Over the last chapter we shall not detain our readers long. Not that it is devoid of interest, for certainly at this present time, if ever, the idea of 'Law in Politics' ought to be most engaging. Though it cannot be said to be the offspring of the age in which we live, it is indeed growing and expanding to a degree of importance which none but the most philosophical minds of former days would have attached to it. Hitherto thinkers and legislators have been two distinct classes of persons; and although there has always been a certain amount of truth in the saying that the philosopher of to-day is the statesman of to-morrow,' it is only now a dawning possibility that the philosopher may become a statesman. At any rate now, if ever, men ought to be willing to listen to the philosophical discussion of political subjects.

If we can believe that the individual mind is under the reign of law, there need be no difficulty in going on to believe that the collection of minds which compose a nation should be under the same reign. In other words, the laws of nature, or natural forces, cannot be supposed to have lost the strength which they are known to have in individual minds, when those minds are associated in multitudes under political systems. But while they continue to operate in states as well as in individuals, they will be subjected to a different set of combinations-they will become variable under new conditions, or (which is the same thing) contrivance will be exerted in a different sphere, and Will, effectuating purpose by power, will produce a new class of phenomena. When we approach the subject of Law in Politics,' we are at once met by a force which is unknown to any other region under the 'Reign of Law.' Human law confronts the law of nature. Let us consider for a moment how much is contained in this statement. It will be readily admitted that the operation of national law is never more important, more interesting to man than when it works upon his condition as a civilized being and member of a political body; in short, as a citizen. On the other hand, the power of human will to adapt, control, and combine by contrivance the forces of nature, is never put forth with so much vigour, nor draws after it such weighty consequences, as when it is exhibited in the highest form of which it is capable, namely, the political institutions of a nation. It must, therefore, be a vital question how far those political institutions are wisely adjusted to natural laws. And here we see that the laws of a people do carry on their face the knowledge or the ignorance which that people may possess of the laws of nature. It would be far beyond our scope to pursue this subject further; but one or two examples which our author has touched upon may receive from us a passing notice.

The old Protectionist notions about commerce were a mis

reading of natural law; and when Adam Smith proclaimed the doctrine of Free-trade he corrected that misreading. At the same time that that master of political science made this correction, another question came up concerning which human law perpetrated another error. The progress of the mechanical arts forced forward into importance the question of labour. The very same class of men who accepted most readily the correction of the error as to trade were most persistent in maintaining the error as to labour. Trade ought to be free, so ought labour; that was the shape which their blunder took, and the consequences of this blunder were painfully exhibited in all the horrors and miseries of the unrestricted employment of women and children in factories. Happily the Factory Acts show that much has been done towards correcting this grave mistake, and remedying its evils; but much still remains to be done, and especially in extending the principles of the Factory Acts to all kinds of labour, so as to embrace the atrocious gang-system which afflicts certain agricultural districts. Again, the respective rights and interests of labour and capital are in rivalry, and have to be adjusted. Labour has made a stride towards adjustment by organizing Trades Unions. Unfortunately its progress is disgraced by a black catalogue of trade outrages, as well as by some irrational and ignorant behaviour in the matter of strikes; and the removal of these scandals, and the solution of the difficulty out of which they have sprung, is one of the most anxious of the many anxious questions which are pending at this hour. If, however, the principle of combination be carefully considered, it will be seen that its application to social conditions is universally recognised in some shape or other, and that Trades Unions are only a development of that principle with reference to a particular set of conditions. The club system is nothing novel, as everyone will admit when it is spoken of under this name. What is novel is that stage of development at which it has just arrived, wherein the principle is brought to act upon large bodies of men of imperfect education, and with reference to subjects most vitally affecting their interests. That great moral disasters should occur at this stage is more to be lamented than to be wondered at. The force which the principle of combination calls into power is immense. It is not simply in proportion to the numbers who may be associated in a club. The ratio of force increases. The power of a club of a hundred men is more than double the power of a club of fifty men. When this is remembered it will be perceived that the mischiefs which have occurred through Trades Unions are the consequence of a great force having been put into play without due checks and safeguards having been applied to regulate its action. It is the duty of the State to apply those checks and safeguards, and fortunately the State is addressing itself to the

task. Some persons, however, condemn Trades Unions as utterly evil, and wish nothing short of their abolition. But this opinion, though excusable on account of the just abhorrence excited by the crimes which have been committed by unionists, and the folly perpetrated by unions, is not a judicious and calm opinion. For unless its upholders are prepared to show that the club system is bad in principle, it is unreasonable to prohibit its application to skilled and unskilled labour. In fact, the principle has long ago been conceded with general approbation in respect of what are called Benefit Societies, such as sick funds and burial clubs; and if it be right for men to combine to protect themselves against the calamities of life, surely it is arbitrary and illogical to declare that it is wrong for them to combine to secure the advantages of life. But it is sometimes argued that each man is well enough able to look after his own interests, and all he wants is a fair field, that is to say, the absence of external impediments. This, however, is refuted by experience. Such is human nature that a man requires the help of combination to enable him to do that which he knows it would be his interest to do, and also the coercion of law to restrain him from doing that which he sees clearly will injure him. In proof of the latter part of this remark we may refer to the employment of children in factories. The persons who most earnestly invoked the interference of the Legislature to prohibit this evil were the very parents who sent their children to work in the factories. Human nature is a very complicated machine, and human law must necessarily be complicated (though not confused) to regulate the action of its many and strange forces. The popular fallacy that that people is governed best which is governed least, is not so popular as it was. It arose from the mischiefs which resulted from ill-adjusted laws, and it made the mistake of assuming that the mischief was the consequence of law, and not of ill-adjustment. The world has much yet to learn upon the application of law to social and economical subjects; and the first step in the advance which it has to make-or rather is making is to get rid of the delusion that true freedom consists in the absence of restraint. Mankind has a deep lesson set it in these words, The perfect law of liberty.'

6

The most interesting form of economic combinations which has, hitherto, been tried, has not been at work long enough to furnish sufficient data for general conclusions. We refer to the union of the interests of capital and labour in Co-operative Societies. This system has not blotted the new page it has turned over in our social history; but as for the Trades Union system, it, alas! has done little else than blot its page with black crimes and egregious blunders.

Here we must conclude our review of this able and instructive

and (especially at the present time) deeply interesting book. Perhaps we cannot do better than allow it to bid its own farewell in its own concluding words :—

"The laws of nature were not appointed by the great Lawgiver to baffle His creatures in the sphere of conduct, still less to confound them in the region of belief. As parts of an order of things too vast to be more than partly understood, they present, indeed, some difficulties which perplex the intellect, and a few also, it cannot be denied, which wring the heart. But, on the whole, they stand in harmonious relations with the human spirit. They come, visibly, from one pervading mind, and express the authority of one enduring kingdom. As regards the moral ends they serve, this, too, can be clearly seen, that the purpose of all natural laws is best fulfilled when they are made, as they can be made, the instruments of intelligent will, and the servants of enlightened conscience.'

Hitherto we have spoken exclusively to the book and to its subject. We have not diverted into the many lines of thought of which it is suggestive. We have, moreover, taken the book upon its own ground, and looked at the various questions it deals with in its own light. The specially theological aspect of those questions we have, so far as it was possible, kept out of view. But this has not been altogether possible, simply because the questions themselves were root questions, about which theology was quite as much interested as science. Again and again, as the reader will have observed, we have trenched closely on the domains of theology when we have spoken in the language of science; and at those points we felt strongly inclined to translate the language of science into the language of theology. But we refrained, because we did not wish to misrepresent the tone and bearing of the book we had in hand. The Duke of Argyll is in the camp of the men of science, but he is employed in persuading them that they are working a futile work in throwing up entrenchments against the men of theology. We have been standing within the lines of the men of theology, but we have endeavoured to point out to them that their interests are identical with the interests of the men of science; because the interests of both are all engaged about truth. And now one word we must speak more distinctively theological. Christians, and especially Catholic Christians, should hold very firmly to that anchor-truth of the Christian faith, the universal, undivided reign of the Holy Spirit. Never should they for one moment allow that there is, or ever has been, or can be, any region in the whole order and constitution of things, whether material, moral, or spiritual, that is not subject to Its divine sway. Never should they concede, either to the pretensions of the men of science or to the exclusive dogmatism of the men of theology, that the power and work of the Divine Spirit is shut out of any sphere of nature. And yet this has been done by those who have handed over, with a blind readiness, the material world to the

laws of nature, in order to reserve what they deemed to be the spiritual world to the rule of the Divine Spirit. But to these pseudo-spiritualists, as well as to the materialists who err in the opposite direction, the first page of Genesis administers a rebuke, The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters;' and there is nothing either in the Book of revelation or in the records of nature to say that matter has been withdrawn from the dominion of the One Spirit. It only requires that this error of secluding the operation of the Spirit within a certain sphere, and leaving all without that sphere to the control of natural laws, should be pushed further, in order to reproduce in principle, if not in form, that ancient heresy which held a duality of powers in the universe, and, while it reserved spiritual existences to the reign of one Supreme God, committed matter to the control of the Demiurge. 'The bond of peace' between theology and science is only to be secured through the common belief in the unity of the Spirit.'

And the unity of the Spirit involves the unity of truth, of which the Spirit is the Divine guardian and teacher. On the other hand, the universality of the truth implies the universality of the Spirit's operation. They who believe in this most firmly will not hastily start aside when they are told by thoughtful men, whether in the ranks of science or of theology, that there is no reason to limit the domain of nature to the material world, or to exclude from its sphere any whatsoever of the things visible and invisible.' Nor, again, will it seem to him a thing incredible that the domain of law should be co-extensive with that of nature, and that mind as well as matter, the metaphysical as well as the physical, should submit to its wide-spread reign. Nothing, perhaps, betrays so surely the weakness or the disease of a man's faith as his being alarmed and in doubt about the safety of truth. To feel anxiety concerning one's own apprehension of the truth is, indeed, both reasonable and wise; but to be cast into agitation for the ultimate triumph of truth itself argues either ignorance of, or unbelief in, the mission of the Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost, to take care of truth, and to show its treasures to earnest and trustful hearts. Truth is not in human keeping, though its discovery be the highest reward of human effort, and its revelation the most blessed bestowal of Heaven's gifts. Neither is truth the exclusive possession of any one portion of mankind. No sect of religionists, no school of philosophers, no party of politicians can rightfully declare that the whole truth is theirs, and theirs alone. Verily, truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven:' but just as the Sun of righteousness sheds His quickening beams over the whole earth, so will the scattered blades of truth be found to grow, here more thickly, there more sparsely, but in some measure everywhere, testifying to the unity of the Spirit from Whom