Chapter 8

THE ULTIMATE DIFFICULTY. SPECULATIVE ATTEMPTS TO MINIMISE IT

Mr. Sidney Webb, and most modern socialists of the higher kind, recognise that this problem of motive underlies all others.

They approach it indirectly by sociological arguments borrowed from other philosophers, and directly by a psychology peculiar to themselves.

The sociological arguments by which socialists seek to minimise the claims of the able man.

These founded on a specific confusion of thought, which vitiated the evolutionary sociology of that second half of the nineteenth century. Illustrations from Herbert Spencer, Macaulay, Mr. Kidd, and recent socialists.

The confusion in question a confusion between speculative truth and practical.

The individual importance of the able man, untouched by the speculative conclusions of the sociological evolutionists, as may be seen by the examples adduced in a contrary sense by Herbert Spencer. This is partially perceived by Spencer himself. Illustrations from his works.

Ludicrous attempts, on the part of socialistic writers, to apply the speculative generalisations of sociology to the practical position of individual men.

The climax of absurdity reached by Mr. Sidney Webb.