BOOKS.
MR. SPENCER ON THE POLITICAL ORGANISM.* .THE essays in this third volume of the revised and collected series betray no falling-off in Mr. Spencer's acknowledged power of thought and ability of expression, and announce no funda- mental change of opinion. There is much in them, therefore, which every intelligent reader must admire, much also from which the great majority of English readers will dissent. We feel ourselves absolved from the duty of general criticism, and shall -confine our remarks to the view of the political organism and the functions appropriate to it, which it is one main object of the volume to set forth with elaborate precision.
The idea of a correspondence, resemblance, or analogy between the individual man and the nation is of ancient origin, and has left its impression in very common forms of speech, as in the phrase "the body politic." Mr. Spencer believes the relation in question to be that of similarity so close, that physiological facts are scientifically available for instruction in the rules and methods of practical politics. In every animal organism we find "the parts which hold direct converse with the environment and the parts which do not hold direct converse with the environment." There is "the body-wall, with its limbs, nervous system, senses, muscles ;" and there is the interior region, containing "the ali- mentary canal and its appendages, together with the heart and lungs." As these grand divisions of the organism develop, a system of government is developed in connection with each. The one governing system presides over the limbs and the senses, the other over the liver, lungs, and other viscera. The one system is in great measure independent of the other. "That the outer organs may co-operate effectively for the purpose of catching prey, escaping danger, &c., it is needful that they should be under a government capable of directing their combined actions, now in this way and now in that, according as outer circumstances vary. From instant to instant there must be quick adjustments to occasions that are more or less new ; and hence there requires a complex and centralised nervous apparatus, to which all these organs are promptly and completely obedient. The government needful for the inner system of organs is a different and much simpler one. When the food obtained by the outer organs has been put into the stomach, the co-operation required of the viscera, though it varies- somewhat as the quantity or kind of food varies, has nevertheless a general uniformity ; and it is re- quired to go on in much the same way, whatever the outer cir- eumstances may be." The outer system is regulated principally by the brain and nerves ; the inner system is controlled chiefly by local ganglia. Of the action of the outer nervous system we are, on all occasions of importance, vividly conscious. We direct our eyes to a picture, we listen for a sound, we regulate the motion of the arm and wrist in fencing. Of the action of the inner or ganglionic nerve-system we are unconscious, although we become in certain contingencies indirectly aware of it. The most vigorous .action of liver, heart, and lungs takes place without our having either consciousness of it or power to control it by immediate volition. Consciousness of the action of the organs in the internal system is, indeed, a morbid symptom. The asthmatic patient is aware of the laborious heaving of his lungs, the man whose heart is diseased becomes painfully conscious of its palpita- tions. The rustic, on the other hand, who, in reply to the medical -question whether his system was in order, answered that he had no system, was in a state of perfect health. In the "social organism," Mr. Spencer traces a similar division of parts and functions. "A society, like an individual, has a set of structures fitting it to act upon its environment,—appliances for attack and defence, armies, navies, fortified and garrisoned places. At the same time, a society has an industrial ..organisation which carries on all those processes that make possible the national life." There is a corresponding difference in the government of the respective portions of the social organism.
As the eye and the hand require to be presided over by a vigilant, energetic, conscious will, so the departments of the political organism which connect it with its environment—the army and
navy which defend it, the diplomatic corps which, like an eye,
watches in its interest the movements of foreign powers—must be placed under a vigorous central administration. "Quite -otherwise is it with the regulative apparatus required for the in- Zustrial system." A word may at any moment become urgently
• Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. By Herbert Spencer. Vol. III. London Williams and Iforgate. 1874.
necessary in order to despatch a fleet to the Mediterranean or to instruct a colonial governor, and this word can be spoken only by a minister ; but no ministerial instruction is required to secure that so many acres of wheat shall be annually sown in England, or that so many bales of cotton shall be annually landed at Liverpool. These operations are indispensable to the national prosperity, nay, to the national existence ; and yet they are carried on, or at least they ought—thinks Mr. Spencer—to be carried on, with as little interference from any central authority as the action of the liver and heart in a perfectly healthy man. No "legislative stimulus," no orders from Downing Street, are anything else than impertinences, when they attempt to regulate the production of pottery in Staffordshire, the manufacture of woollens at Leeds, the growing of green vegetables in the vicinity of London. In one word, there is in the body politic, as in the individual, one nerve-system that acts consciously and obeys a central will, and there is another that works best when it acts unconsciously and is let alone. There is, however, one respect in which, says Mr. Spencer, the central Government bears upon the great industrial operations of the State. It is negatively regulative. It is bound to secure fulfilment of contracts. This is the "one. all- essential influence which these higher centres exercise over the in- dustrial activities." And Mr. Spencer urgently presses the conclu- sion that to this the central government and legislature ought to confine themselves. He denounces as "political fetichism" the expectation that Government agencies will produce benefits unattainable by private enterprise and co-operation. "It is difficult," he says, "to perceive how graven images, that have been thrashed for not responding to their worshipper's desire, should still be reverenced and petitioned ; but the difficulty of conceiving this is diminished when we remember how, in their turns, all the idols in our political pantheon undergo castigation for failing to do what was expected of them, and are, neverthe- less, daily looked up to, in the trustful hope that future prayers will be answered."
Professor Huxley demurred to these views of Mr. Spencer's, declaring them equivalent to a doctrine of "administrative nihilism," and ealling in question the accuracy of Mr. Spencer's physiological deductions. He maintained that the kind of in- dependence claimed for the internal organs would be destructive of animal life. "Suppose that, in accordance with this view, each muscle were to maintain that the nervous system had no right to interfere with its contraction, except to prevent it from hindering the contraction of another muscle ; or each gland, that it had a right to secrete, so long as its secretion inter- fered with no other ; suppose every separate cell left free to follow its own interest,' and laissez-faire lord of all, what," asks Professor Huxley, "would become of the body physiological?" Mr. Spencer answers that he is not, like M. Proudhon, an "anarchist," that he holds governmental action to be "within its proper limits not simply legitimate, but all-important." True, but as we understand him, be draws the line of those " limits " around the enforcement of contracts, peremptorily forbidding Government interference with the industrial operations of the people to the extent of positive regulation. He seems to feel that the reference to the doctrine of Proudhon, as what he does not hold, hardly parries Professor Huxley's thrust. He therefore tries again more directly, by observing that "much evidence may be given" for the belief that when organs carrying on vital functions "follow their respective interests," the general welfare "will be tolerably well secured." Hunter proved by experiments on a kite and a seagull "that a part of the alimentary canal, which has to triturate harder food than that which the creature naturally eats, acquires a thicker and harder lining." No direc- tion from the brain is required, no consciousness exists that the changes are taking place. Had Mr. Spencer stopped here, we should have said that he had sufficiently obviated Professor Huxley's objection, and left the matter as it was ; but in trying to push his advantage, he lays himself open to a new objection which we put at Professor Huxley's service. "The only pre-requisite to this spontaneous adaptive change is," says Mr. Spencer, "that these local units shall be supplied with extra blood in proportion as they perform extra function,—a pre-requisite answering to that secured by the administration of justice in a society ; namely, that more work shall bring more pay." This is an unfortunate sentence ; the first clause destroys Mr. Spencer's use of his illustrations in support of universal enforcement of contracts, and the second clause is not true. The kite and gull issued no con- scious mandate to the effect that "extra blood" should be supplied where extra trituration was performed in their alimentary canal. The hardening process took place in perfect independence
of their wills. If the analogy of their experience, therefore, is to regulate the action of States, there will be no need for that Governmental and legal enforcement of contracts which Mr. Spencer deems indispensable. It is not true, in the second place, that the administration of justice secures, or tries to secure, that "more work shall bring more pay." This is arranged by the law of sup- ply and demand, and no rational government interferes with it. A Welsh collier gets to-day, for one and the same amount of work, some two-thirds of the pay he got two years ago, and even he is not foolish enough to think that law can help him. Mr. Spencer's error is no doubt a slip of the pen. What he holds is, that the State is bound to secure, on behalf of every one who is promised more pay f3r more work, fulfilment of that promise. But we do not find that he has anywhere tried to point out in the physiological body such a conscious determination of blood to a part where resistent or recuperative work requires to be done, as would afford analogical sanction to that legislative security of contract which seems in his view to comprehend almost the entire functions of internal administration.
The analogy pointed out by Mr. Spencer, if not carried out with pedantic minuteness, is valid and useful, and we admire the sturdy faith in individual and associate action which renders him superior to the blunder of fancying, as many clever people are apt to do, that an operation of trade or agriculture not regulated by Govern- ment is not regulated at all ; but the vague indignation with which he habitually denounces administrative control is neither logical nor wise. He proceeds as if the only serious peril to be avoided were excess of Government action. But if, as he admits, the action of Government is, in its proper sphere, "all important," the reasonable course would be not to indulge in fault-finding with State interference, but to define that proper sphere, and to demand, within it, perfect energy. The principle by which the action of governments ought to be regulated has not, we think, been distinctly apprehended by Mr. Spencer, even with the assistance of physiological analogy. Every sane man regulates, with clear consciousness, both his external and his internal organs; it is in the manner of regulating each set that there is difference. The regulation of the external organs is immediate, that of the in- ternal mediate. He stretches out his hand by immediate volition ; he decides with equal consciousness what his stomach shall, while he is unconscious, assimilate. This indirect and mediate regulation is every whit as necessary as the direct regulation of eye and finger. The stomach does its work independently, when once a substance is introduced into it ; but if the directing will has introduced food, it nourishes the body, if poison, it destroys life. The warnings of organic derangement—namely, pain or lassitude—are no less emphatic in the case of congested liver or inflamed stomach than the sudden twinges which inform us that we have burnt a hand or trodden on a thorn; but they require careful attention and recol- lection, in order that the dangers they announce may be indirectly obviated. It is, no doubt, possible to overdo this regulation. The valetudinarian, who is always registering symptoms and altering regimen, is not in a promising state. But, in right mode and measure, the regulation is imperative. Sensible people quietly note the lessons of their experience, eat and drink what agrees with them, avoid excess, provide their lungs with pure air and enough of it, and are fully aware that if their organs are to work well, they must consider their requirements and supply their wants. Nor can it be disputed that a national Government, if it does all the good to the nation that can be legitimately expected of it, will have an eye to a corresponding action in the interest of the body politic. The buying and selling of cotton in Liverpool and Manchester will go on without interference from Government, but if the supply of cotton failed, and the cause of the failure were the obstructive policy of a foreign State—we of course take a wholly supposititious case—it would be proper for Government to open negotiations with the peccant power in order to have the obstruction removed. It would be foolish interference on the part of a government to fix the price of gunpowder, petroleum, arsenic, or alcohol ; but the State is bound to regulate the conveyance or the sale of these things, proceeding always on the principle that individual cupidity is to be over-ruled where it plainly contravenes the common interest. Mr. Spencer's treatment of the subject is not of much practical value, because he gives us no easily applicable test by which those cases in which State action is requisite may be dis- tinguished from those in which it is a useless impertinence. A simple and serviceable test may be found in the question whether the common interest to be promoted can be subserved by the individual, or by an association of individuals, without aid from the State. If, for example, it is necessary for the common prosperity or safety that a line of road should run from one end
of a country to the other, State aid is indispensable in order to compel property-holders on the line to part with their land or houses at an equitable rate. We shall not be far wrong if we say that the State ought to do nothing for nations which can be done as well either by individuals or companies without State interference. But in calmest anticipation of Mr. Spencer's scorn, we add, that after sufficient waiting, as in the case of working- class dwellings, we should strike in sharply with the trowel of the State. It is important, however, to recollect that, as private interest must be admitted to be, generally speaking, a more powerful motive than regard for the common good, a multitude of cases may arise in which the wisest course will be to conjoin private and Parliamentary action. A Railway Company, for example, may be trusted to work on the principle that effective service pays better than any other ; but it may be trusted also to address itself with strenuous energy to the task of crippling a rival rail- way, even although the benefit of the public might be most effec- tually promoted by the development of both lines; and in this case, the State, unless it has forgotten the very end of its exist- ence, to wit, the good of the nation as a whole, will be likely to consult the common interest better than either of the contending i3oards. Mr. Spencer has no difficulty in adducing instances to prove that private energy is more high-strung than that of the State, but has he duly considered that State action may be required to moderate the furious energy of individuals and com- panies? Government would certainly have failed to give us so large a service of trains or so high an average of speed as private enterprise has secured in England, but who that has travelled on Continental railways has not felt that the comparative slowness of the pace and infrequency of service are largely compensated for by the absence of the hurry, the crushing, the confusion, and above all, the torturing noises, which make English railway travelling hideous ?
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