school of thinkers to make a limited human intelligence the measure of phenomena which it requires omniscience to grasp. That which it does not see the way to, it does not believe will take place. Though society has, genera. tion after generation, been growing to developments which none foresaw, yet there is no practical belief in unforeseen developments in the future. The parliamentary debates constitute an elaborate balancing of probabilities, having for data things as they are. Meanwhile every day adds new elements to things as they are, and seemingly improbable results constantly occur. Who, a few years ago, expected that a Leicester-square refugee would shortly become Emperor of the French? Who looked for free trade from a landlords' ministry? Who dreamed that Irish over-population would spontaneously cure itself, as it is now doing? So far from social changes arising in likely ways, they almost always arise in ways that, to common sense, appear unlikely. A barber's shop was not a probable-looking place for the germination of the cotton manufacture. No one supposed that important agricultural improvements would come from a Leadenhall-street tradesman. A farmer would have been the last mar thought of to bring to bear the screw propulsion of steam ships. The invention of a new order of architecture we should have hoped from any one rather than a gardener. Yet while the most unexpected changes are daily wrought out in the strangest ways, legislation daily assumes that things will go, just as human foresight thinks they will go. Though by the trite exclamation-"What would our forefathers have said!" there is a constant acknowledgment of the fact, that wonderful results have been achieved in modes wholly unforeseen, yet there seems no belief that this will be again. Would it not be wise to admit such a probability into our politics? May we not rationally infer that, as in the past so in the future?

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This strong faith in State-agencies is, however, accompanied by so weak a faith in natural agencies (the two being antagonistic), that, spite of past experience, it wil. by many be thought absurd to rest in the conviction, that existing social needs will be spontaneously met, though we cannot say how they will be met. Nevertheless, illustrations exactly to the point are now transpiring before their eyes. Instance the adulteration of food-a thing which law has unsuccessfully tried to stop time after time, and which yet there seemed no power but law competent to deal with. Law, however, having tried and failed, here steps in The Lancet, and, with a view to extend its circulation, begins publishing weekly analyses, and gives lists of honest and dishonest tradesmen. By-and-by we shall be having such lists published in other papers, as portions of these reports have been already. And when every retailer finds himself thus liable to have his sins told to all his customers, a considerable improvement may be expected. Who, now, would have looked for such a remedy as this?

Instance, again, the scarcely credible phenomenon lately witnessed in the midland counties. Every one has heard of the distress of the stockingers--a chronic evil of some generation or two's standing. Repeated petitions have prayed Parliament for remedy; and legislation has made attempts, but without success. The disease seemed incurable. Two or three years since, however, the circular knitting machine was introduced—a machine immensely outstripping the old stocking-frame in productiveness, but which can make only the legs of stockings, not the feet. Doubtless, the Leicester and Nottingham artisans regarded this new engine with alarm, as one likely to intensify their miseries. On the contrary, it has wholly removed them, By cheapening production, it has so enormously increased consumption, that the old stocking-frames, which were

before too many by half for the work to be done, are now all employed in putting feet to the legs which new machines make. How insane would he have been thought who anticipated cure from such a cause! If from the unforeseen removal of evils we turn to the unforeseen achievement of desiderata, we find like cases. No one recognized in Oersted's electro-magnetic discovery the germ of a new agency for the catching of criminals and the facilitation of commerce. No one expected railways to become agents for the diffusion of cheap literature, as they now are. No one supposed when the Society of Arts was planning an international exhibition of manufactures, that the result would be a place for popular recreation and culture at Sydenham.

But there is yet a deeper reply to the appeals of impatient philanthropists. It is not simply that social vitality may be trusted by-and-by to fulfil each much-exaggerated requirement in some quiet spontaneous way-it is not simply that when thus naturally fulfilled it will be fulfilled efficiently, instead of being botched as when attempted artificially; but it is that until thus naturally fulfilled it ought not to be fulfilled at all. A startling paradox, this, to many; but one quite justifiable, as we hope shortly to show.

It was pointed out some distance back, that the force which produces and sets in motion every social mechanism-governmental, mercantile, or other-is some accumulation of personal desires. As there is no individual action without a desire, so, it was urged, there can be no social action without an aggregate desire. To which there here remains to add, that as it is a general law ot the individual that the intenser desires-those correspond ing to all-essential functions-are satisfied first, and if need be to the neglect of the weaker and less important ones so, it must be a general law of society that the chief requ

ORDER OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

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sites of social life-those necessary to popular existence and multiplication-will, in the natural order of things, be subserved before those of a less pressing kind. Having a common root in humanity, the two series of phe nomena cannot fail to accord. As the private man first ensures himself food; then clothing and shelter; these being secured, takes a wife; and, if he can afford it, presently supplies himself with carpeted rooms and piano, and wines, hires servants, and gives dinner parties; so, in the evolution of society, we see first a combination for defence against enemies, and for the better pursuit of game; byand-by come such political arrangements as are needed to maintain this combination; afterwards, under a demand for more food, more clothes, more houses, arises division of labour; and when satisfaction of the animal wants has been tolerably provided for, there slowly grow up science, and literature, and the arts. Is it not obvious that these successive evolutions occur in the order of their importance? Is it not obvious, that being each of them produced by an aggregate desire they must occur in the order of their importance, if it be a law of the individual that the strongest desires correspond to the most needful actions? Is it not, indeed, obvious that the order of relative importance will be more uniformly followed in social action than in individual action; seeing that the personal idiosyncrasies which disturb that order in the latter case are averaged in the former?

him take up a book There he will find He will read that

If any one does not see this, let describing life at the gold-diggings. the whole process exhibited in little. as the diggers must eat, they are compelled to offer such prices for food, that it pays better to keep a store than to dig. As the store-keepers must get supplies, they will give enormous sums for carriage from the nearest town; and some men quickly seeing they can get rich at that

make it their business. This brings drays and horses into demand; the high rates draw these from all quarters, and after them wheelwrights and harness-makers. Blacksmiths to sharpen pickaxes, doctors to cure fevers, get pay exorbitant in proportion to the need for them; and are so brought flocking in proportionate numbers. Presently commodities become scarce; more must be fetched from abroad; sailors must have increased wages to prevent them from deserting; this necessitates higher charges for freight; higher freights quickly bring more ships; and so there rapidly develops an organization for supplying goods from all parts of the world. Every phase of this evolution takes place in the order of its necessity; or as we say -in the order of the intensity of the desires subserved. Each man does that which he finds pays best; that which pays best is that for which other men will give most; that for which they will give most is that which, under the circumstances, they most desire. Hence the succession must be throughout from the more important to the less important. A requirement which at any period still remains unfulfilled, must be one for the fulfilment of which men will not pay so much as to make it worth any one's while to fulfil it-must be a less requirement than all the others for the fulfilment of which they will pay more; and must wait until other more needful things are done. Well, is it not clear that the same law holds good in every community? Will it not be true of the later phases of social evolution, as of the earlier, that when uncontrolled the smaller desiderata are postponed to the greater? No reasonable person can doubt it.

Hence, then, the justification of the seeming paradox, that until spontaneously fulfilled a public want should not be fulfilled at all. It must, on the average, result in our complex state, as in simpler ones, that the thing left undone is a thing by doing which citizens cannot gain sc