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In so far as concerns the present question, that is to say as regards those standards and principles which underlie the established system of law and custom, the modern point of view was stabilised and given a definitive formulation in the eighteenth century; and in so far as concerns the subsequent conduct of practical affairs, its constituent principles have stood over without material change or revision since that time.

So that for practical purposes it is fair to say that the modern point of view is now some one hundred and fifty years old.

It will not do to say that it is that much behind the times; because its time-worn standards of truth and validity are a very material factor in the makeup of "our time." That such is the case is due in great part to the fact that this body of principles was stabilised at that time and that they have therefore stood over intact, in spite of other changes that have taken place. It is only that the principles which had been tested and found good under the conditions of life in the modern era up to that time were at that time held fast, canvassed, defined, approved, and stabilised by being reduced to documentary form. In some sense they were then written into the constitution of civilised society, and they have continued to make up the nucleus of the document from that time forth; and so they have become inflexible, after the fashion of written constitutions.

In the sight of those generations who so achieved the definite acceptance of these enlightened modern principles, and who finally made good their formal installation in law and usage as self-balanced canons of human conduct, the principles which they so arrived at had all the sanction of Natural Law, -- impersonal, dispassionate, indefeasible and immutable; fundamentally and eternally right and good. That generation of men held "these truths to be self-evident"; and they have continued so to be held since that epoch by all those peoples who make up the effectual body of modern civilisation. And the backward peoples, those others who have since then been coming into line and making their claim to a place in the scheme of modern civilised life, have also successively been accepting and (passably) assimilating the same enlightened principles of clean and honest living. Christendom, as a going concern of civilised peoples, has continued to regulate its affairs by the help of these principles, which are still held to be a competent formulation of the aspirations of civilised mankind. So that these modern principles of the eighteenth century, stabilised in documentary form a hundred and fifty years ago, have stood over in immutable perfection until our time,a monument more enduring than brass.

These principles are of the nature of habits of thought, of course; and it is the nature of habits of thought forever to shift and change in response to the changing impact of experience, since they are creatures of habituation. But inasmuch as they have once been stabilised in a thoroughly competent fashion in the eighteenth century, and have been drafted into finished documentary form, they have been enabled to stand over unimpaired into the present with all that weight and stability that a well-devised documentary formulation will give. It is true, so far as regards the conditions of civilised life during the interval that has passed since these modern principles of law and custom took on their settled shape in the eighteenth century, it has been a period of unexampled change, -- swift, varied, profound and extensive beyond example. And it follows of necessity that the principles of conduct which were approved and stabilised in the eighteenth century, under the driving exigencies of that age, have not altogether escaped the complications of changing circumstances. They have at least come in for some shrewd interpretation in the course of the nineteenth century. There have been refinements of definition, extensions of application, scrutiny and exposition of implications, as new exigencies have arisen and the established canons have been required to cover unforeseen contingencies; but it has all been done with the explicit reservation that no material innovation shall be allowed to touch the legacy of modern principles handed down from the eighteenth century, and that the vital system of

Natural Rights installed in the eighteenth century must not be deranged at any point or at any cost.

It is scarcely necessary to describe this modern system of principles that still continues to govern human intercourse among the civilised peoples, or to attempt an exposition of its constituent articles. It is all to be had in exemplary form, ably incorporated in such familiar documents as the American

Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the American Constitution; and it is all to be found set forth with all the circumstance of philosophical and juristic scholarship in the best work of such writers as John Locke.

Montesquieu. Adam Smith, or Blackstone. It has all been sufficiently canvassed, through all its dips, spurs and angles, by the most competent authorities, who have brought their best will and their best abilities to bear on its elucidation at every point, with full documentation. Besides which, there is no need of recondite exposition for the present purpose; since all that is required by the present argument is such a degree of information on these matters as is familiar to English-speaking persons by common notoriety.

At the same time it may be to the purpose to call to mind that this secular profession of faith enters creatively into that established order of things which has now fallen into a state of havoc because it does not meet the requirements of the new order.

This eighteenth-century modern plan specifically makes provision for certain untoward rights, perquisites and disabilities which have, in the course of time and shifting circumstance, become incompatible with continued peace on earth and good-will among men.

There are two main counts included in this modern -- eighteenth-century -- plan, which appear unremittingly to make for discomfort and dissension under the conditions offered by the

New Order of things: -- National Ambition, and the Vested Rights of ownership. Neither of the two need be condemned as being intrinsically mischievous. Indeed, it may be true, as has often been argued, that both have served a good purpose in their due time and place; at least there is no need of arguing the contrary. Both belong in the settled order of civilised life; and both alike are countenanced by those principles of truth, equity and validity that go to make up the modern point of view. It is only that now, as things have been turning during the later one hundred years, both of these immemorially modern rights of man have come to yield a net return of hardship and ill-will for all those peoples who have bound up their fortunes with that kind of enterprise. The case might be stated to this effect, that the fault lies not in the nature of these untoward institutions of national sovereignty and vested rights, nor in those principles of self-help which underlie them, but only in those latter-day facts which stubbornly refuse to fall into such lines as these forms of human enterprise require for their perfect and beneficent working. The facts, particularly the facts of industry and science, have outrun these provisions of law and custom; and so the scheme of things has got out of joint by that much, through no inherent weakness in the underlying principles of law and custom. The ancient and honorable principles of self-help are as sound as ever; it is only that the facts have quite unwarrantably not remained the same. The fault lies in the latter-day facts, which have not continued in suitable shape.

Such, in effect, has been the view habitually spoken for by many thoughtful persons of a conservative turn, who take an interest in concerting measures for holding fast that which once was good, in the face of distasteful facts.

The vested right of ownership in all kinds of property has the sanction of the time-honored principles of individual self-direction, equal opportunity, free contract, security of earnings and belongings, self-help, in the simple and honest meaning of the word. It would be quite bootless to find fault with these reasonable principles of tolerance and security. Their definitive acceptance and stabilisation in the eighteenth century are among the illustrious achievements of Western civilisation; and their roots lie deep in the native wisdom of mankind. They are obvious corollaries under the rule of Live and let live, -- an Accidental version of the Golden Rule. Yet in practical effect those vested rights which rest blamelessly on these reasonable canons of tolerance and good faith have today become the focus of vexation and misery in the life of the civilised peoples.

Circumstances have changed to such effect that provisions which were once framed to uphold a system of neighborly good-will have now begun to run counter to one another and are working mischief to the common good.

Any impartial survey of the past one-hundred-fifty years will show that the constituent principles of this modern point of view governing the mutual rights and obligations of men within the civilised nations have held their ground, on the whole, without material net gain or net loss. It is the ground of Natural

Rights, of self-help and free bargaining. Civil rights and the perquisites and obligations of ownership have remained substantially intact over this interval of a hundred and fifty years, but with some slight advance in the way of Live and let live at certain points, and some slight retrenchment at other points. So far as regards the formal stipulations, in law and custom, the balance of class interests within these countries has, on the whole, not been seriously disturbed. In this system of Natural Rights, as it has worked out in practice, the rights of ownership are paramount; largely because the other personal rights in the case have come to be a matter of course and so have ceased to hold men's attention.

So, in the matter of the franchise, e.g., the legal provisions more nearly meet the popular ideals of the modern point of view today than ever before. An the other hand the guiding principles in the case at certain other points have undergone a certain refinement of interpretation with a view to greater ease and security for trade and investment; and there has, in effect, been some slight abridgement of the freedom of combination and concerted action at any point where an unguarded exercise of such freedom would hamper trade or curtail the profits of business, -- for the modern era has turned out to be an era of business enterprise, dominated by the paramount claims of trade and investment. In point of formal requirements, these restrictions imposed on concerted action "in restraint of trade" fall in equal measure on the vested interests engaged in business and on the working population engaged in industry. So that the measures taken to safeguard the natural rights of ownership apply with equal force to those who own and those who do not. "The majestic equality of the law forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges or to beg on the street corners." But it has turned out on trial that the vested interests of business are not seriously hampered by these restrictions; inasmuch as any formal restriction on any concerted action between the owners of such vested interests can always be got around by a formal coalition of ownership in the shape of a corporation. The extensive resort to corporate combination of ownership, which is so marked a feature of the nineteenth century, was not foreseen and was not taken into account in the eighteenth century, when the constituent principles of the modern point of view found their way into the common law. The system of Natural Rights is a system of personal rights, among which the rights of ownership are paramount; and among the rights of ownership is the right of free disposal and security of ownership and of credit obligations.

The same line of evasion is not available in the same degree for concerted action between persons who own nothing. Still, in neither case, neither as regards the owners of the country's wealth nor as regards the common man, can these restrictions on personal freedom of action be said to be a serious burden. And any slight mutilation or abridgement of the rule of self-help in their economic relations has been offset by an increasingly broad and liberal construction of the principles of self-direction and equality among men in their civil capacity and their personal relations. Indeed, the increasingly exacting temper of the common man in these countries during this period has made such an outcome unavoidable. By and large, in its formal vindication of personal liberty and equality before the law, the modern point of view has with singular consistency remained intact in the shape in which its principles were stabilised in the eighteenth century, in spite of changing circumstances. In point of formal compliance with their demands, the enlightened ideals of the eighteenth century are, no doubt, more commonly realised in practice today than at any earlier period. So that the modern civilised countries are now, in point of legal form and perhaps also in practical effect, more nearly a body of ungraded and masterless men than any earlier generation has known how to be.

In this modern era, as well as elsewhere and in other times, the circumstances that make for change and reconstruction have been chiefly the material circumstances of everyday life, -- circumstances affecting the ordinary state of industry and ordinary intercourse. These material circumstances have changed notably during the modern era. There has been a progressive change in the state of the industrial arts, which has materially altered the scope and method of industry and the conditions under which men live in all the civilised countries. Accordingly, as a point of comparison, it will be to the purpose to call to mind what were the material circumstances, and more particularly the state of the industrial arts, which underlay and gave character to the modern point of view at the period when its constituent principles were found good and worked out as a stable and articulate system, in the shape in which they have continued to be held since then.

The material conditions of industry, trade and daily life during the period of transition and approach to this modern ground created that frame of mind which we call the modern point of view and dictated that reconstruction of institutional arrangements which has been worked out under its guidance.

Therefore the economic situation which so underlay and conditioned this modern point of view at the period when it was given its stable form becomes the necessary point of departure for any argument bearing on the changes that have been going forward since then, or on any prospective reconstruction that may be due to follow from these changed conditions in the calculable future. An this head, the students of history are in a singularly fortunate position. The whole case is set forth in the works of

Adam Smith, with a comprehension and lucidity which no longer calls for praise. Beyond all other men Adam Smith is the approved and faithful spokesman of this modern point of view in all that concerns the economic situation which it assumes as its material ground; and his description of the state of civilised society, trade and industry, as he saw it in his time and as he wished it to stand over into the future, is to be taken without abatement as a competent exposition of those material conditions which were then conceived to underlie civilised society and to dictate the only sound reconstruction of civil and economic institutions according to the modern plan.

But like other men. Adam Smith was a creature of his own time, and what he has to say applies to the state of things as he saw them. What he describes and inquires into is that state of things which was to him the "historical present"; which always signifies the recent past, -- that is to say, the past as it had come under his observation and as it had shaped his outlook.

As it is conventionally dated, the Industrial Revolution took effect within Adam Smith's active lifetime, and some of its more significant beginnings passed immediately under his eyes; indeed, it is related that he took an active personal interest in at least one of the epoch-making mechanical inventions from which the era of the machine industry takes its date. Yet the

Industrial Revolution does not lie within Adam Smith's "historical present," nor does his system of economic doctrines make provision for any of its peculiar issues. What he has to say on the mechanics of industry is conceived in terms derived from an older order of things than that machine industry which was beginning to get under way in his own life-time; and all his illustrative instances and arguments on trade and industry are also such as would apply to the state of things that was passing, but they are not drawn with any view to that new order which was then coming on in the world of business enterprise.

The economic situation contemplated by Adam Smith as the natural (and ultimate) state of industry and trade in any enlightened society, conducted on sane and sound lines according to the natural order of human relations, was of a simple structure and may be drawn in few lines, -- neglecting such minor extensions and exceptions as would properly be taken account of in any exhaustive description. Industry is conceived to be of the nature of handicraft; not of the nature of mechanical engineering, such as it has in effect and progressively come to be since his time. It is described as a matter of workmanlike labor, "and of the skill, dexterity and judgment with which it is commonly applied." It is a question of the skilled workman and his use of tools. Mechanical inventions are "labor-saving devices," which "facilitate and abridge labor." The material equipment is the ways and means by manipulation of which the workman gets his work done. "Capital stock" is spoken of as savings parsimoniously accumulated out of the past industry of its owner, or out of the industry of those persons from whom he has legally acquired it by inheritance or in exchange for the products of his own labor. Business is of the nature of "petty trade" and the business man is a "middle man" who is employed for a livelihood in the distribution of goods to the consumers. Trade is subsidiary to industry, and money is a vehicle designed to be used for the distribution of goods. Credit is an expedient of the needy; a dubious expedient. Profits (including interest) are justified as a reasonable remuneration for productive work done, and for the labor-saving use of property derived from the owner's past labor. The efforts of masters and workmen alike are conceived to be bent on turning out the largest and most serviceable output of goods; and prices are competitively determined by the labor-cost of the goods.

Like other men Adam Smith did not see into the future beyond what was calculable on the data given by his own historical present; and in his time that later and greater era of investment and financial enterprise which has made industry subsidiary to business was only beginning to get under way and only obscurely so. So that he was still able to think of commercial enterprise as a middle-man's traffic in merchandise, subsidiary to a small-scale industry on the order of handicraft, and due to an assumed propensity in men "to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another." And so much as he could not help seeing of the new order of business enterprise which was coming in was not rated by him as a sane outgrowth of that system of Natural

Liberty for which he spoke and about which his best affections gathered. In all this he was at one with his thoughtful contemporaries.

That generation of public-spirited men went, perforce, on the scant data afforded by their own historical present, the economic situation as they saw it in the perspective and with the preconceptions of their own time; and to them it was accordingly plain that when all unreasonable restrictions are taken away, "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord." To this "natural" plan of free workmanship and free trade all restraint or retardation by collusion among business men was wholly obnoxious, and all collusive control of industry or of the market was accordingly execrated as unnatural and subversive. It is true, there were even then some appreciable beginnings of coercion and retardation -- lowering of wages and limitation of output -- by collusion between owners and employers who should by nature have been competitive producers of an unrestrained output of goods and services according to the principles of that modern point of view which animated Adam Smith and his generation; but coercion and unearned gain by a combination of ownership, of the now familiar corporate type, was virtually unknown in his time. So Adam Smith saw and denounced the dangers of unfair combination between "masters" for the exploitation of their workmen, but the modern use of credit and corporation finance for the collective control of the labor market and the goods market of course does not come within his horizon and does not engage his attention.

So also Adam Smith knows and denounces the use of protective tariffs for private gain. That means of pilfering was familiar enough in his time. But he spends little indignation on the equally nefarious use of the national establishment for safe-guarding and augmenting the profits of traders, concessionaires, investors and creditors in foreign parts at the cost of the home community. That method of taxing the common man for the benefit of the vested interests has also grown to more formidable proportions since his time. The constituent principles of the modern point of view, as accepted advisedly or by oversight by Adam Smith and his generation, supply all the legitimation required for this larcenous use of the national establishment; but the means of communication were still too scant, and the larger use of credit was too nearly untried, as contrasted with what has at a later date gone to make the commercial ground and incentive of imperialist politics.

Therefore the imperialist policies of public enterprise for private gain also do not come greatly within the range of Adam

Smith's vision of the future, nor does the "obvious and simple system" on which he and his generation of thoughtful men take their stand comprise anything like explicit declarations for or against this later-matured chicane of the gentlemen-investors who have been managing the affairs of the civilised nations.

Adam Smith's work and life-time falls in with the high tide of eighteenth-century insight and understanding, and it marks an epoch of spiritual achievement and stabilisation in civil institutions, as well as in those principles of conduct that have governed economic rights and relations since that date. But it marks also the beginning of a new order in the state of the industrial arts as well as in those material sciences which come directly in touch with the industrial arts and which take their logical bent from the same range of tangible experience. So it happens that this modern point of view reached a stable and symmetrical finality about the same date when the New Order of experience and insight was beginning to bend men's habits of thought into lines that run at cross purposes with this same stabilised point of view. It is in the ways and means of industry and in the material sciences that the new order of knowledge and belief first comes into evidence; because it is in this domain of workday facts that men's experience began about that time to take a decisive turn at variance with the received canons. A mechanistic conception of things began to displace those essentially romantic notions of untrammeled initiative and rationality that governed the intellectual life of the era of enlightenment which was then drawing to a close.

It is logically due to follow that the same general principles of knowledge and validity will presently undergo a revision of the same character where they have to do with those imponderable facts of human conduct and those conventions of law and custom that govern the duties and obligations of men in society. Here and now as elsewhere and in other times the stubborn teaching that comes of men's experience with the tangible facts of industry should confidently be counted on to make the outcome, so as to bring on a corresponding revision of what is right and good in that world of make-believe that always underlies any established system of law and custom. The material exigencies of the state of industry are unavoidable, and in great part unbending; and the economic conditions which follow immediately from these exigencies imposed by the ways and means of industry are only less uncompromising than the mechanical facts of industry itself. And the men who live under the rule of these economic exigencies are constrained to make their peace with them, to enter into such working arrangements with one another as these unbending conditions of the state of the industrial arts will tolerate, and to cast their system of imponderables on lines which can be understood by the same men who understand the industrial arts and the system of material science which underlies the industrial arts. So that, in due course, the accredited schedule of legal and moral rights, perquisites and obligations will also presently be brought into passable consistency with the ways and means whereby the community gets its living.

But it is also logically to be expected that any revision of the established rights, obligations, perquisites and vested interests will trail along behind the change which has taken effect in the material circumstances of the community and in the community's knowledge and belief with regard to these material circumstances; since any such revision of ancient rights and perquisites will necessarily be consequent upon and conditioned by that change, and since the axioms of law and custom that underlie any established schedule of rights and perquisites are always of the nature of make-believe; and the make-believe is necessarily built up out of conceptions derived from the accustomed range of knowledge and belief.

Out-worn axioms of this make-believe order become superstitions when the scope and method of workday knowledge has outgrown that particular range of preconceptions out of which these make-believe axioms are constructed; which comes to saying that the underlying principles of the system of law and morals are therewith caught in a process of obsolescence, -- "depreciation by supersession and disuse." By a figure of speech it might be said that the community's intangible assets embodied in this particular range of imponderables have shrunk by that much, through the decay of these imponderables that are no longer seasonable, and through their displacement by other figments of the human brain, -- a consensus of brains trained into closer consonance with the latter-day material conditions of life.

Something of this kind, something in the way of depreciation by displacement, appears now to be overtaking that system of imponderables that has been handed down into current law and custom out of that range of ideas and ideals that had the vogue before the coming of the machine industry and the material sciences.

Since the underlying principles of the established order are of this make-believe character, that is to say, since they are built up out of the range of conceptions that have habitually been doing duty as the substance of knowledge and belief in the past, it follows in the nature of the case that any reconstruction of institutions will be made only tardily, reluctantly, and sparingly; inasmuch as settled habits of thought are given up tardily, reluctantly and sparingly. And this will particularly be true when the reconstruction of unseasonable institutions runs counter to a settled and honorable code of ancient principles and a stubborn array of vested interests, as in this instance. Such is the promise of the present situation, and such is also the record of the shift that was once before made from medieval to modern times. It should be a case of break or bend.