself a Product — An Error of Adam Smith — Neglect of Demand — New Crop from Old Errors 65

CHAPTER IV.— The Beginnings of Possession.

Suggested Questions — Exclusive Use a Necessity — Beginnings Unknown — Suggested Possibilities — The Storing Instinct — Necessary Conditions specified — Under any Alternative — Possessory Rights Universal — Inequalities of Men — Military- Genius — Function of War- — Survival of the Best — Perverted Instincts — A Distinction in Religions . . . -95

CHAPTER v.— The Progress of Possession.

Possession demands Question — Case of the Eskimo — Possession among the Jews — The Statutes of Joshua — Tribal Insecurity —

b xv-iii COiYTEXTS.

PAGS

Jeremiah's Symbol of Prosperity — Property in Babylonia — \'alue set on Title-Deeds — ^Ass)-rian Ferocity- — Destruction of Wealth — ISIesopotamian Desolation — Insecurity- the great cause — A Modem Restorer — Story of Sheikh Jeber— Right of Exclusive Use Won — Modem Forms of Property — Relation of Occupier to Owner — Property World-old and World-wide . • '->

CHAPTER VI.— The Destrlciion of Wealth.

Wide Range of Economic Science — Property under Ancient Monarchies — ^Turkish and Persian Empires — Story in Book of Esdras — Philosophy of the Story — Impersonation of the State — Individuality in Commerce — Eeculiarities of Egj-pt — Importance of Definiteness in Rents — The Great Causes of Decay — ^\Vealth Dependent on Security — Roman Law and Utilitarianism — Bentham's Question — The Romans in England — Snrvi\-al of Roman Law — Idea of Xatural Law. 162

Xorthem Races no longer a Danger — Detinition of Middle Ages — What the Invading Races did — ^A Xew Empire Impossible — Causes of Roman Decay — Siur^nx^al of Roman Law — Possession Founded on Conquest — ^The Economic Function of War — Military Tenure of Propertj- — Function of Jurisprudence — ^The Plantation of New Races — Influence of the Church — Power of Christian Conceptions — L''niversality of Military Tenure — ^The Feudal Organisation . IQ4.

CHAPTER VIIL— Possession- Re-established — TEtrroxic,

CONTRASTED WITH CELTIC FEUDALtSM.

Law- of the Nations — Different Aspects of Feud;.dism — Fimctions of the Jurist — ^The Tribal Condition of Society — The Irish Celtic Church — Description by Montalembert — Celtic Form of Feudalism — Early Irish Charters — Subjection and Protection — Irish EJcactions Unlimited — Ersitied Normans in Ireland — English and Irish Ci\ il ^^"ars — PoKcy of Henry \'III. — Effect of Irish Customs . ... 224.

CHAPTER IX. — Possession uxder the New Texures.

Evidence of Spencer and Davies — Secular Decline in Ireland — Policy of Plantations — Plantation of Ulster — Freedom from Irish Customs — Parallel in Scottish Highlands — Similar Reforms in Scotland — Definition of Rights — Degeneracy of the Clans —

CONTENTS.

Ruinous Economic Effects— Runrig Cultivation — Rights Invisible Things— Impediments to Progress — Poverty in Scotland —Selection of Tenants— Possession Necessary for Production

CHAPTER X.— The Kicardian Theory of Rent.

Attacks on Ricardo's Theory — Lame Defences — The word " Rent " — Only one Case of Hire — Other Cases of Hire — Rent is Cost of Hire — Ricardo's Analysis — Existence of Rentless Land — Forgotten Costs — An Alleged Necessity — Adverse Facts — Rent always Present — A Bad Apology for Ricardo — ^An Empty Truism — An Ambiguous Word — An Index not a Cause — ^A Fallacy Detected — Quantitative Formula — Rent not a Surplus — Impossible Suppositions — Cost of Possession Forgotten . 284

CHAPTER XL— The Passage of the Ricardiax Theory of Rent into a General Theory of Value.

Absurd Conclusions — The Theory of Anderson — Anderson's Language— Anderson's Reasoning — Anderson's Conclusion — Anderson's Conclusion Different — Cause and Effect Interchangeable — Ricardian Doctrine a Paradox — Jevons Detects the Fallacy — False Theory of Price — ^An Illustration — An Actual Case — An Incredible Conclusion — Extension of Ricardian Theory — Adam Smith and Ricardo — ^Adam Smith on Merchants — Ricardo's False Conclusions— Rent a Decreasing Proportion . . 326

CHAPTER XII. — The Development of Specul.itive Fallacies.

Characteristic of Hire —- Professor Jevons' Discovery — Biblical Parables — Effects of one Fallacy — " Capital-Lettered " Phrases — Downward Steps — Ricardo's Theory of Wages — Noxious Influences— Affiliated Errors . 363

CHAPTER XIIL— A Specimen of Evolution.

A Former Argument Defended — A Coincidence — Voltaire on Communism— ^A New Asses' Bridge — An Absurd Conclusion — .-Vn Apparent Anomaly — The Pressure of Population — The State of California — ^A Question to be Asked — Proved Municipal Corruption — Profligate Doctrines — Their Applications Traced — A Quotation — ^An Example of Results — Repudiation of all Debts — Outlays on Soil — An Assumption Denied — Indian Population — Iniquity Unhke Absurdity . 3S2

CHAPTER XIV.— "The Wages Fund Theory."

Mill's Idea— An Element of Truth — Deceptiveness of a Word- Inequality in all Exchange — Demand and Supply — Popular Delusions — ^" Fund " a Misleading Word — Production Compo-

COXTEXTS.

site — SoDFces of Emplovment — The Concora^ Mmd — ^Demand GoremsW^es — -Unearned* Inaemoats — Case in Middle Ages— Value BilatHal— The True Wages Fond . . iii

CHAPTER X\".— The Uxseex Socrces of Emplowiest, axd

SOM£ SUGGESTED COKSSQUESCES,

Image of a Stream — Foantain in the Brain — Prodacaon Indodes Distribotion — Ethical Foandatians — The word "Capital" — Bentham on Security — OpeiatitHtt of Insecurity — Boitham^ Doctrine Trne — Municipal Monopofies — Selection 'of Errots — Teaching of Tnrgoi— Theosry of MaWms— A new ConvictitHi — Its Hopeful Aspacrs — Special Canses in Irdand — Blindness of ETeiybody — The Irish Faminfi, 1S4.J — S^iativeness of Capital — The Standard of Life — A Si^gested Question — Farther Question Put — An Unjust Aim — ^Elfects Unseen — ^A PossiUe R^xm — ^A Lesson to be Learnt — Futile Legislation ... 4.5

CHAPTER X\"I. — Effect of Eoososnc Laws ox Recext axd

Aggregatii^ Canses in Population — ^Dispersiag Canses — K-rample in Scotland — A False Economic Doctrine — Rural Migration in Scotland — ^L'neshansted Cans^ — Case of Irish Population — Instinctive Convictions Tme — Continuous Irish EmigiatifHi — One Cause IdiOitified — Eiiec: of Free Imports — London and odter Cities — Case rf Xevr Cities . . . . loj

CHAPTER X\"II. — Tks Beaktsg of Ecoxomic Facts ox Mrxicipjo. AXD OTHER Local Admisistratite Bodies.

Monopoly Defined — Propeny Opposed to Monopoly — Municipal Monopoli^ — Free-Trade Towns in Scodand — ^ Mate Mat»ial Weahh '^ — limitation on Local Poweats — limitations on Indostrial Freedom — Sdf-Interesi a Safi^uard — ^Human Cormptiaa . 530

CHAPTER X\'III. — ^Relatiox eetsteex Old axd Xew Ecoxomic Faixacks, Wel\t Ecoxomic Sciexce is : AXD What it is XOT. Xew Daxgers.

Medieval Legislation — Principle of Truck Acts — B^ttfaam on Limited Liability — Results rf Limited Liability — ^The Law of Organisms — What Science Demands — Benevolence not Excluded— Protective Tarifis — Exceptional Cases — Compromising Temptations — False Limitations — ^The Russian Famine — Kature"!s Only L"nit — False Assumptions — A Teooptation Traced — The Factory Acts — Peisoaaon by Truth , . , 549

Till''.

UNSEEN FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY.

C HATTER I.

TltlC RKVOI.T.

I. The revolt which, within the present gonoral.ion, has arisen against Uio older and long-established school of political oconouiy, is one of the most remarkable intellectual movements of our time. I am not speaking of that coarse kind of rebellion which is common among men and nations who never have aeceploil its teaching, and who persevere doggedly in a polic)' which it condemns, but witliout attempting to justify tliemselves by any argument or any scientific defence. I am speaking of a purel>' intellectual revolt among men who, until lately, have been themselves, more or less, under the dominion of doctrines which they now condemn as faulty or erroneiius. Sympathising in that revolt as I do to a very large extent, it is impossible not to see that there is great danger of it becoming indiscriminate and excessive. There is a tone of anger about it, on the part of some of the rebels, whicli sounds a note of warning. The late Professor Jevons, of London, and the late Professor Thorold Rogers, of Oxford, who were among the leaders of that revolt, never mention tlie older " orthodox e(,~onomists " except in terms of indignation or contempt ; and tliis feeling, witliin due bounds, is perfectly natural, and, may be, perfectly healthy. There is nothing more provoking than to feel tliat we have been long deceived — to .iwaken suddenly

I?

2 THE UA^S£EJVrOUA^£>AriOA'S OF SOCIETY. [Chap.

to the fact that we have been educated to accept, as scientific truths, ideas which are altogether fallacious, and some of them even absurd. We blame ourselves, in the first place, for our own long acquiescence in them — feeling that it has been due to mere blindness in not seeing certain obvious facts, or to mere laziness of mind in not exercising upon them more independent thought Then some natural resentment is turned against those who have so misled us. It is not pleasant to feel that, perhaps for many years, we have been submitting to mere authority, founded on nothing but a like submission on the part of others as passive and thoughtless as we ourselves have been.