Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/670

 654 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

sociological thought. The inelasticity of the system is what has destroyed its once promising influence. The strong negative element characterized by the damaging phrase, "administrative nihilism," has also undoubtedly tended to weaken the positive element. It is difficult for the Americans, who are still reading Spencer, to realize what a negligible quantity he has become in England. Perhaps it will suffice to illustrate this estimate of Spencer by saying that the most intellectual woman among the collectivists was a personal student of Spencer for years. 1

IVa. Sydney Webb, in a lecture on "The Progress of Collec- tivism," delivered in February, 1 894, said : "The turning point in the history of socialism in England may be taken to be 1880. Prior to that unsystematic individualism reigned supreme. The political ideal was free competition and the minimum of govern- ment, whilst the millennium for the workers was to turn artisans into little capitalists, and agricultural laborers into owners of 'three acres and a cow.' In 1879 there were more unemployed than there have ever been since ; but no responsible authority thought of anything but charity or poor-law relief for them. In 1882 John Morley, in commending the systematic and construc- tive thought of John Stuart Mill and his school, declared that no such political thinking then existed. This introduction of constructive thought into English politics is the great work of the socialist movement .... Twenty years ago the typical young politician was an individualist quoting Herbert Spencer. Today he is an empirical collectivist of a practical kind."

The deductive political economy of Ricardo, Mill, and Cairnes was giving way before special economic investigations and the influence of German thinkers, which led to the growth of

biography, 1879 ; RUSKIN, Abstract of the Objects and Constitution of St. George's Guild, 1877; The Guild of St. George, Master's Report, 1885. CLARKE, "Carlyle and Ruskin and their Influence on English Thought," New England Magazine, December 1893. COOKE, Studies in Ruskin, London, 1896.

1 References. SPENCER, Principles of Sociology, 3 vols.; Justice ; Social Statics ; Man vs. the State. WATSON, Comte, Mill, and Spencer. BOSCH, Die entwicklungstheo- retische Idee socialer Gerechtigkeit, eine Kritik und Ergdnzung der Socialtheorie Her- bert Spencers, Zurich, 1896. SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ, Zum socialen Frieden, II, 176-86.