Page:Four and Twenty Minds.djvu/90

74 it is, cannot be called individualism. Spencer, to be sure, attacks the State, and the State is a collective entity; but the reasons which underlie his attack remain to be examined. And his principal reason is not the fact that the State is a collective entity and tends, as such, to enthrall the individual; his principal reason is that the State is a collective entity which does not function well. His scorn for governmental action is based on the fact that it costs too much and does not yield enough. Without the stimulus of competition it grows torpid, it falls asleep, it becomes needlessly complicated, spasmodic, cumbersome. He criticizes the State as an engineer might criticize an old-fashioned engine which uses much coal and produces little energy. The engineer, that is, does not object to the engine as an engine, but to a defect in its functioning. If the machine worked well, the engineer would not care whether it were old or new, whether it were composed of few or many pieces. So it is with the State. Spencer does not oppose it because it is a State, a group, a collective and dominant entity—but because it consumes too many pounds sterling and yields but scanty benefits.

Furthermore, he does not by any means oppose all collective entities. He merely criticizes one form of collective entity, the State, to the advantage of other forms, such as societies and private companies. He knows that public