THE

APPENDIX A

HE objections to this abuse of the "organic theory of the State" are of course very patent, though in ordinary discussion they are among a large class of persons so frequently ignored. Thus: If the parts be moral the Whole must presumably be ethically higher, or at any rate not less high, than its parts. The State, however, cannot be said to be possessed of an "ego" except by use of extravagant metaphors; while on the organic hypothesis it exists for itself alone, and is therefore among the lowest of organisms. Again: It is only by similarities to other organisms, that we can logically say of the State that it too is an organism. Since, however, in all other organisms the relations between the parts are controlled by physical law, while in the political Nation they are largely controlled, by volition, it is evident that the analogy fails at an important point. Thirdly: In all other organisms the significance of the parts is exhausted in their relation to the Whole. Man, however, has other and higher relations with a Being which is not the organism, and though under existing conditions the higher are partially dependent upon the lower, they are nevertheless distinct.

The organic theory of the "State," i.e. the physiological view of the relation of the individual to the State, receives in the popular mind a sort of support from the fact that the various social sciences provide us with a quantity of so-called "laws," which are popularly supposed to govern human conduct. In consequence a notion prevails that human conduct is not free, and that if laws of Nature dictate our conduct either wholly or at certain points, the State has a

good precedent for interference in general, and could not be regarded as injuring the individual, if at those points at any rate, it made yet other laws to control or counteract these Natural laws. Apart from the extreme difficulty of conceiving people either making or obeying laws in the absence of volition and the power of deliberate choice, it is obvious that these "laws" of social science-as, for instance, of political economy-do not "govern" human conduct, nor are they "laws" in the sense in which we speak of "laws of nature,” for the reason that they lack universality. They are really only statements of what is generally done by certain persons under certain circumstances, and are not applicable to human beings as a whole. Supposing that for the purposes of Economic Science it is assumed that the sole motive of human conduct is the desire for wealth, i.e. we assume the Economic Man; the economist then goes on to discover similarities of conduct which he proceeds to classify and call laws. But seeing that it is impossible for science to deal with motive direct, and that it can only deal with it through actions, the scientist is compelled to limit his investigations to those persons who already are seen to possess the very similarities of conduct which he proposes to discover and classify, viz., to persons who consistently maintain strict trading relations with the world at large, that is to persons who (as it has been previously ascertained) are examples in favour of the Economist's assumption and who were selected on that account. All his conclusions, therefore, are really contained in his original assumption, and taken together are a re-statement in a complex form of what he originally stated in a simple form.

The economist, therefore, has not discovered laws " controlling" conduct; he has merely classified his observations of the conduct of selected persons at certain times, eliminating from his investigations all other persons whatsoever. In the matter of universality he cannot claim more for his "laws"

than that they apply to those persons whom he has selected ad hoc. Even the selected persons themselves, or individuals among them, can, as a moral and physical possibility, in some particular connection, deliberately "disobey" any of these "laws," ie. they may elect (as indeed they constantly do) not to pursue in some particular matter the most paying line of conduct. It is to be observed however that these persons then cease to be Economic Men :-because having proved themselves an exception to one of the conclusions of the Economist, it is evident that they were already ruled out by the Economist's first assumption, which contains and involves the conclusions.1

Because the Spirit of Man is essentially creative and original, by no inductive process can we ever discover laws controlling it. Our conclusions will always be deductions from fundamental assumptions, and not inductions from the total of observed facts. To take another instance: Suppose it be said (as it frequently is) that the diseased have a tendency to vice or crime. It is, of course, impossible to know anything of tendencies except in so far as they are expressed in action; we are therefore compelled to limit our investigation to diseased persons who, as a matter of preascertained fact, are actually criminals or have actually done things vicious. That is to say, the persons on whom we would base our law indeed present similarities of conduct, but it must be borne in mind that they were specially selected because they did so. We may produce innumerable instances of diseased criminals, but we have no means of inducing a "law" regarding the conduct of the diseased in general.

The psychologist, it is true, sometimes discovers laws. relating to conduct, but when he succeeds in this it is because he has been able to subtract certain conduct or activity from the region of volition to which it had hitherto been supposed

1 It is as if one should say that 60 seconds always make a minute; when we mean always by a minute 60 seconds.

to belong, and hand it over to the region of physical cause and effect; it having been demonstrated that there were no exceptions whatever to the new law. Thus some have supposed that breathing was a voluntary act, but experiment shows it is so only to a small extent. This is, of course, a true piece of induction; for the experiments on which the law was based were not made exclusively on persons whose respiration was already known to be involuntary, and who were selected on that account, but on people at large.

That the generalisations of the Social Sciences, especially perhaps of Political Economy, are of surpassing interest and of the highest practical utility, is admitted by all; but they are not "laws" in any of the classical senses of that word. They are not laws of Nature, for such laws admit of no possibility of exception; they are not normative laws of Conscience nor of Thought, as, e.g., ethics or logic; nor are they laws in the sense of being enforcible commands, as, e.g., political laws. They are merely statements regarding similarities of voluntary action; and it cannot be too clearly recognised that there is a vast difference between "laws" which are statements of certain observed similarities of voluntary action, and “laws” which like political laws, are causes of similarities of action; or natural laws, which are the outcome of the classification of what are (for our present purpose) wholly invariable sequences.

APPENDIX B

This letter has been taken at random, but is a fair specimen of the modern argument for persecution :—

THE VIRTUE OF TOLERATION.

(To the Editor of the Spectator.)

30th August 1902.

SIR,-Do you not, by the use of that phrase (Spectator, 23rd August), beg the whole question at issue relative to