have advanced sufficiently to allow of an inference of probabilities which absolutely contradicts this Materialistic principle. The history of civilisation shows us that in the times when princesses slept in walled niches, took long journeys on horseback, and made their breakfast off bacon, bread, and beer, the happiness of these persons did not seem less to their contemporaries than to-day, when they fly through Europe in splendid saloon carriages, and at every point have the products of every zone at their command. The analogies of psycho-physics make it very probable that the feeling of personal happiness is just as relative as the feelings of the senses: it is the difference that is perceived; it is the increase that is felt, and that is measured by the quantity that previously existed. In fact, no reasonable man will believe that the physical structure of rich Brussels lace can contribute more to the happiness of a person adorned with it than any other ornament which sits comfortably and pleases the eye, though it may be of comparatively no value. And yet the possession of these laces may become a 'want;' the impossibility of getting them may produce the liveliest vexation; their sudden loss may be the cause of tears. It is clear that here the comparison, the struggle for pre-eminence, plays the most essential part; and from this it results at once that at least this one kind of want, the want to surpass others, is capable of increasing ad infinitum, without anything being gained for the wellbeing of any one concerned that is not lost to the others. From this it further irrefragably results that a continuous increase of the productions of wealth and of the means for the production of wealth is conceivable without the enjoyment of any man being essentially heightened, and without the labouring masses being brought a single step nearer to the goal of obtaining what is most necessary for an existence worthy of man. Such an increase of the wants

3 For more on this point see the chapter on Happiness in my book 'Die Arbeiterfrage,' 3 Aufl., § 113-132 and notes.

of all those who can satisfy them, in consequence of the failing sense of community and exorbitant pleonexia, is, in fact, one of the characteristics of our time. The commercial and industrial statistics of most countries show irrefutably that an enormous development of power and wealth is taking place, while the circumstances of the labouring class show no decided advance, and without the haste and greed of acquisition in the propertied classes being in the slightest degree moderated. We live, in fact, not for enjoyment, but for labour and for wants; but amongst these wants that of pleonexia is so overbearing, that all true and lasting progress, all progress that might benefit the mass of the people, is lost, or, as it were, gained only incidentally.

We may now reconcile ourselves to this in itself very unjoyous fact, if we think that sooner or later, in one way or another, an altered tendency will establish itself, while the forces of production remain, for the most part, unaffected. The view might again assert itself, which was the foundation-stone of classical culture, that there is a certain Measure which is most wholesome in all things; and that enjoyment depends not on the quantity of satisfied wants and the difficulty of satisfying them, but on the form in which they are produced and satisfied, much as physical beauty is determined, not by masses of material, but by the observing of certain mathematical lines.

Such a

revolution of views would lead from ethical Materialism to Formalism or Idealism; it would be inconceivable without the elimination of our luxuriant pleonexia, and must, moreover, arise from a magnificent revival of the sense of community.

Political economy has so far made little effort to reduce the distribution of wealth to correct principles. Rather, in this respect, it took the result arising from the relation of capital and labour as a datum, and merely occupied itself with the question how the greatest possible quantity of wealth is produced. This Materialistic view of the subQ

VOL. III.

ject harmonises completely with the recognition of Egoism, and with the defence or toleration of pleonexia. It is attempted to show that the progress produced by the restless struggle of Egoism always to some extent improves the position of the most depressed strata of the population, and here is forgotten the importance of that comparison with others which plays so great a part among the rich. In face of the most crying absurdities a sort of pre-established harmony is imagined, thanks to which the most favourable result for the sum of people comes about through every man's recklessly pursuing his own interests. Though this nowadays chiefly happens with the consciousness of being in the wrong which marks all apologists, yet it happened at the time of the first development of political economy with an unmistakable naïveté. It was the universal practice in the last century to deduce the good of the whole from the co-operation of all egoistic effects. However easy, too, it was to protest against the exaggerations in Mandeville's notorious 'Fable of the Bees' (1723), yet the principle that even vices contribute to the general good, was to some extent a secret article of enlightenment which, though seldom mentioned, was never forgotten, and in no department is the appearance of truth so great for such a principle as just in that of political economy. The sophisms of Helvetius in the glittering garb of rhetoric are yet easily seen through; and every attempt to explain even the virtues of patriotism, of self-sacrifice for one's neighbour, and of bravery, from the principle of self-love, must be shattered on the fact that the natural understanding, agreeing with scientific criticism, contradicts it. It is otherwise in political economy.

4 On Mandeville's 'Fable of the Bees,' see the First Book, especially note 75, third section (vol. ii. p. 79). Worthy of mention, moreover, is the strikingly mild and comparatively approving judgment of Mandeville in the Theory of Morals,' pt. vii. sec. ii. chap. v., where it is shown that

the 'Fable of the Bees' could never have caused so much excitement if it did not contain truths which were only disfigured by exaggeration. Mandeville's chief mistake was in this, that, in agreement with certain popular ascetic notious, he conceived every passion as at once a vice.

Its tendency has been from the first directed to the furtherance of the people's material welfare, and here it seems so natural to assume that the progress of the collective whole is simply the sum of all the progress of the individuals; but the individual-so much the mercantile experience of all times seemed indubitably to show-can only attain to material prosperity by the reckless pursuit of his own interests; let virtue then be exercised in other spheres, so far as our means admit!

If from the first political economy had only been based upon Egoism, in order by temporary abstraction from other motives to obtain a hypothetical and, within the limits of the hypothesis, an exact science as a first step to fuller knowledge, then there could be no question of a blameworthy Materialism in this sphere. Instead of that, the practical maxims of mercantile acquisition in daily life were transferred wholesale to nations. The question of the material advancement of nations was separated from the ethical questions exactly as these have long been separated in life and business intercourse. Regard was had not to the form of the relations of possession, but to the quantity and the commercial value of wealth; and instead of asking how man would act if he were only egoistic, it was asked how does man act in the sphere in which Egoism alone is decisive. The former question is that of the exact theorist; the latter that of popular practice, which has nowhere striven so zealously to choke true science as in political economy. The idea that there is a special department of life for pursuing our interests, and again another for the exercise of virtue, is even yet one of the favourite ideas of superficial Liberalism, and in widely spread popular writings, such as Schulze's Arbeiterkatechismus,' it is quite openly preached. Indeed, it has been made into a sort of theory

5 Comp. Capitel zu einem deutschen Arbeiterkat., Leipz. 1863, S. 49 f., the deduction of commercial progress from the self-interest which is explained as "the love which every

one has for his own Ego;" further, S. 91 ff., the regulation of "brotherliness" as an economical principle. At S. 93 we find: "Sie (die Brüderlichkeit) beginnt da, wo das Wirth

of duty, which expresses itself in daily life much oftener than in literature. Any one who omits to pursue a debtor, if necessary, with all the rigour of the law, must either be a rich man, who may indulge himself in that sort of thing, or he incurs the severest blame. This blame is directed not merely against his intelligence, against his weakness of character or superfluous good-heartedness, but precisely against his morality. He is a frivolous, negligent fellow, who does not look properly after his interests; and if he has a wife and children, even though they are not in want of anything, he is an unconscientious paterfamilias. But just in the same way, too, is regarded the man who devotes his energies to the public good to the detriment of his private fortune. He who does this with special success receives, indeed, absolution and general applause, all the same whether his success is due to chance or to his own energy; but so long as this vox Dei of the mob and the fatalists has not been pronounced, the ordinary judgment maintains itself. It condemns the poet and artist as well as the scientific inquirer and the politician; and even the religious agitator only meets with recognition if he succeeds in founding a church, or creating a great institution of which he becomes director, or if he rises to ecclesiastical dignities; but never if, without hope of compensation, he sacrifices a position to his convictions.

It is obvious that we are here only characterising the feelings of the great mass of the propertied classes, which, however, through their having been developed into a system of daily life, also exert their influence even upon those who personally are not without nobler impulses. Before, then, we can more precisely determine the value of this dogmatic system of Egoism, it is indispensable to consider the source of natural Egoism and the origin of

schaften und der Staat aufhört; nicht Comp. on this passage my essay, der Erwerb, nicht Recht und Pflicht Mill's Ansichten über die sociale sind ihr Reich, nicht der Zwang ist Frage, Duisb. 1866, S. 14 ff. ihre Macht, sondern die freie Liebe."